Eco-psychology: NEW Free helpline, handbook, for climate change mental illness

After thirty years of Green-Blob disaster porn, there are casualties.

Image result for The Climate Change Empowerment Handbook

Climate change [propaganda] takes a toll on our minds

Psychologist Susie Burke tells the story of a woman who came to her for counselling after having her first child. Not because she was suffering from post-natal depression, but because she was “struggling with the enormity of what she had done.” She felt she had brought her child into a “world she knew was going to be a lot harsher and a lot less safe,” Burke told DW.

“She came to me when she was overwhelmed by this distress; questioning whether she had done the right thing. The fear she had for his future was really huge.”

 Look out for the new hotline (Can someone find this number?)

Burke is an Australian psychologist and academic who specializes in eco-psychology. She treats people suffering mental illness as a result of climate change, and also recently set up a free hotline called the “Climate Change Psychological Support Network,” where Australians can call a qualified psychologist to talk through their feelings about environmental change.

Look out for the handbook:

‘The Climate Change Empowerment Handbook’ is a handy guide on how to take happy people and make them stressed:

Engage in climate change communication

Engaging in more serious conversations with climate dissenters, deniers, doubters, or the disengaged, is also very valuable, for those who are willing to take this on.

The book has advice like “use fear”, “be emotive”:

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Fear Appeals

When climate change is framed as an encroaching disaster that can only be addressed by loss, cost and sacrifice, it creates a wish to avoid the topic….

Use vivid and emotive stories

Build emotional arousal…  Use vivid imagery…

… move beyond ‘what’s in it for me?’ to ‘what’s best for humanity?’

The book advises that “Action is the best antidote to despair and helplessness….”. Mature adults, on the other hand, know that pointless action is the best path to hell.

To cure panicky snowflakes, instead, they could try talking to people who are not panicking — like skeptics.

We’d be happy to help. Instead of talking about feelings and framing their pain, we’d suggest they look at some proxies, feel the history, gaze at graphs and learn some logic and reason. It’s a long term solution. Never again will they fall for gullible voodoo, fake science and make-work rent-seeking propaganda.

REFERENCE

More info at the APS site.

 

9.4 out of 10 based on 73 ratings

170 comments to Eco-psychology: NEW Free helpline, handbook, for climate change mental illness

  • #
    Gordon

    WELL! I could write a whole lot on this. BUT! This is a family oriented web page. Soooo….. I will leave it at that 🙂

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      I wrote quite a bit below and frankly I hope you will write your thoughts too. I’m tired of being the demonic bad guy I’m sure you can keep it clean enough for Jo and families everywhere.

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Quite frankly, this is madness.

        These people have lost all contact with reality. They are seeing ghosts where none exist.

        They do not have any serious issues in their miserable lives. What we need is a war. Or a depression. Or an earthquake. Or something real to enable them to re-calibrate with reality.

        Perhaps Indonesia may go full-on extreme Islamist and start sending “missionaries” into Northern Australia. With guns. Or perhaps sneaky Shorten might get to win the next election and turn Australia into another socialist utopia, just like Venezuela. Without oil. Or perhaps Mr Soros might succeed in creating his One-World Government where the mentally deficient go straight to mental institutions without passing Go. And sceptics too.

        The one thing that’s certain?

        There’ll always be somebody around to make a buck out of it. Psychologists included.

        That’s why I love the Capitalist free-market. You can’t keep a good innovator down.

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    • #

      Same here. I wonder when these people will start making claims on the NDIS?

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      • #
        glen Michel

        Exactly! As I said to my wife(partner) the inception of the NDIS would be the biggest milkcow for all types of malingerers.Sorry about all those with real disabilities. Even people running lawn mowing services are in on the scam.

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        • #
          shannon

          Yes totally agree…..

          My daughter has had her “Plan Package” drastically cut and I have been waiting for a ‘review” since March !
          Basically she now doesnt have enough money in her Plan for her normal,3 day training programmes..
          This is resulting in more people being forced to stay at home with parents.
          My daughter has a genetic disability …the NDIS is a joke !!

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  • #
    Reasonable Skeptic

    Unfortunately for alarmists the cure is worse than the disease so they are miserable not doing anything and miserable doing everything. The only advantage to doing everything is that they feel morally ok with driving humanity over a cliff.

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    • #
      John Michelmore

      These people don’t get it!, Young minds are susceptible to education where fear is used to put a message across. One of my young grandsons came home from primary school here in SA extremely disturbed about the pending destruction of earth by climte change. Once it was explained that this was an opinion of the teacher and many others and not neccisarily based on fact he calmed down. Now I put it to everyone who reads this, that if I had agreed that the earth was doomed because of climte change the boy could end up with mental issues believing that the rest of his life would be s–t,
      Fear can and does control people, just think about the effect of pointing a bone in some cultures,

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      • #
        Hasbeen

        Nothing changes.

        It is cities & the people who live in them that are the problem. They are so far away from nature they can be sold almost any green con.

        My 6 year old daughter came home from our little country school. Unfortunately she had a young lady teacher, a recently graduated city girl.

        This girl had pronounced to the class that anyone who chops down a tree was a vandal. This was just after I had cleared half a square mile of regrowth garbage scrub, & planted improved pasture.

        We had a session with the head master & this young girl, where it was suggested she teach only the syllabus, rather than her strange ideas.

        She was only there for 2 years, doing time, [her country school time], before scuttling back to her city, but we did keep getting them. It is these just out of Uni children that are the worst. After a few years most of them grow up enough to join the human race.

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        • #

          We have a similar problem in our town, but it’s (some) adults going apoplectic about a relatively small area of forest, long set aside for logging, actually proposed to be logged. You cannot believe the outcry, there were even suggesting that every tree in and around the town was going to be cut down to feed these rapacious loggers. Our entire area was founded on logging and logging continues throughout the area to this day.

          The same applied when fracking protests arose. The same people were saying there’d be a drilling rig in every property in town if fracking was allowed. And I’m not the one exaggerating.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            The thing is, we are the ones who have to be the grown ups in all this.

            A lot of the greenists have the emotional state and capability as do children, so they need to be treated as such. The side affect of the greenist nonsense is it emotionally cripples people because they never use reason, just emotion, as do children.

            We have to be patient and explain to them, like kiddies, that bulldozing stuff isnt the massive problem the *feel* it is…..

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  • #
    Leonard Lane

    Climate Change has now officially become an irrational, harmful cult.

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  • #
    TdeF

    “eco-psychology”. Now I have read everything. Is there no end to these touchy-feely science free sciences?

