What stage of climate grief are you locked in?

What if you lost, say, the Great Barrier Reef? No seriously, what if you woke up one morning and it was gone? Celeste Young is paid to worry about that and she’s written a whole article on climate grief. It has no data, and uses models and namecalling which makes it a perfect fit for The Conversation.

A variety of losses can be experienced. People may grieve due to the perceived future loss of something; for example, the type of grief often expressed via social media over the potential loss of the Great Barrier Reef. Individuals and communities may grieve for the loss of a loved landscape damaged by drought, fire or flood.

She adapts the famous Kubler Ross Five Stages of Grief (doesn’t everyone) to to deliver clichés in table form. But don’t rush to knock it, I think this is a new form of grieving, where people project the grief of their collapsing religion onto something else instead, like “the environment”. Let’s call it Parody-grieving. Does Young realize the parallels? The Climate-club are still stuck at stage one. They know something is wrong but the cognitive dissonance is killing them: their heroes hide declines and data, are too scared to debate anyone, and the equipment just keeps failing and needs adjustment. Their saints get imaginary Nobel Prizes for Peace instead of science, but even with every six-member-science-committee on the planet reciting the hymn, half the citizens on Earth don’t believe them, and never will.

For Celeste and her friends the news is bad. They used to think they could control the climate. Feel her pain.

 Even with concerted efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, some climate change cannot be avoided

She’s waking up to a world where the climate might change. The fantasy climate of her childhood dreams is evaporating. At least she can get some consolation that unlike most of the last 100,000 years of humanity, when the storms come, she has electricity, four wheel drives and hospitals.

That nine tenths of a degree of warming we’ve had is not so bad, Celeste, compared to an ice age.

The insights don’t stop:

Climate change does throw up some unique challenges because it is continuous change.

Continuous change — as opposed to what — the last 65 million years of  volcanoes, asteroids, and wild swinging interglacials? There’s that utopia of the stable climate again. Humans had to grieve through the Dark Ages, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Somehow they grieved without an iphone.

This may result in people becoming overwhelmed as losses accumulate over time, or becoming “stuck” and unable to move through the grief process.

...

Grief Stage One – Some people deny we have a climate. Feel sorry for them. |  (Click to enlarge).

Young sees three key psychological responses:

Clive Hamilton discusses some of these responses in a 2009 paper, and in his 2010 book Requiem for a Species where he proposed that denial, maladaptive (bad) coping, and adaptive (good) coping were the three key psychological responses to climate change.

As psychological reponses go, “adaptive coping” is good, but logic, reason and evidence are better. See my thoughts on Clive Hamilton and his blind hypocrisy on “ethics”.

Thanks to Tim Blair. He always spots the good ones.

Celeste Young is a sustainability/climate change professional at Victoria University.

As MiltonG of Brisbane says in comments at Tim Blair’s:

I’m still grieving for the standards of Victoria University.  Celeste Young states in comments to her article that:

just to clarify that climate denial is a term that has been used in the literature, l did not use the word climate denier in the article

Yet the table gives “Climate denial” as an example of the first stage of grief adaption, and underneath the table it says “Celeste Young, author provided”.

Victoria U – fifth-rate to the core.

From Ruairi in comment #14:
To believe in warming,for years,
Then be duped by climate change fears,
Then reach the conclusion,
It was all an illusion,
Is bound to bring warmists to tears.
h/t to Handjive and manalive
————————————————————————————

From Chapter 4, Young struggles to get a grip on even the most basic aspects of human psychology:

People working in climate change often ask why there is such difficulty in motivating action when the science is so clear in its findings. Initially, it was widely assumed that this was a straightforward exercise where, if you gave people sufficient information, they would act on it. However, communication that requires action is not just about dissemination of information, which on its own has been found to be ‘insufficient to precipitate interest, attitude formation and behaviour change’1. It is something much more complex and interesting, that requires building relationships with the people you are communicating with and including them as part of the communication. It is an area where informal communication is as important as formal – small conversations in a lunch room can have as much impact on a person as a media campaign in ‘winning the conversation’2.
My reply to Young:
1. Your base assumption is that the science is “so clear”. If you bothered to check that you’ll find that there are thousands of papers, and thousands of scientists that contradict that. Almost half  of meteorologists are skeptics. The models are failures with major faults in their core assumptions, and by 28 million weather balloons, 3,000 ocean buoys, 6,000 boreholes,  and hundreds of proxies. They fail on short term forecasts, and can’t explain long term historic climate movements either. Since the models don’t work, the science is not clear (though the unscientific propaganda is).
2. This is a straightforward exercise in “sufficient” information. Public data and methods have been lost, hidden, adjusted and is not supplied even through FOIA. Not surprisingly, half the population are unconvinced when so-called “experts” use tricks to hide declines, call people names and pretend they can predict clouds and humidity 100 years in the future. Half the population are aware that scientists are terrible at predicting the climate, so when the same scientists say the science is settled, it only makes skeptics more skeptical.  The gullible drink that kind of kool aid.
3. You don’t build relationships with the people you are communicating with by calling them names and likening them to pedophiles and drunks. Note your reference 2 in the paragraph above:  2 Vale, P. (22 August, 2013). Al Gore compares climate change deniers to racists and drunks, Huffington Post UK. You seem to approve that kind of approach?
4. You say we should “include them [skeptics] as part of the conversation”. But do you mean that, or is that just empty posturing? If you do, why don’t you read the main skeptical blogs? There is nothing in your report that suggests you have any idea why skeptics are skeptical. If you really want to understand skeptics, isn’t that the place you start before you write 64 page documents? If you are sincere about this, let me know. I’ll send you comments written by polite upstanding scientists with decades of experience that The Conversation refuses to publish. Will you ask The Conversation to stop calling skeptics names and shutting them out of “the conversation”?
Point three is kindergarten stuff.  It’s just manners. Ponder how insular and intellectually weak your academic surroundings are that you need to be reminded of this. By the way, I’d guess most skeptics are at Stage 4 — Depression. Depressed that our tax dollars are wasted on inane navel-gazing projects that break laws of logic, don’t supply observational evidence, and call people insulting names which have no meaning in accurate English. But we will never get to “acceptance” of this.
As you say:
 Listening and responding is essential to adaptation communication; it should be a dialogue not a monologue.

We look forward to the day you start listening.

Sincerely,
Jo — Former believer in a man-made crisis
9.8 out of 10 based on 99 ratings

176 comments to What stage of climate grief are you locked in?

  • #
    Pathway

    Because I am not mentally ill I reject the premise.

    230

  • #
    skeptic56109

    I have decided that the next time I talk to a warmist I will tell them that the warmest 4 years of the past 20 have differed by what 0.05C, the first one in 1998 and the last one in 2014. This in spite of the fact that global temperature records are controlled by warmists. There are more and more people upset by data manipulation. The end is near for this religion.

    443

  • #
    BritInMontreal

    Where does boredom fit in the spectrum?

    160

  • #

    I still think “silly” is the preferred adjective, although deceptive and uninformed have their use! 🙂

    120

  • #
    Sean

    star commentMy first reaction was, oh no, not the psychologist agains. My second reaction is I think I am going through the 5 steps in reverse. My first reaction was to accept the theory. My second reaction was depression because the solutions were so god-awful bad. My third step to convince myself that maybe a combo of nuclear, wind and solar may be our salvation. But then I realized the climate zealots would never allow nuclear so we’d all end up with expensive intermittent power controlled by government bureaucrats who will allocate energy resources to the best connected which made me angry. The poor are going to be made much poorer by this scheme. I don’t have a clue as to how I would define denial nor how I’d get there so I’m stuck at stage 2.

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    • #
      Leo G

      Non-belief of the climate grief situation seems an appropriate stage at which to start and to finish.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      When I looked originally at the whole CAGW nonsense, the mroe I thought about it, the more it should be literally very obvious cliamte was warming. Even as someone with a science/engineering background, the CAGW stuff fialed the most basic of layaman tests – it wasnt getting warmer. Any twit could see that.

      Now – once it failed the common sense test, in my mind it was a pile of horse fertilizer because heat is obvious. If its ia stinking hot day, you sweat. If the earth was heating up, it would happen uniformly. If the oceans were getting hotter, it would take so much heat in the atmosphere to do that we’d need blast furnace conditions to achieve that, and as such we’d all be like substandard electricians and burnt to a crisp with no life on teh surface…..

      At that point I moved to sheer annoyance that its was clearly a scam of monsterous proportions. After that I moved to active speaking against a massive con-job and haolding people to account for fradulent activities…..

      People seem to have switched off common sense these days, and need a professionals of 50 varieties to tell them what to do, how to live and which jumper to wear when its cold.

