Turnbull axes Lomborg Centre. No one who questions the holy power of Wind and Solar allowed in Australian academia.

Bjorn Lomborg, UWA, Bullying, Reason, Logic, UniversitiesThe Turnbull government has announced that that the offer of funding has now been withdrawn for the The Lomborg Consensus Centre in Australia. The bullies, and emotional hysterics win this round. At UWA he was called “dangerous”. At Flinders Uni people were “repulsed” by Lomborg . But the irrational emotional language means the fear of the freeloaders is on display. They are very very scared of critical press releases from any credible sources. No one who questions the holy power of the Wind and Solar Gods can be employed in Australian academia. Can wind-farms stop the storms? Thou shalt not ask!

We’ll spend $10 billion on “Clean Energy” but not even $4 million to analyze whether that money was well spent. Did it change the global climate? Anyone?

Lomborg accepts the establishment science, but even with a $4 million sweetener he is too threatening to the monoculture of Australian universities. Turnbull must know that Lomborg’s economic analysis would have awful news for the renewables industry and would show up the emissions trading scheme for the pointless waste of money that it is. This tells us exactly how much Turnbull cares about academic freedom, the Australian taxpayer and the environment.

Should we purge Australian universities of people with academic credentials lower than Lomborg?

Albert Parker writes to me to point out that Lomborg has 36 papers on scopus (not to mention bestselling books, and countless influential articles in places like The Wall St Journal).  If he’s not good enough for Australian academia nor are most of the the people who opposed him and questioned his credentials:

Dr. Frank Jotzo, climate economist at the Australian National University, claimed in The Guardian that the Copenhagen Consensus Center methodology “has no academic credibility” and pointed to fundamental flaws in the way the CCC assessed the impacts of climate change. On Scopus he’s published about same  papers of Lomborg (Jotzo,  Author ID: 6603207810, Documents: 38).

Professor Stuart Bunt, of the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, and vice president of the UWA Academic Staff Association, that told DeSmogBlog “Some very young applicants, for example to our own school, have better publication records than Lomborg”. But he himself has only published half as many papers as Lomborg. (Bunt, Stuart, UWA Author ID: 6603083320, Documents: 18).

Dr David Glance, the director of the Centre for Software Practice, told DeSmogBlog that “some academics wanted to know if it was too late to cancel the centre entirely”.  But Lomborg has published three times as many papers as he has.  (Glance, David George, UWA, Author ID: 36709716800, Documents: 11).

Amanda McKenzie, the CEO of the Climate Council, who said federal funding cuts to existing scientific bodies like the CSIRO made Dr Lomborg’s centre unjustifiable adding “This is about where taxpayer dollars go to” and “I would rather see taxpayer dollars go to the Bureau of Meteorology or the CSIRO, that has really authoritative science on climate change, rather than a snake oil salesman like Bjorn Lomborg.” McKenzie, Amanda is basically unknown on Scopus.  

Lizzy O’Shea, president of the UWA Students Guild, which led the fight against Dr Lomborg, warned other universities to also keep their distance. “I wouldn’t touch it,” she said. “I think the backlash that I’ve seen hasn’t just been from UWA staff and students, its been from people in the community who don’t want to see it anywhere.” Obviously, she is also unknown on Scopus.

9.1 out of 10 based on 95 ratings

139 comments to Turnbull axes Lomborg Centre. No one who questions the holy power of Wind and Solar allowed in Australian academia.

  • #
    pat

    even more horrendous than the Lomborg affair.

    reminders (links in jo’s “81 companies” thread):

    21 Oct: The Conversation: PM’s Prize for Science for revealing nature’s solar power
    Tim Dean, Editor, The Conversation interviews Graham Farquhar
    He is also interested in how plants are responding to climate change. In fact, he suggests that our carbon emissions have already changed agriculture.
    “My reckoning is that if we could get rid of all the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emitted since the industrial revolution, then agricultural productivity would drop by 15%,” he says…

    June 2013: Joannenova: Arid regions of the world are 11% greener, mostly thanks to CO2
    REFERENCE Donohue, R.J, Michael L. Roderick, Tim R. McVicar, ***Graham D. Farquhar. (2013) CO2 fertilisation has increased maximum foliage cover across the globe’s warm, arid environments. Geophysical Research Letters, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/grl.50563

    NOW NOTE CAREFULLY:

    21 Oct: ABC The World Today: Distinguished photosynthesis professor takes Prime Minister’s Prize for Science
    KIM LANDERS: I spoke to professor Farquhar earlier and began by asking if his win had caught him by surprise.
    GRAHAM FARQUHAR: It certainly did because I was asleep in Glasgow when the chief scientist rang, thinking it was in the middle of my day, so that was a real surprise, when Ian Chubb rang.
    ***These days you have to sign a form that says you agree to be nominated, but it was quite a long time ago and I’d forgotten about it totally.
    KIM LANDERS: So you’ve won a prize that you’d actually forgotten that you’d been nominated for, what does it mean to you to win?
    GRAHAM FARQUHAR: It’s a mixture of emotions: happiness and pride and all that sort of thing…
    KIM LANDERS: Your work is focused on the world’s most important biological reaction, photosynthesis.
    ***How can your research apply to a world facing climate change?…
    KIM LANDERS: I understand your work has also shed a little bit of light on a ***climate mystery, as it’s being described, that life under climate change may be wetter than we expected. How so?
    GRAHAM FARQUHAR: There’s general agreement that it’s not actually very controversial that there should be about a 2 per cent increase in precipitation, globally averaged, per degree of warming.
    ***That’s in the reports, all the reports really of the intergovernmental panel on climate change…
    http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4335904.htm

    not a hint about Farquhar’s findings on the benefits of CO2 emissions.

    TO BE CONTINUED.

    170

    • #
      Bulldust

      Lomborg has a (paywalled) piece in The Australian today on the painful cost of solar and wind power:

      http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/counting-the-cost-of-wind-and-solar/story-fni1hfs5-1227578977109

      Thought this should be near the top.

      I given myself a star for being on topic for a change 😀

      90

      • #
        Bulldust

        Just read the article from the hardcopy. Lomborg dissects the real costs of solar and wind, and illustrates all the inefficiences that result. At the end he explains that if all the promised solar and wind projects go ahead it will cost teh world $2.5 trillion resulting in a whopping 0.0175C temperature difference at the end of the century…

        41

      • #
        Bob Malloy

        I linked to this early this morning, although it should have been obvious it didn’t register that it would be behind a paywall as I subscribe to the Aus and it just opened when I clicked on the link in a email.

        Apologies to all that could not read because of the paywall. Jo is there any chance the Aus would let you reprint the article in full,

        I think Tony would appreciate the parallels between this article and all his post over the last couple of years.

        30

  • #
    pat

    having established on ABC’s The World Today that the choice of Graham Farquhar as the recipient of the PM’s science prize had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Malcolm Turnbull:

    to The Guardian, it’s all about Malcolm…and the politicising of CAGW. NOTHING WHATSOEVER about Farquhar’s findings on the benefits of CO2 emissions:

    22 Oct: Guardian: Oliver Milman: Malcolm Turnbull promises to put science at the heart of Australia’s agenda
    Turnbull earned a standing ovation at a celebratory dinner in Canberra on Wednesday when he handed out the prime minister’s prizes for science
    The prime minister said he wanted to build an ***ecosystem in schools and universities that cherishes science – and provoked a standing ovation. It was a far warmer response from the assembled scientists than the “desultory applause” that Tony Abbott complained of receiving at the same event last year…
    Farquhar said he raised a “plea for the depoliticalisation” of climate science with Turnbull and got a positive response.
    “He was quick to take my meaning and agree,” he told Guardian Australia.
    ***“I’m a bit allergic to statements like ‘I believe in climate science’ or ‘I don’t believe in climate science.’ Those are scientifically weird statements to make. You have to respect the scientific method.
    “I was encouraged by what [Turnbull said]. I have never seen a standing ovation like that. The interaction raised expectations that there will be some investment in science.”
    Farquhar said he is concerned at the dumbing down of the teaching of mathematics in Australia and said more work needed to be done to convey the euphoria of scientific discovery to young people…
    The Coalition has endured a patchy relationship with scientists since it came to power in 2013…
    *** And the government’s commitment to climate science has been questioned after Abbott tried, and failed, to investigate the Bureau of Meteorology’s data gathering…
    http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/22/malcolm-turnbull-promises-to-put-science-at-the-heart-of-australias-agenda

