It’s a parody of science: The Conversation thinks creativity in science is about dance choreography

Exhibit One: Government funded “art”. *

Creative genius in science is about the people who break the rules and see a pattern that the consensus thinks is wrong or refuses to discuss.  But capture creative genius in a bureaucratic clamp, smother it with political correctness, and watch the flower die. That’s what The Conversation is for.

Say Hello to a parody of “creative science” in “Living data: how art helps us all understand climate change”. It’s not about scientists who challenge a paradigm, creative science is about cartoons and dances. It’s about glowing plastic sculptures.

A methodology that uses drawing and dance as tools of enquiry is a radical idea for those accustomed to the conventions of the scientific method. But when choreographic analysis is embedded within scientific research, pattern recognition can contribute to some startling discoveries.

Big-government bought science with monopolistic funding over the last 70 years, and it’s bought science-commentary too (e.g. academia, CSIRO, the ABC, The Conversation). We can’t have people highlighting the suffocating effect of bureaucracy, of grant applications, and deadlines!  Nor would Big-Government-Science ever seek out, support, and laud scientific work that showed that big-government science (which favours Big-Government policies) is wrong. Where’s the incentive?

The author of The Conversation article not only writes on a government-funded site to promote government science, but gets government grants to do overseas trips and “animations” for climate science. Nice job if you can get it. Where’s the accountability? Dare I say, government funding kills art like it kills real science. (Let’s not forget that an arts grant helped the climate conversation evolve by funding a play called Kill The Deniers.) Thanks to government funds, we’ve devolved from the Masters to an airborne whale with massive mammaries.

Lisa Roberts has received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts to develop animations and interactive works arising from her experience as an Australian Antarctic Arts Fellow working in Antarctica. She is affiliated with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) as a Visiting Fellow in the Facutly (sic) of Science and is a Visiting Scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

“Feelings of connection” is a PR term, not a part of the scientific method.

The need to understand climate change is urgent. For some people, the facts about climate change don’t matter – so we need experiences that stir strong feelings of connection. Artists are leading the way to reconnect methods of analysis and expression in this way.

Artists may be leading the way (in science communication) — but true artists seek to understand both sides of the issue and bravely speak the unspeakable. People like  John Spooner, Steve Hunter, Josh, and Larry Pickering.

Parroting the dominant paradigm is not art, it’s just mastery of a trade skill

The Living Data program that I lead is one of several initiatives to bring together scientists and artists.

“Living data”? Now there’s a problem. The data is alive, but it shouldn’t be. Science is about observations (data) that is supposed to stay the same, and be replicated, not “dance”. Inexplicable and biased adjustments give zombie life to phantom shifting copies of the raw data. The 1970s have been warming for thirty years. That may be “art”, but it isn’t science.

Creativity is at the heart of art and science and passion drives both as ways of satisfying curiosity and expressing new findings.

Curiosity used to mean seeking out answers. Not preaching from the pulpit of consensus.

My message:

“Dear Lisa,

What’s an “evolving conversation” where you won’t converse with the other side?

You write about “people” for whom facts don’t matter, but you haven’t met the people who lead the debate. If you don’t read half the conversation, you are merely parroting the meme you’ve been fed. That’s not art, it’s propaganda.

If the need to understand climate change is so urgent, you and The Conversation could try to have an actual conversation. Fifty per cent of the population has a creative and scientific difference of opinion.

Let us know when you want to make the brave step from being a useful tool of the establishment to being a true artist. We’ll welcome genuine, honest inquiries.

From someone who cartoons and crafts words to provoke real creativity, and progress real science.

 — Jo Nova

PS: I used to think consensus climate scientists were right too. Then my conversation evolved… “

 __________

*Glowing plastic sculpture credit: “2012 iteration of Oceanic Living Data, an animated installation that evolves, like a scientific model, to reflect current knowledge of the global ecosystem. Living Data/Lisa Roberts”

There are a few 2015 Calendars left so if you would like to order one please go here.

9.5 out of 10 based on 62 ratings

123 comments to It’s a parody of science: The Conversation thinks creativity in science is about dance choreography

  • #
    Kevin Lohse

    “A methodology that uses drawing and dance as tools of enquiry is a radical idea for those accustomed to the conventions of the scientific method. But when choreographic analysis is embedded within scientific research, pattern recognition can contribute to some startling discoveries.”

    A prime candidate for inclusion in Private Eye’s, “Pseuds Corner”. How terribly, terribly, Post Normal.

    320

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Creative Science – The Morphing Interpretation of Everything

      Brought to you by: “Creative Accounting”, “Painting by Numbers”, and “The Grey Dust that Hides Behind the Toilet”.

      320

      • #
        Just Thinkin'

        and “The Grey Dust that Hides Behind the Toilet”.

        Not at our place, we just had a water leak that flushed it all awaaaaaayyyy.

        20

    • #
      aussieguy

      This is why my Engineering professor laughed and mocked those who do Arts degrees…In fact, this is why when I was at university (University of Sydney), there would be “Free Arts Degree!” graffiti above the toilet roll in cubicles.

      The need to understand climate change is urgent. For some people, the facts about climate change don’t matter – so we need experiences that stir strong feelings of connection. Artists are leading the way to reconnect methods of analysis and expression in this way.


      This confirms to all of us Climate Change is NOT science. It is activism. Otherwise, it would be called Climate Science; that involve actual scientists and honest work that can actually stand on its own merit.

      Hate to break it to that “Visual artist / Interactive author”, she doesn’t know what the heck she’s talking about. This is the type of BS one pulls out of their butt…And its often those who are unfamiliar with even the basics of science, but try be intelligent about something they have no clue about. Pseudo-Intellectuals.