      More fool them. The cost will be another slaughtered generation and global straight-jacket-like UN run socialism

      Bah.

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  • #
    PeterK

    “Individuals and communities may grieve for the loss of a loved landscape damaged by drought, fire or flood.”

    I actually grieve at the scarring of the landscape because of those stupid wind mills…a blight on the landscape. Not to mention the senseless killing of innocent birds and bats for a non existent problem.

    And, we actually pay people to provide this kind of stupid…WOW.

    470

    • #
      Ian Hill

      That was also my first reaction.

      Whenever I see a dingbat scheme like this I attribute it to the “need” of employers to provide training for their staff in everything under the sun in order for them to comply with a legal requirement, itself the result of a previous “need”.

      Therefore they have teambuilding sessions which can last for days, with brainstorming activities and various get-to-know-you schemes. You see the outcome everywhere, with supermarket checkout operators trained to say the latest version of “have a nice day”. I caught someone out in a busy time just before Christmas. A middle-aged man, he was so stressed that he asked me how I was twice while serving me. I said I was the same as I was thirty seconds previously and he just grimaced.

      The public service and universities excel at this type of activity. I’ve always thought the Thompsons of Narrogin were victims of this.

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      • #
        C.J.Richards

        I joined a company as a degree qualified Electrical Engineer, then wasn’t allowed to change a plug till I’d been on a course for it. We had a handyman though who could do it, the only one who’d been on the course. Now it’s the same with using steps. Even the local Firefighters who come round to check our extinguishers and alarm system tell me they’re not allowed to use step ladders.

        80

        • #
          gnome

          We are institutionalising a cult of uselessness. I am amazed that a handyman even exists, let alone is allowed to do something. Remain anonymous, or Workcover will investigate this clear breach of uselessness.

          50

          • #
            Mark D.

            I hear they want to license Handymen. I say good. Everybody else has to have a license these days.

            Sarc…….no wait it’s true

            00

      • #
        Phillip Bratby

        That was immediate reaction too.

        20

    • #
      Annie

      Correction there….we are forced to pay for this stupidity.

      40

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      PeterK,

      I actually grieve at the scarring of the landscape because of those stupid wind mills…a blight on the landscape.

      Don Quixote had the right idea. A true visionary.

      Abe

      90

  • #
    Popeye26

    The ONLY things I grieve for in this whole ugly mess are science and academia!!

    Cheers,

    260

  • #
    Just-A-Guy

    The first stage is bogus to begin with. Rational adults perceive the world through the lens of mild skepticism. When they have discussions with others, that skepticism informs their position and allows the conversation to progress in a positive way towards evaluating the subject at hand with the aim of arriving at a more complete understanding of that subject. We call these people rational thinkers, or adults for short.

    The first stage, therefore, can only be experienced by the person to whom the aquisition of knowledge has been attained by accepting what others have taught them, as is. We call these people uncritical believers, or children. In the eyes of the uncritical believer, the authority figures on whom they trust are more knowledgable, and are to be respected because of this perceived greater knowledge.

    The rational thinker can never fall into the first stage because they were critical about the information in the first place. It was never fully accepted until a satisfactory examination was performed and so they never had to reverse their views.

    The uncritical believer, on the other hand, had accepted one point of view from the trusted sources they had come to rely on. When conflicting evidence comes along, it is rejected out of hand. It’s only when some piece of information finally makes it through the mental barrier, that the second stage kicks in. They become angry because they now realise that they were misinformed by those in authority.

    Abe

    240

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      Jo,

      These quotes should have been at the top of my reply. My appologies to you and the readers. 🙂

      But don’t rush to knock it, I think this is a new form of grieving, where people project the grief of their collapsing religion onto something else instead, like “the environment”.

      and

      She’s waking up to a world where the climate might change. The fantasy climate of her childhood dreams is evaporating.

      So true. So true.

      Abe

      70

  • #
    Manfred

    People may grieve due to the perceived future loss of something

    Where does Celeste Young find her enormous courage to out of bed in the morning?
    Is she stealing it from her grand-children and great grand-children?

    120

    • #
      ExWarmist

      How can your grieve for something that hasn’t happened?

      180

      • #
        Manfred

        In the strange counter-intuitive warmist world this is easier than it sounds ExWarmist, in fact it’s almost second nature, particularly when one is habituated to living in the imagined shadow of incipient climageddon.

        And when the imagination is dimmed by the interference of reality, there’s always fertile ground to be found in yet another climate related disaster or failing that, the reliable fall back position of a climate model.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Fair point – wouldnt you classify it therefore as manufactured mass hysteria?

        It has more in parallel with the nonsense you get when Dear Leader croaks in North Korea……

        50

  • #
    ExWarmist

    The adaption example begins with Flood and ends with Drought.

    Talk about hedging your bets!

    …”My name is Madame Celeste, I see that you have come seeking wisdom. Let me see your palm… Hmmmm, there is much mystery here, and yet knowledge also. I can see that in the past you were younger, and in the future you will be older…profound wisdom is discovered here in the lines of the palm of your hand…Go now, in peace and be sure to place a tenner in the jar at the door…”

    180

    • #
      ExWarmist

      On re-reading – it’s Floods, Floods, Floods, Drought, – then Floods.

      So perhaps just a typo – and not hedging…

      70

    • #
      MudCrab

      You would think that a real acceptance to the problem would be to build a dam to capture all that flood water in time for the next drought, wouldn’t you.

      Maybe they are in Dam Denial?

      110

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Madam Celeste is actually quite a good moniker for her when the gravy train stops and work is scarce for dud qualifications.

      Going by her predictions she’ll do well in the future, I’d say she’s an above average medium. 🙂

      30

  • #

    the grief of their collapsing religion

    The problem is that the leftist media is keeping it all alive for them.

    Reports of massive gains in Arctic ice have been widespread … … among skeptic blogs. Real Science did a piece on a 1969 NYT prediction of a new ice age: https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/settled-science-from-1969/

    My comment at the link:

    There’s now a whole slew of leftist media outlets reporting a warmist study as virtual fact that, as socialist CBS puts it: Arctic sea ice “thinning dramatically,” study finds.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-thinning-dramatically-study-finds/

    This is insane what we are up against. The problem is that most of the independent minded public will never see this or similar blogs or any reports of the record or near record growth in Arctic ice over the last few years, not to mention the record Antarctic ice, and not to mention 18 years of zero warming, or not to mention the absolute total failure of their doomsaying climate models, and the failure of ALL their predictions of doom that always never happen (not even close).

    The problem is that most people won’t see any of this.

    Instead, they like me will be scrolling the likes of Google News and see these headlines, and take that as fact without even looking at the story, and thus continue to believe the bullsh|t from the left wing fear mongers.

    Something has to be done to combat this. Something.

    181

    • #
      Ian George

      This is a real problem, Eric.
      Someone on the Conversation blog commented on this story and made the claim there has been a 50% increase in the number of +40C days in Melbourne since 1998. Where did they get this? Google.
      After checking the figures there were 37 days of over 40C since 1998 – however, there were 38 days of over +40C from 1898-Feb 1915 – i.e. no change at all over the past 100 years.
      People just read stuff and believe it.

      200

  • #
    Bill Johnston

    She is certainly a shallow thinker, or not. I wonder if she’s sexy?

    Cheers

    Bill

    71

    • #
      Robert

      Well, you would still have to talk to her at some point so all I can say is…. ewwww.

      100

      • #

        “Well, you would still have to talk to her at some point”
        Seems more like you would be just given contradictory orders to follow. Then when you failed the analasies of YOUR problems would begin.

        60

  • #
    BilB

    I am at the anger stage. Angry at those people who have intentionally done their best to frustrate the introduction of global warming mitigation initiatives. It is becoming obvious to most peopke that the climate is changing and those changes are not going to be pleasant.

    The stiffling humidity that we are experiencing here in Sydney throughout Spring now and Summer has been extremely uncomfortable, and noticed by everyone. Country people are unable to ignore the shifting of the seasonal boundaries, they can’t ignore it because it affects their planting times and stock rotations.

    The whole “skeptic” bs has run its course, the broad public know that change is happening, and it will not be long before climate action by our government is demanded by the public. Tony Abbott, the great denier (and liar), will be the last elected “leader” of this country to take climate action demolition to an election.

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      “Last elected leader” so are you hoping for a UN appointed leader next BilB?

      I guess if enough cowards like you scream loud enough it just might happen.

      110

    • #
      Dariusz

      I Grieve for you , your stupidity and no individual thinking. You fall within perhaps 75% of the population that does no use brain and you get angry after not using it. But you should be serene not angry. You are surrounded by similar people that constitute a vast majority, listen to overwhelmingly lefty,s media, know that science is settled. What are you angry about? You angry at few insignificant numbers like us? Are we threatening you to the extend that you wish our disappearance with the good dose of the abuse beforehand? Or you wish even worse things to us and because you can,t do that (yet) you are angry?

