Bored dogs, ripped furniture — blame climate change

Things are really getting serious now. There is not only extinction and endless droughts, but there are depressed dogs.  Unprecedented depressed dogs. The chain of effect goes like this: electric heaters cause climate change which makes winters wetter in England and owners don’t like mud, so ipso, ergo, garbo, dogs get stuck indoors, go stir crazy and rip furniture.

I presume the answer to this is to sell the car, cancel the heating, and wait for the world to warm cool for your dog to get happy?

Leading pet behaviourists told The Independent that the number of depressed and unsettled dogs they have seen in recent months is unprecedented.

Carolyn Menteith, a dog behaviourist who was named Britain’s Instructor of the Year in 2015, says Global Warming might be causing pets to become depressed:

“I’ve never seen our dogs or horses this bored before in 20 years.

Yes, this is the worst in recorded history, or 20 years, whichever comes first.

Horses that have lived happily outside before are saying ‘I actually can’t cope with this mud and wet anymore’…”.

For me, the unprecedented thing here is the talking horse.

Is that climate change too?

And most importantly of all, pet owners should worry too much that if their dog is ripping up the house in a bid to find excitement.

If you have a rip in the sofa, don’t blame the cat, blame the air conditioner. (Getting the hang of this?)

A large portion of the UK’s dog population is behaving strangely at the moment and it’s not generally the pet’s fault. So rather than being angry with their dog or frustrated owners should try to stimulate them by playing games in the house, Ms Fisher advises

Are you a pet psychologist observing five year climate “trends” — the Tom Bawden Environment Editor,  wants to hear from you:

Ms Menteith spends much of her time outside walking dogs and has noticed a significant change in the weather in the past five years or so – as cold, crisp winters gradually give way to “constant wet dreariness”.

She – like many scientists and meteorologists – puts this down to climate change…

Who needs a climate model when you have a pet therapist to predict the future:

…and expects to see more bored dogs in the future as global warming unleashes increasingly frequent and intense bouts of winter rainfall.

Because five year local trends do continue on for decades. Give me a ruler, and I will give you a fifty year forecast.

h/t to Climate Depot

9.4 out of 10 based on 91 ratings

166 comments to Bored dogs, ripped furniture — blame climate change

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    graphicconception

    For me, the unprecedented thing here is the talking horse.

    There is just no pleasing some people. You still complain even when you get it straight from the horse’s mouth!

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    Mark D.

    Ya know, my aquarium fish have been completely out of sorts lately…….

    That’s it I’m a believer now!

    Really?

    It’s bad enough to know that there are “pet psychologists” much worse to know that people actually consult them.

    Good God we people truly are over-fed, over educated and with too much free time. Doomed I tell ya. Doomed

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Maybe that’s why I was never successful at keeping fish. The only one I couldn’t kill off was a plecostomus that got quite large living on whatever I was doing wrong. Bottom feeders — I wonder what that might mean. 😉

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      My fish too Mark. This really is Global!

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Something’s really fishy about all this. I mean, how hard could it be to keep a few fish? All they need is some water and a little of that canned fish food every day, right? Yet so many of us can’t manage it? It must be climate change. We know of no other explanation and we now know it with 97% certainty. How could we have missed this indicator of something wrong for so long?

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      Am I alone in this?

      It’s bad enough to know that there are “pet psychologists” much worse to know that people actually consult them.

      I have a pretty poor opinion of psychology and psychiatry in general, and it speaks volumes of that profession that they have branched into pet psychology, and I don’t think of Veterinary Science in the same manner.

      From a layman’s point of view, if I heard of anybody mentioning that their pet might need psychology, then that person is the one who needs looking at by that profession, not their d@mned pet.

      It sounds a lot like a money spinner to me.

      Pets get trained, not analysed, as to why their behaviour is awry.

      Tony.

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      • #
        Mike

        Maybe they could prescribe Ketamine.

        From : The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/sarah-knapton/10740373/Horse-tranquilliser-Ketamine-could-cure-severe-depression.html
        “Horse tranquilliser Ketamine could cure severe depression”
        ” Horse tranquilliser Ketamine can cure people who have battled severe depression for 20 years, researchers at Oxford University have found.

        Sufferers who had failed to respond to anti-depressants like Prozac reported ‘feeling themselves again’ after decades of misery, just days after intravenous infusions of the class 2 drug.

        And relatives told doctors it was like having the sufferer ‘back again.’ “….

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        • #
          Bushkid

          “Horse tranquilliser Ketamine could cure severe depression”
          ” Horse tranquilliser Ketamine can cure people who have battled severe depression for 20 years, researchers at Oxford University have found.

          If they use enough of it, you bet it’ll cure lots of things….. Just maybe not they way they thought.

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        • #
          Lewis P Buckingham

          Well why not? Prozac was launched on the front page of Time magazine.
          Now that Ketamine, or ‘special K’ as it is known at Kings Cross, has the support of the Telegraph we now can hope for a new innovative dawn in psychotherapy where everyone is stoned out of their minds while building new climate models.
          Analysis of the behaviour ‘new’ interbred white fluffy dogs bred for cuteness and separation anxiety will bring a rich crop of homogenise hybridised value free intellectually vacant algorithms of the nature of reality.
          Every year a new bench marked claim will arise of infallible cognitive models that depend on how often and when poochie defaecates on the carpet as the rains come.
          Who cares if they are right, as long as it sells papers.
          But then, if Ketamine is the cure, who will care anyway?

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        • #
          amoorhouse

          I was put on Ketamine briefly after an operation as morphine wasn’t working for the pain. After that one night I am sure my memory, which was amazing, was badly affected. My advice is don’t go near the stuff.