    These new ‘sciences’ are endless. Turning psychology into a science is always a questionable extension of science because if anything is uncertain and not subject to strict logic, it is the human mind. Eco-pschology is double jeopardy.

    Part of the problem is the explosion of pseudo sciences. Scientology was perhaps the world’s first amalgam of wacky science and emotion and religion by a man who decided to make his fortune with religion. He tried communism and it didn’t work. So religion. Incidentally so did the Rev Jim Jones and religion gave him what he wanted until his end and that of his willing victims and their families in the jungle in Guyana.

    Religions prey on people’s natural fears, especially new mothers. Young mothers. Protection of the young and creation of a safe environment. A lot of the people who are scared by Climate Change are really scared of something they do not understand at all. Not a nameless fear but a fear with a name and no explanation and so even scarier.
    So in an increasingly atheist world, it is no longer hell, fire, brimstone and pitchforks and the devil and religion. It is Climate Change, an invention of the United Nations.

    Why can’t people see they are being manipulated? That is a question which could be asked of every cult, every scare, every sect and religion in history. The new priests are the pseudo scientists, the new druids, the opportunists.

    It is the job of all scientists to call out this massive international deception. In the US alone it is reckoned that $1Bn in publicity and activism is spent pushing climate change. Real scientists largely say nothing and get on with their lives. Like all cults it will die, in a generation.

    Thirty years of this and people are starting to give up on ten year limits for action on man made Global Warming to prevent the end of the world. They have heard it all before, since they were children. Prince Charles must feel foolish, but it never bothered him before. Science or no science, Global Warming is obviously not true. Climate Change is near meaningless connected to something which is not true.

    Do people really think 0.5C in a lifetime means anything to their lives? In any given day it means nothing. Still, good for scaring young mothers, perhaps the easiest scare in history. Eco-psychology. It must be a joke.

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    • #
      angry

      “eco-psychology” ???

      More like ECO TERRORISM !

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    • #
      Joe

      It’s not rocket science! Interesting that you mention the Scientology cult and Hubbard – they are quite connected with our early rocket scientist friends at JPL and NASA.
      http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/aerospace-engineering/rocketry/jack-parsons-occult-roots-jpl/

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    • #
      Bruce J

      It is interesting that the disciplines that include the word “science” in the name are least likely to follow scientific methods e.g. Climate science, in an attempt to gain credibility and withstand logical examination.

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    • #
      Latus Dextro

      It’s not a lot different from being brought up as a strict cradle catholic and told repetitively that intentionally missing mass on Sunday is a mortal sin, damning ones soul in perpetuity. I think around the age of 11 or 12 yrs the penny dropped and the institution lost yet another adherent. The idea that a God who created the enormity and mystery of the Universe would be peeved were one to skip Sunday mass was nearly as laughable as the clink of money being dropped into the plate passed around during mass.

      Reactions to fear vary widely from paralysis to anxiety to flight. Quite a few of us however are wired to scrutinise and fight. It’s in the genes.

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    • #
      mc

      “Eco-psychology”. Now I have read everything. Is there no end to these touchy-feely science free sciences?

      Sigmund Freud was obsessed with the idea of raising the status of psychoanalysis to that of a science. When he was making the ocean passage to the USA with his no. 1 disciple Carl Jung to spread the “good news” about this “new science” he said to Jung, “we must protect the dogma at all costs”. This was the catalyst for an eventual complete split with Freud.

      That statement/demand on the part of Freud would be hilarious if it wasn’t so breathtakingly shocking; a science which requires the defensive armoury of dogma!?

      It’s either a science or a dogma, it cannot be both, these are mutually exclusive categories.

      Science does not need to be protected from nay-sayers, it’s straightforward; we have something we call science, it is the application of the laws of logic and reason to the phenomena we encounter. We test our reason (theory) against measurable observations (empiricism), if the measurements differ from the theory (and the measurements are accurate) then “the science” is wrong, or more correctly the theory is wrong because in fact the principals of scientific method, which are universal, have been properly followed. The scientific method is not damaged by a theory being shown to be wrong. If the method is correctly applied then science, as a way of attempting to accurately comprehend the world and its 1001 things is only re-enforced, whether the theory withstands scrutiny or not.

      Science does not need dogma to safeguard its integrity; all it needs is the penetrating light of reason. Dogma is the antithesis of that. Dogma is the refuge of those who would suppress the findings that properly applied scientific method may reveal. Dogma and its companion censorship are an open admission that we are not confident of the claims we are making. Those who refuse to debate reveal the weakness of their position for the entire world to see.

      To put it simply, science is not dogma and dogma is not science.

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    • #
      Belfast

      Interesting how often any comment disparaging religion gets the most thumbs up. Even when the relevance factor is <5.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Eco-psychology: NEW Free helpline, handbook, for climate change mental illness

    And once more Jo’s headline gives me the opening I want so I can say something. In this case, there are a large number of psychologists and probably pretenders at psychology in this world with absolutely nothing to do. But that’s also true of academic scientists and researchers.

    They give a bad name to the psychologists who actually do people a lot of good but get no attention in the press because who wants to hear that Joe Schmoe the clinical psychologist saved John Doe from suicide today. It ain’t news.

    Why do we give these people free advertising. We know the score and whatever Jo can say won’t change the minds of those who think the score is something else.

    Some days I feel like I’m a squirrel locked into that little cage that goes round and round, running pointlessly toward a goal that gets farther sway the faster I run toward it. The squirrel doesn’t have the capacity to worry about it and just enjoys the running. But you and I are losing the race. Dumb.

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    • #
      Lionell Griffith

      Some days I feel like I’m a squirrel locked into that little cage that goes round and round, running pointlessly toward a goal that gets farther sway the faster I run toward it.

      I suggest that feeling of futility is exactly what “they” are working to achieve. Given their logical and scientific malpractice along with their concerted effort to suppress any and all counter views, that is all they have left. They think if they can get their opponents to give up, they will have won.

      What is it that they will have won? In the long run, nothing but the destruction of technological civilization and the immolation of anything that is good on earth. It is their effort that is futile. Our goal is to not be collateral damage in their war against reality. Then to live and thrive. It isn’t easy but well worth the effort.

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      • #

        Worth repeating that last paragraph, Lionel,
        herewith…

        ‘What is it that they will have won? In the long
        run, nothing but the destruction of technological civilization and the immolation of anything that
        is good on earth. It is their effort that is
        futile. Our goal is to not be collateral damage
        in their war against reality. Then to live and
        thrive. It isn’t easy but well worth the effort.’