      91

      • #
        BilB

        Dariusz,

        My anger ix inthat the prime minister’s adviser on Climate Matters is the personificion of everyghing that this blog aspires to. Without that and mainstream science driving government action the you guys here can be as deluded as you please.

        If mainstream science was saying that there is no climate risk, and the science held up to scrutiny, then I would be bappy with that.

        No this is where you claim that the mainstream science does not hold up to scrutiny, but I have studied the Libertarian attempts at counter science and it is nothing but a big joke, as is our nutter of a prime minister.

        But we will give it some time. The very best scientist that the Australian Libertarians have is Dr David Evans, and his theorised solar minimum ice age plunge is now well under way. Don’t forget to buy your winter woolies early, as there is certain to be a shortage.

        17

        • #

          My anger ix inthat the prime minister’s adviser on Climate Matters is the personificion of everyghing that this blog aspires to. Without that and mainstream science driving government action the you guys here can be as deluded as you please.

          You just hate that we are more logical and convincing than your namecalling “scientists” who lose data, can’t answer questions, and whose models fail dismally.

          If mainstream science was saying that there is no climate risk, and the science held up to scrutiny, then I would be bappy with that.

          Of course you would. You are born to follow. We think for ourselves.

          And you can keep tossing insults about “nutters” and your fantasy claim about ice ages — it tells us a lot about your mental acuity.

          71

    • #
      Winston

      BilB,

      I am like you stuck at the anger stage, also.

      However, I am absolutely ropeable at ignorant people such as yourself, who seem to think that “climate changing” is somehow a meaningful statement. The theory of CAGW is how this paradigm was initially framed, and was the sole instigation for any of the supposed mitigation efforts you allege are required.

      Some facts, free from obfuscation and prevarication:

      1. Climate zones on this planet are essentially unchanged over the last several centuries- temperate zones are still temperate, arid zones are still arid, arctic and subarctic tundra zones are essentially unchanged since the MWP at least and possibly before. Therefore the climate, which is ever changing, has actually been incredibly stable over recent history, much more so than during previous epochs. So, your initial point about it being “obvious” is clearly delusional on your part, since there is NO evidence that climate has changed any more than it has previously in the recent century, and considerable evidence of far greater change when no anthropogenic influence was at all possible.

      2. Global warming mitigating initiatives, as a job lot, do not actually mitigate anything, they have no effect on global CO2, merely manoeuvre the point of manufacture to another part of the globe, or the production of CO2 to another part of the chain (e.g wind towers produce CO2 in manufacture > generation rather than vice versa, electric cars produce CO2 in manufacture and in reliance on coal powered electricity and could never be realistically produced en masse and powered by wind and solar). So stopping these “initiatives” makes not one jot of difference to the warming of the globe, EVEN IF YOU WERE TO BELIEVE CO2 WARMS THE ATMOSPHERE to any significant degree. The stasis in global temperatures provides compelling evidence that even that tenuous assumption is misplaced.

      3. The stifling humidity on the Eastern seaboard says nothing whatsoever about global warming, in fact this summer o the East coast of Australia has been remarkable by how cool it has been, while Melbourne’s summer has been virtually non-existent. Nothing in any of that is predicted by CAGW theory, yet you still perseverate like a demented patient in the face of facts that contradict your original assertions.

      4.The intensely cold winter in the US this year is no more proof of global warming than if it were an unusually mild one, and yet alarmists would have used it as “evidence” no matter which one it was, and if it were average, it would be met with silence. This indicates intellectual dishonesty, a concept to which I am certain you are no stranger.

      5. Climate action- I often laugh when I hear drones like yourself ramble on about “action” on climate change without ever being specific. Please describe just what action would have a measureable and quantifiable effect on our climate. Please show a plausible chain of causation in so doing, and thence its effect as evidence that said “action” is even justified, with exact quantification in degrees Celsius of how much warming would be avoided and how much of our “climate” as we experience it is being mitigated- how many storms are avoided, how many extreme weather events of any significance would now not occur. For example, how many windmills in Tasmania would it take to stop one cyclone in Townsville? Please show your work, no cheating now.

      Cometh the hour cometh the man, Bilb. Here’s your chance to show us how well you have thought out your little pet theory, and how well you can justify your delusion that somehow any action we do as a species has even the slightest effect on weather or climate.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        One aspect of climate which relates to “world temperature” is Sea Level..

        CAGW enthusiasts claim that sea levels are rising: presumably because “the ice is melting”.

        Let’ s test that:

        Have a look at what sea levels have been doing for the last 9,000 years!

        https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/compton-2001-holocene-sea-levels.jpg

        Yes we are in an “interglacial” which may last another ten thousand years if we are lucky or maybe the change has already started.

        The next ice age will test humanity, big time !

        KK

        81

      • #
        ROM

        Winston @ #13.3

        5. Climate action- I often laugh when I hear drones like yourself ramble on about “action” on climate change without ever being specific. Please describe just what action would have a measureable and quantifiable effect on our climate. Please show a plausible chain of causation in so doing, and thence its effect as evidence that said “action” is even justified, with exact quantification in degrees Celsius of how much warming would be avoided and how much of our “climate” as we experience it is being mitigated- how many storms are avoided, how many extreme weather events of any significance would now not occur.
        For example, how many windmills in Tasmania would it take to stop one cyclone in Townsville?
        Please show your work, no cheating now.
        [/]
        ____________
        Clap Clap!!
        ++ 100.

        “Climate action” and “We must take action NOW;”

        A constant, persistent and totally incoherent and meaningless empty set of phrases repeated ad nauseum by the whole gamut of green coloured, loud empty clanging vessels that in the climate activist world apparently and supposedly passes for some form of low level intelligence.

        A similar loud clanging empty vessel effect is seen also in many members of the media and amongst a cadre of university psychologists plus being a very common trait of Greenpeace and WWF activists .

        English Proverb

        “Empty vessels make the most sound”

        Proverb Expansion;
        Empty vessels make a loud sound when struck with something. But filled vessels do not make much sound. The proverb has a hidden level of meaning. There are people around us who are like empty vessels or like filled vessels. Empty vessels refer to empty headed people who are the most talkative and noisy. These people go on speaking continuously, but their speeches are meaningless. They boast that they can do this and that. Such people are not to be taken seriously. They talk much and are short of action.
        [ / ]

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          CAGW is a huge empty vessel with the programmed drones hanging on in a type of Helmholtz fashion taking in the resonating mantras.

          70

      • #
        gnome

        Wow- it’s humid in Sydney! I recall when I was a boy, days on end when we didn’t even bother to go to bed. Home from work, launch the boat, out prawning till dawn, and off to work after a quick shower and breakfast of prawns and swimmer crabs. Sure it wasn’t productive, but on days like that, who noticed?

        We used to say it was too hot to sleep, but even so, occasionally someone would mumble “it isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity”. Now, it’s all global warming, the unfalsifiable science.

        (I was a younger gnome then.)

        70

      • #
        Mark D.

        Another excellent post Winston!

        Who would like to wager that Bilbo will respond with anything other than his BS bombs?

        Then there’s the anger that Billb admits to. How soon before it is rage? How soon before he takes his anger and rage to the next level? Are sociopaths born or do they work themselves down to it?

        31

      • #
        BilB

        Winston, if you walk around with a bucket on your head as you clearly must to say the things you have then no amount of evidence will help you.

        But for you to have anger, then your claim that nothing has changed, that is confusing. No doubt you would claim that YOUR money is being spent on climate change initiatives and yet you will be the last person to understand that for most families a thousand dollars a year is stolen from their pockets in escalated electricity costs and all of that money is disappearing, none of it goes to climate change initiatives.

        Actually I am also furious about the Libertarian GFC which cost my local council their entire employee retirement fund.

        But you should be just peachy. There is no carbon tax and the RET has stalled, and according to DE and JN we are plunging into a solar minimum and notch filter induced ice age.

        Your only justification for your climate anger, as you describe it, is that other people have diferent opinions to yours, and if that is the case then you have an anger problem and you should get help. But, I put it to you that the real cause for your anger is that you subconsciously really know that you are wrong and you intuitively know that the Globe is heating up on the surface. In this case all you need to do is remove the bucket from your head. You will be able to breath more easily, and……see the full extent of the climate change that is underway all around you. Good Luck

        17

        • #

          What is a libertarian GFC?

          Is that the GFC we wouldn’t have had if councils didnt steal too much in rates that they didn’t need, and then try to be speculators?

