Letter to The Mercury published 18/3/15
Keeping quiet about the uncertainty of climate prediction has at last come back to bite the climate research community on its collective bottom. The obvious question has finally been asked in public – namely, if the science behind disastrous climate change is so settled, why continue to spend money on it? It is not surprising that CSIRO is now cutting the number of its staff involved in climate research.
May I suggest to the remaining staff that they might profitably spend their time attempting to disprove the theory of disastrous global warming rather than simply finding data to support it? There is more than enough uncertainty about climate change to give them a very good chance of upsetting what must be one of the world’s greatest scientific applecarts. Since the upsetting of applecarts is what scientists are paid to do, it shouldn’t be long before they are once again showered with money and roses. Just think of it – massive reward simply by returning to a research philosophy fundamental to scientific progress. It is known as scepticism.
Garth Paltridge
Sandy Bay, Tasmania
_______________
Garth Paltridge is a former CSIRO Chief Research Scientist and was Director of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre. He wrote The Climate Caper, reviewed here. He’s a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Oceans Studies (IASOS), which is now called the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Science (IMAS), University of Tasmania. In his career, he worked as an atmospheric physicist, predominantly with CSIRO and briefly with NOAA , and has published more than 100 books and scientific papers.
All the posts here involving Garth Paltridge.
This is a brilliant idea as there is no way for the big C to lose.
Kill the crazy CO2 thing, prove the U.N. and the rest of the warmers Wrong and then get on with the real business:
Finding real cost effective renewable systems.
Unfortunately that’s all too much like common sense.
KK
363
*And after SPT”‘s big announcement of today!!
* WRT a chapter in Kahlil Gibran’s “Thoughts and Meditations
40
?
Spt
“The moving finger writes and having writ moves on”
Or
“They are not our children they are the children of the universe”
40
Is that the big “T”?
I heard of his decision this morning relating to the funding of various CO2 reduction programmes.
Goldilocks will be pleased.
Banks love any type of money churn, think of the fees.
60
The big “T” also known as a big “C” KK.
31
No just sell it. Then you know what it is really worth.
70
… and thus we discover how rare `common sense’ really is.
50
Professor Flannery said the science was settled that humans were causing the world to warm.
80
How can a man who did a B.A in English at Latrobe in 1977 and a PhD in dead kangaroos possibly lecture the science community?
343
Yep, it does make one wonder how vacuous these people are when it comes to defending this meme.I have yet to hear anything resembling conviction from these twits.They have nothing worthwhile to say except frighten children and alarm the gullible.
232
Thank goodness we can learn from the ‘flat earth’ days,
Adam Fulara – Bach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N7skE4d57c
30
Scoff if you will but he reads Kangaroo entrails like no other, he shows guts to follow the old ways people have no idea what this
entrailsentails.170
Yonnie?! You are awake at this hour too (coughing is keeping me awake). I like your comment, it made me laugh
50
Yonnie?! You are awake at this hour too (coughing is keeping me awake). I like your comment, it made me laugh
10
Sorry, no idea how this repeated.
20
Late night snacks have a habit of doing that Annie.
60
I think they were repeating on her…….. 🙁
20
Unfortunately not so! Just this horrible cough which drives me crackers and makes me sore.
This is from a new device; I wonder if it will complicate things. I’ve already had a go not filling in name and email.
00
Because many people that don’t have specific qualifications can speak about anything they like, and still be correct? This is the same logical fallacy that alarmists use against skeptics that don’t have specific qualifications.
Qualifications are a good measure of whether or not someone might be worth listening to; it is not a measure of whether or not what comes out of their mouths is true.
In Flannery’s case: the evidence against the drivel he spouts is the determining factor.
241
In many cases, qualifications on their own don’t represent capability or competence, that only comes with years of experience. In the climate debate, it seems that those with qualifications and years of experience are ignored or derided.
131
I back capability, competency and experience every time before qualifications.
Enough about describing myself, I have few qualifications, the rest could be debatable, if I let it. However, the real story is exaggeration, a common and insidious cause of the warmist’s ‘debating tactics’, of which Flannery is a Master!
40
Tom
You can at least claim a Masters degree from UHK (University of Hard Knocks)
30
The climate change club nailed their colours to the mast long ago in the quest to suckle at the cagw trough. Backing down would be too embarrassing and maybe raise doubt about the massivenesss of their interllect. Thus no change within the cagw proponents forecast.
274
Exactly.
But it’s always nice to dream.
51
The CAGW gravy train is not going to go on forever. There is increasing skepticism in the public and greatly decreased support. The CAGW supporters won’t be able to go on like this indefinitely whether they like it or not. What are they going to do? The smart ones are already backing away from the extremists, publishing papers about previously unknown factors, possible benefits from a warmer climate, and speculation that it is not as bad as they thought. The less smart ones are shrieking louder than ever but this is not resulting in increased support for their cause. Sooner or later, they are going to have to make some hard decisions.
And I for one will enjoy watching them do it.
204
JLK:
Even Michael Mann has agreed about the lack of recent warming, so quite a few are moving towards what they hope are the lifeboats. It’s a scientific trend as you point out.