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    • #
      GD

      They give a bad name to the psychologists who actually do people a lot of good

      Put Jordan Peterson in this category. I was amazed when I first heard Jordan Peterson’s lectures. On finding out that he was a psychologist, I was taken aback.

      My view of psychology at that time was the same as Crocodile Dundee’s.

      Around here, if you’ve got a problem, you tell Wal. He tells everyone else, brings it out in the open, then no more problem.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        I think Crocodile Dundee was about as reflective of modern Australia as the characters Clint Eastwood portrayed in so many movies are of late 1800s America. But he sure was a refreshing breath of fresh air, the hero who didn’t just act like an honest man and a gentleman but who was one. He earned my respect as a movie character while bumbling his way through comedy that I could identify with. And if problems are solved by

        Around here, if you’ve got a problem, you tell Wal. He tells everyone else, brings it out in the open, then no more problem

        Then let’s do it. The only thing I did for the woman I described here was listen to her until it became clear what she really needed and then I gave her the best chance at what she needed that I could. I had to leave for my office and have no way of knowing what she did after that but it cost me something I could easily afford — all us American software engineers are working for hundreds of dollars an hour you know — and I hope it helped her. Ans at the very least, not feeling rejected by those around you is something valuable.

        A community to share the load, the happiness and the tragedy is something we don’t have any more and it’s killing us. Instead we have deadly threats that don’t happen. How much of that coastal real estate Al Gore, James Hansen and the UN tried to tell uS 10 or 15 years ago would be underwater by now is actuaLLY underwater? You all know the answer better than I do.

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        • #
          GD

          A community to share the load, the happiness and the tragedy is something we don’t have any more and it’s killing us.

          Absolutely, Roy.

          In recent news in Australia, we have drug-addled low-lifes attacking not only the police but also ambulance first responders, the very people who can save these idiots’ lives.

          A community to share the load is a wonderful idea. Our Christian churches have always been the first and foremost in doing that.

          Unfortunately, our national broadcaster denigrates them at every chance. Go figure.

          Meanwhile, society suffers because the politically-correct use the MSM to pillory common-sense while espousing bizarre ideas such as gender fluidity.
          It’s a cryin’ shame.

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          • #
            angry

            Comedy threatens lefties so lefties want to kill it

            http://morningmail.org/killing-comedy/#comment-86261

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            In recent news in Australia, we have drug-addled low-lifes attacking not only the police but also ambulance first responders, the very people who can save these idiots’ lives.

            Similar stuff happens here. It’s not quite the same here if I take your description literally. We get to call them protesters. But the net affect looks the same.

            What odds would you give me that both in Australia and America they are stirred up and pushed onward by the same few people at the top of a growing organization dedicated to destruction of anything not at least completely socialist?

            It’s Saul Alinsky writ large on the world stage for all to see and not even Donald Trump sees it I fear. We maybe witnessing the death of western civilization. I hope not but that’s how it looks. And at least here so far, they’re allowed to use our own laws against us. And when enough people want anarchy, they will get it.

            When the lawmakers are dishonest and the courts look the other way, they win. And God knows how they will pick up the pieces again.

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    • #
      sophocles

      GD @ # said:

      Put Jordan Peterson in this category. I was amazed when I first heard Jordan Peterson’s lectures. On finding out that he was a psychologist, I was taken aback.

      Maybe it’s all got something to do with the increasing levels of Cosmic Rays?

      The Sun is snoozing and showing a blank disc more and more. Cosmic Ray counts are reaching ever higher highs and recently reached a record high for the space era (see the CR counter at Ououlu Observatory…)
      Is it possible these things have side effects other than cau,sing clouds, cooling (through more clouds) making visible flashes in the eyes even with them closed and triggering volcanic eruptions?

      We don’t know the results or effects of extreme Cosmic Ray exposure except for light flashes in people’s optic nerves. Extra cancers have been hypothesized but they were when ozone was supposed to be affected by CFCs. Those haven’t shown up in the epidemiological records yet. But there’s plenty of correlation!

      Psychologists such as Dr. Jeremy Shapiro are very fond of ascribing correlation as causation as seen in their writings such as this one where he argues from (misapplied) weight of supposed authority from his position as an “adjunct professor, which seems to give him leeway for making ever greater errors.

      Have you ever notices that those with a psychological qualification seem to have to link vaccination, evolution and climate change together every time they write? I have no problem with childhood vaccination, never having caught any of the illnesses and diseases I was vaccinated against. I’ll play the correlation = causation game here: those vaccinations Must Have Worked but why include that cliche? Evolution: we know that works. Why else has Nature given us sexual dimorphism and genes? Simply for high speeds of evolution. Organ transplants between two people, even those from the same parents, end up at war with the transplantees immune system. So they can’t be the same. That’s two down, one with strong evidence. There is such little evidence for Climate Change it can be ignored. Everything claimed to be Climate Change fits well inside the boundaries for mere Climate Variation.

      Those of psychological bent are almost never scientists, despite their positions, because their next faux pas is to claim the old favourite myth of 97% consensus. Real science doesn’t care who agrees or disagrees with it. It just is. Like gravity. If you step off a high building to prove you are Superman, it will bring you up with a sharp—even fatal—jolt. Friction and momentum are both like gravity: don’t step out in front of a moving train. It might not stop. (That is a case of mind over matter: the train doesn’t mind and you don’t matter.)

      Climate Change?

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      • #
        sophocles

        My comment #5.3 “is awaiting moderation.” Hm. It’s been a few weeks since I was last there. I wonder what it is this time?

        I was blaming pyschologists for lack of real science. I don’t think I got too personal. I was shooting at less than 97% effectiveness … 🙂

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  • #
    TdeF

    Off topic, but a sign of wacky science being used to assess and perhaps manipulate public opinion.

    In this case an opinion poll on whether voters like NFL players kneeling during the anthem has been published. They don’t.

    Not unexpected but the note also says

    “The poll was conducted among 900 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.27 percentage points.”

    Now that means a sigma of sqrt(900) or 30 or 3.33% in a normal distribution, but they get 3.27%.

    What absolute nonsense! An exact Normal Distribution. Why? The error is more accurate than the number? How does that work?
    Then you could ask the question in a black area of Chicago and in a white area of Chicago and get completely different results by a factor of two but the poll is published as accurate to +/-3.27%.

    Having seen multiple Prime Ministers removed on opinion polls of a mere thousand people and not an election involving millions, the presumption that mere sampling telephone opinion polls are made accurate science by application of statistics and mathematics is as mad as Climate Change and the hockey stick. Pseudo science, pretend statistics, make believe science. Not eco-psychology but worse.