    121

  • #
    pat

    for ABC, it’s all about Malcolm, a “mystery” that isn’t a “mystery” and NOTHING WHATSOEVER about Farquhar’s findings on the benefits of CO2 emissions:

    21 Oct: ABC: Professor Graham Farquhar from ANU wins Prime Minister’s Prize for Science for photosynthesis modelling
    An ANU scientist who counts among his achievements improving water efficiency in crops and unravelling a mystery about how rain levels react to climate change has won the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science…
    In addressing the awards ceremony, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull highlighted the need for great science educators.
    “We need great teachers, not just at the universities, not just for doctoral students, but in primary schools and secondary schools,” he said.
    “Those great teachers change people’s lives and in doing so they can change the destiny of a nation.”
    Mr Chubb said the new Prime Minister’s emphasis on science and innovation was reflected in the awards and had positive implications for the science community.
    “People respond very well to a vision, they want to have a debate what’s in the vision at some point, but they want one,” he said…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-21/anu-scientist-wins-top-gong-at-pm-science-awards/6873762

    for Fairfax, ignorance of the IPCC reports about rainfall, which is merely an opportunity to insert “Climate Change” (CAGW) as a fact and NOTHING WHATSOEVER about Farquhar’s findings on the benefits of CO2 emissions:

    21 Oct: SMH: Emma Macdonald: Global stilling wins PM’s top science prize for ANU Professor Farquhar
    Professor Graham Farquhar, who began his undergraduate science degree at the ANU 48 years ago, has pioneered research into slowing wind speeds and subsequently lower evaporation rates around the world – providing evidence that life under climate change may be wetter than ***we had planned for.
    His area of expertise, in photosynthesis, meanwhile, has led him to investigate what may be the fastest growing trees in a high carbon dioxide environment – providing a potential boost to carbon capture through forestry – and allowed him to develop water-efficient wheat varieties…
    http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/global-stilling-wins-pms-top-science-prize-for-anus-professor-farquhar-20151020-gkeakp.html

    60

    • #
      Andrew

      LOL, I looked at the last link you posted and said “he’s a professor of WHAT??” Had to read it twice.

      40

      • #

        Andrew, Graham Farquhar did start off investigating Evaporation and wrote some papers with Michael Roderick about evaporation and water cycles which questioned Climate models (Roderick et al Geography Compass 3/2 2009, Roderick et al Hydrol. earth syst Sci 18 2014)
        You know the supposed multiplier higher temp more humidity higher greenhouse – well Roderick & Farquhar found lower pan evaporation. Dr Roderick was moved out of that research area as it questioned climate models.

        110

        • #

          Dr Roderick was moved out of that research area as it questioned climate models.

          Really? Do you have evidence for that? Evidence that his research or his efforts to get funding were not encouraged or differentially treated in any way? I’ll give Michael a call as he’s never said this to me before.

          and anyone else can look at his recent publications to see if he has “moved out” of anything. Moved on maybe.

          https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/roderick-ml

          16

  • #
    pat

    unbelievable!

    20 Oct: TalkRadioNews: James Cullum: John Kerry: Climate Deniers Should Be Disqualified From High Public Service
    Kerry made the statement at the kickoff of his Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum
    Climate change deniers do not deserve to serve in high public office, Secretary of State John Kerry said at the kickoff of his Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum in Washington on Wednesday…
    Kerry also said that Americans favor doing something about climate change.
    “But when I hear a United States senator say, ‘I’m not a scientist so I can’t make a judgment,’ or a candidate for president for that matter, I’m absolutely astounded. I mean, it’s incomprehensible that a grownup who has been to high school and college in the United States of America disqualifies themselves because they’re not a scientist when they’ve learned that the Earth rotates on its axis but they’re not a scientist; where they’ve learned that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and it does so 24 hours a day; and you can run the list of things that we know science tells us happens, and we accept it every single day.
    “And to suggest that when more than 6,000-plus peer-reviewed studies of the world’s best scientists all lay out that this is happening and mankind is contributing to it, it seems to me that they disqualify themselves fundamentally from high public office with those kinds of statements,” he said.
    Kerry said that the clean energy choices are “staring us in the face.”
    http://www.talkradionews.com/state-department/2015/10/20/kerry-climate-deniers-should-be-disqualified-from-high-public-service.html

    110

    • #
      TdeF

      Not very smart, John Kerry. Great hair. A male platinum blonde. Nice counterpoint to Obama. Style matters.

      Kerry has only demonstrated that he believes everything he is told, which is nice because he can ask what country he is in and what to say. His profound science from high school is that the earth rotates and that there are 24 hours in every day? It would be better if he kept quiet about science.

      311

      • #
        Rollo

        Tdef you have overlooked that John Kerry is an expert in Newtonian physics and it’s application to climate.

        “When an apple falls from a tree, it will drop toward the ground. We know that because of the basic laws of physics,” he said in a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “Science tells us that gravity exists, and no one disputes that.”

        “So when science tells us that our climate is changing and humans beings are largely causing that change, by what right do people stand up and just say, ‘Well, I dispute that’ or ‘I deny that elementary truth?’ ”

        291

        • #
          Michael Harris

          Yes this was particularly annoying. A silly clueless person trying to sound serious and scientific. Maybe if he just eat the apple… he might gain some knowledge.

          30

      • #
        Glen Michel

        Why the long face John?

        60

      • #
        gai

        In the USA Kerry is known as Swift Boat Kerry — The book To Set the Record Straight is the inside story of how an ad hoc collection of veterans and activists overcame their opponents’ efforts to silence and marginalize them, and delivered the explosive truth about John Kerry’s past to the public.”

        110

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          An appalling story Gai.

          It says so much about the level at which society operates at the moment.

          There is no real contact with reality for most people so they lack the skills to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

          As a kid I spent many years on Saturday afternoons at the movies. Three hours every Saturday until I turned 13.

          We could separate the movies from reality.

          Currently many watch ten times that every week on TV and listen to radio gibberish in their “spare time”.

          There are slick answers for all societies major issues; Climate Change guilt being one.

          People without scientific discipline are just unable to think that they are being drawn along in a dream that can be easily manipulated

          by others.

          The modern world is a manipulators paradise and is not going to change soon.

          KK

          91

      • #
        William

        It amused me after the Leftist MSM had portrayed Kerry as the academic and Bush as a dim yokel who only went there because of his father, that Bush earned better grades at Yale than Kerry.

        50

      • #
        Angry

        “John Kerry”, an Airhead and a vacuous Imbecile….

        20

  • #

    “This tells us exactly how much Turnbull cares about academic freedom”

    How does having the Prime Minister’s Office telling Universities who they must hire if they want funding enhance academic freedom?

    Lomborg was a captain’s pick. His captain has been replaced.

    452

    • #
      Ken Stewart

      How does telling Universities who they CAN’T hire enhance academic freedom?

      480

    • #
      el gordo

      ‘Lomborg was a captain’s pick.’

      It was a bad call, Lomborg is only a charming lukewarmer.

      If the monk had said I’m going to set up a new climate center and offered the top job to Bob Carter, I would have been a better outcome.

      321

    • #
      ianl8888

      His captain has been replaced

      It’s called a coup, Stokes. Get your nomenclature right, thank you

      201

      • #

        “It’s called a coup, Stokes.”
        Abbott replaced Turnbull. Turnbull replaced Abbott. It happens.

        431

        • #
          AndyG55

          Can I ask who pays you Nick ?

          Are you game enough to divulge that information ?

          112

          • #
            AndyG55

            I take the red thumb as a big, “No, I’m not telling you” 🙂

            Swill at that trough dude.. while the going I good. 😉

            152

          • #
            ralph ellis

            Nick Stokes spends a lot of time on WUWT too.
            Sounds like a full-time job to me.

            30

          • #
            AndyG55

            Pretty sure he’s spending this government paid time somewhere in CSIRO, Melbourne.