          Councillors should be managing rubbish, not trying to “do deals” with Goldman sachs. In a libertarian free market, rate-payers would keep their money and only pay for services provided. Failing that, councilors who got sucked in by fake AAA ratings would get sacked, and those banks cheating would go broke. None of these things happened. – Jo

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          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Well said Jo.

            The CAGW sham and the GFC – Bankster- CD – “Mortagage” sham were effectively brought to us by the same scammers.

            Funny that Goldman Sachs was behind much of the incoherent mortgage schemes in the GFC as well as the Carbon Trading which is the main impetus of the Global Warming scam; at least in Political and banking circles.

            Other Global warming adherents just want to keep their jobs in which they help push the non existent meme of man made global warming.

            Maybe Bilb wanted to say this but just couldn’t articulate it?

            Then again, perhaps not.

            KK

            11

        • #
          Mark D.

          see the full extent of the climate change that is underway all around you.

          Idiot.

          Damn fool idiot.

          Damn fool idiot blowhard.

          Perish the ideation that the world may soon be run by their kind.

          21

        • #
          Winston

          Wow, BilB.

          “Libertarians” caused the GFC, and here I was thinking that the main fault lay in a sub-prime mortgage crisis due to Bill Clinton repealing the Glass-Steagall act, due to the influence of his Treasury Secretary and appointed economic adviser, ex-Goldman Sachs alumnus Hank Paulson.

          From the Grauniad (no doubt your paper of choice)-

          “Clinton agreed to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, which ensured a complete separation between investment and retail banks. The move heralded the coming of superbanks, huge behemoths that took in retail deposits and used them to take highly-leveraged punts in the markets.

          To make matters worse, Clinton beefed up Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Community Reinvestment Act to force lenders to take a more relaxed approach to disadvantaged borrowers. Liberalised banks plus millions of new sub-prime customers equalled one big problem.”

          Even the Guardian gets it right occasionally!

          And further, from the World Socialist Website-

          “Paulson bears a considerable amount of personal responsibility for the Global Financial crisis.

          Paulson, according to a celebratory 2006 BusinessWeek article entitled “Mr. Risk Goes to Washington,” was “one of the key architects of a more daring Wall Street, where securities firms are taking greater and greater chances in their pursuit of profits.” Under Paulson’s watch, that meant “taking on more debt: $100 billion in long-term debt in 2005, compared with about $20 billion in 1999. It means placing big bets on all sorts of exotic derivatives and other securities.”

          According to the International Herald Tribune, Paulson “was one of the first Wall Street leaders to recognize how drastically investment banks could enhance their profitability by betting with their own capital instead of acting as mere intermediaries.” Paulson “stubbornly assert[ed] Goldman’s right to invest in, advise on and finance deals, regardless of potential conflicts.”

          Paulson then handsomely benefited from the speculative boom. This wealth was based on financial manipulation and did nothing to create real value in the economy. On the contrary, the extraordinary enrichment of individuals like Paulson was the corollary to the dismantling of the real economy, the bankrupting of the government, and the impoverishment of masses the world over.”

          So, a Democrat President and his Treasury secretary let Wall Street out of the regulatory cage that led directly to the speculative practices of the GFC- not a “libertarian” in sight.

          Now, to the main game- Climate Change. Who are the driving forces behind Climate Change as an issue: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and HSBC among others are salivating at the prospect of a Carbon Market, and many of the economists who are at the vanguard of the alarmist cause are either ex-alumni or current former players in these firms, just as many that head the IMF and World Bank come from the same poisonous tree. So, in advocating action on climate change, you are on the side of the Big Banks, Wall Street speculators and Hedge Funds. Leaving Science aside, you are on the same side as the people you seem in your last comment to resent (and rightly so).

          You are also on the same side as the corrupt political classes in Europe and the US, Big Oil (BP and Shell in particular- both of whom initially funded the CRU and not coincidentally profit from the renewable energy scam), and multinational companies like GE and Siemens who profit from producing useless technology that they know will never replace fossil fuels, and these represent the driving force behind the biggest wealth distribution scheme in world history whose aim is to eliminate the middle class in Western democracies, on the pretext of “helping Africa” when in reality they are helping themselves- concentrating as much money from the sweat off the backs of honest people toiling away in order to line their own pockets. Great company you keep.

          Unfortunately, they rely on people like you uncritically accepting their guff without actually checking to see whether or not the whole scam is realistically founded or not. In examining the evidence they and their activist pawns have presented, I have found them wanting, and I prefer to live in a world bounded by facts, truth and reality, rather than pie-in-the-sky fantasies and hobgoblins presented to the masses for consumption.

          21

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            I just love that term; “sub-prime mortgage”.

            What it actually means is a mortgage without a specific property identified as collateral for the loan.

            In other words, it WAS NOT A MORTGAGE.

            Somebody should be in gaol!

            Why are they still at large?

            Who in the Australian side of things was responsible for allowing this travesty to be dumped on law abiding retirees who expected proper scrutiny of international banking procedures?

            This whole business stinks.

            KK

            00

    • #
      Oksanna

      Humidity in Sydney. Who would have thought…?

      20

  • #
    bemused

    Always look on the bright side of life; and don’t worry, be happy.

    60

  • #
    Ruairi

    To believe in warming,for years,
    Then be duped by climate change fears,
    Then reach the conclusion,
    It was all an illusion,
    Is bound to bring warmists to tears.

    400

  • #
    tom0mason

    ¯
    Good grief!

    Another maladapted individual issuing reports about how others will not accept her advocacy.

    Celeste Young if the AGW hypothesis were real where is your proof?
    Where are the observations that show humanity’s puny output of a trace gas(CO2) is doing anything detremental to the climate?
    There is none that I see to make your case.

    And another thing —
    My denial is that you have any right to presume to know how I, or anyone, feels about this matter. My grief is that people like you are given the freedom to espouse such unproven nonsense.
    Now please, get back under the worry-rock where you belong.

    201

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      tomOmason,

      Good grief!

      Another maladapted individual issuing reports about how others will not accept her advocacy.

      Good grief!

      Maybe we can get Celeste Young as a grief counselor for Charlie Brown. He’s always getting grief!

      Abe

      20

  • #

    “Non belief of the situation or the facts presented”
    So cognitive dissonance begins when 2 + 2 is not accepted as 5. Despite the problem being real, the table does not allow for the incorrect “fact” to ever be corrected. It must just be accepted by the victim of the process. The victim is subjected to ” consistent communication and engagement, accurate information and education” despite the information not being really accurate. Then it all ends without this initial problem ever being thought about again if the victim just accepts the “situation” without the facts making any sense at all.

    Looking at either history books or geology shows large numbers of extreme and long climate changes in the past. Not seeing anything at all like those events happening now would be the type of climate denial cognitive disonance described. Thus a climate denier denies that the past was nothing but pure clean happpy utopian perfection in unchanging permanent balance all the way back into infinity and needs re-education into this new alternate reality model of history until all trace of actual reality is gone.

    70

  • #
    warcroft

    I guess those that cant think for themselves need to be told how to grieve.

    110

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    What stage of climate grief are you locked in?

    Celeste Young, what do you know about grief?

    Come back and see me after you’ve watched your husband of 31 years, friend, lover, father of your children and constant companion collapse and die right in front of you as I watched happen to my first wife.

    Then we can talk about grief. But not before. You’re just an imposter until you know what the real thing is.

    The Earth and humanity will both survive the loss of the Great Barrier Reef, if indeed that’s what’s in the cards. But I wonder if we can survive you.

    240

    • #
      me@home

      Me too, Roy

      70

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        What I didn’t say because I thought it would distract from my point is that all this is just another way of putting a guilt trip on people who don’t have enough confidence to think for themselves.

        It’s truly appalling.

        I miss the two cats we had until they became too sick to go on and had to be put down, first one and then the other a few years later. I miss the magnificent magnolia tree I had in the front yard until it became too big for its place and had to be removed. I miss the 1964 Volkswagen I drove until it wouldn’t go another mile. But grief? Let’s all be more realistic than that.

        20

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          And of course, it’s also her way of trying to make herself seem important in her own mind.

          20

    • #
      Mac551

      If I lived in Nth Qld and the “Reef” disappeared,my first thought would be,great this will bring and end to the stingers ,second you beauty now some decent surf,better wax up the board!
      Though the “reef” does stop the number of tsunamis hitting Nth Qld,but hey if it stops the greenies from whinging about mining shipping and farming it will be worth the price.

      60

  • #
    Ross

    There must a competition going on to see who can do the weirdest paper or article on climate change.
    So I’ll start grieving for the eventual winner because at the rate this circus is going that poor person will be in desperate need of serious help.