It is the activists who infest the AGW Establishment who will go down in the sinking ship screaming that the oceans are rising.
212
That’s right.
They’ll be screaming “the boats not sinking, it’s the ocean rising”.
100
They will move onto some New Activism — ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, lack of fresh drinking water, desertification, whatever.
They will still be suckling at the public teat, still vilifying Exxon, the Koch Brothers, and Fox News, and still be as convinced as ever of their moral superiority over everyone else.
10
At long last the troughs of money used to investigate supposed climate change are starting to empty.
So, in order to slow down the process, so called climate science are now being encouraged to tell the truth and abandon their previously comfortable careers where “the science is settled”.
If that tells you anything about the toxic state of climate science today, it is this and that its level of dishonesty and distortion is unparalleled in the history of science.
However, as any thinking person can tell you, climate science is not a real science, as the former’s typical standards of research would simply not be allowed and be summarily dismissed as the scary rubbish it is.
222
There’s no money in predicting normality and recommending how to deal with it.
232
Change is normal. This abnormal 200 year long period of little change must come to an end soon.
80
Agreed.
And then we start that rapid fall into the ninety five thousand years of the next Glacial Period.
Ice will pile up 1500 metres deep over The United Nations building in New York.
The only good news is that Kev07, Julia and Julie will be trapped there together. Imagine that.
Then in the year 102,000 AD an Australian researcher by the name of Flannery, (yes, Tim’s great great grandson) will discover the remains huddled near the furnace and determine that the ultimate irony is that their deaths were due to having gone there to fight Global Warming.
My apologies to all who read that rubbish but I’m bored.
KK
151
KK looking at historic patterns of warm and cold periods I would not be surprised if the next two decades saw the world back in Maunder minimum L.I.A. conditions.
That will make all these global warming scientists look like fools, getting employment would be a case of never mentioning their involvement, starting from soon.
The next solar cycle is likely to be very minimal and temps will plummet, winters in the north from next year on may be a bit ordinary and get worse. Cheers
20
Nice comment gnome. Often a thoughtful person can express the whole Green Blob scam as a simple truth, an understandable sentence that explains much, and a logic that is irrefutable.
Take care.
112
18/3/15?? Surely 2016.
50
I suspect that a high percentage of those 350 climate scientists might be facing a very long haul to get another job of equal ranking to the one the are currently luxuriating academically in.
Or even another job.
As for changing their climate catastrophe spots from black to white as Garth Paltridge is suggesting is probably beyond the intellectual flexibility of most of them.
I look at it this way.
Those climate scientists come out of exactly the same gene pool as the man and woman on the street.
They are no smarter, no more intellectual, no more skilled than the man and woman on the street, in the offices, in industries and etc.
They only think and believe they are smarter and intellectually superior to the man and woman on the street because they have managed to accumulate a hashed up mess of alphabet letters after their name which might mean something to them but doesn’t mean much at all to the man and woman in the street or to a prospective employer except to make sure that it will help them to do their damnedest to appear to be of a superior intellect to anybody and everybody else.
Like a small selection of men or women on the street who have never had to change or shift jobs and professions, the rest are always subject to changing situations re jobs and employment and can and do adapt fast to a new situation, those climate scientists don’t know of any other life except the one within the education systems and then straight from there into the very comfortable surrounds of academia where life can be pleasant and even easy.
A few, a very few are probably capable of doing a full U turn in their professional capabilities but I suspect the rest are just too fixated and are intellectually incapable of the mental flexibility to be able to make a 180 degree turn in their rigid climate catastrophe based ideological beliefs in that they start to examine the alternative and opposing arguments against the chances of a catastrophe promoting climate ideology.
There is always as with any selection of human beings in any circumstances, some very smart individuals who are a strata above the average.
And an even smaller percentage of those smarter ones are also honest and have a deep sense of integrity.
Honesty and integrity are not connected to intellectual capability as a list of some of the world’s smartest crooks and criminals can testify to.
So the smarter climate scientists out of that trove of a very average set of intelligences, after all they haven’t yet provided ANY examples at all of ground breaking climate science from that entire cohort of 350 CSIRO climate scientists and thats after how many decades of employment and a few hundreds of millions of dollars by the CSIRO, will probably wangle by fair means or foul, employment somewhere else in academia.
That leaves a possible 348 who will be looking for employment elsewhere.
If they can’t find it in some sublevel of some Third World University, Zimbabwe anybody, they are back to finding employment somewhere in business or industry although Government employment will be their obvious first choice and feel like home of a sorts for the aforesaid obvious reasons.
After all as fired climate scientists who have never done a stressful hard days work anywhere, Government employment would seem the only type of employment they could possibly hack for any length of time.
Or would be until some more cynical department boss puts them on the front desk to deal with a very recalcitrant public of every conceivable type and level.
The culture shock of having to deal with such a public which some government employees have to do every hour of their working life would be a very salutary lesson to those self promoting climate scientists with their own self promoted superior intellects backed by half the alphabet after their names.
With no useable skills in any sense for any commercial enterprise it appears they might be damn near unemployable anywhere else.
324
Ha ha….actually reminds me of one Doug Cotton.