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        • #
          Mike

          Then legislate mandatory depression screening of all pets. If it can be done for humans……

          “Ron Paul Slams Government Plan For “Mandatory Depresssion Screening” Of All Americans”
          “The United States Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended mandatory depression screening for all Americans.”
          http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-08/ron-paul-slams-government-plan-mandatory-depresssion-screening-all-americans

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      • #
        Gordon Vandersee

        Anyone who wants to go to a psychiatrist should have their head examined.
        Gordon V.

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      • #

        Hi Tony and Mark.
        I’m hoping you will allow me to give some defence of psychology and psychiatry and their application to pets/animals.
        One perspective of psychology is behaviourism. A perspective which gained traction from Pavlov’s dogs.
        Behaviourism is not the only perspective which implies a human commonality with animals. Evolutionary psychologists claim that many of our human behaviours can be attributed to our ancient ancestry.

        One clear example of the psychology of animals and an example which defeats both the behaviourist and evolutionary perspectives is the work by Harry Harlow.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow

        Although not mentioned in the Wiki link, one of Harlow’s tortured monkeys, when introduced to normal monkeys, sat in the corner and ate it’s own hand off.
        From a behaviourist point of view, this cannot be explained, because the primary assertion of behaviourism is that behaviour is taught. However, no one ever taught the monkey to self mutilate when threatened.
        From an evolutionist perspective, any species which mutilated itself prior to being captured by a predator would be unlikely to continue as the “survival of the fittest”.

        My point is, that in order to understand how to “train” an animal we must first understand what clues and what triggers the animal will understand and respond to. Rolling up a newspaper and belting a dog on the nose, after, it has ripped the furniture will only teach the dog that you are an animal prone to unwarranted violence. From that moment on, the dog is likely to associate a rolled up newspaper as a sign that it may again be punished for “something”.
        In order to understand why an animal behaves as it does, we must analyse that behaviour. One may well be able to train a dog not to rip the furniture, but we still haven’t explained why it did so in the first case.

        Please don’t associate psychology with activists and pseudo-scientists like Lewandowski and Menteith.

        Psychology and psychiatry have a long way to go before they can provide real answers… [SNIP a bit hot and heading off topic. – Jo]

        [I understand what you’re wanting to do. However, some of your descriptions are unneccessarily gruesome…] AZ

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        • #
          Rod Stuart

          My father used to say that in order to train a dog it was first necessary to be smarter than the dog.

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          • #
            Another Ian

            In a list of requirements for training a sheep dog I once heard were

            The wisdom of Solomon

            The patience of Job

            And the cunning of Judas Iscariot

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        • #

          Max, in the horrible case of the monkey I don’t see any reason evolutionary theory would be tested at all. It’s not a situation that would have occurred much in the past for natural selection to have sorted for. This is a situation where the normal biology “breaks”. If there is any analogue to it, it might be that in a group where one individual is so unpopular that they are exiled or bullied would be depressed and more likely to commit suicide or take unjustified risks. Gregarious animals need normal social relations to form their normal neural networks.

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          • #

            Thank you Jo and AZ for you assistance.
            I agree with your reasoning and your comments.
            The issue of the poor monkey is a complex one and I agree that this is not the place to discuss the different perspectives.

            Menteith’s linking of animal behaviour to climate change is ludicrous and deserves to be satirised but I implore people not to judge pet/animal psychology on her activism. Just like us, each and every member of a species is unique. Surely, any real study into what motivates an individual to behave abnormally, is warranted.

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            • #
              Roy Hogue

              Surely, any real study into what motivates an individual to behave abnormally, is warranted.

              Max,

              In general I can agree with you. However, to me it’s a matter of priorities for the research dollars. And I think animal behavior, while interesting, isn’t nearly as high a priority as human behavior. We really don’t understand ourselves yet. And may not reach a real understanding of human motivation for different behaviors for a long time. It’s a complex and sometimes very subjective thing in that what constitutes abnormal behavior has no basis in a set of behaviors that can unconditionally be called normal and everything else abnormal. Absent physiological abnormality, something we also seem to know little about, it appears to me that all behaviors are the natural result of experience and genetic makeup and thus, are “normal”.

              You appear to have some qualifications in psychology. So if you want to reply I’m willing to hear what you have to say. And I hope I’m not misunderstanding you.

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                Hi Roy,
                Thanks for your response.

                “I think animal behavior, while interesting, isn’t nearly as high a priority as human behavior.”
                I accept that point but I might just add that some of what we now “know” about human behaviour has been extrapolated from animal experiments like Harlow’s. Had Harlow performed his experiments on human children, he would have been incarcerated (at least).

                In the case of the unfortunate monkey, we may ask; Here is an observable trait or behaviour by an individual. Has it been inherited from his ancestors? If not, then which other traits do evolutionary psychologists choose to assign to heredity? If the behaviour was not taught and it was not inherited then from where did it come? Please note this is not an argument against evolution, it’s merely a question of how far back we can extrapolate the concept of inheritability of behaviour. Evolutionary psychologists may well have a valid argument, particularly if we consider how some migratory birds seem to know to fly south for the winter even without being taught to do so, and that opens up a whole new ball game.

                “…it appears to me that all behaviors are the natural result of experience and genetic makeup and thus, are ‘normal’.”
                If we use the word “normal” then we must assign some limit as to what is normal and what is abnormal (or more accurately in this case, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behaviour). I agree that what we call normal is subjective opinion, and it is one that, for example, our legal system continually defines and sometimes redefines.

                In nature aberrations can and do occur, some insignificant some severe, but that means, for a time they are distinctly abnormal. Once they have run the gauntlet of natural selection then they may well become normal (as in commonplace).
                If you would like further discussion, I would be happy to do so privately. I like hearing different points of view, for how else am I to learn? In which case, please ask Jo for my email address. I think here, on this thread, is not the place for a discussion.