            That’s why he has so much time for posting… rather than doing the work he is paid to do…

            … or maybe this IS the work he is paid to do 😉

            Care to confirm or deny, Nick ?

            31

            • #
              AndyG55

              So… with his manic postings trying vainly to support the climate change farce…

              either he is not doing the work he is paid to do..

              or..

              he is doing the work he is paid to do.

              31

              • #
                ExWarmist

                No – he is doing the work that he is paid to do, but like a typical bureaucratic drone he is hopeless at it.

                40

        • #
          John B

          Stick to trolling at your usual sites Nick.

          122

    • #
      Glen Michel

      Pass the Mortein.

      101

    • #
      Random Comment

      Offering $4m to UWA (and then Flinders) to work with Lomborg may have been characterised as a ‘captain’s pick’ of former PM Abbott. However, interestingly, one should also note that the withdrawal of the funding by the former education minister Pyne, in the days following PM Turnbull winning leadership of the parliamentary Liberal party but prior to the new cabinet being announced, was either: (i) questionable behaviour by a minister acting against the wishes of the Prime Minister’s Office (given it was apparently the PMO under Abbott which pushed the consensus centre funding initiative in the first place); or, (ii) the first ‘captain’s pick’ of new PM Turnbull as the decision was not taken to cabinet or the party room.

      00

  • #
    pat

    for precise wording, see below:

    20 Oct: US Dept of State: Remarks at the Opening Session of the Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum
    SECRETARY KERRY: …Now, I am well aware that I am speaking to an audience of experts. None of you need to be converted, and none of you, I am sure, probably need to be exhorted, though exhort you I will…
    So it’s becoming even more clear with every record-breaking drought, every record-breaking flood, every hottest month ever announcement, or every year – hottest year that we live through, with every peer-reviewed study that details the catastrophe that climate change could unleash and, frankly, that we’re seeing already in certain places. The canary in the ***gold mine – in the coal mine indicators, which are many in various parts of the world, particularly the Arctic, Antarctic, and in some other places – they all begin to detail the catastrophe that climate change has the potential to unleash…
    Year after year, the science has been screaming at us…The past decade was the hottest on record; the one before that, the second-hottest on record; the one before that, the third-hottest on record. Nineteen of the 20 hottest years in history have occurred in the past two decades.
    Now someone who is younger than 29 years old today – 29 or younger – has not lived through a single month cooler than its 20th century average…
    Google, as cosponsor of this forum, is today announcing its investment in the Lake Turkana wind project in Kenya…
    MS (ANDREA) MITCHELL: — Republican candidates are not only silent on the subject, they are climate deniers. And even candidates who led the way in 2008, the nominee, is now silent on the subject because of Tea Party challenges to himself and to others…
    ***SECRETARY KERRY: But when I hear a United States senator say, “I’m not a scientist so I can’t make a judgment,” or a candidate for president for that matter, I’m absolutely astounded. I mean, it’s incomprehensible that a grownup who has been to high school and college in the United States of America disqualifies themselves because they’re not a scientist when they’ve learned that the Earth rotates on its axis but they’re not a scientist; where they’ve learned that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and it does so 24 hours a day; and you can run the list of things that we know science tells us happens, and we accept it every single day. And to suggest that when more than 6,000-plus peer-reviewed studies of the world’s best scientists all lay out that this is happening and mankind is contributing to it, it seems to me that they disqualify themselves fundamentally from high public office with those kinds of statements. And I think the American people will decide that this year, because the American people are overwhelmingly in favor of doing something about climate change…
    http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/10/248375.htm

    70

    • #
      Peter Miller

      Kerry is undoubtedly the most gullible Secretary of State the USA has had in many a long year.

      The evidence?

      The rings run around him by the Russians in Syria.

      The nuclear deal with the Iranians, which the latter celebrated by firing a new, nuclear capable, ballistic missile.

      The garbage he spouts on supposed global warming.

      But the biggest question of all is: “Does he wear a wig, and if he does, can he be trusted?”

      230

  • #
    pat

    InvestInClimate.org: Secretary’s climate and clean energy investment Forum
    Catalyzing climate solutions
    October 20 – 21, 2015
    Washington, D.C. – Watch Live
    Day 1 – October 20
    U.S. Department of State
    Evening event hosted by Google
    Day 2 – October 21
    McDonough School of Business
    Georgetown University
    Featured Speakers ETC ETC
    Agenda:
    Opening Session Moderated by Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent
    6pm Day 1: GOOGLE RECEPTION FEATURING GLOBAL INNOVATION LAB FOR CLIMATE FINANCE
    *By separate invitation only
    http://investinclimate.org/

    30

  • #
    handjive

    SMH, today: The Pause is an illusion (old jedi mind trick):

    “If there is one chart that might finally put to rest debate of a pause or “hiatus” in global warming, this chart created by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just supplied it.

    Never mind that US government scientists found the hiatus was an illusion because the oceans had absorbed most of the extra heat that satellites could tell the Earth was trapping.”

    Or not …

    “This one (El Niño) could end the hiatus,” said Wenju Cai, a principal research scientist specialising in El Nino modelling at the CSIRO.
    . . .
    > To Summarise: the pause, or hiatus, which is actually an illusion that never happened, could end because of El Niño?

    Phew. That is one convoluted thesis of 97% settled science.

    > WMO Demolish NOAA/NASA Claims Of Hottest Year

    If anybody is still in any doubt that it is UNSCIENTIFIC to make claims about hottest years, without taking into account error bars, I would advise what the WMO had to say on the issue in their report on global temperatures for 2006:

    “All temperature values have uncertainties, which arise mainly from gaps in data coverage.

    The size of the uncertainties is such that the global average temperature for 2006 is statistically indistinguishable from, and could be anywhere between, the first and the eighth warmest year on record.”

    80

    • #
      AndyG55

      “This one (El Niño) could end the hiatus,” ”

      roflmao.

      Where is the El Nino peak this time? It hasn’t happened.
      (ignoring Gavin’s fabrications of course)

      Seems it is missing in action.

      So sad to see people with once-functional minds relying so much on natural events to rescue their brain-washing. 🙂

      Even if there is a peak…. watch out for the rebound dip.

      With the current low solar energy, that dip will probably be a really big drop.

      112

      • #
        gai

        Yes, everyone forgets an El Niño is the discharge phase of the ‘capacitor’ known as the Pacific Ocean. The only reason other recent El Niños did not cause a major dip afterwards is because the recharge was from a sun in ‘Grand Solar Maximum’ mode. This time the sun is coming off a weak solar maximum with less short wavelength energy to recharge the ‘capacitor’

        http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/

        http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/science/Solar%20Irradiance.html

        The blue curve is the solar wavelengths that recharge the oceans.

        http://lasp.colorado.edu/media/projects/SORCE/images/news_images/SORCEchart5.png

        According to NASA MUV (200-300 nm) changes by 1%. Unfortunately Vis and IR wavelengths are lumped together.

        The SIM measured solar spectral irradiance variations from the 2004 to 2008, the descending phase of solar cycle 23 shows:
        2% decrease in UV energy at 250 to 300 nm
        0.2% increase in visible energy at 600 to 700

        SIM’s measurements are out of phase with solar activity at all wavelengths longer than 400 nm, and in phase with solar activity at all shorter wavelengths. However “Previous models were ambiguous regarding the 400-600 nm behavior with active regions passage.”

        So the changes in the critical wavelengths of 400 to 600 nm seem to be ‘missing in action’ in the literature. Or the changes are zero. Or they are not about to tell us. (This is part of the Judith Lean dust-up.)

        120

  • #
    Egor TheOne

    CAGW / CACC is flogged more than any other subject !

    It’s become a dissenter’s not allowed club , full of thieves using any ridiculous excuse to dive into the taxpayer’s sucker fund .

    What’s happened to the scientific search for truth ……

    What we have is the search for funds from our useless poltical freeloaders to doomsday floggers , with the Paris spectre hajj to cement this global fraud, only weeks away .

    Garbage treaties to be signed in political appeaser haste that will be of benefit to undesirables of which there are many.