    100

    • #
      Manfred

      The glittering prize: all expenses paid private jet travel and 5 star accommodation in Paris for the climafest of 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC – 30 November – 11 December 2015.

      80

  • #
    Craig Loehle

    They are grieving that their imaginary friend died…so sad. Buy them some ice cream.

    100

  • #
    gbees

    Aline Le Guen writes cogently about “The Science Deniers’ in the February Edition of IPA Review. Turning the tables on the alarmists.

    “The advocates of climate change – Their response has been to deny the evidence revealed through the scientific method. Theirs has been the scientific equivalent of saying ‘nothing to see here, folks, move along.’ So ask yourself, who’s really in denial?”

    Who indeed …

    120

  • #
    sully

    No denying the 1.2m of snow that I shoveled off the roofs around here. Can’t deny the paths/ tunnels to the wood piles for the old folks. But I can admit, all this global warming is making every bone in my body hurt.

    90

  • #
    Robdel

    The ancient Greeks would have composed a lamentation poem, like Cassandra, and be done with it. Then they could get on with their lives.

    60

  • #
    Safetyguy66

    Hey Jo, have you ever done a “survey” of the members/posters on this site + your facebook to get a demographic? It would be an interesting exercise to see how well we fit the “old white guy/technophobe/right winger” model. 😉

    70

    • #
      Bob Malloy

      Can only speak for myself.
      Old White Male: Yes
      Technophobe: No-I don’t always understand modern technology but I don’t fear it.
      Right Winger: No-Raised in a blue collar household with a strong union background. Miners and Steel Workers mainly.
      Education: NSW Trade Certificate 1971, Automotive Engineering, these days Driver Operator.

      40

    • #
      Mac551

      60yo mormon,technophobe sort of, I don’t own a mobile phone,though I did send a text message on my wife’s phone once and I can turn my PC on,does that count as being tech savvy?
      How conservative am I,well I consider the Liberal Party to be progressives.

      50

    • #
      Wayne Job

      70 YO white calathumpian male. hermit by choice and nature. Fifty year quest to find a real scientific mind that would shatter the illusions of the BS standard models with their imaginary friends. Total dislike of all intrusions on my freedoms thus an intense dislike of PC and all those who spout it.
      By todays standard of politics main stream academia would put me to the right of Ghengis Chan.
      Climate change pushers also have their standard model, designed to be non falsifiable for it also is full of imaginary stuff.

      20

  • #
    manalive

    AS was noted here a couple of days ago, her LinkedIn entry:

    Celeste Young
    Collaborative Research Fellow at Victoria University
    Melbourne Area, AustraliaRenewables & Environment
    Previous
    . Victoria University, Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research, RMIT University
    Education
    . National Theatre Drama School

    Nowadays in Australia, no-one is unemployable.

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    • #

      Thank you, h/t added to the post for handjive and yourself. Sorry, it should have been there. :- )

      50

    • #
      TdeF

      Well that explains it. National Drama School. Waiting for Global Warming. A Streetcar called Denier. Death of a Sceptic. To Kill a Monckton Bird. The CRUcible.

      100

      • #
        TdeF

        At the National Climate Drama School, you will soon get courses on applying the Stanislavski method to Climate. Damn the graphs and tables and science, be the warming, feel the artic ice melting. Emote with the poor Polar Bears. Be all the dying Barrier Reef you can be. The annual award will be the National Climate Drama School Hockey Stick.

        120

      • #
        RogueElement451

        Brilliant!
        Theme tune

        Its the end of the world as we know it.

        30

  • #
    Earl

    I experience most of these emotions when I listen to the ABC.
    Having cut the grass for the third time in a fortnight at my home in north east, I was relaxing, listening to the dulcet drivel of a young lady, when lo, a chappie from the BOM appeared.
    The guileless young lady suggested that it had indeed been a cooler than normal summer.
    Quick as a flash, the BOM chappie responded, ” The lack of high temperatures, especially the low number of days over 40o, the rain and the storms could indicate a cooler than normal summer, BUT, there have been a number of particularly warm nights that brought the average up to above normal.
    Thats when I experienced anger, as I ripped the radio plug from the wall, and swung the radio about my head by the cord, flinging it to the ground where I proceeded to jump upon it. Smashing it into many satisfactorily small pieces.
    It is then that I experienced grief and depression, as I came to realise I was not wearing shoes, having removed my work boots after mowing.
    As the nurse removed the shards of plastic and electronic components from my feet, she suggested that I consult a therapist for my violent mood swings.
    The session with the psychologist was most helpful, he advised me not to view the ABC as ripping the television from the wall and beating it to death may be painful and expensive.

    250

    • #
      Annie

      Which particularly warm nights? I live in North Central Vic and, for a hater of heat, I found a remarkable lack of need for fans or AC order to sleep this summer.

      40

    • #
      Annie

      BTW Earl…I trust you are recovered! I recommend using an axe to dismember an ABC drivel-spouting piece of equipment in future!

      10

      • #
        Earl

        Annie, I have have recovered and have now moved into a phase of acceptance.
        I now accept that any ABC employee has had the pre-requisite lobotomy and lacks any to capacity for reason or to form independent conclusions.
        My life is now a little better.

        80

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      A stock truck works well too. Just place the offending piece of apparatus in front of the rear wheels whilst the truck is being loaded. Load bulls on the truck for the best effect. When the truck drives off, the job has been done. Worked wonders with the mother-in-laws’ mobile phone.

      50

    • #
      john karajas

      Oh dear, Earl! I do sympathise. Many is the time that “Our ABC” has tempted me to smash up the television set. Especially when Flim Flam or Will Stefen are being interviewed.

      30

    • #
      mc

      thanks for that Earl, i just wasted a perfectly good coffee by spraying most of it out of my nose laughing.

      10

  • #
    manalive

    Reports like this causes steam to come out of my ears, I admit.
    I would have no objections, in fact would applaud, any person starting a business counselling people suffering ‘Climate Change™ grief’ but they would probably run into problems with the psychological practice legislation in the various states if they weren’t registered as a psychologist with the appropriate training and qualifications.
    It seems anyone can be employed in taxpayer funded higher education as long as they feature ‘Climate Change™’ in their résumé.

    50

    • #
      Gary in Erko

      Did you know that climate change is a determinant of how long we lie in bed after the alarm goes off in the morning? This is causing the loss of $millions of productive hours, not directly due to the extra lie in time, but because the rush to get to work afterwards generates excess anxiety. Where do I apply for the research funds for this innovative discovery.

      50

      • #
        Robert

        Did you know that climate change is a determinant of how long we lie in bed after the alarm goes off in the morning?

        And with a little creative editing and rearrangement we get:

        “Did you know that the prospect of hearing/seeing/being deluged with climate change articles and stories by the media is a detriment to getting out of bed in the morning?”

        I know there are days when I just want to stay there where it is quiet and I can temporarily escape the noisy nonsense that our media has become.

        Feel free to add that to your research proposal, though you may want to tell them you’re looking into how much hearing all that crap news makes a person look forward to getting up in the morning…

        40

  • #
    sophocles

    What if you lost, say, the Great Barrier Reef? No seriously, what if you woke up one morning and it was gone?

    So what? I’ve never met the Great Barrier Reef, we don’t know each other, we’ve never conversed, and, besides, I had nothing, zero, zilch, zip, nada, to do with it. But, given I woke up and it was morning, then it’s a pretty reasonable assumption the Sun had risen in the East—it might be unseen but it would still be there—just as it usually does, so it might not yet be The End of The World.

    If we asked them nicely, maybe the corals could make us a new one…?

    110

  • #
    Keith L

    I deny we have a climate and it makes me a bit depressed that I live in a vacuum.
    I have tried to purchase a climate but even though I am prepared to haggle for a good bargain it makes me angry that nobody will sell me one. I have called CIG, BOC and Air Liquide requesting a quote for 500 million billion tons of gas but they now no longer answer my phone calls or my emails.
    I guess I had better just accept that there never will be a climate.

    70

  • #
    Gary in Erko

    My comment on this on The Conversation –
    “We’re into stage three of the KR grief table for loss of warming. Initially there was complete denial, followed by anger at being reminded of the plateau. Bargaining followed, in negotiating over 50 proposals of where the lost warmth could be found if we had suitable gauges, until it was decided it’s in the deepest oceans. It’s taking quite a while to get to acceptance that it might not have been there to have gotten lost.”

    160

  • #
    bemused

    I’m grieving that it’s so bloody cold. It looks like the fire will have to go on early once again and probably stay lit for the next nine months.

    30

    • #
      Annie

      Same here…we’ve decided we need to bring in what we term ‘comfort wood’ for the stove for morning and evening.