                I have no formal qualifications, just a life long fascination (almost an obsession) with the subject. Which explains why I vigorously defend psychology but not necessarily all psychologists.
                Oh, and if you are misunderstanding me then it is my fault for not explaining myself properly. 🙂

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                Roy Hogue

                Max,

                First: thanks for the reply.

                Second: I’m not in any way qualified as a professional in psychology either but over the years I’ve become a people watcher. And I can’t help analyzing what I see to try to figure out motivation. It’s not so much a fascination with psychology as it is fascination with people, especially those who’re in the public eye and therefore have influence over society in one way or another.

                We could talk about many things if you want to. So have Jo send me your email address. She’s done that once before for me and it turned into quite a long distance friendship. I can’t promise you how much time I could spend at any given time but it sounds like an interesting opportunity.

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      • #
        DennisA

        John Cook has his own pet psychologist, I think he calls him Lewandowsky.

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  • #
    Glenn999

    maybe people should quit neutering their pets?

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  • #
    Leigh

    Go right to the source and ask the horse…the famous mister Ed!

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    • #
      Leigh

      I’m little disappointed here.
      Why am I the only one with a “thumbs down stalker” for mocking the global warmists?
      Lift your game fellow mockers.

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  • #
    Manfred

    In the dementia of a Progressive Green World where uncertainty is certainty and ‘no’ is a choice, unsurprisingly, the tail wags the dog.

    The cat is finally out of the bag.

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  • #
    Dean

    I am pretty sure that this is only a first world problem…………

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  • #
    Leonard Lane

    Hey diddle diddle,
    The cat and the fiddle,
    The cow jumped over the moon.
    The little dog laughed,
    To see such sport,
    And the dish ran away with the spoon.

    And, I am 97% sure this odd behavior was caused by climate change.

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      Metaphorically the dish and spoon represent a traditional union, oppressive diversity now demands the options of dish/dish or spoon/spoon, either way a fork will have to appear in there at some stage.

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  • #
    johnbuk

    Blimey, talk about desperation. I expected to see the date 1 April on the Independent site but to no avail. Some bint with 20 years experience in walking dogs says this is unprecedented in her experience and that’s enough for the Independent’s Environment Correspondent to write a whole article?
    Who needs Mann et al when you have cutting edge science like this ?

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    • #

      Exactly John. You can see why CSIRO can afford to let go their professional climate presenters when there are so many others able to achieve the same media…

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    • #
      Matty

      The Farmers are always being told they should diversify to stay in business. How about the Scientists ? I’m sure the Farmers could do with more drought, or is it flood, resistant crops, whatever the weather.
      How many climate scientists can it take to monitor the weather. It’s when you get too many that the fiddling starts. BOM, GISS, NOAA fiddled while the planet was fine.

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  • #
    TdeF

    So dog behaviourists are now climate scientists? English dogs are bored because they are missing crisp winters? England is not cold and wet and miserable and grey most of the time? Think of the 350 Australians who were Climate Scientists yesterday and now looking for work. What are their dogs thinking? Spare a thought too for Climate Scientist Tim Flannery, former Australian of the Year, former head of the Climate Commission, former spokesman for Climate Alarmists everywhere, how is his dog? Is it depressed? What we need are a lot of professional British dog behaviourists turned Climate Scientists whinging about the miserable wet soggy muddy mouldy weather in England and blaming Climate Change. It might cheer up a lot of former Climate Scientists. Carolyn Monteith needs to go on a lecture tour down under. Bring the dog. We need a laugh and it needs a Climate Change.

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    • #

      There is some merit in this story. Dog psychologist predictions are a lot cheaper than professors of climate models. Probably similar success rate.

      No need for two week junkets for 40,000 people either.

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      • #
        Andrew McRae

        We can go cheaper by going deeper.
        Humans are a species that can be studied just like the others. There’s been plenty of chatter about using the behaviour of animals to diagnose the pace of global warming. The time of moth migrations through Canberra, the time of fish and coral spawning, and so forth. So you don’t even have to pay the dog psychologists at all, as long you pay just one dog psychologist zoologist.
        You only need to track the analyses offered by
        the one zoologist who studies the rantings of
        dog psychologists who are tracking the boredom of
        the dogs who are reacting to a myriad of factors which includes the sluggishness of
        the dogs’ owners who are changing behaviour due to a myriad of factors which includes
        the local climate of Britain which is changing due to a myriad of factors which includes
        global climate.

        It’s the Inception of climate science. We’re 6 levels deep and heading for Science Limbo and yes Leo DiCaprio is in it. To tell if you are in reality or the dream, just wait for the spinning media to stop. They haven’t stopped spinning so we’re still in climate dream-world.

        It’s also interesting that even though this finding of cliiimate chaaange is actually entirely the result of the humans’ opinion that the climate has changed, they are doing data laundering by measuring the dogs’ reactions to the human opinion, so they can pretend this is an objective study. Apparently people’s opinions are worth more when they’ve been processed by dogs. Not just “man’s best friend” but a value-adding activity on people.

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        • #
          mc

          Apparently people’s opinions are worth more when they’ve been processed by dogs.

          I don’t know whether catastrophic climate change or ghosts are real or not, but I believe that dogs can detect both.

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        Matty

        Farmers can probably tell more about what the weather is going to do from watching their animals than from a boat load of Climate Scientists.