    This is how a 0.5C change over 10 years was predicted to be +5C over 100 and the imminent end of the world. Completely unjustified linear extrapolation on what might be noise and without a shred of justification and a made up explanation. Carbon dioxide and so the motor car and now coal is the enemy. The UN formed the IPCC Climate Change group and immediately we were all told the end of the world was coming fast, unless we spent trillions. I call shenanigans.

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    • #
      Robert Swan

      TdeF, while I don’t think much of the survey, I don’t understand your statistics here. My statistics is pretty rusty, but standard deviation is not just the square root of the sample size. And working out confidence intervals (which is what I guess the “margin of error” is) would typically be calculated by multiplying the standard deviation by some value to give you the appropriate range. Mind you, there’s one confidence interval that statistical theory allows you to know without any calculations. The 100% confidence interval is always +/- infinity.

      In any case, taking a survey of a yes/no question put to 900 people and putting it through the statistical mincer is pointless and speaks of scientism. Just give us the figures — e.g. (420, 460, 20) (liked, disliked, didn’t care) about the “taking a knee” caper. The raw figures are more meaningful to everybody.

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      • #
        Tdef

        Sure, calculating mean square deviation is complex for a given data set.

        However it is true if the data forms a completely random set following what is known as a Normal distribution, the traditional bell curve for completely random events.
        So its a rule of thumb. Square root of the sample size gives you the accuracy of the mean the standard deviation (as a ratio or %). More data. Higher confidence in the mean.

        However this is a quick guesstimate, not three digit guarantee. Quoting deviation to three places is absurd. There is no guarantee the sample is representative in the first place or that the fact of measurement does not change the result.

        The confidence in the mean then is connected to the probability that any given result is close to the mean, the same sigma measure. It goes down as sample size goes up. At an extreme, a survey which involved every party would give you the mean exactly without error.

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        • #
          Robert Swan

          I hadn’t previously clicked through the Breitbart article to the underlying survey results. So the original statement was: “The margin of error for 900 interviews among Registered Voters is ±3.27%“. Evidently this is some sort of “universal constant” used by the surveying company and applying to ALL questions for any survey of 900 voters. “Do you approve of Donald Trump’s performance?”±3.27%; “Do you approve of footballers taking the knee?”±3.27%.

          It’s just ridiculous to assume all questions will yield the same variability in answers:”Do you think the earth is flat?”±3.27% I don’t think so.

          And that’s a recurring theme with me. TdeF, you say that the calculation is complex. Unfortunately, computers have made the calculations all too easy. Experimental design and analysis has many subtleties and this survey’s cookie-cutter approach is a fair example of cargo cult statistics, just like so much of climate science.

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          • #
            TdeF

            What is probably constant for a given survey company is the sample size. I think Newspoll is about 1,000 people. Essential is about 3,000 people, so better. These are marketing survey companies who make a business of polling, like Nielsen. Sample size is the major selling point. Fixed sample, fixed error. Except that you presume the 1,000 people are representative of a spectrum which reflects the entire country, which is impossible. For example, conservatives may be more likely to hang up on a pollster where activists want their opinion registered.

            Polls are interesting but they are often wrong or at best, misleading. Removal of our very popular Prime Minister on the basis that a very limited opinion poll found him marginally unpopular was the lamest excuse possible and clearly also unacceptable to the man who used it.

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            • #
              TdeF

              As for the computation, as this is a yes/no answer, there is no computation. The presumption is that decisions are made on a random basis and that defeats the purpose. However the square root of sample size gives a thumbnail idea of how likely the answer is to the mean of a much larger or complete survey.

              My point is that it is much more critical to know how representative the sample is to the population and how independent the means of collecting the sample. As in the Eco-Pschology, there is great abuse of the basic concepts of statistics and mathematics, as there has always been in analysis of Global Warming results.

              Professional statisticians like Steve MacIntyre, founder of Climate Audit, are aghast at the results of self appointed Climate Scientists and specifically the paid professional analysis of temperature records of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies led by James Hansen. My point is that it is a pandemic in the commentariat, even without fiddling the data. The worst offenders are often in psychology, a pseudo science of debatable rigor.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                Its easy to sway a survey…just conduct it in areas that are more likely to support the survery and …bingo!

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              • #
                Robert Swan

                A yes/no answer is covered by the Binomial distribution (a discrete distribution, for things like coin tosses). Analysis using the Normal distribution (a continuous distribution) is to simplify computation since a large number of coin tosses is approximately Normally distributed. However, to use the Normal distribution this way you have to have an estimate of the standard deviation.

                You would need to run dozens of such surveys to meaningfully estimate the standard deviation, and it would vary from one question to another (“Is 2+2 == 4” — not much variation survey to survey; “Do you approve of wind farms?” — quite a lot of variation).

                I agree with your doubts about their ±3.27%, just I don’t think you doubt strongly enough. Sample size tells you quite a lot with dice or coins. Not so much with people.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Psychologist Susie Burke tells the story of a woman who came to her for counselling after having her first child. Not because she was suffering from post-natal depression, but because she was “struggling with the enormity of what she had done.” She felt she had brought her child into a “world she knew was going to be a lot harsher and a lot less safe,” Burke told DW.

    “She came to me when she was overwhelmed by this distress; questioning whether she had done the right thing. The fear she had for his future was really huge.”

    This is what happens when we let a nonexistent problem become real. There are more than enough real threats to work on. Why do we get so worked up over nothing.

    If anything is rue here, the woman deserves her plight. And I’m not being cruel. And if we would see this woman relieved of her fear the best person to see would be a psychologist who looks at climate change, asks is there any real evidence and finding none, can confidently say it isn’t a threat and here’s why.

    Foolishness can’t be overcome by catering to it with hotlines. You deal with it by confronting the truth headon.

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    • #
      Gordon

      There is an interesting book by Tyler Cowen,”The Complacent Class”. It is worth a read as it covers exactly what you are talking about. Some people just seem to look for trouble and see a boogie man where nothing exists. But I suppose if you don’t have a life, causing trouble may give you meaning. Gives you something to talk about and perhaps a feeling of superiority.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        There’s a lot of that.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        My thought when I wrote that is that some people are just plain dysfunctional like a malfunctioning engine or computer. They have always been around. If we want to help them first make sure it’s help. But I have trouble wanting to play a game with them. Some can be helped. Others are in trouble they can’t ever get out of and we need to discriminate between the two because they are not the same thing, not even close.