80
I’m sorry, but these ‘chosen ones’ from the CSIRO obviously assumed they had a jobs for life commitment, but now they have to face the stark reality of now having to live in the real world with no skills whatsoever.
Makes you want to weep, if you are a very strange individual, or more likely laugh if you are a regular human being.
152
If you consider the damage to science and the lost opportunity, I feel like weeping.
152
Ah, ROM, I think you underestimate the effect of sudden enforced poverty. 🙂
70
Having a science degree and having worked on a few science based projects can apparently be quite a serious handicap when a former scientists tries to find a job in the general work force.
Now this is from memory going back a few years when the Weatherzone climate forum was still allowed to function by Fairfax and has stuck in my mind ever since.
A commenter on the WZ forum told of his son’s experience.
His son had a quite high ranked science degree and had worked on a number of science based projects but for reasons long lost to my memory, the son had left science temporarily or had been retrenched from the science projects he had been involved in.
As there were no apparent science positions in his speciality open to him at that time, he made the rounds of the various work force jobs on offer.
Every time he mentioned his science degrees the prospective employer rapidly backed off with the excuse that he was too highly qualified for them to employ him.
This attitude on the part of a number of prospective employers was apparently quite a shock.
He eventually got a job with a butcher but only by making sure that he made no reference at all to his science degrees or his science background when applying for that butcher’s job.
And the outcome?
Well his father wrote that the son was loving the job and couldn’t believe his luck in finding a job that he liked so much outside of science.
Maybe there is a salutary lesson in this example for a lot of scientists.
They might not be so high and mighty on the public’s social scale as they like to believe and their own particular skill set might not be of much real use or benefit at all to the rest of society.
121
ROM
You haven’t figured in the current “no sackem” rules.
One big outfit I’ve heard of you have to have been counselled 3 times and cost more than $100,000 in cock-ups before getting sacked.
So they’re shifted to management! If that isn’t a 5 minute solution to a 30 minute problem I’ll take a lot of convincing.
Backed up by a bloke in a different line of business who added that once someone like that gets into management they have to keep hiring people dumber than they are to keep looking good.
So that 348 might not be as hard up as you imagine.
50
doubt there’s any profit in proving it wrong, sadly.
zero & negative interest rates taking a toll as Lloyd’s posts a 30% fall in profit!
23 Mar: Lloyd’s: Lloyd’s Reports £2.1bn profit for 2015
Lloyd’s Chief Executive, Inga Beale, said:
“Lloyd’s is pursuing its strategy to deliver risk solutions to a fast moving world, business looks to the Lloyd’s market to underwrite policies too complex for others to handle. Protection from cyber-attacks, terrorism and ***climate change are needed now more than ever.”
http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/press-centre/press-releases/2016/03/2015-annual-results
living in the age of “disruptive innovation”, says Inga.
disrupting the world’s energy grids with unworkable/unnecessary wind & solar, I say.
23 Mar: Sky News: Lloyd’s Warns On Terror As Profits Dive 30%
The specialist insurance market’s chief executive says protection from terrorism is needed “now more than ever”.
Lloyd’s pointed to a “fast-moving world”, with other threats including ***climate change and cyber crime, in its annual report released just 24-hours after the bomb attacks in Brussels…
Chief executive Inga Beale said: “Looking across the financial sector, we live in the age of disruptive innovation…
“Business looks to the Lloyd’s market to underwrite policies too complex for others to handle. Protection from cyber-attacks, terrorism and ***climate change are needed now more than ever.”
She expected market conditions to remain challenging, “providing a climate of reduced levels of returns”.
http://news.sky.com/story/1665261/lloyds-warns-on-terror-as-profits-dive-30-percent
MSM are fast picking up this story. Guardian refers to Inga on Bloomberg TV, but Inga doesn’t spell out “climate change” there, but says in first minute, paraphrasing, unfortunately we’re seeing demand for new risks…tragically we’re seeing more kinds of risks, MANMADE risks, things like cyber attacks.
also, if I understand the full 5min29sec interview, they appear to be talking about a 9% return on investment compared to 14 or 15% last year, poor things:
VIDEO: 23 Mar: Bloomberg: Pricing Risks Amid EU Terror and Possible ‘Brexit’
Inga Beale, chief executive officer at Lloyd’s of London, discusses what the attacks in Brussels means for the company and pricing policies amid MANMADE risks. She speaks with Guy Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “On The Move”.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-03-23/pricing-risks-amid-eu-terror-and-possible-brexit
50
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-23
Extra extra read all about it – Turncoat ( well named ) quietly reinstates scrapped ARENA and CEFC
“Your journey to the Socialist dark side is complete, young Turnbull….you will make an excellent apprenticcccce….”
180
I heard about it this morning.
There is something extraordinarily evil about politics.
This is what Another Ian mentioned above.
70
When implementing such a scheme always remember the shareholders come first.
80
Web page removed at 09:15.
What is going on?
20
Alternative link here;
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/turnbulls-climate-change-boost-defies-abbott/news-story/3a4c9490ee9a372e6bccf8859654a8d3
Letter sent to the PM.