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    I learned quite early in a career of operational and maintenance Engineering to sceptical of measurements; or at least to be very careful in establishing their validity.
    McKitrick maintained years ago that a parameter called “global temperature” is mathematically and thermodynamically impossible.
    For a long time now it has seemed to me that the entire AGW controversy is as phony as manifold discussions in earlier human history. How heated the discussion must have been over the make-up of phlogiston, or the true phrenological interpretation of the shape of a skull! Witness the arguments put forward in witch trials by people just like us that were completely unaware they were spouting illogical gibberish. (Or in many cases the probably realised full well it was BS but insisted on it because in the end the political agenda justifies the means.
    There is nothing new under the sun, and this same nonsense goes on today, with people passionately putting forth arguments about completely fictitious imaginary entities and values.
    Such is the case with “climate change” because, after all is said and done, the only parameter considered in the term “climate” when proclaiming that “climate change” exists is temperature,and that in and of itself is sheer nonsense. Climate astrologers who insist on yapping about the “hottest day, week, month or year” to make policy make no more sense than the early Romans who made decisions based on the shape of the entrails of freshly slaughtered livestock.
    An article in American Thinker discusses the extent to which suchh discussions are nothing but superstitious dogma.

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    • #
      Watt

      We know not what Global Average Temperature is & by golly there are enough different definitions of it, but we do know that detectable variations in it may be a useful indicator of something.
      The rest is largely make believe.

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    Gary in Erko

    Are collies border?

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    Steve McDonald

    Will cats and dogs grow webbed feet like their owners?
    I know that the ducks in Australia are losing their feet webbing from the horrible droughts that Tim Flannery correctly predicted here from catastrophic man made global warming horror.

    I noticed a couple at the pond two days ago.

    The A.B.C. media were there doing a four hour documentary on this unprecedented and alarming disfigurement.

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    Gottlieb

    Maybe someone at the Independent should look up the difference between “Oxycotin” and “Oxytocin”. Not depressed….. just stoned.

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    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    We live in an age of Lemming stupidity. Say anything stupid and unfactual and the crazed media jump with it like it’s the answer to all questions. The horses and dogs are going nuts because their owners are nuts.

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    • #
      Dariusz

      Sadly history teaches us that this is not true. The lemming syndrome seems to be in our genes. If so what possible survival technique can be attributed to it, as we all image them going over the cliff. But when you are in the crowd you don,t see the impending catastrophic fall. The opposite is true, heartened by the like minded people you build a false sense of reality and security. After all “safety in numbers” has some true ring to it. Cowardness and sheep like behaviour has a survivability quality. It is not the heroes and individual thinkers that survive. In fact only a lucky fraction of individualist gets through and we will never know how many creative people perish on daily basis.
      When I read Solzenicyn,s gulags he mentioned a nameless man whose writings were piled 2 meters high in the KGB interrogation room. This is the human natural selection at its worst.

      Most of my communist day class mates are either mad or dead and they all started with high hopes and no lemming syndrome. I am the only one left with some success and semblance of mental stability (just).

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      • #

        Dariusz,

        Man that was a good book. Hard going at times, but so well worth sticking it out to the end.

        The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

        I read it in the late 70’s, and when the guys on the flight line saw me reading that, virtually the only comment I got was “why would anyone want to read that crap.” I was almost tempted to put a Harold Robbins dust sheet around it.

        Tony.

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        • #

          Funny, it reminded me.

          I also got similar, umm, feedback when I was reading Pasternak’s Zhivago, and that was fiction!

          When I was researching Sidney Reilly, The Ace Of Spies, and probably the original spur for James Bond, I found out how that was tied up with a number of things about Russia at the time, Music, the arts, society, politics, the whole drama, and what a drama, probably even better than anything about Bond. There was also a link to one of my favourite composers, Dmitri Shostakovich, and he fell into, then out of, then back into, and then out of favour again with the political establishment.

          You sit back here in Australia, and just thank the heavens that all you need ever do is to read about it. I couldn’t have handled actually having to go through any of it.

          Tony.

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          • #
            ROM

            I read a little of Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago” plus “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” the book that the Politburu was going to ban until a junior member well down the ladder convinced General Secretary Nikita Khrushshev to read it.

            Khrushshev read Solzenhenitsy’s A day in the Life,, a description of life in one of Stalin’s KGB run Gulag camps and his description was from one of the better camps.
            Khrushshev then very promptly asked ” Why is this book being banned ?” as he was then heavily into de-stalinising the Soviet Union whereupon the book was released to the Russian public and to the world.

            I have the sad biography of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter.

            I also have Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev’s very self serving secret letters, Khrushchev Remembers written after he was evicted from power, and the letters were then smuggled out of the decaying Soviet Union and translated and published in the west.

            It is history, a frightening, a sad and a blood soaked history.

            As somebody from the Lucky Country I and my generation were rarely ever directly involved but it still had a very serious impact on our lives as it is the history of my parent’s generation and of my early years into my mid 30’s with the near nuclear Cold War raging and Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN and reportedly saying “We will bury You” .
            Which as it turned out but never admitted by western media [ again! ] that they had badly mis-translated what Khrushshev had said and the context of the way the saying was used when said in Russian.

            US President Ronald Reagan broke the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War by creating an arms race that the Russians could never match or equal even though the Russians were reputedly spending just over 50% of their GDP in the final days of the Soviet empire on their military.

            That history still heavily affects our world today with Putin now busily rewriting Russian history and re-Stalinising the Russian myths surrounding WW2 in both word and deeds of the pre, during and post WW2 periods.

            It is a history that could have had a very different outcome when Mao Zedong went to the USSR to meet Stalin in 1949 after Mao’s Chinese Communists armies had won the civil war in China, Stalin basically severely insulted Mao.
            Subsequently the Chinese and the Soviets went head to head to control the world communist movement and were divided on ideological grounds on how to deal with the west.

            Mao’s Humiliation in Moscow, 1949

            Had the Russians and the Chinese communists had a close long term relationship all those decades ago, who knows what the world might have looked like today.

            We can only but guess!

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              Rereke Whakaaro

              Had the Russians and the Chinese communists had a close long term relationship all those decades ago, who knows what the world might have looked like today.