      Climate Change 2015…So far, we have:
      => We must “feel”.
      => We must “believe”.
      => We must “express”.

      You know we are winning when activists “jump the shark” in spectacular ways…2015 is just going to become more amusing for those who question the Climate Change movement!

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Yeah I remember the free arts degree comment in the negineering building loos at uni. Still true.

        The more I see CAGW promoters carrying on saying scioence is linked to art ( or something ) all Ic an think of is that many artists used to trip on LSD etc, and the CAGW mob seem to be the same.

        Also, feelings dowt stop a bridge collapsing because its been designd right, logic and common sense do.

        My thoughts are this is the new attack vertor – use of emotion to override logic.

        Logic and all the evidence say the twin towers were clealry a professional controlled demolition, emotion says “it must have been those nasty people”.

        It is what it is.

        00

  • #
    PeterPetrum

    I’ve heard of dancing around the issue, but this takes the biscuit (is that a mixed metaphor or just totally twisted). I am beginning to feel that every sector of humanity is working to ensure that we “believe”!

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    • #
      michael hart

      I’m worrying about the number of ‘artists’ who can’t find something better than global warming to write/sing/dance about.
      I’m not a great fan of the inescapable Taylor Swift’s works, but she’s beginning to look pretty good when I think about these people.

      20

  • #
    Gary in Erko

    “… drawing and dance … choreographic analysis … embedded within scientific research, pattern recognition … startling discoveries.”
    They’re almost there … step by step … the next stage … or one after …
    they’ll finally recognise that unwittingly they’ve invented a religion – climatism.
    Ssshhhhh … don’t tell them that others have already noticed.

    170

  • #
    King Geo

    I have two left feet – I can’t dance to save myself but I do know that “Climate Change” doesn’t dance to the tune of Homo Sapiens but does dance to the tune of the “Sun”, now how do the lyrics of that Beatles song “Here Comes The Sun” go – “Sun Sun Sun Sun” – I recall it is on the B side of the Abbey Road Album (1969), you know that album where the “fab four” are strolling across the Abbey Road cross walk.

    100

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I remember that, it was back in the day when Sir Paul McCartney was so poor, that he couldn’t afford shoes.

      And, just for the record (pun intended), in Britain, the markings on the road are called, “zebra crossings”, presumably because they are black and white stripes, and not because they are frequented by wildlife.

      A “cross walk” is something entirely different.

      70

      • #
        King Geo

        Yes you are correct Rereke – it is a “zebra crossing” on the Abbey Road album cover. “Zebra crossings” are a good idea however pedestrians crossing them without looking at “on-coming traffic” is a bit like playing “Russian Roulette” – a good example of this is the “zebra crossings” at Marine Parade, Cottesloe Beach – as a driver you have to be aware that some of these pedestrians will walk up to the “zebra crossing” and not stop even if you are a few metres short of it. As a driver you have to be very alert and be prepared to break abruptly. Fortunately the speed limit along this stretch of Marine Parade is 40km/hr. I guess these are the same type of pedestrians who take no notice of “red walking lights” at busy intersections and see red as green – maybe they are colour blind.

        30

      • #
        toorightmate

        I have seen many zebra crossings, but I have never seen a zebra crossing.

        20

  • #
    Dariusz

    Using this method Michael Jackson would win the Nobel price. Suggest to replace their gold standard dance ehrr peer review with the chorus line elimination process.

    80

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    You people should be ashamed of yourselves, sitting there, poking fun at the eager talented audiences at The Con.

    One day, every single one will make that breakthrough when science and vibration of the choreographed movement of the body produce blinding flashes of Scientific Insight to make Stephen and Albert look pedestrian.

    It will happen and the resulting advances in science will mean that nobody at their ABC ever has to work again.

    Hang on, didn’t they just get back from a huge break?

    KK

    90

  • #
    Rick Bradford

    Ring-a-ring-a-roses. Then we all fall down.

    The Green/Left displays its infantile mindset again.

    It comes as no surprise to learn that one of the most influential “progressive” books published in the last 20 years was called “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum.

    That’s where they live.

    120

    • #
      Glen Michel

      Earthmothers children unite .I am sure she thinks she’s right and righteous,but she sure looks like a chick that I met at the Nimbin Aquarius festival back in’74

      20

  • #
    toorightmate

    This approach is as sound and as logical I have heard from the warmists so far.

    180

  • #
    Winston

    Now string theory as puppet theatre I can believe.

    100

  • #
    JLC

    This is a daft idea.

    80

  • #
    Tim

    Fidel Castro outlawed any creative works that didn’t positively highlight the revolution.

    Sound familiar?

    130

  • #
    DoubtingDave

    For some unknown reason looking at that inflatable whale reminded me of nights out on the pull as a young man, when after several beers you find yourself trying it on with the most unattractive female in the pub or club. Maybe i should apply to my local council for a grant to express the horrors of manmade climate change from the point of view of a ‘p#ss artist’

    70

  • #
    GregS

    Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

    120

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    her experience as an Australian Antarctic Arts Fellow working in Antarctica.

    She…. discovered entirely new shades of white previously unknown to science?
    This could revolutionise our understanding of the Earth’s polar albedo, or it might be a snow-job.

    The close connection between climate change and the arts was discovered years ago. It’s just like Bob Carter said at ICCC last year, climate change is “Dali-esque science“.

    100

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Perhaps they gave her the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship, in the hope that she wouldn’t come back?

      80

      • #
        Winston

        Think for a minute guys: “Australian Antarctic Arts Fellow”- just how many Australian artists are their in Antarctica, and yet it warrants a “Fellow”? Lordy.