“Dear Prime Minister,
Aussie Government Pledges $1 billion for Renewables
Is this true?
If it is is true, why would you want to spend our money in that way. What a waste. Renewable energy (solar panels and wind turbines are worse than useless. They produce very little energy, at extreme cost and at inconvenient times (not when needed) and destabilise our reliable and wonderful coal power supplied electricity grid .
We have more than 3 months to your election. I am hoping that you will dump renewable energy. But if you do not dump it, at least give positive arguments to explain why we should be taxed, against our will, to fund it.
A true liberal would would withdraw all subsidies and let customers decide if they want to spend more of their own money to “save the world”.”
200
I’m sure people are sick of me banging on about this but here goes anyway :
There is no “Labor” or “Liberal” any more – both are completely controlled by globalists and allt he same under the wrapper, which is why no matter who you vote for, you get the same globalist agenda & outcome.
Logically speaking, it is the only plausible reason for the stagnation of politics and why awful stuff just keeps moving forward regardless. All it means is that if you vote for “Labor” the bad stuff will just move forward *faster*.
I think people need to get ready for a seriously bad quantum shift in Australia – from my own personal Conservative Christian view of the world, we seem to be shifting along the line of Biblical Prophecy of the rise of the Antichrist ( who logically will likley rule through the UN ) but only after the world is organized into 10 super nations ( which is why the world is in so much upheaval right now while these super nations are being established ).
The bad new is that once the 10 super nations are set up, then we will see WWIII and all manner of horrific stuff take place….time is rapidly running out. From a Christian perspective, this is expected, abeit unpleasant…..
Caveat Emptor.
102
This is exactly what Dr. Judith Curry has been doing for the last few years at her blog “Climate etc”
She is despised by many of her peers for asking the tough questions (uncertainty, etc) but she stands for integrity in a field that is sorely lacking it.
281
Makes sense. An idea, hypothesis or theory is corroborated by the severity of the tests it has been exposed to and survived, and not at all by inductive reasoning in favor of it.
“what characterizes the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested. Its aim is not to save the lives of untenable systems but … exposing them all to the fiercest struggle for survival.”
– Karl Popper – The logic of scientific discovery
50
Turnbull goes GREEN.. is this the payment he had to make to get his Senate changes through ?
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/turnbulls-climate-change-boost-defies-abbott/news-story/3a4c9490ee9a372e6bccf8859654a8d3
120
Yes, or at least part of it
70
They won’t try to disprove this hypothesis, because they’ll be no funding to do so.
Also, it’s long past the stage where the actions of the politicians has much to do with staving off any real or mythical climate change!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-AXhzg12yOI8/VIP_CPD2B9I/AAAAAAAAgac/c9dcHdYUnGU/w907-h587-no/endenhofer.png
40
It makes you ask question the role of the CSIRO. They are a government research body but who sets directions? Under the act, the minister, so they are a political research body. Some endeavours like Antarctic research make great sense as we dominate the Southern Hemisphere and claim a large part of the huge continent of Antarctica. Who would go there but a scientist? Given we are an island and have so much of the Southern Ocean, oceanic research makes sense and with 37,000km of coastline even more so. Only 2% of humanity live below the tropic of Capricorn, so that makes sense.
However Climate Change is nonsense. I have read the CSIRO web site and they struggle even to define it against the weather and the apparently new idea of natural variation. Now thanks to their political masters and their ‘international obligations’ we have a new BOM competing division ‘studying’ Climate Change and its effects. Why? Why waste the lives and skills of 350 scientists to try to give substance to an imported idea?
Where is the leadership on new energies, new energy storage, new approaches to living in this land of droughts and flooding rains? Why are we just parroting imported ideas? When will Australian public service scientists actually do something significant? The WiFi noise reduction had nothing to do with WiFi. It to others overseas to realise the significance. Now I read that people are trying to seed clouds to make rain in Tasmania. I thought that idea was canned a decade ago, after fifty years of failure?
Is the CSIRO simply an early retirement village for scientists? How many actually have something useful to do? What does Australia actually get for $1.3Billion a year and over 6,000 people? How can 350 people work for years on something and have nothing much to say except that their budget and staff numbers should never change?
101
Or to put it more simply, as Australia has only 0.34% of the world’s population and 98% of all CO2 comes from overseas. If that causes ‘disastrous’ Climate Change, so what?
What is the CSIRO going to do about it and why should we pay taxes to people overseas whose CO2 it is?
We should be taxing them. What are 350 scientists going to do? Write reports? Why should we pay to have a huge hand wringing department at enormous expense? Surely the government has far more important things to do with our money? If not, close the place.
We do not need a Climate Change department. Given their results, so far it has been hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing, a sham.
151
Well I think that we are seeing a classic case of Capitalism in action in the realms of Science.
From my post in one of Jo’s previous headline posts.
An estimated 1.5 to 1.8 million science papers published each year.
An estimated 28,000 science journals published each year
Most of those “science” papers are read by only three people, the author, the reviewer and the editor and never cited in any other science papers.
So the question to ask is why there are so many “scientists” when by far the bulk of them are, from the statistics on science publishing, effectively contributing nothing at all towards the societal advancement and are in fact a severe hindrance to society in that they are diverting a substantial part of society’s limited financial resources towards themselves and in return have provided absolutely no observable benefits to society at all.