      10

      • #
        bemused

        The carbon conversion facility has been activated and (localised) global warming has spread throughout the residence. The inhabitants, including two canines, appear willing to put up with the impending catastrophe.

        10

  • #
    MudCrab

    So, Grantham huh?

    Building in a flood risk area is now proof of Climate Change(tm)?

    20

    • #
      Bobl

      They’ll use anything. Grantham was the victim of a freak storm dumping a couple of hundred mm of rain over the Toowoomba range, after a particularly wet season had largely saturated the terrain along the way . The flood water originating at the top of a mountain ran 1 km down the escarpment gaining a huge amount of energy and then surged down the creek system, flooding the creeks. The water was moving so fast it created a “wave” as it flooded through the nearest communities, finally petering out a little east of where I live.

      This storm was a freak, it was so small that the BOM had even failed to notice it, but it dumped a LOT of water in a very short time, usually mountains are hard to flood, but there was so much water in such a short time that even Toowoomba at the top of the mountain flooded!

      Grantham had nothing to do with AGW and everything to do with one little tiny, but wet storm and fluid mechanics.

      30

  • #
    old farte

    Enough of the psychiatrist Kubler Ross’s On Death and Dying. Let’s expand the psychoanalysis to marriage counseling.

    The alpha-male movers and shakers in the political field wanted a transformation. So they seduced scientists, who were beta/ “females”. The alpha males were abusive, but they also lavished gifts on their conquerees, sort of professional “jewelry and furs, nice homes, first class travel and stays in 5-star hotels in wonderful locations…”.

    Alpha male scientists rejected the blandishments. Betas accepted them. They did the politicos’ bidding. This required denying real science, but they were more interested in “being taken care of”. The scientists were mistresses to the powerful politicos.

    So somebody should be studying the nature of abusive relationships. Abusees all to often fail to them. But ultimately those who do feel liberated, and do better in life afterwards than those who decide they can’t leave.

    40

  • #
    pat

    climate grief in the US of A:

    5 March: CNN: Ed Payne: 94 million Americans say: ‘Enough with winter, already’
    It’s not quite from sea to shining sea, but the latest winter storm gets an “A” for effort (or is that an “E”?).
    For its sheer size, this one is a monster, stretching from New Mexico to southern New England.
    If you’re keeping track on your maps at home, that’s 2,000 miles of snowy misery and 94 million people under some sort of winter weather warning, watch or advisory…
    “Enough,” cries a winter-weary nation…
    Enough of the sleet and ice in the Dallas area. More than 640 arrivals and departures were canceled at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Wednesday. Another 540 have been scrubbed for Thursday.
    “Dear Mr. Heat Miser, please reclaim Dallas from your obnoxious half brother Snow Miser,” tweets Dandy Killeen…
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/us/winter-weather/

    40

  • #
    ROM

    A long time ago when I was still a fine strapping Australian youngster or at least I hoped I appeared that way to the opposite sex, we had “Seasons” and “Weather” .

    Seasons were those times when it was always cold which every body called “Winter”.
    And then it changed midway through the last half of the year to a lot warmer days which we called “Spring”.
    And then it usually got a bit hot, sometimes quite hot for a couple of months which everybody called “Summer” and complained about the heat and the flies.
    And then some relief as it cooled down again in the first half of the new year and the weather was very pleasant for a few weeks and we called that “Autumn”.
    And then the cold arrived again and everybody rugged up and complained about the cold and the rain or the lack of rain and we had a new “Winter” all over again.

    While all that was happening we had cold days, hot days, bloody cold days and sometimes “real bloody hot days” and “real bloody cold days”.

    Sometimes we had rain and everybody said “bloody wet isn’t it”. And sometimes we didn’t have rain and everybody looked anxiously at the skies and said “bloody dry isn’t it”.
    And sometimes it rained that much that it got “bloody wet” we had “floods”.

    Or it stayed very dry and the crops and pastures died and we had a dreaded “Drought”.

    And we regularly tapped the thermometers and the barometers hanging on the wall and the wise old hands watched the sunrises and sunsets to see if they were red or just grey and then predicted hot or dry or wet and cold or any combination of for the next day or so.
    And we listened to the radio and then the TV often if you were male for the “weather girls” who were were reliably informed could usually tell us what weather we might experience tomorrow.

    And then we would look out of the window to see if they were right or not

    And we called it all “seasons” and “weather” and it ran and shaped our lives and we lived by those great swings and roundabouts of the “weather” and the “seasons” of those times before the long predicted and never seen “climate catastrophes”and “climate scientists” and “climate experts” popped up in ever increasing concentrations around the new and numerous tax payer funded sources

    Now today, we have El Ninos, La Ninas, La Nadas, PDO’s, AMO’s, NAO’s, IOD’s, SST’s, AAO’s, “Siberian expresses”, “Pineapple expresses” “Super storms” Record heat, cold periods, in fact very cold periods and getting colder that the experts and the climate scientists and the headline screeching media never even seem to know even exists outside of their A/C offices, Super cyclones, Supper hurricanes, Super typhoons and “climate change” and “global warming” and “extreme weather”, “acidifying oceans”, catastrophicly melting Arctic and Antarctic ice caps and many, many more very frightening predictions of imminent climate catastrophes that are predicted for centuries into the far future.

    In fact all those new and very dangerous thingies of the new climate science which we in our ignorance used to just call “hot” or “cold” or “stormy” or “windy” or “wet” or “dry” or “warm and pleasant” or “rough weather” or “pleasant weather”.

    Sadly for the latter, the climate scientists and climate experts have apparently decreed that the regular spells of “Calm, warm and pleasant” weather of my early years is now banned as a being a mere figment of my fevered imagination which I am not allowed to repeat because it could give the wrong impression about the predicted dangerous and catastrophic trend in our climate to the gullible public .

    And I grieve deeply for all that “weather” and those “seasons” we all use to have and often enjoy all those years ago and which we are told because the “science is now unchallengeable” is now a climate change catastrophe just waiting to happen when the climate modellers finally find the right knob to turn on their multitudinous latest, biggest and most expensive and ever so incompetent climate models.

    I miss those old meteorologists of the past times who usually knew more about tomorrow’s and next week’s weather than all the other “experts” and “climate experts” and “climate scientists” put together ever would learn in a life time.

    [ “expert”; An very ordinary person who is more than forty miles from home where the locals know that he is as dumb as horse s**t and hasn’t really got a clue.
    And if he has brief case under his arm he is a “consultant”.]

    Ah well one day I guess while I sit in those gentle natural warming rays of our old Sun I will be able to tell my grandkids those old time stories of the great myths we oldersters held in times long past when what we called “weather” and “seasons” was according to all those climate Experts and climate scientists such as Mann and Hansen and Holdren and Trenberth and Jones and many, many others, a truly catastrophic period when the Earth’s climate was well on it’s way to hell in a red hot climate basket.

    And it was all purely, solely and entirely our fault and our fault alone.

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    • #
      Gary in Erko

      “Now today, we have El Ninos, La Ninas, La Nadas, PDO’s, AMO’s, NAO’s, IOD’s, SST’s, AAO’s, “Siberian expresses”, “Pineapple expresses” “Super storms” Record heat, cold periods,… “

      And we sit inside a stable air conditioned box, while adding new terms and acronyms to describe elements of the seasons and weather we aren’t directly experiencing any more. We’ve lost sight in all this that climate is actually just a theoretical concept – it’s not a tangible object. It’s not 32mm of rain yesterday, or winds of 17 knots. “Climate” has definite uses but it really has no natural right to deserve consideration beyond those uses.

      90

    • #

      ROM you must be really old to remember a time before “climate”. This resident from Omeo in 1929 used the term

      http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/3994867

      That makes you at least 86 or maybe you just grew up in a place where technical terms like “climate” were known only to the boffins living in rural Victoria?

      33

      • #
        ROM

        Not that far off at 77 years old mid this year.

        And “Climate” was all around us.
        It was not some ill defined abstract invention of some of your so called modern day boffins that today seems to exist out there a long way removed from the surrounds of individuals and groups within the cities of western mankind.

        Climate was the description we gave for the entire suite of local weather that existed where we actually iived and worked and which governed our entire lives.

        Like “environment” today which is an abstract description of a supposed natural system that exists somewhere else other than where an environmentalist or media or citified person lives and which ” the environment” only begins some many kilometres outside of the fringes of the major cities.

        “The environment” is something that somebody else as in rural and country folk have to” look after” entirely at their own expense or get fined heavily if they don’t.

        For us old timers, “the environment” was” our environment”, the entire suite of every single surrounding and interacting natural set of systems including climate along with most of the artificial man made set of systems that we personally and collectively existed, worked and lived within.