        Next thing you know, Chris Turney will arrive with his guitar, strum out a few off key(even for Dylan) tunes and they will be calling him maestro. The narcissism of these people knows no bounds. No honorific is too hyperbolic.

        50

  • #
    R2Dtoo

    It is amazing what a grant and a bit of weed can do!

    90

  • #
    pat

    it’s a parody of science, Pt 2:

    5 Feb: Financial Express India: Arnold Schwarzenegger says will be climate change ‘terminator’; lauds Narendra Modi
    Action-movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would be a “terminator” for climate change and asked state governments to follow Narendra Modi’s “actions” as Gujarat Chief Minister to achieve sustainable development goals…
    The film star, who is also the chair of R20 Regions of Climate Action – a non-profit organization – was addressing the 15th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) organised by the Energy Resource Institute (TERI).
    “This is a challenge of our time and that is why I am on a crusade for a sustainable future and ***terminate climate change once and for all,” Schwarzenegger said…
    http://www.financialexpress.com/article/miscellaneous/will-be-climate-change-terminator-gives-thumbs-up-to-narendra-modi-plan-arnold-schwarzenegger/39385/

    ***terminate climate change! what is this man thinking/not thinking?

    120

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Schwarzenegger should know better. And maybe he doesn’t even care. He’s another one in it just because it gets him a lot of attention and no doubt money as well. He’s a grandstander and once a grandstander, always a grandstander. He and Al Gore deserve each other and I wish we could banish the two of them to some deserted island where they would have to listen to each other’s constant blather and do the accompanying mutual back patting, ad infinitum.

      It would be a fitting end to both of them I think.

      100

    • #

      Terminators wanted to destroy humanity. His statement is a bit disturbing if you consider he is using a term that was the name of human-hating, human-killing robots.

      50

  • #
    Oswald Thake

    Pretentious codswallop!

    90

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      It sure is; doubly so when you find out the origin of “codswallop” is entirely unknown.

      20

      • #
        Annie

        But somehow so descriptive…

        20

      • #
        Byron

        Cod or Coddin’ is old slang dating from the 1870s meaning to hoax or take a rise out of ( possible origins of kid/kidding ?) I don’t know where the wallop bit comes from or when it got added but it’s a good fit descriptively .

        10

        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          I did a quick search looking for the true meaning of the word, but every reference I found didn’t know what it really meant. Lots of speculation.

          I thought it was very apt, that it was a Pretentious load of “something undefined”. Pretentious indeed.

          30

    • #
      jorgekafkazar

      You’re certain it’s not balderdash, instead?

      20

  • #
    Eddie

    An Accountant’s what they should have hired for the sort of creative reinterpretation being applied to their data.

    40

  • #
    Stonyground

    Sorry to be off topic but is there any chance that Rereke Whakaaro could tell me what the hell his avatar is? I’ve been trying to work it out ever since I first saw it and I’m still baffled.

    Regarding the OP. It’s just amazing what people can come up with while trying to find new ways of spending other people’s money.

    40

  • #

    Soon, they will not only be incoherent and self contradictory but will also be speaking in unintelligible gibberish, grunts, and screams. We deny there is such a thing as catastrophic man caused global worming at work but they deny reality and the power of the mind of man to know it. We can neither slow or reverse their descent into madness but we can stop feeding them. They will thereby reach their much desired and, hidden to themselves, end all the more rapidly: non existence.

    As always, our challenge is avoiding becoming collateral damage.

    60

  • #
    Frankly Skeptical

    What a load of crap.

    90

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Woah Frank, slow down on the artsy fartsy jargon! 🙂

      50

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      But it is creative crap; you have to give them that.

      It takes a certain sort of genius to create crap so profound, so insightful, so connected, so edgy, so “out there”.

      It will be the pinnacle of their life-time achievement.

      40

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        But it is creative crap; you have to give them that.

        It takes a certain sort of genius to create crap so profound, so insightful, so connected, so edgy, so “out there”.

        Crap I’ll grant you. But creative? No! It takes no great creativity to produce crap. Art has been tried before as a way to bamboozle the masses. There isn’t even anything new about it, much less creative.

        70

  • #
    tom0mason

    For some reason the name Leni Riefenstahl came to mind unbid. She was a German film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, actress and dancer. Her films were hailed as a technical marvels; as the BBC said “….as groundbreaking film-making, pioneering techniques involving cranes, tracking rails, and many cameras working at the same time”.
    But no matter how good the technical or artistic intent was, the bottom line is that she produced propaganda, and for the Nazis very effective arty state sanctioned propaganda. And this Nazi state was a Big Government entity, wielding powerfully persuasive social control through threat, violence, and propaganda, all funded by large budgets of public money – and are not these are the mainstays of fascist regimes the world-over?
    Is this latest “Living data: how art helps us all understand climate change” just an unwitting attempt to make the public believe the message, much as Riefenstahl’s film of “Triumph Of The Will” did all those years ago for Hitler and his minions.
    ¯
    I guess we all know what the message is about and what is it for; if you don’t know then ask anyone that believes that Big Powerful Government is a good thing. The question is who is this aimed at?
    IMO probably the 60%+ of the public for whom the climate debate is a non-issue. Therefore to get this majority onside with the Government message, these Government sponsored propagandists are trying to normalize the public’s thinking into acceptance of the ‘climate change’ message; capture their hearts with some artsy propaganda shmaltz, and their purses, billfolds and wallets will follow.
    Or maybe Lisa Roberts et al., just want to be as infamous as Riefenstahl.