              Well, my guess would be, that we would almost certainly not have been able to discuss that question, today, via an electronic medium, that is almost freely available to about 25-30% of the global population, in close to real time.

              The highly interconnected, and redundant, internet has evolved to become one of the pillars of democracy, in the West. Even if it is primarily used by pre-pubescent girls exchanging pictures of Justin Beaber.

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      Ava Plaint

      News media is the feedback effect that can now turn a small error into mass stupidity on a global scale.

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    EternalOptimist

    Animals, including dogs, act strangely before earthquakes. The UK is about to give the green light to Frakking and frakking causes massive earth tremors.
    The impending frakking in the UK is so dangerous it even brought a crane down in New York City today. Frakking also causes CAGW.

    So dogs are quite right to get depressed. How would YOU feel if your best friend wantonly destroyed the environment?

    T.Flannery – Pet medic and Dog whisperer

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  • #

    I have had horses since 1980. Started with one, maxed out at 28, and back down to one. In the early years, I provided access to shelter. Most of the time, they stood outside and used the shelter as a place to make their “deposits” of processed hay. I soon discovered that outside was better for them because a shelter will have excessive ammonia emissions, insects, and dust that impacts their respiratory system. The only time they need anything but an open field is when it is cold, wet, and windy or hot, dry, and sunny. Wind blocking hedges and shade trees are quite enough. A barn or stall is sometimes useful as an aid to foaling but not really necessary.

    I do talk with my horses but I had to learn horse to do it. They can learn verbal commands and have a few simple calls but subtle body language is their preferred mode of communication. It is really quite striking how sensitive they are to the way you move and the position of your arms, hands, finger, legs, and feet.

    The net of this for me is knowing that the people who suggest that the horses are complaining about “climate change” knows nothing about either horses or climate change. What they say is nothing but talking points with little to no content.

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      John F. Hultquist

      Similar to you but had more Brittanys than horses. Both are better at “reading” people than people are each other. Unlike people, they rarely lie. If you have either dogs or horses learning to understand what they are telling you can prevent injury or death.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      I used to compete in one-day events, just for fun.

      As a result, I got really good at flying and then bouncing.

      Then, after a while, I learnt to trust the horse to keep me out of trouble. That was a much better arrangement.

      It is nice to know who is master.

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    el gordo

    Walsh village experiencing record breaking rain has seen the local pubs close their doors. There will be no drowning of sorrows around there, but I digress.

    ‘Farmer and county councillor John Davies has brought his sheep in from the hillsides because the creatures have developed wool rot.

    He said: “Our sheep are pretty hardy animals but even they are looking down in the mouth. Their fleeces are not getting the chance to dry out because of the endless rain.

    “It’s not stopped since October – I’ve never seen the ground as saturated as it is now.”

    UK Telegraph

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    OriginalSteve

    I love how people equate canning a huge lie as “weird” or “wrong”…..huh?

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/misleading-inaccurate-and-in-breach-of-paris-john-church-criticises-csiro-cuts-20160205-gmmopl.html

    Me thinks they dost complain too much…..( with apologies to Will S )

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    toorightmate

    Mr Ed has replaced 300 CSIRO scientists.

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    I think most people who have dogs,cats, horses, talk to them regularly, in fact it would be the exception who didn’t, and also understand their mannerisms. When my dog wants to go for walk he brings me his lead and knows not not when it is raining.

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      el gordo

      ‘John Church, a globally recognised expert on sea level rise …’

      A waste of taxpayers money and all those associated with such folly need to redefine their existence.

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    Peter OBrien

    It’s not possible to be a hip, progressive activist unless you need the services of a therapist to help you cope with the damage we’re doing to everything. But ostracism awaits the caring pet owner whose dog is not similarly affected. Could this account for the rise in depressed pets, as an industry moves into full production mode, somewhat like the child care industry in Australia?

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    Richard Hill

    Jo,
    Among all the humor, why is there a delay of news about the notch?

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    TdeF

    So dogs are ripping up the furniture and it is someone else’s fault, other than the owner. This is the blame game taken to extremes. CO2 does not change the temperature but changes the climate making it wetter which means dogs get depressed? All the fault of farmers, manufacturers and Western democracies and car owners. Sure. The dog is not the one who needs help.

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      Graeme No.3

      TdeF:

      They consulted a psychologist called Lew..something who explained their pet problems. And they believed him.

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    handjive

    “Who needs a climate model when you have a pet therapist to predict the future”

    Ironically, climate scientists failed to predict their own future.

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    Roy Hogue

    Pet therapists now? Then can we send one to see the president and his science advisor? That ought to stop all this climate change nonsense dead in its tracks.

    What’s that you say? The president isn’t a dog. Well don’t worry, he ins’t, he’s a bonafide horses back end. And I really think he needs that pet therapist.

    [Roy, this got caught in the filter for a word. I think the hint is: begins with d]ED

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      Yonniestone

      Two priests with holy water, a piece of the original cross, speaking ancient Latin couldn’t expel the dense colic from that horses ass.

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        Roy Hogue

        A thousand priests wouldn’t be enough. Absolution for him can only come from being tossed out into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue on his butt because he was impeached and convicted of all the articles of impeachment. And the congress has’t the nerve to even discuss doing it. So we retain our horse until January 20, 2017.

        By now I’m not sure there’s enough paper in the world to list all the things for which he ought to be impeached. So maybe it’s futile to even talk about it. But I dream about it constantly. It would be the justification of every suspicion, every complaint anyone has ever voiced about him. Like Pavlov’s dog, I drool at the thought.

        I wonder what this year’s elections will bring.