    Amazing how so many think its a good idea , but only if others pay .

    The Marxists are winning , because too many are complacent. …..sheep thinking the wolves are friendly .

    The fleecing has already begun !

    190

  • #
    pat

    ANSWERING QUESTIONS FROM NBC’S ANDREA MITCHELL AT BOTTOM:

    MR (JEREMY) GRANTHAM: And I have less career risk than my colleagues sitting with me and probably any of you, and therefore I’m a good person to try and rouse the rabble. Secretary Kerry said that you didn’t need converting, but I wonder if there’s anyone here who feels he couldn’t be a little more outspoken on this issue, which is existential – it will determine the success of our stable society or not. I wonder if there’s anyone here who couldn’t do a better job and speak out a little more.
    And let me just give credit to the enemy, the obfuscators. They are much better at speaking out. They have people like Richard Lindzen, the infamous professor at MIT who supported tobacco as doing no harm and now supports fossil fuels as being healthy. We have Viscount Ridley and what I call the looney lords in England who – even yesterday, he had a new article in The Telegraph saying that there was no such thing as carbon dioxide, it was good for you. We have the Koch brothers and the Cato Institutes – they do a very good job at obfuscation. They speak out all the time. And we’re not so good; our climate scientists are too nervous protecting the dignity of the science – we have a Jim Hansen here and somebody over there. But in general, they don’t. I have yet to meet a climate scientist who doesn’t think the situation is much worse than is generally understood and that it’s accelerating. We have politicians – one here, thank heavens, Secretary Kerry, and one there – but in general, much more silent than they need to be.
    A quick word on Trudeau: Hallelujah. Canada, who used to be good, was captured by Alberta and the fossil industry, and unexpectedly, the Albertan fossil fuelers were thrown out by liberals and now we have a much greener unexpected prime minister.
    We have the odd mayor of great cities here and there. They’re not actually bad at all, but – a Bloomberg here and someone over there – but not enough. The pension plans – no direct ownership yet of wind or solar. Where are they? We have a CalPERS here and someone over there, but not too many. They’re not pulling their weight. Corporate offices – we have a Unilever here and let me think – yes, one or two.
    If you get it, you have to state it loudly and clearly and often, or we will fail. University presidents – well, not yet, present company excepted – but we have high hopes that someone soon will get it and speak out and set a good example. We have a Pope here and there – well, there’s only one Pope, but – (laughter) – and thank heavens for Pope Francis. That’s career risk. He knew he was going to get hammered and he still did it. We have a Bank of England governor here and there. I mean, what an achievement that was for him to speak out and say what he did about the climate…
    http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/10/248375.htm

    52

  • #

    Flinders had not finalised their decision. Flinders VC Colin Stirling

    … disappointed that the federal government has chosen to withdraw funding for a possible high-level research collaboration with the Copenhagen Consensus Centre.

    93

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      Bjorn Lomborg and the CCC challenge the idea that there is a benefit in spending money on such nonsense as windmills.
      The British experience, expressed in the hard currency of numbers, illustrates that there is no logical case for windmills at all.

      60

  • #
    pat

    21 Oct: US Dept of State: Commitments at the Secretary’s Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum
    The State Department is pleased to announce several important commitments made at the Secretary’s Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum on October 20-21.
    The two-day Forum convened investors, corporations, philanthropies, and policymakers to discuss and promote the impact that climate and clean energy investments can have in the fight against global climate change. It also provided a platform for both the private sector and U.S. Government programs and initiatives to highlight successful efforts to channel investments toward climate solutions.
    Several organizations announced important new investments or commitments to the sector.
    READ FOR DETAILS
    http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2015/10/248412.htm

    30

  • #
    Stephan

    Headline is a mistruth. Lomborg is still free to try and convince an Australian university to trash its reputation housing his pseudo-analytical ‘institute’. Nothing has been banned.

    He’ll just have to do it without relying on the taxpayer’s teat.

    144

    • #
      manalive

      He’ll just have to do it without relying on the taxpayer’s teat …

      Quite so like Jo, like all prominent skeptics, he is already lavishly funded by Big Carbon, a few addition millions should be no problem.

      270

    • #
      Dave

      Maybe

      Headline:

      Flannery heads new climate body

      And he could get Professor Will Steffen & Professor Lesley Hughes to help!
      They could call it the “Climate Commission”

      Then order really expensive Carbon Neutral Coffee Machines for everyone

      Problem solved eh Stephan?

      210

    • #
      AndyG55

      “He’ll just have to do it without relying on the taxpayer’s teat”

      You mean like ALL the alarmist climate non-scientists.

      Name me ONE that is NOT on the public teat !!!

      281

    • #
      Radical Rodent

      “Mistruth”, eh? Curious choice of word. What is there in the headline that is not true? This is one of the tenets of debate, Stephan; you cannot just say, “That is wrong,” without having some evidence or argument to support that claim. I have observed you for some time, and, while the responses of others have been less than exemplary, it is easy to see why they can be so unpleasant; you are not arguing, you are just denying.

      Have a look, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNkjDuSVXiE

      111

    • #
      Egor TheOne

      Keep Flogging Stephan …….

      Your dead horse might do a Lazarus !

      The Facts ……Something Stephan you are obviously unaccustomed to >
      https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/clip_image002_thumb1.jpg?w=597&h=279

      10

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Forget Lomborg

    I like el Gordo’s idea.

    A climate Institute with Bob Carter as head.

    121

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    The Lomborg post was to be about 4 million a year.

    From the previous post our commitment to the unipcccc will be about 15 billion a year or about $700 per man woman and child in the formerly democratic commonwealth of Australia.

    When we officially become a state of the u n after the signing in December in Paris our taxes to the u n will be about the same annually as the interest on our (your) national debt.

    Looks like being a bleak Christmas this year.

    KK

    161

  • #
    ivan

    It is interesting that not long after the coup Turnbull starts paying the Danegeld to his masters at the UN. They must be really worried that the Paris jamboree will be a failure if they are tightening the screws on their puppets so soon.

    140

  • #
    • #
      KinkyKeith

      No wonder politicians want him as far away as possible.

      He could interfere with their scam of entraining the voting population with CAGW.

      The greatest moral imperative of our time.

      KK

      100

    • #
      Phil R

      I liked this quote from the article.

      There is something profoundly iniquitous about us meeting the world’s poor and hungry, whose kids lack good schools and are dying from easily curable diseases, in neighborhoods without clean water and sanitation – and we then give them a solar panel.

      150

    • #
      gai

      WOW, he really lit into Cameron didn’t he? To bad they will do their best to muzzle the guy.

      60

  • #
    pat

    the only thing more amusing than the CAGW zealots embracing the Pope is when they embrace the military establishment and the Murdoch press (WSJ):

    22 Oct: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Fight climate change for global stability, say US defence and diplomacy elite
    Full-page newspaper advertisement by ex-military and foreign policy leaders is aimed at Republicans who want to block action on cutting carbon emissions
    Nearly 50 leaders of America’s defence and foreign policy establishment are calling on political and business leaders to “think past tomorrow” and lead the fight on climate change.
    In a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal the ***experts – 48 former secretaries of state and defense, national security advisers, diplomats and members of Congress from both parties – say it is time for America to claim global leadership on climate change…
    The letter, endorsed by Madeline Albright, secretary of state under Bill Clinton; Chuck Hagel, secretary of defense under Obama; George Shultz, secretary of state under Ronald Reagan; James Woolsey, CIA director under Clinton; and other prominent retired officials, declares that climate change is indeed a security threat…
    Many of the 48 had made previous such appeals.
    The security establishment has long recognised the threat posed by climate change…
    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/22/fight-climate-change-for-global-stability-says-us-defence-and-diplomacy-leaders

    50

  • #
    pat

    another bunch getting in on the act:

    22 Oct: Australian: Grant Ross: Doctors have no magic cure for climate change
    (Grant Ross is a medical practitioner and a senior registrar of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.)
    On Monday the Royal Australian College of Physicians held a Global Day of Climate Action to pressure world governments into enacting policies on CO2 emissions. This is part of a broader presence with other medical org­anisations at a UN climate change meeting as an organisation known as Doctors for Climate ­Action.
    This is a perfect opportunity to question the appropriateness of fragmented and largely isolated doctors’ groups expending their resources on what are ultimately, political activities — not in the interests of the profession.
    Including the official stamps and logos of 50 other medical organisations, the Doctors for Climate Action consensus statement references a “second report of the Lancet Commission on Climate Change and Health” released in June and remarks on “the wealth of available evidence” in making its argument to pressure countries to “commit to meaningful and urgent action to combat the adverse health impacts of climate change”.
    Yet the consensus statement does not extrapolate on any particular policy, offer any detail on the extent of mitigation suggested or account for the particular empirical gains and losses of any proposed action. There is simply no detail whatsoever…
    Although highly trained, medical practitioners are, by and large, unqualified in the area of climate science…
    These organisations are not democratically representative of doctors and they know no more about the solutions to climate change than anybody else.
    Make no mistake, they are abusing their statutory powers of automatic power over doctors to pursue a political agenda. They are not representative of ordinary doctors…
    With such tenuous claims to truly represent all doctors, it is irresponsible that doctors’ groups have taken polemic positions on climate change and abused the budgets entrusted to them to pursue a political agenda…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/doctors-have-no-magic-cure-for-climate-change/story-e6frg6zo-1227577529870

    70

    • #
      Len

      Most of these people don’t have doctorates but double pass bachelor degrees. The French use the term Medecins sans Frontieres. There is a Master of Medicine (MMed) and the actual Doctor of Medicine. Both post graduate courses
      Those with MDs (Not the American form) most often are addressed by their first names whilst those without doctorates often demand to be called “Doctor”.

      50

    • #
      David Maddison

      These medical “doctors” ought to keep to their area of expertise. I also resent calling someone who usually has a double bachelor degree “doctor”.

      AMA says climate change is a serious threat to Australians’ health

      http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2015/04/30/4226722.htm

      40

    • #
      Angry

      You would think that a Doctor who have a higher IQ than to be sucked into this ludcrious global warming scam that defies basic critical thinking and reasoning.

      I certainly would not have any confidence in one that was so stupid as to believe in this nonsense !

      20

  • #
    Random Comment

    I just don’t understand what Lomborg’s proposed consensus centre has to do with climate science. The whole drama is political and has nothing to do with science whatsoever.

    70

    • #
      AndyG55

      Ummmm.. climate science IS political… Its certainly NOT science!!!

      122

      • #
        Random Comment

        But (I thought) the consensus centre was to research resource allocation in a public finance context.

        50

    • #
      el gordo

      Lomborg’s main argument is that serious money is being squandered by governments on climate change policy while people perish from malnutrition and disease.

      He was never going to be stationed here, it was just a political stunt which backfired.

      80

  • #
    a happy little debunker

    Politically, this decision was made only after Abbott was spilled but before Turnbull had announced his re-shuffle.

    Chris Pyne has implemented a decision without the party-room’s approval.

    This suggests that either Pyne acted outside his party’s stated policies or Malcolm had already made a ‘captain’s call’.

    Given the Member for Wentworth’s history on Climate Change this decision (without party room approval) further suggests the fix is in.

    170

    • #
      el gordo

      Malcolm would have chatted to Pyne about this Lomborg thorn and how to get rid of it. The answer was simple and Christopher got a terrific portfolio in the reshuffle.

      100

  • #
    TdeF

    “Turnbull must know that Lomborg’s economic analysis would have awful news for the renewables industry and would show up the emissions trading scheme for the pointless waste of money that it is.

    “This tells us exactly how much Turnbull cares about academic freedom, the Australian taxpayer and the environment.”

    No, it tells us how much Turnbull wants an ETS.

    200

  • #
    pat

    21 Oct: Phys.org: MIT to fight climate change, but won’t divest fossil fuels
    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a five-year plan Wednesday to combat climate change but said it won’t divest its $12.4 billion endowment from fossil fuels, despite pressure from students and a campus committee…
    The MIT report warns of “catastrophic outcomes” linked to current energy use, but said the school can help by maintaining ties with fossil fuel companies…
    http://phys.org/news/2015-10-mit-climate-wont-divest-fossil.html

    50

  • #
    pat

    this is the hot MSM pick of the day.
    wow…10 imes as much economic damage!

    22 Oct: SMH: Eric Roston/Bloomberg: Climate change slams global economy, study from Stanford and Berkeley shows
    Climate change could cause 10 times as much damage to the global economy as previously estimated…
    Looking at 166 countries between 1960 and 2010, the researchers identified an optimal average annual temperature that coincides with peak productivity. It’s 13 degrees celsius, or approximately the climate of San Francisco’s bay area (Sydney’s mean temperature last year was 19.3 degrees)…
    The authors made a clever end run around the biggest problem at the core of climate science: There’s only one Earth. Scientists usually like to run “controls,” situations that have identical conditions to the experiment except for the one thing being studied. Unfortunately for climate scientists, there’s no second Earth, filled with identical people doing identical things, where greenhouse gas emissions aren’t a problem.
    So the study looks at national temperature records through time. Instead of studying a warming Nigeria and a control Nigeria, the scientists compared Nigerian economic output in average years with that in warming years…
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/climate-change-slams-global-economy-study-from-stanford-and-berkeley-shows-20151022-gkfl07.html

    Nature has an accompanying commentary. why? to try to add credibility?

    PBS Newshour: The countries where global warming will shrink bank accounts
    “We are already experiencing the economic impacts of climate change — heatwaves, for example, are increasing health costs and employee absenteeism,” economist Thomas Sterner of the University of Gothenburg wrote in accompanying commentary also published today by Nature…
    Burke’s study argues that Congress and other policy agencies have based their predictions on the social costs of global warming and carbon pollution on estimates that are off by several hundred percent…
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/best-temperature-economic-happiness/

    from Stanford: The study, co-led by Marshall Burke, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences…co-authored by two researchers from the University of California, Berkeley: co-lead author Solomon Hsiang, the Chancellor’s Associate Professor of Public Policy, and Edward Miguel, ***Oxfam Professor in Environmental and Resource Economics.

    30

    • #
      Angry

      Oxfam is a despicable anti human organization.

      Nobody should donate a single cent to them !

      Organizations like them should be highly taxed and have no tax free status.

      43

  • #
    Ruairi

    To be academically free,
    One cannot be forced to agree,
    With political pull,
    And the load of old bull,
    In each climate-change dogma decree.

    150

  • #
    Radical Rodent

    Perhaps this might give an indication of what is really behind all this climate change baloney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt6I1R1l6bc

    40

  • #
    pat

    here’s a great opportunity!

    22 Oct: SunWindEnergy: World’s first renewable energy pension fund launched in the UK
    The world’s first pension fund investing solely in renewable energy was launched today in London. The announcement came from Abundance (LINK), the ethical peer-to-peer investment platform. UK residents will be able to choose where to put their money, selecting among the UK renewable energy projects offered on the Abundance website.
    The self-invested personal pension (SIPP) is proposed in partnership with UK SIPP provider European Pensions Management Ltd, which will operate as trustee and administrator, while Abundance will be the point of contact for customers. A minimum of 5,000 GBP will be requested in the first 12 months. The scheme will benefit from tax advantages and be subject to access restrictions before the age of 55, in compliance with national regulations…
    Some direction for the future is contained in a report launched today by the UK Committee on Climate Change, an independent body established under the Climate Change Act of 2008…
    ***Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, Member of the Advisory Board of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit(link is external) (ECIU), a think tank in London, commented: “This report confirms what other recent analyses have also found, namely that the cheapest forms of renewable energy are increasingly cost-competitive with fossil fuels for electricity generation.”
    http://www.sunwindenergy.com/review/worlds-first-renewable-energy-pension-fund-launched-uk

    ***Wikipedia: Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell
    He is the former Chairman of the Pensions Commission and the Committee on Climate Change. He has described himself in a BBC HARDtalk interview with Stephen Sackur as a ‘technocrat’…
    His career with BP started in 1979 and he worked for Chase Manhattan Bank from 1979-82. He became a director of McKinsey & Co in 1994 after joining in 1982…From 2000-06 he was Vice-Chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe…In April 2013, it was announced that Lord Turner would be joining George Soros’ economic think tank as a senior research fellow in its London offices…

    30

    • #
      Angry

      All the followers of the Church Of Global Warming should be FORCED to invest in this fund.