    80

  • #

    While this sounds rediculous to many skeptics, it is in now way rediculous. People live in short, visual bursts based on social media and the news. Pictures of polar bears on ice were a huge draw. Why do you think Al Gore used movies? This is an exceptionally good way to drag children into the fold. Skeptics might want to consider their own version of global warming art—pictures where the earth looks fine, happy children playing in snow, etc. Add the science, too, but use the visual effect to your advantage.

    110

  • #

    The defining trait of intolerant regimes or politics, is that it always smothers creativity, not only in the sciences but in the arts. Arguably, the greatest composer the Soviet Union had was Dmitri Shostakovich, and they reined him in and broke his spirit. He never wrote much of note after that.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIHl0oJEpg

    Pointman

    100

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Dmitri Shostakovich is one of my favorite composers for his very unique symphony number 5. But don’t listen to it if your mood is down or it will get to you. He was perhaps an inconsistent musical talent as some have claimed but he was not afraid to be himself. He had talent and ability and used it very well. And in the face of the Soviet dictator’s need to feed his lust for power at the expense of anyone and everyone, Shostakovich stands out head and shoulders taller than most.

      70

  • #
    Jason Calley

    Oh, the humanities!

    The Sky Whale you linked to above…
    http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/this_is_canberra/http://

    I cannot un-see that image! Oh dear, benighted people of Canberra… worlds fail me. I am sorry. I am so very,very sorry.

    If this is not proof that we are in the last days of the Kali Yuga, it will have to do until something more hideous comes along.

    50

    • #
      tom0mason

      JC,

      Yep, Nothing says “‘look at how many amazing people Canberra has produced” quite like a hideous airborne turtle with ten tits.

      50

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Well, we have always complained about the way that warmists hang on the public teat, and now we have visual evidence.

        I wish we hadn’t.

        90

        • #
          Annie

          I was going to say something similar. We are suffering something as naff in Melbourne. The arts centre has ridiculous plastic balloon tentacles hanging out of it! Added to the incredibly high level of noise in Federation Square from some bongo drum players (who were very good it must be said) it was hell out there! I thought those drums were for communicating over many miles of jungle…not for wrecking the hearing and health of everyone in the middle of a city. I felt really sorry for the staff at Flinders Street Station.

          30

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        I assumed it was Gaia.

        Definitely disturbing whatever it is.

        30

  • #
    Don Gaddes

    Leonardo Da Vinci realised that Art and Science were vehicles of Inquiry. He had to consider and actually Draw the connections, not just use random ‘happy snaps.’ Note his drawings of Turbulence.

    60

  • #
    Scarface

    A lot of climate scientists are con artists, so this artistic approach doesn’t surprise me at all.

    It’s a variant of smoke and mirrors.

    90

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    Another example of a radical leftist government that is too big, too rich, and has to spend more money that it takes in to keep growing. If you won’t give us more taxes we will just borrow more.
    Now since the far left radical leaders were trained in the social sciences (community organizing, sociology, revolutionary theory and practice, propaganda, convert or crush the ‘enemy’ radicalism, etc.) they pour public money into grants, subsidies, new school curriculums accelerating the “convert or crush the enemy”, and other nonsense and abuses of power.
    If the voters would install a conservative government with real and honest programs to cut government funding and employees in half (or more if needed), then those left in government wouldn’t have time for this nonsense. They would be busy growing the economy, defending the country, developing real world education techniques and accountability, and so on. Their work would be hard and meaningful. Finally, all public employee unions would be disestablished and prevented in the future as they are a curse to public service and the foundation for bigger governments.
    The biggest problem with such reforms would be the inevitable push for bigger government. This push could be countered with term limits, salary and retirement caps that would give politicians the opportunity for service but not the opportunity of lifetime tenure and salaries far above the average citizen.

    60

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I read your comment, and Greece came to mind.

      50

    • #
      JoKaH

      to cut government funding and employees in half

      If we cut the number of government employees in half – wouldn’t that mean there would be twice as many of them?

      30

    • #
      Joe

      Another example of a radical leftist government

      Leonard, the reality however is that both the Australian Government and the New South Wales State Governments that fund these follies, are both Conservative Governments. The NSW State Government is currently pushing it’s credentials as a global warming fearing Government just like many other Conservative Governments around the world. Are we being duped by the ‘CAGW is a Leftie driven scam’ mantra? Will we ever turn our scientific endeavours towards finding the origins and driving forces behind this scam or are we 97% certain it is those Lefties behind it and that the Conservatives are merely the unwitting or perhaps outwitted victims of this scam?

      20

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Art lesson for today:

    Once upon a time, long long ago in a galaxy far far away, art used to be about trying to faithfully represent the real world in paint, stone, bronze or some other medium. The result looked like what it was supposed to represent, a person, a landscape, a building, or a flower. You could recognize what it represented and understand that it was art. The world looked upon it and pronounced it good.

    But then, boys and girls, a strange thing happened. A disease called modern abstract art gripped the world of artists and they began to produce the weirdest assortment of nonsense and call it art when it was not. You couldn’t recognize what it was and needed the artist to tell you what it meant. These new artists were embraced as though they were creating something valuable even though their work had no resemblance to the art of the past at all but was just collections of paint blobs on the canvas or junk welded together. The artists began to fool themselves that they were important in the world because only they could interpret their work. The world swallowed their nonsense and was fooled by it.

    Thus it is that today we have art we cannot interpret that supposedly tells us something about climate change. But pay strict attention here boys and girls. One thing is clear — the work of these artists is as meaningless as climate change. 🙁

    Any fool can make a piece of glowing plastic that no one but he can understand. It takes a Michelangelo or a Pablo Picasso to make art. When anyone can do it it’s nothing unique or valuable. But when it takes out of the ordinary skill and talent it’s very valuable.