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      Roy Hogue

      ED,

      Thou speakest in riddles. It seems to be still verbatim the way I wrote it. Do you moderators need something new to smoke, maybe? If so I can recommend some of California’s finest for you to try. We have all sorts of possibilities. We even ship around the world. 😉

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    RB

    She needs to learn how to control other variables first, like weening the owners off Facebook and Twitter(and sceptic blogs? I have a cat so I can continue while stoking it and saying “I don’t expect you to talk, Mr Bond. I expect you to die.”)

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    Ruairi

    The warmists think the climate is so changed,
    That dogs get more depressed and go deranged,
    But skeptics think that dogs are not more sad,
    Not dogs,but warmist theories which are mad.

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    Owen Morgan

    Britain’s Instructor of the Year 2015” – there’s glory for you. Oddly enough, in all my years living in Britain, I’d never actually heard of that accolade. It sounds like the thing you get in airline magazines, which proudly proclaims that Packemin Airways is “Airline of the Year. When you get to the asterisk, you see the bit that says, “As voted by the readership of Uzbek Yak-Breeders Monthly.”

    Anyway, I’m not impressed that the Independent failed to canvass the opinions of previous Instructors of the Year. Unless they’re ritually sacrificed, Toltec-style, on completion of their term of fame, or unless (perish the thought) the award is total hogwash, shouldn’t scientists be looking for evidence of a trend? And why are we finding out about these disturbing developments only now? Didn’t any of the computer models manage to predict dog-depression?

    Not even one? It’s high time Julia Slingo put in a bid for an even bigger supercomputer. This state of affairs cannot be permitted to continue.

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    Terry

    Behold the Age of Stupid

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    • #

      Frank Zappa said in a bit of a rant on the topic in the 70’s something to the effect that “one day someone will hold up a dog turd and say can you feel the power emanating from this?” and some others will say “yeah”. I think we are pretty close now.

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    Bob Malloy

    You miss the point Jo, there must be at least £100,000 in this for Carolyn Menteith.

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    Yet another story encouraging a suspension of skepticism on the Australian Skeptics page today. Amazing, I am beginning to suspect this organization is run By John Cook.

    http://www.salon.com/2015/12/05/climate_skepticism_is_just_bad_science_there_is_no_cohesive_consistent_alternative_theory_to_human_caused_global_warming_partner

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      bobl

      Of course those versed in science know that there doesn’t need to be a cohesive alternative theory, the Null Hypothesis does just fine. If CO2 Warming fails to be proven, the Null hypothesis prevails which is of course Natural change driven by the sun and oceans.

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    I would like to tell you of my latest book and documentary.
    ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’.
    My latest documentary and video of my presentation.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzpPXuASY8
    My website is
    Thank you.
    Tim

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzpPXuASY8
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO08Hhjes_0
    http://www.drtimball.com

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    Geoffrey Williams

    Just Pathetic is all I can say – I have a Labrador and she loves to get out in the wet and the mud !
    Most dogs do. More like the owners are too lazy to get themselves and their dogs wet !
    Either the author (Carolyn Menteith) of this ‘staggering” revelation is on the payroll of the IPCC,
    or else she is suffering from ‘delusions of grandeur’
    Geoff W Sydney

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      ianl8888

      Nah, she’s just demonstrating the vacuous vanity of the “Look at me, look at me !” mindset

      Extremely common for those who paddle in the stain of the meeja …

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      Annie

      Our Border Collie loved being outside and walking in the mud, rain, snow, heat, whatever in England. What she liked less well was the hosing down she was given afterwards! She couldn’t come into the house until she was clean(ish) but then she then thoroughly enjoyed having a good towelling and a small number of dog biks 🙂

      She also enjoyed running around the large garden or sitting inside watching squirrels and birds. We really miss her.

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    William Astley

    No not the dogs, not the dogs. The horror, the horror.

    https://www.google.ca/#q=The+horror+Apocalypse+now

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    Hank de Carbonel

    While the science is settled I’m sure we should not overlook some possible contributors.
    The role of gluton, lack of self esteem is actually major. We humans denigrate dogs, a dogs life, dirty dog, dog tired, treated like a dog. We must treat dogs as equal which in many cases is demeaning.
    Living in California I plan to change my ways, pretty soon.

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    William

    No Jo,
    The talking horse cannot be the result of global warming.
    I draw your attention to “Mr.Ed” the talking horse. He had a very informative talk show in the 1960’s. I think his show was replaced by Dr.Karl on the ABC. But Dr.Karl has never been able to match Mr.Ed’s standard.
    Anyway, Mr.Ed aired long before global warming.

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    When I read this, I decided to consult with the nearest expert I could find. I printed out a copy and showed it to my neighbor’s German Shepard.

    Bijou was very impressed. Very impressed. He yawned, wagged his tail, scratched himself behind one ear and begged a doggy treat.

    Then he started chewing up the paper.

    His actual opinion will be most clearly expressed when that paper … er, passes on through and is deposited on the lawn.

    Which, in all honesty, I think is most appropriate.

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    mc

    I was on to this before you Jo. My furniture has been reduced to bare springs and rags, the household mutt has turned psycho with anxiety over climate change. In desperation I contacted Ace Ventura Pet Detective for advice; he told me the dog’s condition would improve greatly if I stop beating it for its misdemeanours and beat the crap out of the skeptic living next door instead.

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    • #
      mc

      By the way, Ace’s advice seems to have done the trick nicely; I’m happier, the dog is happier and the damned fool skeptic next door has at last been taught a lesson for his heinous questioning of the experts, although it has to be said, I’m getting just a bit fed up with the smug triumphalist smirk on muttlys’ face every time we talk about the error of sceptical ways. (yes, it’s a talking dog. The development of sophisticated language in non-human animals is one of the effects of CAGW I do approve of… I think… on the other hand I’m getting a bit sick and tired of constantly being told to go back to school and get a real education every time I say something wrong in our conversations.).