      We can then all laugh when their pensions are worth zip.

      Karma.

      10

  • #
    pat

    about the World’s first renewable energy pension fund – all names are listed – not exactly inspiring!

    from Abundance Board –
    William Jones, Non-Executive Chairman
    …Consultancy assignments at M&S Money, ABN Amro and Banco Santander followed until he became Head of Innovation and then Retail Transformation Director at RBS…
    Mark Taylor, Non-Executive Director
    Whilst a Director at Virgin Money, Mark launched the Virgin Climate Change Fund…

    from Team –
    Bruce Davis, Managing Director
    Trustee of the Finance Innovation Lab and Visiting Research Fellow at the Bauman Institute, Leeds University…
    Louise Wilson, Managing Director
    Lou left a senior position at UBS Investment Bank in July 2008, where she was in charge of multimillion pound share offers and fund raising for a range of global companies…
    Karl Harder, Managing Director
    …With a desire to do more than simply write about the things he cared about, he set up his first green business, which also championed the Living Wage for its employees and was funded by the late Dame Anita Roddick. After 5 years and with his interest in energy renewed, he left to study for an MBA at Imperial College and to pursue the idea that has eventually became Abundance…

    from Shareholders –
    Nesta: Nesta is an independent charity with a mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life.
    Panahpur: Panahpur was founded in 1907 as a community for orphaned children
    https://www.abundanceinvestment.com/about/who-we-are/board

    30

  • #
    michael hart

    I often read something at the BBC which introduces a report by an environmental alarmist(for it often seems to be thus) with words like

    ‘a leading expert’.

    I then always ask the mental question “Did he tell you he was a ‘leading expert’, or was it just one of his friends?”

    IMO, this is probably the biggest problem with science reporting by the MSM. They have little background in science, and not having much competence, they also don’t have much confidence to call out the self-aggrandising hucksters.

    So they bow down before someone who claims authoritative knowledge, while knowing that they don’t even trust themselves to properly assess if this “authority” is making it up as they go along. A great preacher can seemingly speak from the pulpit for hours without pause for breath, full of sound and fury, but say nothing except recount an idiot’s tale.

    BS actually wears very similar clothes, whether it be in science, finance, politics, or whatever. When you see activists spending effort promoting themselves, their views and their friends/accomplices, while trash-talking someone like Lomborg, who politely disagrees only a bit, then it should be obvious what the game is.

    150

  • #
    • #

      Don’t think so. They will simply say we didn’t do enough and double down on the wasteful spending. It make sense to them to keep doing the same thing, expecting different results, and failing to achieve them. After all, if they actually succeeded, they would have no excuse to continue the wild spending of other people’s money. That is a result that is totally unacceptable from their perspective.

      70

  • #
    Dave in the states

    Correct me if I error, but Lomborg isn’t even a skeptic. All he wanted to do was research how to better allocate resources. But this strikes at the heart of the issue, and tells me this is not about science but is political in nature. Warmists don’t seem to care about the science except when it can help their PR. What they really care about is the money and the redistrubutive control of the money, and the political power that goes with it. They can’t have somebody telling the public the truth; that renewables are a huge waste of resources that will do no good and might actually be net harmful.

    150

    • #
      el gordo

      You’re not wrong Dave, ‘how to better allocate resources’ is his thing.

      I maybe wrong, but I think he has setup camp in the US.

      30

      • #
        el gordo

        Correction:

        ‘Lomborg has been rendered virtually “stateless” as a political actor on climate since being defunded by the Danish government in 2012. He then sought refuge in the US. There, he was also unable to find a university to take his centre, but managed to attract considerable private funding for an operation known as the Copenhagen Consensus Centre (CCC), based in Massachusetts.

        ‘While the “centre” was operating out of Massachusetts, Lomborg was actually living in Prague and reportedly travelling up to 200 days per year.’

        David Holmes

        30

  • #
    Peter C

    Stopturnbull
    About a week ago someone posted this link to a site which details much of the life of Malcolm Turnbull. I still have not read it all, but I am astonished that he has been able to infiltrate his way into the Liberal Party and then be made the leader twice.

    70

    • #
      PeterS

      The end game for Turnbull and all Western world leaders for the climate change paradigm is higher taxes, more regulation and larger government. The real need is to find an excuse to increase their revenues enormously to offset their ever expanding debt, which is now out of control and unstoppable (until the fat lady sings).

      60

  • #
  • #
    Bob Malloy

    I apologise if someone has already posted on this, Lomborg is in the Australian this morning hammering wind and solar.

    When considering climate change, most people think wind turbines and solar panels are a big part of the solution. But, during the next 25 years, the contribution of solar and wind power to resolving the problem will be trivial — and the cost will be enormous.

    The International Energy Agency estimates that about 0.4 per cent of global energy now comes from solar and wind.

    Even in 2040, with all governments implementing all of their green promises, solar and wind will make up just 2.2 per cent of global energy.

    80

    • #
      Bob Malloy

      Ment to include this in my post, Lomborg reinforces many of the points Tony has been posting on over the last couple of years.

      60

  • #
    Tel

    The bullies, and emotional hysterics win this round.

    I disagree, they lost this round by outing themselves as extremists in a way that most people who are paying attention can understand.

    This long ago stopped being about the science. There’s a long list of people who were basically with the environmental movement until they made some honest comment and the cronie pocket stuffers had to kick them out in order to protect their own overly sensitive illusions.

    David Bellamy
    Mitchell Taylor
    Judith Curry
    Willie Soon

    Those are just the ones I can think of quickly, someone should keep a list of the incidents. Clearly we are dealing with the sort of religion that is harsh on apostasy.

    60

    • #
      TdeF

      No it is about money, backed by enthusiastic but unthinking extremists.

      There are two types at university, those who go there to improve themselves educationally and those who just want to have fun after school. Any cause attracts them. These people are easy to mobilise and the rationale is irrelevant. I suppose they get Arts or basic Law degrees and then join the unemployed or the public service at Centrelink. Any cause will do and getting rid of Lomborg is as good as any.

      However behind this are people who want all the money Global Warming has brought. Windmills, solar farms, research grants, fame. Every third class carpet bagger in academia has joined in the money hunt. No one has any climate qualifications, but who asks? Not the ABC/SBS.

      41

  • #
    pat

    this remains the most potent weapon for bringing down the CAGW scam, if only the public were not being constantly misinformed by the MSM that renewables are cost-effective/cheaper than fossil fuels etc:

    22 Oct: Forbes: Lauren Gensler: Coming Soon: More Green And Social Options In Your 401(k)
    On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said that the fiduciaries who manage employer-sponsored retirement plans should no longer harbor any prejudices against investments just on the basis that they seek to make an environmental or social impact.
    “Investing in the best interests of a retirement plan and in the growth of a community can go hand in hand,” Perez said at a press conference in New York City, noting that he rejects the notion there is a false choice involved…
    This announcement paves the way for more people, through their workplace 401(k)s as well as pension funds, to invest in things like green bonds and mutual funds that take into account environmental, social and governance factors.
    The government has backtracked on 2008 guidance that discouraged these investments by making them sound unsuitable under fiduciary obligations. Managers of employer retirement plans steered away from investments that touted non-financial returns because they feared running afoul of government guidelines.
    “We’ve been told this has had a chilling effect,” said Perez. “It gave cooties to impact investments.”…
    The new guidance “democratizes” the ability for more people to use their dollars for financial and real world impact, as Matthew Patsky, CEO of Trillium Asset Management, puts it…
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2015/10/22/retirement-plans-fiduciary-change-impact-investing/

    20

  • #
    pat

    MSM renewables misinfo: the following ode to solar (despite the “washing loads” reference in the headline) is a case in point.
    note the ***correction is at the very bottom of the novel-length article, which probably won’t be seen by many, especially those who read it on the 20 Oct, when it was first published. Guardian should not have changed the date of the article, but simply noted the Update for the correction, and placed the correction at the beginning of the article.