    Boys and girls, I’m sure you can figure out which one you would rather have, the glowing plastic or the Picasso painting.

    Here endeth the art lesson.

    100

    • #
      Reed Coray

      Art is to Science what The Emperor’s New Clothes is to Fashion–narcissistic navel gazing.

      50

    • #
      Captain Dave

      I really don’t think most of Picasso’s paintings looked like what they were supposed to represent…

      30

    • #
      Joe

      Thanks Roy for today’s gratis art lesson. I am a little concerned however that your acclaimed artist Michelangelo seemed to have been using his artistic skills to promote that other greatly debated and arguably unsettled topic as to whether babies can have wings and whether naked bearded men can float aloft in cumulus cloud formations unaided. Can you perhaps enlighten us on Picasso’s square headed people and what “Guernica” all about as it seems a little jumbled. Was he a ‘Leftie’?

      20

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Michelangelo’s work seems to have been recognizable as babies, etc., albeit with wings and other not usually seen appurtenances. Men seen doing unexplainable things are still men.

      Picasso’s square headed figures seem to at least be recognizable as people.

      I didn’t say art could not be fanciful. But a glowing plastic nothing? 🙂

      Art definitely isn’t related to science.

      00

  • #
    David S

    Creativity in art and science has the same meaning as creativity in accounting. It is used to deceive and the consequences is jail time. We can only hope.

    70

  • #
    James Bradley

    Bring back the mime.

    40

  • #
    handjive

    The parody of the science

    @theconversation, the parody is the ‘science’:

    SMH: El Nino forecasts flop as puzzled scientists hunt for answers

    > A quick search of thecon for El Niño reveals upon pages of failed scientific statements by a 97% consensus of CSIRO/BoM/WWF/UN-IPCC settled scientists.
    . . .
    That is a 100% FAIL rate of 97% certified settled climate science, who advocate for carbon action taxes etc.

    40

  • #
    pat

    LOL:

    29 Jan: Boston Herald: John Kerry ticketed for failing to clear sidewalk (of snow)
    The city’s latest blizzard sidewalk scoflaw is none other than U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
    Boston’s Citizen’s Connect website confirms Kerry’s Beacon Hill property did not have the sidewalk cleared and he was issued a ticket. The city said tonight he was hit with a $50 fine today.
    Of 210 citations issued, one was to Kerry’s Louisburg Square address.
    A State Department spokesperson said Kerry was “overseas” and not around to do the digging … and apparently the help weren’t either…
    http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/herald_bulldog/2015/01/john_kerry_ticketed_for_failing_to_clear_sidewalk

    a “wicked” wind cometh!

    5 Feb: Daily Mail: It’s so cold now even the SEA has frozen! Cumbrian harbour is covered by thick sheets of ice as ‘wicked’ wind from Germany is set to send temperatures plummeting as low as -5C
    (PHOTO CAPTION) Temperatures are expected to drop even lower this evening as a north eastern wind blows over the UK. This morning clear conditions were seen in Cumbria (above), with walkers pictured on frozen water at Whitehaven Harbour
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2940760/It-s-COLDER-Wicked-north-eastern-wind-Germany-send-temperatures-plummeting-low-5C-warmer-week.html

    30

  • #
    Ruairi

    Though music be sweet and sublime,
    And the Arts exquisitely fine,
    A Government push,
    With an artistic brush,
    Won’t keep climate skeptics in line.

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  • #
    eliza

    CA has demolished another NATURE paper. Looks like many skeptic sites are quickly converting to Denier status GREAT! I converted years ago. 1. Believer, 2.Skeptic, 3.Denier and 4. Legal action please

    40

  • #
    Gary in Erko

    Science and art have finally discovered common ground.
    Add the word “climate” and grants pour forth from the cornucopia of big government.
    Is climate science an artifice, or are grants for climate art a science?

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    pat

    incredibly, this is not a parody!

    5 Feb: ABC: Michael Stafford: The Cry for Creation: What Can We Expect from Pope Francis’s Encyclical on Ecology?
    “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the key scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, reflected on those words from the Bhagavad Gita as he witnessed the detonation of the first atomic bomb during the Trinity test deep in the New Mexican desert in 1945…
    Today, we live under the shadow of a man-made existential threat of global proportions – climate change…
    Later this year, Pope Francis will release an encyclical on ecology addressing climate change, other abuses of the environment and their impact on the poor. The encyclical’s release is intended to influence international negotiations on emissions reductions being held at the end of the year in Paris, and will occur before he delivers an address to world leaders at the United Nations in September that will emphasize the urgent need for agreement – and action…
    “A curse devours the earth”
    Humanity’s turn away from God has thrown its other relationships into disorder. This is particularly evident with respect to the environment. Today, we are bringing the vision of the Prophet Isaiah into reality:
    “The earth is polluted because of its inhabitants, for they have transgressed laws, violated statutes, broken the ancient covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants pay for their guilt.” (Isaiah 24:5-6)
    Human behaviour is having a devastating impact on the natural world. An economy that kills also displays ecocidal tendencies…
    Within the scientific community, there is broad agreement that the world is warming, that human activity plays a significant role, and that this process poses a danger to our species…
    The Paris negotiations Pope Francis is seeking to influence by means of his forthcoming encyclical represent the last chance for the international community to agree on meaningful emissions reductions…
    We do not face a choice, but rather the choice, and it cannot be put off. The two paths, “life and good, death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15), are set out before us…
    ***(the author, Michael Stafford, works as an attorney in Wilmington, Delaware)
    http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/02/05/4174718.htm