        Before I retired I used to stop at a restaurant on the way to work and eat breakfast, And one morning as I was eating I saw a woman coming from the direction of the restrooms toward the exit and she looked in my direction and our yes met and she had such pleading for a friend in that look that I couldn’t turn away. She came over toward where I was but not too close and asked if she could sit down. I said yes. She didn’t ask me for money. In fact she refused to take what I offered her after I heard her story until I made it clear that I was going to leave the $20 on the table when I left whether she took it or not.

        I asked her when she last ate and she said 2 days ago. Her refusal to take my money told me something. She didn’t like her situation and really wanted to be out of it and self sufficient. She had been thrown out of the place where she was living, her son’s place no less and spent the last 2 nights hiding in some bushes somewhere in fear of her life. She finally told me that instead of spending my $20 where we were she would go across the street to a fast food place where the money would go farther.

        She was overjoyed when I told her there was a police station 2 short blocks away and if she would go there they could get her in touch with help for shelter and food and a chance to find a job.

        Now you can think I’m nuts for believing her if you want to. But at the very worst I was someone she could talk to who didn’t reject her, didn’t put her down and took some interest in her welfare the right way. And if she was playing me, well she could have gotten the $20 probably just by asking anyone on the street and but for my insistence she would have left without it.

        I’ve never forgotten that morning. Sometimes just being a friend and knowing what to do and not to do will help someone,

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        Bruce J

        If you can find a problem where none exists, you can get a grant of $xmilliion to define it.

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    • #
      Mary E

      Sounds more like the poor woman was suffering post-natal depression and had affixed CAGW as the cause. The psych treating her should have recognized that and treated her for what the real issue was instead of writing a pamphlet meant to steer people into a dizzy tizzy and collect some extra cash out of it.

      Also, 2 birds with one pamphlet – spread the fear, and aim for population reduction as well. Don’t have babies, this is the fear you have to face…

      Disgusting abuse of patient trust.

      40

  • #
    Zigmaster

    By definition people who believe in catastrophic climate change have a mental illness, that being they are incapable of viewing climate rationally. It’s not dissimilar to an axe murderer who pleads insanity when he chops someone up. He’s not exactly sane by the definition of his action.

    One thing I do know is that it’s not climate change that causes mental anxiety but climate change alarmists.

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    • #
      PeterS

      They are much worse than axe murderers. An axe murdered only kills one or so people. Climate change/global warming alarmists want to allow hundreds of pensioners to die and destroy Australia’s economy resulting in many more deaths as a result of suicides. Such is the heartless mindset of the climate change/global warming alarmists.

      222

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        As long as they never get access to firearms, we are OK. Otherwise we could have another bunch of brown shirts on our hands…..

        51

    • #
      John Michelmore

      Now I can just see that on a T shirt, Catastrophic Climate Change Alarmists are Mentally Disturbed! Any volunteers to wear one? Think carefully before you answer.

      70

    • #
      Yonniestone

      A firm held belief in Climate Change runs directly with the left held dogmas that people are the always the problem or disease that blights the planet, how many times in online comments have you seen a leftist defending the ideal of wealth distribution saying its fair and humane for everyone then condemning the principle of capitalism and private business innovation that can improve lives because there’s too many people on the planet already.

      Deep down they’re weak appeasers that’re feeding the crocodile hoping they’re the last to be eaten instead of having the courage to use their free speech that was gifted to them by a fair political system wrought from the ordeals of their forefathers but wasted on the loudest minority that’s the weakest link in society.

      81

  • #
    John of Cloverdale, WA, Australia

    As Ben Shapiro said about Social Sciences, “I know bullshit when I see it”.

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  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    I’m tempted to pile on, but there is a serious issue here.

    “climate Change” will probably founder as an issue. There are millions of people who have careers built on this belief,
    and who have personalities built around thier role in saving the planet.
    At the extereme, cult de-programming intervention may be necessary.
    A lot of economic activity will be recast, always difficult.

    True believers whose belief systems fail are not really a joke.
    I have a relative, whose job is within the environmental fringe, whose world will become difficult.
    I expect to try to help, not gloat.

    150

    • #
      yarpos

      Sadly I think there may be a need for this type of thing. The spend a lot of time indoctrinating kids and making them think the world is variously burning or drowning, creating a bunch of anxious young people who think they have no future.

      120

      • #
        ivan

        The need is to de-program the teachers and academics first so they can start on de-programming and preparing those they programed for the coming cold period.

        80

      • #
        Yonniestone

        In other words the creation of perpetual teenagers until the grave……Christ on a bicycle!

        21

    • #
      Robert Swan

      Richard,

      You’re right about the serious issue, but that is the very reason you should “pile on”. I have little doubt that the help line and handbook Jo describes above will do little but exacerbate psychological problems. Indeed will anybody be less anxious when they start feeling responsible for the fate of the “whole of humanity” and the like?

      60

  • #

    Propping up Altrurian totalitarianism–especially when bristling with nuclear weapons–on the basis of The Common Good before the Individual Good (Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz) has simply GOT to be the best option for the future of humanity. Look at how well it’s done in the past!

    30

  • #
    johnbuk

    Perhaps a copy of The Skeptics Handbook could be prescribed by her at the same time. That should ease the pain! I sense an opportunity Jo!

    120

  • #
    Mark M

    Here is a round-up of potential customers …

    Most UPSET Reactions to Donald Trump Winning Election Against Hillary

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnTnpN2H34A

    Winning!

    80

    • #
      TdeF

      Extraordinary. Hell scenario for CNN. Not the slightest trace of objective commentary or even bipartisanship as journalists. Just like our ABC. CNN insulted half of America on their big day. In Australia I would think the same for Tony Abbott. No wonder they hate him so much. This isn’t logic, this is extreme barracking. Worse, the personal insults are endless compared with Saint Hillary who has done no wrong. No emails, no Clinton Fund, no coverup, no Libya, no Russian uranium, no pay for play, no Lewinsky coverup, no Huma Abedin, an innocent selfless woman Hillary pulled down from greatness.

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  • #
    Ian Hill

    We’re up against it. A flyer recently put in my letterbox looking for new students at a local private primary school stated as one of their selling points that they aim to turn their pupils into global citizens.

    Their subjects included environmental studies, religion, music, sports and other fuzzy things, but did not mention reading, writing and arithmatic at all. Perhaps those were taken as read!

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    • #
      Ian Hill

      It was arithmetic when I went to school.

      100

      • #
        Bobl

        But now we have computers so the arithmetic is automatic … arithmatic

        50

        • #
          Ian Hill

          It was a genuine typo done on a tablet I’m still getting used to Bobl but I like your logic.