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    Bob in Castlemaine

    Strewth, that means we gotta bring the bloody horse inside too, as well as the dog! I give up.
    Anyone know how to comfort a horse with cabin fever?

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    If dog trainer Carolyn Menteith is really concerned about climate change, she wouldn’t be seen near a dog’s carbon pawprints.

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    AndyG55

    Its not just dogs

    Its CHICKENS as well

    http://australianclimatemadness.com/2016/02/06/chickens-threatened-by-climate-change/

    There goes Kentucky Fried 🙁

    60

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    TedM

    Considering the life expectancy of the average dog and the duration of the “pause”, how many dogs have actually experienced any global warming.

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    TedM

    Sorry I forgot the ?

    40

    • #
      Bushkid

      Ah yes, well now we come to it, don’t we. Once they can claim that the science is settled they can divert their attention to how to squeeze our few remaining dollars and enjoyment of life out of us.

      I guess that means all those domestic dogs will have to go, and along with them the dog psychologist……… Maybe there is an up side to this after all….

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    pat

    6 Feb: Australian: John Ross: World ‘to follow’ CSIRO on climate change research focus
    Climate scientists and agencies around the world will follow CSIRO’s lead in redirecting their research from modelling, according to outspoken US climat­ologist Judith Curry.
    Professor Curry said climate modelling had reached the point of “diminishing returns”, triggering an inevitable redirection of funding from science towards policy.
    “Now that the UN’s community of nations has accepted consensus climate science to drive international energy and carbon policy, what is the point of heavy government funding of climate research, particularly global ­climate modelling?’’ she said…
    Curry: Climate scientists and agencies around the world will follow CSIRO’s lead in redirecting their research from modelling, according to outspoken US climat­ologist Judith Curry.
    Professor Curry said climate modelling had reached the point of “diminishing returns”, triggering an inevitable redirection of funding from science towards policy.
    “Now that the UN’s community of nations has accepted consensus climate science to drive international energy and carbon policy, what is the point of heavy government funding of climate research, particularly global ­climate modelling?’’ she said…READ ON
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/world-to-follow-csiro-on-climate-change-research-focus/news-story/bc1037f57d2708656fc0b91995aa729e

    30

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  • #

    Not just pooches. You know how Mint Patties and Coconut Roughs have been getting skinnier since 1980? Notice how paisley body shirts and junket tablets have disappeared from the shelves since 1980? I know that correlation and causation aren’t the same thing, still…

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    PMT

    “So ipso, ergo, garbo,” fido.
    Canis be sirius?

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    Trev

    I never knew Mr Ed moved to England when he retired from TV!

    20

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    Gary in Erko

    I’m a dog and I’m not bored.
    .
    It’s like they say – you never know who’s writing stuff on the internet.

    20

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    Reed Coray

    This thread led me to formulate a probability problem worthy of the best AGW acolytes. Specifically, which of the following two statements is more likely to be valid.

    (1) There is a scintilla of truth in Carolyn Menteith’s claim that “Global Warming might be causing pets to become depressed.”

    or

    (2) Carolyn Menteith is really a skeptic, and she made the claim to poke fun at the AGW community.

    Although neither is even remotely likely, my vote is for #2.

    40

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    Anthony

    Thanks Jo, a very enjoyable piss take, made me laugh and put a smile on my face.

    30

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    Cog Williams

    Very sarcastic. Very funny. Thanks Jo for the giggle.

    30

  • #

    CSIRO Scientist = Pet Psychologist! That is the new equation!

    A new horizon awaits the unemployed CSIRO Climate Scientists. All is not lost.

    PS: Please do not send your unemployed CSIRO scientists to Canada — we have enough trouble with our puppet Prime Minister and the man behind the curtain (Gerald Butts).

    10

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    Rocky

    Take dog for walk.
    Stop treating Dog as a Human Analog.
    Get out in the Fresh Air and take dog with you !

    10

  • #
    Another Ian

    More PC


    Michael Oxenham
    February 6, 2016 at 3:17 am

    This sort of nonsense is not surprising to me. The modern profession seems to have swallowed the CAGW propaganda hook, line and sinker!
    Below is my letter to the Veterinary Record responding to an Editorial ’28-11-15′, in which the profession was urged to ‘raise awareness’ of their clients to the dangers of AGW caused by CO2 and CH4 emissions from agricultural processes; adding that we should eat less meat. My letter was censored, a good example of the modern scientific method by a science-based journal.

    The Editor
    Veterinary Record
    30 November 15

    Dear Sir
    Are we a Science-based Profession?