        141

        • #
          Gee Aye

          you talk to some weird people ROM

          19

          • #
            ROM

            Gee Aye

            I gather then that anybody who does not think like you is somehow “weird”.

            Which tells me quite a lot about your character and your “respect” for others who view things differently to yourself.

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          • #

            Gee Aye
            1929 is far too recent. Most extreme climate change had ceased by then!
            Mid winter in Sydney 1803.
            “..the temperature of our climate permits many persons to go barefoot, in general without inconvenience from the weather,…”
            http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/626831

            1846 “climatology”
            “In a journey from lat. 29°30, en route by the Darling to the Murray, in the latter part of July and the month of August, I experienced only three or four insignificant flying showers, and on one occasion in the vicinity of Laidley’s Ponds travelled forty- three miles without obtaining surface water.” Bold mine
            http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12887081

            1823
            “We are at least exempted from the alternate droughts and floods, to one or other of which New South Wales is almost annually subject ; and which render its crops so uncertain, that, like those of a sugar plantation in the West Indies, it may be accounted to do well if one season out of three is productive.”
            http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1089948

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      David-of-Cooyal in Oz

      Good one ROM. As another old fart I also remember that homogenisation was introduced to make milk tastier, rather than to distort temperatures.
      Cheers,
      Dave B

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      LightningCamel

      I remember “school milk”, came in small bottles with foil tops, homogenised, pasteurised then left out on the school porch for an hour or two, no refrigerator to be seen, to mature the flavour. As a little kid growing up on a dairy farm I was never really convinced that this strange tasting watery stuff was the same as the real milk I had been drinking straight from the cow for years. A bit like the relationship between BOM temperature figures and the weather outside the window I suppose.

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        Mac551

        Shaking the bottle to mix the cream into the milk.
        Our school milk-stand was under a big shady oak.
        Though none of us needed it,most of the kids lived on dairy farms,I lived on a mixed grazing farm and we/I milked Bossy in the mornings.
        The fun of having half a dozen cats lined up waiting to get a squirt.

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          BruceC

          Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

          h/t; Monty Python

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    pat

    “climate grief” at Fairfax and The Guardian:

    5 March: SMH: Lisa Cox: Cut from a chapter to three pages: Intergenerational Report accused of ignoring climate change
    VIDEO Caption: Eyebrow raiser: could climate change be good?
    Greens leader Christine Milne, who is calling for the report to be rewritten by the independent parliamentary budget office, said on Thursday the government had “destroyed all credibility in the Intergenerational Report process by ignoring global warming”…
    Labor leader Bill Shorten pointed to assertions in the report that some economic effects of climate change “may be beneficial – where regions become warmer or wetter this may allow for increased agricultural output”.
    “Can the Prime Minister confirm that the government believes that climate change may be beneficial?” he said…
    “When it comes to climate change, this Intergenerational Report barely addresses challenges for this generation let alone the next,” Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said…
    The Australian Conservation Foundation said the report “pays lip service to the environment but it paints a future where Australia remains stuck with a fossil fuel-driven economy”…
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/cut-from-a-chapter-to-three-pages-intergenerational-report-accused-of-ignoring-climate-change-20150305-13w6fc.html

    5 March: Guardian: Lenore Taylor: Intergenerational report: climate change silence in 2015 a stark contrast to 2010
    This year’s IGR is mostly silent on the economic effects of climate change, which the 2010 report declared a ‘severe’ threat to the economy
    PHOTO CAPTION: Greens leader Christine Milne: ‘You can’t have true intergenerational reporting without examining global warming and pollution from fossil fuels.’
    And it says nothing about the costs of meeting the deeper post-2020 reduction targets Australia will have to sign on to later this year. Many observers, including the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, have suggested that the costs of using “direct action” to meet deeper long term targets could be prohibitive…
    The document does mention a “safeguards” mechanism, which could impose limits on industrial emissions, if the safeguards turn out to be tough enough to turn the scheme into what is effectively a baseline and credit emissions trading scheme. It is not at all clear that cabinet will agree to do this.
    It does say that some economic effects of climate change “may be beneficial…
    The Greens intend to move in the Senate to ask the independent parliamentary budget office to rewrite the report to restore the credibility of intergenerational reporting. The Greens also want to refer the report to the Senate budget cuts committee to examine its details and assumptions…
    John Connor, chief executive of The Climate Institute, said “when it comes to climate change, this intergenerational report barely addresses challenges for this generation let alone the next. It contains no projections of policy outcomes, no projections of the costs of climate impacts, and no recognition of the need to achieve a net zero emissions economy by mid-century.”
    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/05/intergenerational-report-climate-change-silence-in-2015-a-stark-contrast-to-2010

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  • #

    Celeste reminds me of a young puppy that my sister got one year. It was at the beginning of a long, dry summer in Perth during the 1980’s.

    The pup went absolutely bonkers at the age of about 6 months when it first rained.

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    john robertson

    How about Good Grief, people still believe in that dreck?
    How stupid does one have to be?

    If they are still banging on about the doom from the non existent manmade global warming, it is time to forgo ones scruples about abusing the helpless and sell ’em a whole bunch of “good stuff”.
    These self righteous nitwits are conspiring to destroy civilization as I know it, in an attempt to create an improvement in their own self image.
    They have not let up on this belly aching for decades, who can deny they demand attention?
    As one wit put it, when civilization falls due to mindless NIMBY ism, Eat your Greens.

    Time for a reservation for the too stupid to live in society.
    A nicely appointed enviro-Mentalist paradise totally dependent upon all their utopian dreaming..Carbon free Eh?
    Preferably in a nice remote spot where only the circling camera drones will record their deranged awakening….Check out Coats Island Hudson Bay Canada.
    This is only fair as in the delusions of the Cult, the Arctic is warming like no where on earth.

    CAGW is the logical result of protecting the naturally stupid from the consequences of their actions.

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    pat

    to our MSM and bodies such as The Australian Conservation Foundation who say the Intergenerational Report “paints a future where Australia remains stuck with a fossil fuel-driven economy”. wake up!

    according to a Greenpeace investigation –

    5 March: Guardian: Industry lobbyists weakened Europe’s air pollution rules, say Greenpeace
    Governments, including the UK, are allowing energy industry representatives to help draw up Europe’s air quality limits resulting in proposed standards on coal plant emissions that are weaker than China’s, claim the campaign group
    by Arthur Neslen and Rob Evans
    It found that out of 352 members of the technical working group, 183 are either employed by the companies that are being regulated, or by lobby groups that represent those companies.
    “Toxic emissions are killing thousands of people across Europe every year, but rather than clamp down on polluters, politicians are allowing them to prioritise profit over public health. People in the UK could now end up paying with their health for our government’s sell-out to the coal lobby on a vital issue like air quality,” said Lawrence Carter, a campaigner for Greenpeace.
    Documents released to the group under the freedom of information act show that the companies helped to formulate Britain’s position, which was adopted and submitted to the European negotiations two years ago.
    Five out of the UK’s nine-strong delegation in Brussels work for companies that are responsible for large-scale emissions, including coal power plant operators RWE, EDF and E.ON. The remaining members of the British delegation are civil servants…
    A UK government spokesman told the Guardian: “It is absolutely right that the working group includes representatives from industry as they are well positioned to advise on these very technical and complex matters. It is also right that UK civil servants represent stakeholder interests, including industry, in Europe.”…
    In its report published on Thursday, Greenpeace accuses the delegations from Britain, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, France and Spain of being the driving force behind the weakening of proposed controls.
    “Several of these countries are among the largest sources of coal-fired power plant pollution in Europe, causing significant health impacts and costs on their citizens and on the citizens of neighbouring countries,” the campaigners said…
    ***EU source: “China had quite ambitious plans but putting them into reality is another story.”…
    Industry groups say that the top 20 energy utilities have already lost €500bn since 2008 because of EU clean energy targets.
    “Looking at the potentially high number of power plants which we will still have to close and the very limited scope for investing in this area, I think it is logical that industry should have expressed a strong interest in keeping their ability to supply much-needed balancing power alive,” said Hans ten Berge, the secretary-general of Eurelectric, which represents Europe’s electricity companies…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/05/industry-lobbyists-weakened-europes-air-pollution-rules-say-greenpeace