          I’m home now and have the flyer. What it said was “We use contemporary teaching and learning strategies to develop confident, capable, global citizens”.

          I suppose the national anthem is now banned from such schools.

          41

          • #
            Bobl

            I saw a very similar thing from the local Lutheran school, said to my wife, well I’m glad our kids are finished school.

            Re the error and your tablets virtual keyboard, I know what you mean… I call mine the virtually unusable virtual keyboard.

            50

    • #
      ivan

      But… But we can’t have the next generation learning to think for themselves, if they do they most probably won’t follow the UN party line without question and won’t be happy as serfs slaving for their global masters.

      100

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Correct. the NWO want obedient drones. This is why the education industry now churns out under educated illiterate emotionally stunted, PC fearing “graduates”….

        80

  • #
    PeterS

    Finally we are getting somewhere to exposing the climate change/global warming alarmists as clueless, insane and/or crackpots. One more thing needs to be added; some are evil as any extreme terrorist for wanting to destroy Australia’s economy. Time for Morrison et al to come out hard on these points and hammer it home to the people we are facing an enemy called the ALP+Greens who incorporate various people of the types mentioned above. Time for the truth to come out before it’s too late. Furthermore, anyone in the LNP who denies this truth should be dismissed from the party forthwith.

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  • #

    There seems to be no means of contacting Ms Burke directly, unless someone else can find it? so [email protected] will have to do.
    I will be advising them that I have, on several occasions, been asked by my customers to assist in helping relatives and children who have been brainwashed with this garbage. Most people I know are fully aware that the whole thing is nonsense. Many of these have scant scientific or technical expertise in the matter, but they know when they are being lied to. Others remain vulnerable.

    100

  • #
    Dave

    The climate change empowerment handbook, eco psychology. Wow Susie, I think you need the help.

    70

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘Tell people that 97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human behavior.’

    I want a Royal Commission and Cook needs to front up and take full responsibility for that piece of propaganda.

    100

  • #
    tom0mason

    “Build emotional arousal… Use vivid imagery…”

    The future will be dark and cold, life will be short and brutal!

    Is that emotional enough?

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    pattoh

    If you were to ask all Federal politicians to answer even the most basic empirical scientific questions; how many could answer off the top of their head?

    I’d love to see a citizen journalist doorstop a few of the regulars on Q & A or the Drum without notice.

    The fundamental ignorance of those who are responsible for making decisions affecting all our lives needs to be

    exposed & recorded for posterity.

    The same approach should be used for the MSM SJW vandals.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    The Australian Psychological Society has a wep page on Climate Change™.

    https://www.psychology.org.au/for-the-public/Psychology-topics/Climate-change-psychology

    So does the American Psychological Association.

    http://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change.aspx

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    manalive

    Using the dodgy Cook survey as the basis of this disgraceful touting for business contravenes their own APS code of ethics:

    C.2.3 Statements made by psychologists in announcing or advertising the availability of psychological services, products, or publications, must not contain:
    (a) any statement which is false, fraudulent, misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive …

    … and …

    (e) any statement intended or likely to appeal to a client’s fears, anxieties or emotions concerning the possible results of failure to obtain the offered services …

    The Karl Kraus quote: ”Psychoanalysis is itself the disease for which it purports to be the cure” applies here also.

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    Hot under the collar

    Such psychosocial babble that I thought I was reading an article from the Onion! Susie Burke obviously doesn’t get out much; she requires professional help.

    80

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  • #
    Ruairi

    It’s no wonder alarmists go manic,
    And suffer irrational panic,
    When they wallow in gloom,
    Preaching climatic doom,
    With the mindset of perished Titanic.

    190

  • #
    manalive

    Alex B. Berezow (PhD microbiology):
    “… to claim it [psychology] is “science” is inaccurate. Actually, it’s worse than that. It’s an attempt to redefine science …”.
    Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test:
    “John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University in California, says that the true replication-failure rate could exceed 80%, even higher than Nosek’s study suggests …”.
    It’s suggested in the article that if “… a mere 3% of scientific funding devoted to replication could make a big difference …”.
    Peter Ridd made a similar point concerning the Great Barrier Reef research.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Great points.

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Exactly and experiment must be repeatable.
      This sort of stuff is in the range of ‘meta science’.

      Back to sarcasm..what happens when they (the patients of these quaks) find out that we are headed into a little ICE AGE! With the probability of that rather good on present data.

      60

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘Water is a significant and abundant molecule in our solar system. It spawned life on Earth and now lubricates many of its most essential processes, including weather. It’s a critical factor in Jupiter’s turbulent weather, too, and in determining whether the planet has a core made of rock and ice.’

    Anthony Watts is looking at Jupiter with the suggestion that H2O is probably there in some form.

    60

    • #
      TdeF

      In the creation of atoms from hydrogen in the solar furnaces, probability goes down with weight. The same with molecules. So H, (He), Li, Be, B, C, N, O.

      Combinations between these are the most common molecules and Helium will not combine
      so CO2 and H2O are among the most common molecules in the universe.

      It’s no coincidence that all living things are made from CO2 combined with H2O and sunlight to form CarboHydrates, (CO2)m(H2O)n. And the Greens want to ban CO2. Unbelievable.

      Ban life on earth. Without CO2, the Earth is a sterile rock.

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    pat

    Susie has been at this game a long time…and she’s not alone. too lengthy to read, but worth skimming:

    Biohabits: Thoughts on Psychology
    WINTER SOLSTICE 2014 · Vol. XII · Edition 4
    by Amy Nelson, Editor
    What are the psychological barriers to pro-environmental behavior? Can people actually be motivated to act altruistically? And why is it that only one-third of the public even talks about climate change? To explore these and other questions, we turn to three psychologists whose work directly applies to the environment…

    Susie Burke, senior psychologist with the Australian Psychological Society, shares insight into the biases that affect everyday decisions and behavior. She has spoken about the connections between mental health and climate change before the Australian Parliament and as part of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project…

    Susie Burke, MAPS
    Senior Researcher, Psychology in the Public Interest, Australian Psychological Society
    …Susie lives on the edge of the bush in Central Victoria, Australia, with her partner and three children, and we were delighted to have the chance to chat with her.
    One of the conclusions of your paper “Hope, despair and transformation: Climate change and the promotion of mental health and well-being,” which appeared in the International Journal of Mental Health Systems in ***2008, was that “climate change is already impacting on the social, economic, and environmental determinants of mental health, with the most severe consequences being felt by disadvantaged communities and populations.” That was six years ago. Has this impact worsened? Can you give us an example?…

    PIC: Susie Burke & former Senator Bob Brown, who was the founder and leader of the Australian Greens
    http://staging.biohabitats.com/newsletters/the-role-of-psychology-in-our-work/

    40

  • #
    Geoffrey Williams

    Whenever I see an acronym (a c t i v a t e) conveniently used as a heading for a list of (8) bullet points, then I know that it is going to be a piece of b*llsh*t.
    GeoffW

    50

  • #
    Alice Thermopolis

    Empowerment, n., 1. The process of becoming stronger and more confident, esp. in controlling the lives of a population under the pretext of controlling a planet’s climate. 2. A feeling of power, often experienced when standing on high ground, moral or immoral. 3. Climate-craft: a surge of excitement, often experienced by a coven when receiving a research grant, esp. for a climate-change attribution study.