    21 Oct: Guardian: Patrick Barkham: Solar power in crisis: ‘My panels generate enough power for two loads of washing’
    Endless energy from the sun looked like a long-term solution for running our homes. But now the state has pulled the plug on the subsidies that made panels affordable for many. What happens now?…
    ***This article was amended on 21 October 1015. An earlier version said the solar industry produced 1.5% of UK energy needs. That has been corrected to 1.5% of total UK electricity.
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/20/solar-power-in-crisis-panels-generate-power-government-subsidy

    I cannot find the exchange below in the comments at the above Guardian link, but it would seem Barkham was first corrected on 20 Oct, so the article could have been corrected & updated then.
    the following website, which is still The Guardian, has 12 lengthy pages of comments, the Guardian website above has 7, seemingly of shorter length. much cherry-picking goes on, it seems:

    Patrick Barkham 21 Oct 2015 12:47:
    Thanks, yes, an important distinction, and that was a ***slip of the keyboard – we will get it corrected in the story. It should read: Solar produces 1.5% of total UK electricity, up from virtually nothing in 2010
    MayorMikeHaggar 21 Oct 2015 12:30:
    “Solar produces 1.5% of UK energy needs,”
    Absolutely false. It generates 1.5% of UK electricity consumption. Our total energy consumption is far larger, and solar generates around 0.4% of this total. For goodness sake, please learn the basic difference between electricity and energy. The distinction is important.
    riveness 20 Oct 2015 19:30
    Solar produces 1.5% of UK energy needs, up from virtually nothing in 2010.
    Nope. That is electricity only. Solar heat makes a tiny proportion of UK energy use
    http://latestnewsworld.org/discussion/p/4dfx5
    also on 20 Oct, markshin wrote: “my solar is on track to generate the fitters’ predicted 3,485kW each year”… They should have been predicting kWh (kilowatt hours). Please correct this!
    (Barkham hasn’t changed this, even tho markshin has complained again approx. 11 hours ago. i don’t know if this matters all that much. TonyfromOz would know.)

    20

  • #
    pat

    22 Oct: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Life or death: G77 demands climate finance guarantee
    Developing countries are pulling together at interim climate talks in a last push before December’s Paris summit
    “It’s a matter of life or death… and we are dead serious,” ambassador Joyce Mxakato-Diseko, the South African official who chairs the G77, told media in a briefing on Thursday.
    “As a matter of urgency we need finance both now and far into the future. Paris will succeed on whether this is part of the core agreement in Paris.”
    Such is the strength of feeling among developing countries they took the unprecedented step of emailing journalists in Bonn to ask them to report fairly on this issue…
    According to a recent report by the Paris-based OECD, $62.8 billion was mobilised in 2014 from a sources including government funds, multilateral development banks and the private sector…
    The G77 disagrees. “No mandate was given to the OECD,” said Mxakato-Diseko, arguing it had included forms of finance such as development aid that should not have been counted…
    “There are serious and valid concerns over the way that $62 billion figure was arrived at. It accounts for credit guarantees, loans that have to be repaid,” he (Angolan diplomat Giza Gaspar Martins) said…
    It’s a debate that cuts to the heart of these talks. Developing countries want a legally binding target for long term funding to come out of Paris.
    Envoys for developed countries Climate Home has spoken to in Bonn tend to disagree…
    The two texts on offer are light years apart, but leading G77 members say they will not back down on their demand…
    Under her (Mxakato-Diseko) leadership, the G77 resurgence has sent shockwaves through the international process at a time when plans for Paris are delicately balanced…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/22/life-or-death-g77-demands-climate-finance-guarantee/

    22 Oct: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Green Climate Fund chief confident US will stump up
    US will deliver the US$3 billion promised to help poor countries go green despite Republican opposition, says top official
    The UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund has no plans to scale back initial investment plans, despite US lawmakers blocking a promised US$3 billion contribution.
    “We have signed enough contributions to enable us to start investing, which was important because countries have some urgent investment priorities to undertake,” Hela Cheikhrouhou told media on the sidelines of UN climate talks in Bonn…
    The fund’s first 8 projects are due to be discussed by the board at a Zambia meeting 2-5 November…
    The GCF is under pressure from the UN and countries to have projects in the pipeline by December’s UN climate summit in Paris, but Cheikhrouhou said it would not be rushed.
    “I expect the board will spend a bit of time to discuss the merits of each project,” she said. “I think we all hope that… certainly the countries and partner institutions hope the board can endorse that but the funding decision has to be taken by them.”
    With 136 countries lined up for investments, more funds would be needed in the coming years to ensure the GCF’s scope expanded, said Cheikhrouhou.
    Efforts to draw in more donors would be “accelerating” she added.
    “Whatever the scope and scale, it will be relatively small compared to what is happening in the developing world, which is in the order of the trillions,” she said…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/22/green-climate-fund-chief-confident-us-will-stump-up/

    20

  • #
    pat

    22 Oct: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: Turkey coal push wrecks ‘inadequate’ climate pledge – analysts
    Planned dirty power plants will wipe out clean energy gains, says Climate Action Tracker, jeopardising an already weak emissions target
    The country has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions up to 21% from business as usual by 2030. Yet it is reportedly planning to build 80 coal-fired power stations.
    Something has got to give, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) concludes in an assessment published on Thursday…
    “To make a fair contribution to holding warming below 2C, Turkey would need to double – or even triple – its post-2020 target,” said Kornelis Blok of Ecofys…
    Niklas Hoehne of NewClimate Institute said: “Turkey’s renewable energy targets do not reflect the potential of a country with a photovoltaic system performance 50% higher than in Germany and a technical wind power potential of 275 GW.”…
    Analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance last year calculated Turkey could meet its growing energy demand cleanly at a comparable cost…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/22/turkey-coal-push-wrecks-inadequate-climate-pledge-analysts/

    22 Oct: ClimateChangeNews: Alex Pashley: What game theorists predict for a Paris climate deal
    Academics expect weak language on compensating victims of global warming, but agreement on a long-term global emissions target
    Everyone likes a flutter, but are you on the money when it comes to a Paris accord?
    Listen in: some old tipsters have whispered their prediction ahead of this December’s UN climate summit.
    Social scientists have forecast where 195 countries are likely to end up after two weeks of hard bargaining.
    Grounded in game theory and not gut feeling, Frans Stokman and Robert Thomson hold “cautious optimism” a global warming treaty will be agreed.
    Their results have some bad news for vulnerable countries. Compensation for extreme weather events is expected to get just a fleeting mention, traded off for an expanded US$350 billion of annual climate finance by 2030…
    Provided actors are willing to make trade-offs across all issues, and that’s the big unknown, convergence is in reach…
    To bolster the case, the study is part of a larger research project to predict Paris.
    Steffen Kallbekken and Hakon Saelen at Norway’s Cicero Institute surveyed 39 climate experts including top diplomats, seasoned observers and journalists, on similar questions…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/22/what-game-theorists-predict-for-a-paris-climate-deal/

    20

  • #
    pat

    integrity? what integrity? Reuters is such a CAGW player:

    22 Oct: ReutersCarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: CDM-EB: Red tape cut further for projects but analysts warn on integrity risks
    (Corrects the number of CERs that have been cancelled on the UN’s new online platform to 1,712 from 1.7 million)
    The CDM’s executive last week agreed to develop a handful of measures to further simplify and streamline the mechanism’s often complicated and cumbersome procedures, but analysts warned that some of rule changes could threaten the already-battered scheme’s environmental integrity…
    Among the new rules that the CDM-EB has asked the UNFCCC to draft were measures to: …READ ON
    “The proposed decisions seem relevant to streamline the CDM implementation process,” said analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon…
    RULE REWORKING
    The Board also considered a number of other proposed measures, but requested the UNFCCC to rework them. They included: READ ON
    http://carbon-pulse.com/cdm-eb-red-tape-cut-further-for-projects-but-analysts-warn-on-integrity-risks/