    5 March: BusinessGreen: Will Nichols: Drax branches out into renewable heat market with wood pellet firm deal
    Yorkshire power giant acquires Billington Bioenergy to supply pellets as a green alternative to fossil fuel heating systems
    Drax has bought Billington Bioenergy (BBE), the UK’s second largest wood pellet distributor, as the power generator ramps up its move into the renewable heat market.
    The acquisition, for an undisclosed fee, will see Drax supply wood pellets through BBE to commercial and domestic customers as a low carbon alternative to fossil fuels such as heating oil, LPG, and solid fuels.
    Drax expects the UK market for wood pellets to grow five-fold from around 200,000 tonnes in 2013 to over a million tonnes by the end of the decade, supported by the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme, which offers payments to property owners fitting green heating technologies.
    “This is an exciting opportunity to help transform the UK heat market in the same way we have made the UK power market so much less dependent on high carbon fossil fuels,” said Dorothy Thompson, chief executive of Drax Group. “Biomass is a cost-effective, low carbon and dependable source of heat which homes and businesses can rely on.”…
    Last week, Drax sought to counter concerns over the environmental impact of its shift to biomass by publishing data on where it sources biomass alongside its annual report. The data confirmed none of the 4.1 million tonnes of wood pellets it burnt in 2014 came from tree stumps or virgin timber, with the ***majority*** sourced from sawmill residues and forest residues…
    http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2398094/drax-branches-out-to-renewable-heat-market-with-wood-pellet-firm-deal

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    pat

    Fiona apparently asks and answers the questions! excerpting my fave bits…

    4 March: ENSIA: Everything you always wanted to know about the UN climate talks but were afraid to ask
    Why 2015 could be the most important year ever for curbing climate change
    by Fiona Harvey, Award-winning environment journalist for the Guardian
    To help us all prepare for the potentially game-changing 21st gathering of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) in Paris beginning Nov. 30, Ensia is publishing a series of context pieces from longtime observer and reporter Fiona Harvey. This first installment answers some basic questions about the U.N. talks…
    Q. What legal form will an agreement take?
    A. We don’t yet know…
    Q. What does that mean?
    A. We don’t quite know that, either…
    Q. What if the talks collapse at Paris?
    A. That is likely to mark the effective end of international action on the climate coordinated by the U.N…
    Q. And after Paris?
    A. That is anybody’s guess…
    Q. What can go wrong?
    A. Lots…
    http://ensia.com/features/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-the-un-climate-talks-but-were-afraid-to-ask/

    About Us – Ensia: Ensia is a magazine showcasing environmental solutions in action. Powered by the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, we cover a broad spectrum of environment and sustainability issues, looking at the crossroads of sectors, disciplines, ideologies and geographies for new ideas to emerge.
    Our mission is to share environmental solutions and spark conversations that motivate, empower and inspire people to create a more sustainable future.

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    RB

    Love the Dorothy Dixer in the comments section for the Conversation artice.

    Celeste, thanks for this useful article, and the DABDA formula does have some application here. What I struggle with, however, is how useful it is for formulating community-wide responses when we seem to have large groups of people at each stage of the grieving process simultaneously. The proportions of people in each group will also vary dynamically over time. Do you have any suggestions about how we deal with that, please?

    Give ’em a cup of concrete and tell them to harden up (politely).

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    Sunray

    Thank you Jo, you are so strict, but I love it.

    10

  • #

    Added to the bottom of the post — my reply to Young.

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  • #
    DonS

    “The fantasy climate of her childhood dreams is evaporating.”

    I have been wondering about this for a while now. When did this “Goldie Locks” climate exist? With just the right temperatures, just the right number of cyclones, just the right amount of ice, just the right number of droughts and floods etc. From what I can tell it occurred at some time between about 1940 and 1970.

    Given that most academics and journalists come from what could be called comfortable middle class backgrounds I wonder if it is more than a coincidence that these people are more likely to “believe” in what used to be man made global warming but is now called man made climate change. Did the happy climate of their happy childhood in the 1960s and 1970s turn bad when the realities of adult life and responsibilities came crashing into their lives? There is some real ground for psychological study here I think.

    What I grieve for is the trashing of science and the scientific method perpetrated by the shonks of climate non-science/science fiction. We now regularly see surveys showing that a majority of people in western industrialised countries no longer trust what scientists say. Even though their wealth and standard of living is largely the result of the work of scientists over the past 400 years.

    Climate science has a lot to answer for and a reckoning is coming, I just hope I live long enough to see it.

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    • #
      sophocles

      … and the climate of those days was cooling! So much so, it was blamed on atmospheric nuclear testing and we had to ‘do something about it’ at once before we precipitated a new ‘ice age.’ So atmospheric testing went underground.

      Too late: the advent of all those soft-freeze ice-cream trucks cruising the suburban streets selling semi-frozen sugar to all the children, demonstrated the ease of advanced climate control. The ‘New Ice Age’ had arrived.

      All that hot air from the freezers heat exchangers, had by 1976, turned it into ‘Global Warming.’
      Those adults now were the children of then, so it must be all their fault.

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  • #
    J.H.

    Just more Ecofascism…. Now they say that if you do not subscribe to their propaganda, then you must be mentally ill….. The Soviet Union used to do the same thing to their dissidents.

    They can’t even be original in their despotic designs.

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  • #
    Ross

    Maybe Celeste show spare a few moments to think about this photo

    https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/australia-hottest-year-ever-update/

    Just to remind Celeste, today is March 6 !!

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    • #
      el gordo

      The ABC morning weather lady said its unusual to see it so warm in Brisbane and freezing in Tasmania at the same time.

      Presumably in their mindset it has something to do with global warming, but I’m calling it a regional cooling signal.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        I’d suggest this weather is the difference between a subtropical region and a cool southern temperate region, give or take 1,800kms but hey if the ABC “feels like” this is unusual then who are we to question progressive thinking?

        Maybe the missing heat is at the equator? 😉

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      • #
        Gary in Erko

        The weather lady expects everywhere to be above average.

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    JLC

    Is there a name for the stage of grief where you snigger at the dying person? That’s the stage of “climate grief” I’m at.

    60

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    Lawrie Ayres

    I would have thought “madness” would be in that list somewhere. What about “stupidity”? when you grieve over something that won’t happen.

    20

    • #
      Yonniestone

      That’d be Madness/Insanity, going over the same flawed hypothesis and expecting a different result each time.

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  • #
    Peter C

    What has happened to The Griss?

    20

  • #
    Stark Dickflüssig

    Which stage are we at when Al Gore demands a “happy ending”?

    20

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    Brute

    Just wanted to say that it is a good post, Jo. Thanks for putting the time into this sort of thing.

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  • #
    Alan Moorhouse

    Climate Grieving?

    Turning the last bar of the room heater off as you are not sure you can pay for it now the feed in tariffs have gone up?

    Putting some more dung on the fire to keep the hut warm in the African highlands since some people with green T-shirts stopped the electricity coming here even though the child’s breathing has deteriorated?

    Rioting at the news that the bread price has gone up as announced by a loudspeaker on a car running on biofuels?

    Lowering the rations again as the supply icebreaker has been diverted to rescue some “climate scientists” who have been locked in unprecedented sea ice and are craving peanut butter milkshakes?

    Out of breath as you run from the armed landclearers for another palm oil plantation in the jungle you have lived in all your life?

    Whimpering as you read that your private pension is being ripped off once again extending your working life for a few more years as your contemporary, a climate change officer, whizzes past in his new motor to his early retirement party?

    Turning the TV off because you are fed up of hearing lettered people on the screen misrepresent or omit documented facts in an attempt to scare you and your family into changing the efficiency of your life and supplying them with more funds to continue the charade.

    That kind of Climate Grieving?

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    Tim

    Unable to win over the masses by manipulating inexact climate science, they now try with the even more inexact science of psychology.

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    BULLDOG44

    Before it became Victoria University and was good old Footscray Tech, the students at least were taught subjects that were practical and related to the real world.

    If they are going to turn crap like this they should at least have kept Plumbing on the curriculum!

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    Barry Corke

    Imagine the grief for little Celeste if she’s ever required to find a real job in the real world.

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  • #
    Thomas The Tank Engine

    Best comment on The Conversation thus far:

    Brilliant piece of satire and very funny – not sure how it got past the gatekeepers. We are beginning to see the people making fun of the whole climate caper and this means people coming to their senses regarding the great climate fraud. One day a taut to the gullible will be ‘oh you believed in CACC’.

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    Sailor Bill

    Never argue with a stupid person, they are more adept in their own stupidity than intelligent folks can ever be.

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  • #

    “She adapts the famous Kubler Ross Five Stages of Grief (doesn’t everyone)”

    No. It’s unscientific.

    This is a much more accurate and useful model, and it happens to be science based:

    “Grief Doesn’t Come in Stages and It’s Not the Same for Everyone”

    The Kubler-Ross model is to grief what Briggs-Myers is to personality: rubbish.

    The above linked grief model is the Cadillac of understanding grief. It is like the “Five Factor Model” (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) of personality: useful and has predictive power.

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