    “And what is the purpose of the US National Assessment Report 2014? The motto of the USGCRP says it all: Thirteen Agencies, One Mission: Empower the Nation with Global Change Science. The operative word is “empower”, which is the purpose of the Assessment. It is to provide cover for a massive regulatory intrusion, and concomitant enormous costs in resources and individual liberty. History tells us that when scientists willingly endorse sweeping governmental agendas based on dodgy science, bad things soon happen. To borrow the meter of Winston Churchill: Never in the history of pseudoscientific consensus will so much be done to so many by so few.” (P Michaels & C Knappenberger, 2014)

    Reference: The Devil’s Dictionary of Climate Change (2018)

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/21/friday-funny-the-devils-dictionary-of-climate-change/

    40

  • #
    Macspee

    Is there a law firm out there ready willing and able to bring th biggest class action of all time against the government, political parties, CSIRO, universities, etc., etc., for the pain, suffering , nervous shock, and other medical issues brought about by the global warming disaster scenario creators? Suzie Burke will provide the expert evidence of the dangers and the pain and suffering.

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  • #

    Don’t ferget the hip pocket nerve sindrome,
    say, THAT’s causing enormous suffering to cits,
    so many $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ from picking of pockets
    by Pol-tythes … and just recently more that 44
    billion in an NGO grant ter mates.

    50

  • #
    pat

    2014: SMH: A climate of despair
    Frustrated green scientists and environmental activists may be at risk of depression. Konrad Marshall meets the experts and advocates shedding light on the intersection of climate change and mental health.
    By Konrad Marshall
    PIC: Susie Burke, a psychologist at Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project in Melbourne
    Nicole Thornton remembers the exact moment her curious case of depression became too real to ignore. It was five years ago and the environmental scientist – a trained biologist and ecologist – was writing a rather dry PhD on responsible household water use.
    After a two-decade career in green awareness and eco-tourism, Thornton was happy to finally be researching her pet project at the University of Technology in Sydney – but she was also on edge…

    The United Nations was about to hold its ***2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen, and Thornton felt she had a personal investment in it. She, like many thousands of activists and scientists and green campaigners, had high hopes that a new and robust version of the Kyoto agreement would be created in Denmark.
    “But the reality was a massive, epic failure of political will. It broke me,” she says. “The trigger point was actually watching grown men cry. They were senior diplomats from small islands, begging larger countries to take action so that their nations would not drown with the rising seas.”
    Thornton pauses, takes a breath. “It still gets me, five years later. That’s when I lost hope that we were able to save ourselves from self-destruction. That’s when I lost hope that we would survive as a species. It made me more susceptible to what I call ‘climate depression’.”…

    Susie Burke, a senior psychologist with the Australian Psychological Society, has done extensive work on the mental impact of climate change. Burke understands Thornton’s confusion, but also points out that she is by no means alone.
    Only last month, Burke made a presentation on mental health and the environment as part of the Climate Reality Project, hosted by former US vice-president Al Gore at Rod Laver Arena and attended by hundreds of committed (but) weary campaigners…

    Burke points out that disengagement – “switching off from the cause and becoming passive” – is an additional and bona fide concern for leaders within the green community, such is the crippling power of the threat perceived by people like Thornton, and the slow rate of change they observe.
    “Think of the overwhelming evidence they have. And then imagine the retraction or repeal of important legislation, or the watering down of bills. Or the green light that was just given to the Carmichael open cut mine in Queensland – granted by the environment minister,” Burke says…

    (Burke) and her colleague, Dr Grant Blashki of the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, have even been called on by organisations that need help dealing with the overall melancholy affecting their troops…
    Adam Majcher, of Australian Conservation Foundation, reached out to Burke and Blashki around the time of the failure in Copenhagen (which is acknowledged as an emotional nadir for green activists)…

    But other experts point out that we should not so easily or readily confuse helplessness with depression – nor should we mistake correlation for causation…
    “This doesn’t mean people aren’t worried about climate change and their worries don’t need to be taken seriously. Quite the opposite,” Berry says, “but that we should not pathologise or individualise, and we should be careful what conclusions we draw.”

    In this light, the condition that Thornton faced is much closer to what the psychologist Martin Seligman described as “learned helplessness” – something that could emerge from the repeated and uncontrollable failures of campaigning for a cause…

    Thornton’s story of repeated blows, before giving up, is similar to the tale of the “cadaver dogs” at ground zero in New York…
    Thornton, 41, is currently on a break – of sorts. She is part of a fellowship program with the Centre for Sustainability Leadership, with 49 other aspiring change agents…
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-climate-of-despair-20140811-102r1w.html

    ***2009? Climategate-caused-depression more likely.

    40

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      There are a lot of people from the Pacific Islands who are suffering from Climate Depression.

      Yes Cl$m$te Depr$ss$on caused principally by the failure of their homelands to sink into the ocean and force them to seek shelter in a more affluent country built upon the hard work and thrift of several generations of occupants.

      And the writer of the eco article works at the local Algore Institute.

      I feel entitled to be depressed having seen what my parents and grandparents endured in building this country.

      KK

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      A good one Pat, especially the bit about learned helplessness, aka the assumption of victim status.

      Beats working for a living.

      KK

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  • #

    Look, I hate to be a nag about this, but the graph (one of many expressions of our actual situation) is not the work of Big Meany or Giant Coal. It’s straight out of Wiki, the work of NASA and Hansen:
    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Global_temperature_relative_to_peak_Holocene_temperature,_based_on_ocean_cores_(NASA).png

    You see, nearly all or our geological period is spent in temps colder (and thus drier) than now. Much of it is unsurviveable cold for large populations with high expectations. The odd brief window of warmth every 120 thousand years in a process of millions of years does not a summer make.