    ***ABC – what on earth persuaded you to publish the above from a Delaware Attorney. reminds me of all those tax-exempt NGOs that shill for CAGW action:

    NYT: How Delaware Thrives as a Corporate Tax Haven
    1209 North Orange, you see, is the legal address of no fewer than 285,000 separate businesses.
    Its occupants, on paper, include giants like American Airlines, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Coca-Cola, Ford, General Electric, Google, JPMorgan Chase, and Wal-Mart. These companies do business across the nation and around the world. Here at 1209 North Orange, they simply have a dropbox…
    Big corporations, small-time businesses, rogues, scoundrels and worse — all have turned up at Delaware addresses in hopes of minimizing taxes, skirting regulations, plying friendly courts or, when needed, covering their tracks. Federal authorities worry that, in addition to the legitimate businesses flocking here, drug traffickers, embezzlers and money launderers are increasingly heading to Delaware, too. It’s easy to set up shell companies here, no questions asked…
    Nearly half of all public corporations in the United States are incorporated in Delaware. Last year, 133,297 businesses set up here. And, at last count, Delaware had more corporate entities, public and private, than people — 945,326 to 897,934…
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a-corporate-tax-haven.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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      TdeF

      What exactly is the problem with reducing tax legally? For most businesses this is a corporate responsibility and obligation and expected by every shareholder and investor. This is not tax avoidance or money laundering.

      The State of Delaware has created this situation and half of the US companies are there, so unless half of the US companies are criminal and money launderers, it is perfectly sensible and even expected. Other US states also offer State tax breaks to attract not only registration but also housing of corporate headquarters and local manufacturing. Some offer tax holidays. States compete for money and employment as do cities and towns. Yes rogues pay tax too. In the US taxes are levied at a city, state and Federal level. In the UK, this was always the Isle of Man and the Channel Isles and the Caribbean. Even Ireland during the 1990s IT boom and there is always Monaco in France.

      As most Australians have superannuation managed on their behalf, it is expected that responsible companies look for every opportunity to pay the least tax possible, as do individuals. This is their right and for many, an obligation. Where governments fail in a multinational world is to try to overtax companies who react by shifting assets, profits, turnover and transactions. As long as it is legal, what exactly is the problem? It actually keeps a brake on over taxation by rapacious governments who always want more, especially when spending massively beyond their incomes, as is currently the case world wide under Green/Left governments.

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    TdeF

    Why should the Climate Council people have paid jobs when their fellow artists are out of work? Artists just want a little of the billions being thrown around for other fantasies. There is no more connection between Dance and Global Warming than between quantum mechanics and a meat pie, but you can hardly blame them for trying. Then the temptation for governments and egoistic politicians to start to play Medicis can be irresistible to create a legacy for themselves with other people’s money. We will end up with some very opportunistically named sculptures stuck in obscure corners of public gardens and buildings. The opportunism is reminiscent of the renaming of Rosstown in Melbourne to Carnegie in 1909 just to attract funds for a library from the American Andrew Carnegie. It didn’t work.

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      Annie

      Is this synchronicity at work? I was on a train going through Carnegie on Wed and, for once, I was actually puzzling over why the suburb was called that! Thanks for the answer TdeF.

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        TdeF

        The story of Ross town, beet sugar, the private railway to Elsternwick is quite fascinating. With a few wiggles, you can still bike ride the old Ross track which forms Riddell Parade among others, a branch from Oakleigh/Hughesdale. It was built to take his beet from Gippsland to his factory. Then you can make sense of the street layouts once you see where the old track ran. Ross’s business empire was killed by the introduction of sugar cane to Queensland. Until then sugar came from Napoleon’s chemists invention of extraction from sugar beet, so that he could bypass the British control of sugar from the West Indies. Sugar was the reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 and chocolate was the reason they wanted sugar. Two million died for chocolate, among other things.

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      tom0mason

      ANDREW Carnegie was the son of a Scottish weaver, who emigrated from Scotland to Pittsburgh, USA, in 1848.
      Probably for better job prespects and less tax.

      http://www.scotsman.com/news/andrew-carnegie-1-465010

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    pat

    behind paywall – can anyone excerpt?

    Alarmist heat as poor die of cold
    The Australian-8 hours ago
    In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature records are also … Frequent claims of the hottest or driest have been shown to diverge significantly from satellite or raw data observations …

    5 Feb: UK Express: Cold snap sees death rates soar to five-year record high
    BRUTAL sub-zero temperatures have caused the winter death rate to rocket to a five-year high as the NHS buckles under the weight of patient demand
    Some 28,800 deaths were registered in the fortnight ending January 23, the Office for National Statistics said.
    This is 32 per cent higher than the average for the period over the previous five years, which stood at 21,859.
    The ONS suggested that flu and the cold snap were likely to be to blame…
    But experts estimate that by March 31, the end of the official winter, deaths totals will have surpassed the 2008-’09 flu-ravaged toll. Then, 36,450 died, the worst since 1999-2000’s peak of 48,440…
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/167950/Britain-s-freezing-winter-see-s-death-rate-rocket-five-year-record-NHS-struggles

    5 Feb: BBC: Snow traps over 200 motorists in Spain
    Hundreds of cars were stuck for up to 17 hours overnight on roads between Cantabria and the province of Palencia.
    Local media report temperatures of -15C (5F) and up 40cm (1.3ft) of snow.
    Local media said that many schools in northern Spain had been closed and that there had been numerous power cuts.
    El Pais newspaper reports that at least four towns in the region of Cantabria were still without power on Thursday…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31146535

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    Manfred

    After all the strutting and performing, we all know its all about don’t we?