Well I see it as Capitalism at work.
How often do we see a whole host of punters piling into some stocks in some corporation as its stock values start to go ballistic, in the hope they are going to make a mint out of those stocks.
Only for it to all to come crashing back to earth as the harsh reality about the true value of the stock, if any, finally strikes home and the bottom falls out of the stock along with the carry over effect on most of the other stock exchange values for a short time.
At least until the next great stock gamble.
.
Capitalism is all about greed, pure and simple!
Capitalism is driven by greed
In a Capitalistically based democratically run economy and society, Governments are elected to both promote a Capitalistic based societal advancement but more importantly, to ensure that Capitalism’s excesses are very firmly controlled so as to ensure a modicum of fairness and an equality in the distribution of Capitalism’s derived benefits of every type across the whole of the democratically governed populace.
The huge growth in every type of the present science industry is because it appears to be a relatively easy way toward making and achieving high financial rewards without ever taking any responsibility at all for any failures from the science one produces or for the lack of any results or outcomes at all for just about any period of time one would like to nominate, including the whole of a working science life.
An attitude badly exacerbated by governments everywhere throwing huge amounts of tax payer’s hard earned at science of every type without going back and doing a thorough examination as to the results and outcomes that heavily financed and well provided for science and research has provided in return for the amount of public monies they have received.
Invariably in a capitalistic society as the people and generations change in politics and business and industry, comes the day of reckoning when the new faces begin doing the sums on the failures and faults of the passing political generation and the questions begin to be asked.
And science and other large benefactors of government largesse can no longer give valid reasons or provide evidence of significant societal benefits relative to the amounts of societal wealth they have received.
And then comes the crunch where the publicly funded largesse so lavishly bestowed by the previous governments on science, particularly in the current case to climate alarmist science, is cut right back or cut right off.
And there is much wailing and tearing of academic robes and the throwing of much unpublished papers and sackcloth and ashes in the hallowed corridors of the science establishments.
Its called Capitalism and in capitalism adjustments are made and the excess is eliminated or made redundant when a there is a no longer useable or absorbable excess of people or scientists or items or stocks or etc.
In Capitalism you will also reap what you sow just as those CSIRO climate scientists are now doing, having sown nothing at all and reaping even less, so they are therefore totally superfluous in a capitalistic society and they will be dispensed with just as many other climate alarmist scientists will find themselves in the not so many years ahead.
33
Capitalism? You capitalism seems to cover every human endeavour. Is that your point, that greed and capitalism are the same? Or are you talking about greed being necessarily bad and captialism being evil?
However which scientists would not be motivated by fame and wealth? Call it greed if you like. Are there really altruistic high priests of science out there? I would suggest the vast proportion of university based scientists who have never had a job outside the university are in fact refugees from capitalism, sticking to their own narrow fields and hoping to stay there until retirement, keeping their heads low.
Outside the university, it is a very competitive world and in Australia few make the transition. Outside university people want careers, income even wealth. Who doesn’t? People who do not want these things, who have taken a vow of poverty we call priests and they get regrets too.
In Australia, if you go straight from school to university to the CSIRO, I would argue that you have never faced up to competitive economic pressures at all. Only academic ones. Who is to say that you have any particular ability to do more than pass exams and those in increasingly narrow fields. Who said you were any good at research or teaching? What is the motivation? If not greed, then what? Need?
As for greed being the problem, I doubt it. A little balance is required. What’s wrong with wanting more than you have? What’s wrong with having to perform to get it? As for the Stock Exchange, it is an amazing invention which allows achievements on a scale which were once the province only of the ultra wealthy, the Carnegies, Rockerfellers and Rothschilds. Now thanks to the stock exchange, you too can own a bank. It is a fairer world.
What is wrong with universities in Australia is that they can only look to the government for income. The government talks about funding R&D, but really these are tax rebates, no actual cash. The Greens even see that as a waste. So professional academics become the partners of the political establishment and if you want Global Warming, they will find it for you. Climate Change too. If an academic dares work for a corporation envied and they are reviled.
There is another way. Once four Nobel prize winners worked for IBM at the same time. Now we have the software, telephone, steel billionaires. It used to be media, beer and railways and steel. Is Google good? Apple? Facebook? Intel? Hewlett Packard. Pick the right shares and you can be rich with them.
We have a particular problem in Australia with our government funded sheltered workshops we call the Universities and the CSIRO and BOM and the ABC/SBS. They could do with a bit of return on investment you call capitalism. They could do with real accountability. There is nothing they are doing we could not contract out, sometimes to exactly the same people. You could pay half as many people twice as much for getting things done and get a better result. How many people are these organizations carrying?
See, one good rant deserves another.
110
Yes a good idea but it will only work if the Turnbull government provides funding. He can’t because he’s not a skeptic but a believer in the man-made global warming alarmist crap, and likes very much to re-introduce a carbon tax or something like it simply to pinch more tax dollars from us hapless suckers.