    22 Oct: ReutersCarbonPulse: Airlines’ global offset demand could be met using existing CDM projects -report
    Airlines could get all of the 3.3 billion offsets they are expected to need over 2021-2035 from CDM projects that already exist, a study by Germany’s Oeko Institut said on Thursday.
    The study compared the expected demand and found that currently registered CDM projects could supply 6.5 billion offsets over the same period…READ ALL
    http://carbon-pulse.com/airlines-global-offset-demand-could-be-met-using-existing-cdm-projects-report/

    20

  • #
    pat

    22 Oct: ReutersCarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: Australia’s Veolia holds 7 million CERs after waste sector govt deal
    Waste company Veolia Environmental Services bought over 7 million CERs following a July deal with the government that lets waste firms use international offsets to compensate for future carbon tax costs that they had passed on to customers.
    The latest update of the Australian National Registry of Emission Units (ANREU) showed that Veolia holds 7,071,109 CERs that it didn’t hold in the beginning of the calendar year.
    In July, the Australian Landfill Owners Association and the Australian Local Government Association reached an agreement on how waste companies could offset the income they had earned from historically passing the future costs associated with the carbon tax on to customers…READ ALL
    http://carbon-pulse.com/australias-veolia-holds-7-million-cers-after-waste-sector-govt-deal/

    22 Oct: ReutersCarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: Japan’s biggest business lobby urges red tape removed for new coal
    Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, is asking the government to cut regulations that make it harder to build new coal-fired power plants, media reported Thursday, sparking angry responses from green groups.
    In a meeting with Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa this week, Keidanren vice chairman Yasushi Kimura said CO2 emissions and climate change should not be taken into consideration in environmental impact assessments of new coal plants, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.
    Keidanren argued that environmental impact assessments are a tool for communication with local residents, while climate change is a global issue and hence is irrelevant…
    The request from Keidanren came only two weeks after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sacked Yoshio Mochizuki, the former environment minister who protested the construction of several new coal plants…
    Mochizuki was replaced by Marukawa, a 44-year old former TV anchor with no experience with energy and environment, but with a reputation of being fiercely loyal to Abe…
    READ ON FOR THE OUTRAGE
    http://carbon-pulse.com/japan-business-group-urges-government-to-clear-path-for-new-coal-plants/

    10

  • #
    pat

    MUST READ ALL:

    22 Oct: UK Express: Leo McKinstry: Blame the green agenda for steel industry’s woes says Leo McKinstry
    THE crisis in the British steel industry deepens
    Britain used to be the world leader in the manufacture of steel. It was a strength that helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution and build the empire. Sadly, it now looks as if this once powerful sector could soon be entering its final days…
    Much of the blame for this decline has been heaped on China…
    But condemnation of China is an inadequate explanation. The more convincing reason lies closer to home in the huge costs that have been piled on our steel industry by the fashionable green agenda. China is far more competitive than Britain in this field partly because her economy is not dragged down by the financial burden that our deluded politicians have chosen to inflict on British manufacturers in the name of fighting climate change…
    Based on political vanity rather than hard evidence, the current obsession with environmentalism has caused far more damage than any actions by the Chinese regime. British industry has been weighed down by a complex array of eco-taxes, including the climate change levy, the EU emissions trading scheme, the carbon price floor and the carbon reduction commitment.
    The Government revels in such measures, not only because they enable ministers to parade their green credentials but also because they bring in £45billion-a-year in revenue. In addition 15 per cent of the energy supplied to manufacturers and households is required to come from so-called “renewable” sources mainly expensive, inefficient wind turbines…
    Even if man-made climate change exists, which is fiercely disputed by many, it will not be affected by anything we do in our country, given the phenomenal expansion of industry in the developing world…
    Devoid of any rationale the environmental agenda amounts to nothing more than a brutal form of punishment by our ruling elite.
    http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/613793/Tata-steel-China-David-Cameron-green

    links to the CCC (Lord Deben) report. check out the elite membership of the Committee:

    22 Oct: ReutersCarbonPulse: Ben Garside: UK advisory body sets post-2020 carbon price targets
    The UK should set a carbon price of £42 (€58, $65) in 2015 and £78 in 2030 to keep on track to meet its long term emission goals, the government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change said in a report (LINK) on Thursday…
    The price guidance is well above analyst projections of EU carbon prices of £24 in 2030…
    http://carbon-pulse.com/uk-advisory-body-sets-post-2020-carbon-price-targets/

    30

  • #
    Angry

    Turncoat Tturnbull……the minister for Goldman Sachs and carbon DIOXIDE (PLANT FOOD) trading.

    Turnbull is nothing but a Labor Party STOOGE and a TRAITOR to his fellow Australians !

    The REAL Turnbull :-

    http://stopturnbull.com/

    He has to go !!

    40

    • #
      • #
        AndyG55

        Nope, give Turnbull a chance to show if he is centre-left, or even further left than Shorten.

        I suspect that the longer he takes the namby-pamby route he is currently taking, the less once-liberal voters will vote for him.

        30

        • #
          ianl8888

          I suspect that the longer he takes the namby-pamby route he is currently taking, the less once-liberal voters will vote for him

          That’s why Golly Gee wants an election now (actually, a DD might even be interesting but there’s no hope)

          In truth, though, it makes no material difference now as to who may win. As I’ve noted before, when both sides tacitly agree on something, it doesn’t matter how you vote

          Of some interest is a recent Swiss election result. Note that the Swiss vote on specific policies which those successfully elected must carry out (no palace coups for them). One of the prime policies strongly voted for was sharp restrictions on immigration

          40

          • #
            Gee Aye

            No I am s stirring angry but would actually be happy with the outcome of an election now. it is about my job not morality

            01

            • #
              ianl8888

              OK, but don’t mistake my view of integrity as morality. I don’t think there are such things as “morals” (values, perhaps, we can occasionally agree on but more often disagree on), but integrity is a core I try for, as naive as that is

              Palace coups have no integrity of course, just ambition

              10

  • #
    Egor TheOne

    Fringe lunacy has become mainstream politics.

    Little wonder our standard of living has and is falling , with so many fists in the taxpayer funds cookie jar of which true b’lver advocates and projects have an ever increasing share.

    I would like to ask true b’lver Hunt …..By how much has our supposed 47 million ton co2 reduction at our supposed 14 plus dollars per ton , reduced a presently non threatening global temperature by ?………. ZERO perhaps?

    The direct action plan is just a smaller co2 tax than the alp/greens co2 tax.

    Both are [pointless], the coalition’s is just smaller than the alp/greens’s.

    What we need is Scientists ,that put honesty before funding as those that dissent from the Hoax to be also our political leaders!

    Isn’t Science above all else the search for truth …………..not funds?

    I hold great esteem for dissenting real scientists that many if not all must do so at great personal cost to themselves …….they are the leaders we should want and do need!

    Also I would like to know how much will our squandering of taxpayer funds towards prayer wheels and solar reduce the nonthreatening global temp by ? …..Again ,ZERO perhaps?

    Answer …..Nothing ……then why are we allowing this lie and fraud to continue?

    What a coincidence it must be , that all the cagw/cacc main advocates all have financial interests in this racket.

    My mistake possibly not 100% ………just 97.1% ….. maybe that is where the Cooked CONsensus come from?

    temp to co2 graph
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tS4cpgwchA0/UTFtQLbWa6I/AAAAAAAAMFw/ROiucyYpwXY/s400/co2-temp-rss.jpeg

    temp to co2 graph
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o74iD4CITOk/U7ezikCMY0I/AAAAAAAAP6U/q2wfE6Y0sZ8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-05+at+6.11.05+pm.png

    climate change to tax and control
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snYggNfazKI

    20

  • #
    Egor TheOne

    Found a quote that is appropriate in general science and in particular this thread >>

    ” We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. ”

    J. Robert Oppenheimer

    20

  • #
    AndyG55

    Liberal voters MUST MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE that Turnbull NEVER gets elected as PM. !!

    Even if it means putting Shorten in for 3 years. !!

    I strongly urge ALL ex-Liberal voters to get this message through to all and sundry.

    10

  • #

    […] cares about academic freedom, the Australian taxpayer and the environment.Aldus Jo Nova.Lees verder hier.Voor mijn eerdere bijdragen over klimaat en aanverwante zaken zie hier, hier, hier, […]

    00