    Live Q&A: How can culture and sport inspire climate action?

    In 2015 – the year of the highly anticipated Cop 21 climate talks in Paris – the key will be sustaining the momentum from last year’s People’s Climate March, and encouraging even more people to participate in climate action. With Ban Ki-Moon stating this week that ours is the last generation to fight climate change, there is surely no better moment to bring in new voices and new stories to inspire climate action.

    Lisa Roberts’ interpretation of post modern qualitative science…’aligns with lived experience’ espouses a perfectly legitimate position from her World View, even though it is pure verbiage and replete with the suggestion that science lines up with ‘lived experience’ or it may not lead to a sustainable future.

    Such is the dictum of political correctness, properly exercised as it is at The Con. Every opinion has value and merit, except when it is counter to the meme. However, The Con has lost its sense of smell. What is considered as fashionable ‘art’ has a moldy odour of the passée. Ivory tower dwellers are not famed for their sense of fashion.

    In attempting to be provocative, avantgard and ‘fashionable’ The Con instead reveals how hopelessly out-done it is by real fashion and how very slow and very late it is to the climate change fiesta. Seen elsewhere back in 2007.

    A spokesman for Harvey Nichols predicted that designers would be more worried than retailers by climate change…

    Now, let’s be entirely honest, most peddle climate because its not only fashionable but immensely lucrative. Whether you’re the MSM, a climate “scientist,” a fashion doyen, Al Gourdo, The UNEP or a University, to peddle is to print money.

    Here are some examples:

    Designer reveals collection inspired by climate change (2010)

    Why Fashion Should Be on the Climate Change Agenda (2014)

    Vivienne Westwood takes on climate change

    Climate change chic: Chanel fights global warming with with fur suits at Paris Fashion Week (2010)

    Travelling light: fashion adjusts to demands of climate change (2008)

    Success in rebutting this societal nonsense rests to no small extent on showing it to be passée, unfashionable, anti-progressive and pedestrian.

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    RB

    I was thinking of doing an art project on the use of a methodology that uses drawing and dance as tools of enquiry is a radical idea for those accustomed to the conventions of the scientific method. It was to be a small camera following the crevices between Pamplona cobblestones. Alas, I don’t know anyone on the committee and sangria is expensive.

    Seriously, how stupid are Conversation readers not to spot that someone got to go on holidays in Antarctica on the tax-payers dime?

    Her Key Achievements.

    Establishing and leading the Living Data program to make and present visualisations that combine scientific and sensory understandings of climate change
    Making and distributing digital animations that contribute to scientific and popular understandings of Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill)*
    Developing Antarctic Animation: a lexicon of primal gestural forms for combining scientific data and sensory expressions of connection
    Authoring and animating the first online Antarctic Thesaurus
    Co-authoring Roget’s Circular, the animated interactive thesaurus for Macquarie Library’s first digital publication of their reference work.

    *”Disturbingly, our findings predict that krill will be unable to hatch or develop in vast areas of the Southern Ocean by the year 2300 if CO2 emissions continue to be released at the current rate,” Dr Kawaguchi said.

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    pat

    Bolt has a thread on the Australian article behind a paywall, “Alarmist heat as poor die of cold”…it’ by Maurice Newman:

    6 Feb: Bolt blog: Warmists are a bigger danger than warming
    The global warming scare is killing people. Maurice Newman:
    “ELDERLY person dies (of cold) every SEVEN minutes due to fuel poverty ‘scandal’?”…
    Back in the real world, the poor are dying of the cold while the political elites and their friends bask in the warmth of cosy conferences, taxpayer subsidies and research grants…,
    The climate change movement is rooted in power, money and emotion — not science. It is indecently obsessive and authoritarian. In fact, it’s the people behind this movement who pose the greatest threat to humanity, not the climate.
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warmists_are_a_bigger_danger_than_warming/

    if only the TV current affairs programs, ABC/Fairfax radiio, etc., cared enough to focus on this issue.

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    pat

    Bolt has a thread on the Australian article behind a paywall, “Alarmist heat as poor die of cold”…it’ by Maurice Newman:

    6 Feb: Bolt blog: Warmists are a bigger danger than warming
    The global warming scare is killing people. Maurice Newman:
    “ELDERLY person dies (of cold) every SEVEN minutes due to fuel poverty ‘scandal’?”…
    Back in the real world, the poor are dying of the cold while the political elites and their friends bask in the warmth of cosy conferences, taxpayer subsidies and research grants…,
    The climate change movement is rooted in power, money and emotion — not science. It is indecently obsessive and authoritarian. In fact, it’s the people behind this movement who pose the greatest threat to humanity, not the climate.
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warmists_are_a_bigger_danger_than_warming/

    if only the TV current affairs programs, ABC/Fairfax radio, etc., cared enough to focus on this issue.

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    Matty

    For all those children in Spain who may never have seen snow, fill your boots. 200 motorists stranded

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    el gordo

    ‘The average maximum temperatures [of SE Australia] during the last 35 years were between two and four degrees (F) lower than the average for the previous 35 years. — CSIRO 1953’

    Thanks for that Jo.

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      TdeF

      So 1918-1953 was 2-4F(1-2C) cooler than 1887 to 1918 including the Federation Drought 1895-1902? As far as the BOM is concerned, the Federation drought was unrecorded, so it did not happen. It seems the CSIRO knew all about it in 1953 at a time before the discovery of man made Global Warming, a time when people actually believed unhomogenized temperatures told a true story.