80
As for Dr Paltridge, former CSIRO Chief Research Scientist, I assume he is retired. To rise to the top of 6,000 people in a large scientific organization and be responsible for $1.3Bn a year, you have to be equal parts very qualified and competent and a real politician and bureaucrat yourself, someone who understands the game and the rules.
So we have to ask whether he would dare question Climate Change and express such opinions in his former position? Or is this another case of being free to speak only in retirement? He could also explain the phrase ‘disastrous climate change’. Is this sarcasm or does he mean it is disastrous and if so, how and where? There is a lot not said. Yes, scientists are skeptics by definition. We know that, but does he really think the CSIRO would dare fund the demolition of the Climate Change scare, or is this just leg pulling, being very mildly provocative?
81
It’s the question we need to work on.
Is incineration by man made CO2 real.
He has pointed out the direction but sadly we can never go there.
In the meantime our glorious leader will make hay while the sun shines,
Or until we get rid of him.
50
Say it is real? So what? Now they are looking for ‘solutions’? Really? The CSIRO cannot make it rain or shear sheep let alone control the planet.
As for a carbon tax, China, the largest generator of CO2 actually receives Carbon cash and has promised to look at the CO2 problem only after their output peaks anyway in 2030. Very few countries will pay Carbon tax/ETS, certainly not China, India or Russia. As for Europe, it is not really a tax, just another Brussels money go round.
Underneath all this the real objective is to get hard cash from the yokels in the colonies, as always. Tell them they are saving the planet. Those dunces will believe anything and their CSIRO will fully support this with fulsome beautifully typeset color reports according to their minister. Finally, promise their political leaders high positions in the UN if they pay up. That always works. How’s Rudd going with his candidacy for head of the UN, above Helen Clarke who is third?
60
I wonder if Malcolm has already had discussions about his future with the UN? You have to apply for these positions and that is Malcolm’s track record. Little Australia is too small. Rhodes Scholar, QC, Merchant Banker, Rich, now Prime Minister and finally Leader of the World. A legend.
101
KK
The SPT above is the chapter “The Silver Plated Turd”. I’d better add IMO
20
I remember seeing that name before but it obviously didn’t stick.
Still, A very appropriate description.
00
At last.
A climate scientist who I can take seriously.
51
If the climate alarmists changed tack,
And came clean on the science they lack,
Like the prodigal son,
Was by folly undone,
The skeptics might welcome them back.
130
Like Punk, Settled Science Doomsday Global Warming belongs in the eighties.
It was never meant to get old …
“Punk was never about getting older, gracefully or otherwise.
It wasn’t about slavishly following and admiring bands.
It wasn’t about dragging out careers and ideas for four decades, two generations, merchandise and memorabilia.
It wasn’t about repeating things, over and over again.
Well, you could repeat chords, because you weren’t a very good guitarist.
But the notion of repeating something – like a Ford production line – carries with it the whole capitalist, product-focused, churning ethos that is the very enemy of punk.
~ ~ ~
Much like doomsday predictions made in the 80s, which, by their very nature, should only be made once:
James Hansen, 1988: Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate
James Hansen, 2016: Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries
21
23 Mar: ReutersCarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: China likely to allow banking of pilot CO2 permits, reduce free allocation
China is likely to let allowances from the pilot carbon markets be banked to the national emissions trading system, but at the expense of reduced allocation levels, the market’s lead architect said Wednesday.
Chinese carbon traders are awaiting clarity on the fate of millions of surplus allowances from the seven regional pilots when the national ETS launches next year.
***Ruling the units ineligible would likely see pilot prices drop to near zero for the next 15 months.
Duan Maosheng, a Tsinghua University professor, former CDM EB chair, and the chief architect of the national market, said at least some of the pilot allowances were likely to be bankable, but that in return the NDRC would probably reduce the amount of free permits distributed in the pilot regions in the interim…
An audio recording of Duan’s presentation of the status of the national ETS is available here. (LINK – REGISTRATION REQUIRED)
http://carbon-pulse.com/17387/
on rtcc.org homepage, the following is prefaced by: “This is huge for getting money flowing to greener companies”.
23 Mar: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: China’s largest bank to screen loans for environmental risk
Speaking by video link from China, Zhang Hongli said the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was aware of the risks posed by climate change and committed to greening its finance flows.
The world’s top bank, based on assets totalling US$3.6 trillion, it holds significant investments coal, steel, cement and shipbuilding industries…
On Wednesday ICBC released initial findings from a stress-test on investments in thermal coal and cement, covering nearly 500 Chinese companies…
That is significant because China hosts this year’s G20, with a specific focus on climate change and green finance…
The bank has been one of the worst-hit in China’s financial slump, reporting a 31% increase in bad loans totalling $25.5 billion in 2015.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/03/23/chinas-largest-bank-to-screen-loans-for-environmental-risk/
10
btw where is Barnaby Joyce calling out Turnbull for going against the agreement re CAGW policies?
worth noting, despite conflicting accounts detailed in the article:
12 Mar: MexicoNewsDaily: Snow and cold takes toll on monarchs
As many as 11 million butterflies might have died
Source: El Universal (sp)
The numbers that arrived in Mexico for the winter were up, but cold weather has killed as many as 11 million in the last few days, according to one report.