    I feel bound to ask this question after reading the VR Editorial Comment (28th November). This stated, in effect, that the profession was in a good position to support the IPCC’s dogma on catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW), due to man’s emission of so-called greenhouse gases (mainly CO2 and CH4). There was a similar editorial (VR 5th October 2013) entitled “Curbing Emissions”, which was a response to the IPCC AR5 report. My letter was published (9th November 2013), in which I commented that “there was no published empirical data or verifiable experiments that suggested either of the gasses (CO2 and CH4) had ever caused or driven global warming”. I also suggested that curbing these emissions will have no measurable effect on global temperatures and the ‘economic effects’ are dubious. Recently Dr Patrick Moore, Ecologist (2015) gave a lecture in which he produced robust evidence which suggested that, far from causing CAGW, more CO2 would be highly beneficial to the biosphere and agricultural crops.
    In order to clarify the scientific method, I need to refer to Dr Craig Idso and others (2013), quote, “The hypothesis implicit in all IPCC writings is that dangerous global warming is resulting, or will result, from human-related greenhouse gas emissions. In considering any such hypothesis, an alternative and null hypothesis must be entertained, which is the simplest hypothesis consistent with the known facts. The null hypothesis is that the currently observed changes in global climate indices and the physical environment, as well as current changes in animal and plant characteristics, are the result of natural variability. To invalidate this null hypothesis requires, at a minimum, direct evidence of human causation of specific changes that lie outside usual, natural variability. Unless and until such evidence is adduced, the null hypothesis is assumed to be correct”. I respectfully suggest, therefore, that the 28th November Leader does not follow the scientific method which was well defined by Popper (1965). If we are a science-based profession, it would make no sense to support the IPCC’s pseudo-scientific political dogma.
    There are other disquieting aspects. Dr Tim Ball (2014) makes a compelling case that climate science has been, quote, “deliberately corrupted by deceptions, misinformation, manipulation of records and misapplying the scientific method and research”. Much of this is also revealed in the emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in November 2009, which have been fully recorded and analysed by Andrew Montford (2012). He shows, regrettably, evidence of international malpractice.
    One of the main platforms of the IPCC hypothesis is its reliance on un-validated Global Climate Models (aka General Circulation Models) in projecting global temperatures about 100 years ahead. Global climate is far too complex and chaotic for GCMs ever to be programmed correctly. Furthermore many of the known natural factors affecting the global climate have been omitted from the GCMs. It is not surprising, therefore, that the projections made for the last 20 years differ wildly from the actual lower troposphere temperatures as shown by the RSS (Monckton 2015) and UAH (Spencer 2015) datasets. Both of these show there has been no statistical rise in global temperatures for nearly 20 years.
    One is bound to wonder whether the Leader Comment exhorting us to “raise awareness of our clients to these issues” of a pseudo-scientific myth, will soon ask us to raise awareness of the importance of homoeopathy.
    References
    MOORE, P., (2015) GWPF Lecture http://www.thegwpf.org/gwpftv/
    IDSO, C.D., CARTER, R.M., SINGER,S.F., (2013) Climate Change Reconsidered ll. Physical Science. http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
    POPPER, K., (1965) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge.2nd Edition: Harper and Row.
    BALL, T., (2014) The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science. Stairway Press.
    MONTFORD, A., (2012) Hiding the Decline. Anglosphere Books
    MONCKTON, C., (2015) RSS Dataset http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/08/06/a-new-record-pause-length-no-global-warming-for-18-years-7-months-temperature-standstill-extends-to-233-months/
    SPENCER, R., (2015) UAH Dataset http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/V6-vs-v5.6-LT-1979-Mar2015.gif

    Yours sincerely
    Michael Oxenham
    Reply
    ozspeaksup
    February 6, 2016 at 3:43 am

    the fairly recent trend is to dose the hapless pets with SSRI meds
    thereby ensuring the pets and owners are on a lifetime of addictive meds,
    nice extra bonus profit for big pharma!”

    From comments at

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/05/global-warming-is-causing-dogs-to-become-depressed/

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    William Astley

    Europe and the UK will need to adapt to cold wet springs, cold wet summers, cold wet falls, and very, very, cold winters with piles and piles of snow.

    The colors used for ocean temperature anomalies will require a change. Currently black is used for 5C negative anomaly which will create a problem as black is also used for the depiction of land surfaces. Ocean surface temperature 150 years ago in the North Atlantic was 10C colder than current.

    The solar cycle has been interrupted. It appears the majority of people are ignorant as to the rapidity and magnitudes of abrupt cooling changes in the paleo record and how solar cycle changes cause cyclic warming and cooling in the paleo record.

    http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.2.4.2016.gif

    Abrupt climate change Holocene
    http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~peter/Resources/Holocene.vs.Stage5e.html
    – The Holocene was punctuated by irregular 1500±500 year cooling events which have correlatives in the North Atlantic (deMenocal et al., 2000; Bond et al., 1997).
    – When compared to the Holocene sequence at Site 658C, the results suggest we are overdue for an abrupt transition to cooler climates… …. These results are consistent with other high-resolution records of the Last Interglacial from the North Atlantic and support the view large-scale climatic reorganizations can be achieved within centuries.

    Greenland Ice Sheet Temperatures Last 100,000 years

    http://www.hidropolitikakademi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4.gif

    It is interesting that the Dansgaard/Oescheger events which have characteristic period of 1470 years have continued throughout the Holocene interglacial period.

    As there are cosmogenic isotope changes that are concurrent with all of the Dansgaard/Oescheger events (also referred to a Bond events named after Gerald Bond who tracked 23 of the cycles) and the Heinrich events it is obvious a specific solar cycle change is causing what is observed.

    http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif

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    Power Grab

    Worst in 20 years, huh? Well, let’s see…20 years ago the internet was just starting to spread beyond the cloistered walls of universities.

    Now, most people have a computer and/or smart phone, and their attention is riveted to screens of all sizes, while their derrieres are firmly planted in comfy chairs. I wonder how many pets have next to no interaction with their owners, now that their owners’ attention is usually captured by all those screens?

    Obesity epidemic? Pet depression epidemic? ^^^ There’s your problem!

    20

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    Another Ian

    Via email Jo has a photo to verify

    Our computer literate mini foxie (knows a lot about laptops) had a look at this

    and quisically wanted to know where that bs came from

    10

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    Eveline

    Don’t let your dog get bored, join this FB group to find out more about brain games for dogs! http://www.facebook.com/groups/Brain.Games.for.Dogs
    An example of a great brain game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avcYKFOmcZA !!!

    00

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    Ross King

    Has anyone mentioned ”The Foehn” (sp?), the occasional warm winter wind that tends to unbalance the minds of Austrians? To the extent that it is apparently a valid defence for murdering your spouse?
    El Nino here, La Nina there, a little bit of Foehn, and the zoo inhabitans are getting bored?

    00