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        el gordo

        Concentrating on South East Australia.

        Pulling out of the Dalton its possible there was warming up to 1878, followed by cooling beginning around 1909 until 1960. Then there was warming from 1960 until 2002.

        It seems to fit, but temperatures in the NH during the 1920s and 1930s seemed to be on the up and up. It might be a mini see saw.

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    manalive

    My role in driving action on climate change is as an artist. My inspiration comes from dance, from my experience of Antarctica – and from 12 years of working with scientists and other artists whose concern is climate change …

    Lisa RobertsVisual artist / Interactive author, leader of the independent Living Data program. at University of Technology Sydney, Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and Visiting Scientist (?), Marine Biology, Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

    Memo to Lisa Roberts:
    The climate of the Antarctic hasn’t changed since the records began.

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    Robber

    Governments are running out of money to support the needy in society, yet they continue to fund this fluff? Memo to Tony Abbott: Do something! Stop the waste. Cut the Conversation for starters. And then stop funding this nonsense:

    A methodology that uses drawing and dance as tools of enquiry is a radical idea for those accustomed to the conventions of the scientific method. But when choreographic analysis is embedded within scientific research, pattern recognition can contribute to some startling discoveries.

    That’s radical and ridiculous.

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    Unmentionable

    You put your right hand in,
    You put your right hand out,
    You put your right hand in,
    And you shake it all about,
    You do the hokey-pokey
    And you turn around,
    And that’s what it’s all about!

    Ok, heads now! Come on, let’s do it!!

    You put your head in,
    You put your head out ..

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    RobertBobbert GDQ

    DEAR JO AND READERS,

    As Unmentionable shows this Industry simply screams out for mocking, parody, sarc and satire.

    As such i went over to The Conversation site( Danger!Danger! Will Robinson!) and posted this to the Artistic Author.

    In reply to Lisa Roberts

    So climate science has a good beat and you can dance to it.

    Who’d a thunk that hey!

    When you were down at the South Pole, ‘doin’ your arty thing, did the Penguins get their groove on?

    Did you call your concert The Big Icy Day Out?

    I doubledog dare anyone with an actual Science Degree in physics, engineering, chemistry, biology or other hard science people to publicly support this nonsense.Bring it up at your next job promo or interview and suggest that no science department is a real science unit without an interpretive dance or mime unit. Probably get fast tracked to Department Head!

    Please explain ‘indigenous methodologies’ particularly in relation to vaccines, rocket science, satellite technology and infants born with heart defect or genetic issues.and the GRACE satellite program which showed sea level rise to be 2 to 3 times less than previously declared, as reported on this website.

    Do you wonder why so many people of the Hard Sciences consider that climate science is to Real Science what homeopathy is to Real Medicine.

    KLYMITSCIENCEGROOVYBABY!!!!!

    Sometimes we all get frustrated by the public acceptance of this inane industry and we must remember that it is cherry ripe for mocking, satire and ridicule and the alarmaramas hate the mocking and satire and ridicule nearly as much as not having observable Science to support them.

    In KLYMITSCIENCE there is no peak stupidity, there is no peak hysteria, there is no peak delusion and there is no observable Science.

    As noted over at the The Consensus Conversation you expect Art to Challenge Establishment and Mainstream thought but Grants.. Antarctic junkets.. visiting Fellowships all over the world .. Nudge nudge.. wink wink.. say no more.

    Except SCIENCE SATIRE and SARCASM gets ’em every time and Jo and her readers are guns at it.

    JONOVAROOLZGROOVYBABY!!!!!

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    As a professional creative artist who has worked in music and dramatic realms for years, I have to say the pressure on artists to toe the political line is very strong, not only in the area of climate science but in a lot of other areas too.

    In the past I have had promising projects squashed more than once because of political pressure of one sort or another because the work I was doing didn’t fit in with the prevailing political agenda. Also, personal animosity and petty grievances at times come into play. In that respect it is no different, perhaps, from the world of climate science, as the leaked Climategate emails demonstrated.

    What of course makes this whole situation in the arts more miserable is the abysmal lack of scientific understanding among many people who are educated in the arts. More than once at university I was shocked to discover how ignorant some of my professors from the arts faculty were even in very basic mathematical comprehension.

    I don’t know what the answer is. But blogs like this are a good start.

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    Paul Vaughan

    Framing 1+1=2

    You can say 1+1=2 and it will be rejected as untrue on the grounds that it isn’t framed administratively, but that’s only on the surface and the deeper truth we’ve slowly learned over the years via veiled testing of “experts” in online sun-climate discussions is that 1+1=2 won’t be accepted no matter how framed.

    The sobering consequence is that art & beauty will probably determine the outcome of the dispute.

    Being naive and idealistic about this isn’t as helpful as efficiently being practical and tactical to divinely deal with the social and political reality how we actually find it. It takes a superior kind of human being to deal effectively with these people who know how to protract to drain a star. Being as sharp as a tack helps if the tip of the tack isn’t dulled by counterproductively naive idealism, because playing the game on their (administrative) terms just clearly signals willingness to be an easy, voluntary victim in a corrupt court.

    The efficient option is to be practical and tactical. Truth has a role in practical, tactical operations, but it isn’t the only ingredient. Some of these people have hard resistance and will never be swayed by truth. Divine inspiration on the other hand might shake them in a heartbeat.

    So the question is: can we transcend beyond truth to divinity? This is likely to be the primary determinant of our broad long term impact in the absence of a fair court. The sensible option is to be sober and practical about tactics and operations in the existing absence of a fair court.

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    Annie

    It’s a parody of art too…more pretentious rubbish.

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