At the El Rosario sanctuary in Michoacán, where winter storm No. 11 brought 35 centimeters of snow and temperatures that plunged to -12 C, they say about 1.5 million butterflies have died.
Rosario spokesman Homero Gomez Gonzalez was able to see the monarch deaths in a positive light. He pointed out that the majority had survived despite snowfall levels that hadn’t been seen in 40 years…
This year’s coverage of four hectares has been estimated to represent at least 100 million butterflies. Loss of habitat in the U.S. and Mexico has been blamed for the declining population.
http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/snow-and-cold-takes-toll-on-monarchs/
60
“btw where is Barnaby Joyce calling out Turnbull for going against the agreement re CAGW policies?”
+1
Good question, Pat.
80
Barnaby has been bribed with the Waffle “effects test” aimed squarely at Coles and Woolworths. These two are the farmers’ particular bete noirs. Waffle knows this “test” is BS but he’s prepared to buy the Nats off to push his greenie agenda.
As Cassandra was wont to say: the population gets exactly what it deserves, because it votes that way.
Now tell Casandra why this election will be different.
50
See that both Artic and Antartic ozone layers breaking down big time over their summers – altitude air colder than the norm. I thought the polar areas were in meltdown.
30
Had to go and look, according to Science Daily late last year.
‘Throughout October, the hole remained large and set many area daily records. Unusually cold temperature and weak dynamics in the Antarctic stratosphere this year resulted in this larger ozone hole.’
——-
It might be a regional cooling signal.
20
23 Mar: WSJ: Punishing Climate-Change Skeptics
Some in Washington want to unleash government to harass heretics who don’t accept the ‘consensus.’
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman
That is why we are establishing the Free Speech in Science Project to defend the kind of open inquiry and debate that are central to scientific advancement and understanding. The project will fund legal advice and defense to those who need it, while executing an offense to turn the tables on abusive officials. Scientists, policy organizations and others should not have to fear that they will be the next victims of the Climate Inquisition—that they may face punishment and personal ruin for engaging in research and advocating their views.
(Messrs. Rivkin and Grossman practice appellate and constitutional litigation in Washington, D.C.)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/punishing-climate-change-skeptics-1458772173
23 Mar: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Climate change has helped more UK species than it has harmed, RSPB study finds
Wildlife groups’ study of fortunes of 400 UK plant and animal species concludes that the ‘net impact’ of climate change has so far been positive
“With climate change, the UK will become more important for more species. Globally the more the temperature rises, the more species are committed to extinction, but because we are at the northern end of the planet everything is heading our way,” she (RSPB spokesperson) said.
She added that the short-term positive impacts in the UK “should not distract from or disguise the global crisis”.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that the biggest impact on wildlife over the period had been the dramatic shift to intensive farming methods, which have led to the loss of hedgerows and farm ponds and the use of novel pesticides and herbicides…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/12202674/Climate-change-has-helped-more-UK-species-than-it-has-harmed-RSPB-study-finds.html
30
If only Obama was as nasty & arrogant with our enemies as he is with fellow citizens who disagree with him.
40
cold/snow is ***common. heat never is:
23 Mar: WaPo: Jason Samenow: Blizzard paralyzes Denver and heads for Upper Midwest
Heavy snow and howling winds, gusting over 50 mph, closed Denver International Airport and brought traffic to a standstill today as a major spring storm cranked up in the western Plains…
Temperatures plummeted as rain changed to snow around 4 a.m. and the snow turned heavy by daybreak…
Accidents were reported all over Denver. The snow fell so fast and furious west of the city that vehicles were stranded in snow along I-70 during the morning…
Some of the heaviest totals, in the range of 10 to 20 inches, had fallen outside Boulder.
“This is some of the fiercest snow I’ve seen in town in terms of flake size and quantity falling,” said Eric Gordon, a Boulder resident.
Snow in late March in Denver is ***common…
Through the afternoon and tonight, the snow will spread through Nebraska, southern South Dakota, northern Iowa, southern Minnesota, central Wisconsin and northern Michigan…
A large section of this region is under winter storm warnings, including Sioux Falls and Green Bay. In fact, The Weather Channel indicates 16 million are under some kind of winter weather alert…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/03/23/blizzard-pastes-denver-and-heads-for-upper-midwest/
30
mutiple links:
23 Mar: The Atlantic: Robinson Meyer: The Struggle of Clear Climate Communication
Why it’s so difficult to talk about the new bombshell climate paper
There has never before been a scientific study quite like the one released this week by James Hansen, a climate scientist and the former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies…
Hansen himself posted a video explaining the science of the paper this week. If you’re interested in climate change and the planet, it’s worth watching: He brings together his scientific conclusions with what he believes are the right political actions (VIDEO)…
“Have we passed a point of no return? I doubt it, but it’s conceivable,” he adds. “But if we wait until the real world reveals itself clearly, it may be too late to avoid sea-level rise of several meters and loss of all coastal cities.”…
I think that is indispensable, noble work…
But this is a new era in climate communications, one in which scientists will try to assert the necessity of action as much as politicians or activists. It is critical that, while giving researchers their prized place in the public sphere, we do not overstate or sensationalize their findings. As journalists, as people speaking in public, and as concerned and vulnerable participants in the Earth system, we owe it to each other to get this right.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/the-struggle-of-clear-climate-communication/474987/
20
The Washington Post take on it – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/22/we-had-all-better-hope-these-scientists-are-wrong-about-the-planets-future/
and a link to the paper http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf
which uses the words “COULD (my emphasis) be dangerous”
Weasel words. Send the media into a frenzy (within a day of publishing, great PR there) and whip up the greensters, who’ll come out with blobbies blazing – no peace for the heretical skeptics! Doom and gllom increases. Moe planes embark on globe-trotting missions of elimination of emissions.
I am really starting to pray – for an ice age. Just to shut. them. up.
10
Ben Wouters says: March 23, 2016 at 3:03 pm
suricat says: March 20, 2016 at 2:06 am
(“HE becomes hard to defend when an atmosphere is always in motion, even if you accept the ‘dynamics’ as ‘constant’ (when they’re not).”)
(BW) “Shows you still have no idea what HE actually is all about.The total atmospheric column above each square meter on this planet is in HE almost all of the time. Some surface heating may warm the lowest part of the column, which will expand a little and HE is restored. Some cooling and the column will contract a little, but still in HE.”
(WJ) Shows That BW has absolutely no clue as to atmospheric pressure, density, temperature and wishes only to collapse all into some form of mechanical!
(“BW) “The balance (HE) is between the upward pressure gradient force and downward gravitational force.”Wind (~horizontally moving air) is a compensation between areas with different HE’s.”
(WJ)” What total BS Lateral air mass motion at any altitude is but the the continuum dynamics (with streamlines) of aerodynamics. Well measured throughout all of this atmosphere.!
(RD’” Its hard to rationalise the low columnar mass at the ‘eye’ of a hurricane against the columnar mass 20 miles away from it without involving much more data representing inertia and vortexes.”)
(BW) “Trying to run before you can walk. First understand the simple sea breeze as shown above.
Next high and low pressure areas where the Coriolis effect plays its role.
Hurricanes are in a class of their own”
Only for those that wish to confine this “is” into some wee box of personal. mechanical BS.
21
This thread is dead, I know, but for those few still here try this:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2016/03/24/beyond-parody/
20
The CSIRO could start by teaching its climate scientists how to obtain and analyse real world data. For example, the atmospheric CO2 concentration for the Mauna Loa Observatory may be downloaded at no cost from the Scripps Institute website. Further, satellite lower tropospheric temperature may be downloaded at no cost from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, site run by Dr Roy Spencer. Comparison of the two data sets clearly shows that the 1997-‘98 El Nino event exposes the deception by the IPCC in proposing that CO2 causes global warming.
The early phase of the El Nino event is marked by a prominent maximum in August 1997 for the annual rate of change of the satellite lower tropospheric temperature for the Tropics. As the corresponding maximum in the annual rate of change in the atmospheric CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa did not occur until March 1998, it is impossible for the CO2 change to have caused that temperature change seven months earlier. Furthermore the correlation between the two variables was 0.13 for the Tropics – Land temperature component and 0.03 for the Tropics – Ocean component for the period December 1978 to February 2016.
Surprisingly the CO2 maximum on March 1998 coincides with the El Nino 13 month moving average Tropics temperature and the water vapour maximum (60̊N to 60̊S zone) from Dr Roy Spencer’s web site and quoted on this site at http://joannenova.com.au/2016/03/cold-water-in-vast-western-pacific-record-water-vapor-clouds-rain-super-big-el-nino-things-going-on/.
It is not feasible for the rate of change of CO2 concentration to cause a set value for either the temperature or the water vapour concentration. However it is reasonable to consider that the level of the temperature and/or water vapour could control the rate of change of the CO2 concentration. That is, further evidence of the IPCC deception.
If the temperature controls the rate of change of CO2 concentration then the rate of change of temperature would correlate with the Second Derivative of the CO2 concentration with respect to time. Sure enough the El Nino maximum in the rate of change of the Tropics temperature at August 1997 corresponds to a maximum in the estimated Second Derivative of the CO2 concentration at September 1997 with a correlation of 0.6 between the two variables, a zero probability of the correlation being zero and the sensitivity, much loved and quoted by climate scientists, was determined to be a rate of 1.3 ppm pa change for a one degree Celsius change in satellite Tropics temperature.
My favoured explanation (lacking training in biology) is that microbial life forms in the Equatorial zone generate the CO2 concentration in proportion to the temperature. As the Equatorial zone has the highest water vapour concentration and regional temperature for the globe it is the source of the major changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
So there we have it. The CSIRO can sack all of the climate scientists as there is no longer a problem with atmospheric CO2. A few bureaucrats in the IPCC, WMO and UN could go as well before starting on the easily lead politicians.
51
Dr John Hunter, also from Tassie, responded to Garth’s letter with the old ‘If two Doctors said you have a tumour blah blah blah’. IMO Hunter is an activist first and a ‘We’re all gonna drown’ climate scientist second.
10