    I just don’t get how people don’t get it. I get how one distracted person can fall down an uncovered manhole. But how can millions of educated people with the knowledge at their fingertips be jumping off this intellectual cliff?

    Susie…get a job. Any job. Just get an occuapation. A real one.

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    • #

      One distracted person down a man-hole, yes, but
      a whole population of educated people falling
      down the Mann-hole, why, even Mencken would
      scarcely have believed it.

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  • #
    pat

    reading stuff like this makes me crazy!

    29 Aug: EnergyMag: Report launched for Australian green infrastructure opportunities
    A pipeline of infrastructure investments that can be funded via green finance has been outlined in a new Green Infrastructure Investment Opportunities Australia and New Zealand (GIIO) report launched by the Climate Bonds Initiative…
    The reports noted that cumulative green bond issuance in Australia is $8.3bn (US$6.3bn) and New Zealand NZ$2.1bn (US$1.5bn) for a combined total of $10.2bn in green bond issuance to date.

    H1 2018 issuance in Australia was $2.6bn (US$1.95bn) up from $2.5bn for the corresponding period in 2017, a 5.3 per cent increase. Australia was the second largest cumulative source of issuance within the Asia Pacific region in H1 2018, second to China and twelfth in overall world rankings. In CY 2016 Australia recorded $1.1bn in green bonds, in CY 2017 $3.3bn, a 209 per cent increase from 2016…
    H1 2018 for New Zealand saw NZ$200m (US$136m) issued…

    Notwithstanding the positive directions, both nations are yet to effectively harness sufficient capital allocation to generate the volume of green infrastructure investment required to meet international mitigation and emissions commitments, whilst improving domestic climate adaptation and resilience.

    Both the reports supported the two countries’ respective transitions to a low-carbon economy, meeting the growing demand for green investment opportunities – including green bonds – and facilitating greater engagement between project owners and developers, and institutional investors including asset managers and superannuation funds…
    “As a core investor in Australia’s green bond market, we are seeing growing interest from superannuation funds and managers who want to deepen their exposure to sustainable assets. This is essential if we are to achieve our national emissions reduction goals in the infrastructure sector and beyond,” Clean Energy Finance Corporation CEO, Ian Learmonth, said.

    “We are confident an increasing focus from underlying investors, along with improved sophistication and understanding of fund managers, and increased diversity of supply, can attract more investor support for this critical investment class.”…
    https://www.energymagazine.com.au/report-launched-for-australian-green-infrastructure-opportunities/

    Aug 2018: ClimateBonds.net: Green Infrastructure Investment Opportunities Australia and New Zealand
    DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE
    https://www.climatebonds.net/resources/reports/green-infrastructure-investment-opportunities-australia-and-new-zealand

    30

  • #
    RB.

    They’ve taken a cue from ISIS in recruiting the mentally unstable for the dirty work. Is there a chapter on suicide vests?

    70

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      If you question thier belief system, they “detonate”…. kind of amusing to watch…..they dont need explosive vests, its built in it seems….

      70

  • #
    ROM

    As member of the genus Homo sapiens, I really do have to admire the Homo sub-species groupings of Homo eco and Homo cc.

    These low intelligence subgroups of the Homo species show an astonishing ability to adapt to almost any situation using little more in cerebral computing power than a few satray neurons which place them on a par with starfish and other similar species in the intelligence stakes.

    The paucity of supporting material for any of the immense number of positions they almost universally conform using no more than a minute level of evidence as a justification for their adherence to their doctrine has almost no effect whatsoever on thier inbuilt ethicly and morally deficient ability to prey on to the point of destruction of vulnerable trusting higher level Homo sapiens and their young.

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  • #
    pat

    30 Aug: Reuters: Report for French government backs new nuclear reactors that departed minister had opposed: paper
    A report commissioned by France’s government proposed building five new nuclear reactors, Les Echos reported on Thursday, two days after Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot resigned and said that progress on goals such as a shift to renewable energy was too slow.
    The report, prepared for Hulot and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, examines how to maintain the industrial capacity of a French nuclear sector that slowed reactor construction in the 1990s, the business daily said. Among its proposals is the building of five new EPR reactors starting in 2025.
    “Government policy isn’t decided by a report,” Le Maire told Radio Classique when questioned about the Les Echos report on it. Nuclear power is “an asset for France”, he added, mentioning its low greenhouse emissions and costs he described as “competitive”…

    The report, drawn up by a nuclear industry veteran and a former defense official, was submitted for classification as secret, Les Echos also said, citing unnamed sources.
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclear-nuclear/report-for-french-government-backs-new-nuclear-reactors-that-departed-minister-had-opposed-paper-idUSKCN1LF0LS?rpc=401&amp;

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  • #
    John Watt

    Very sad to see another impact of Flannery /Obama/Gore brandishing their egos for all to see.
    Suggest the consultant psychologist do some Evans/Nicol/Svensmark homework and counsel her patients with some climate-causation facts to counter the rantings of the FOGmasters.

    41

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    The unnamed woman of this posting was “struggling with the enormity of what she had done.”

    Giving birth to a healthy baby boy is an event and accomplishment of great importance. Any child can grow to be a special person.
    However, the mother won’t be of much help if she is unconnected to the real world, as this one apparently is.

    A psychologist – Susie Burke – might know (I only suspect) that such folks as she counsels will likely encounter some other thing to worry about if climate change were not the doom of the era.
    I find worrying a big waste of time, so can’t even make a suggestion about what doom others should freak out over.
    A shortage of pizza and beer comes to mind . . .

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    • #
      Bobl

      Yes, a Pub with no beer is a sorry state.

      40

      • #
        ROM

        Considering the source of that claim about the woman and her newborn child I would very deeply question the veracity of that particular claim as the psychology of those who try to enforce their own highly destructive “impending catastrophe” ideology onto very vulnerable individuals won’t let a very small problem of varnishing the truth in layers multitudes thick and who are quite prepared to just create plain straight out lies and pure inventions to enforce their ideology onto the populace and the political sectors.

        Always of course with the expectation that there will be very substantial financial gains to be made by the instigator plus lots of kudos within the “Homo eco” and “Homo cc” subgroups for creating a large amount of fear in vulnerable individuals which then has to be suitably treated at great public expense.
        A fear which can then be used as another tool to help gain whatever their true objectives might be.

        And what ever that objective is, it can be guaranteed it won’t be for the benefit of the populace or even the nation as a whole.

        Morality, ethics and empathy are all foreign in both word and deed to the Eco and CC groupings.

        Most of us have a “heart” as in a feeling for others.

        Eco’s, greens, Climate changers and those of a similar ilk have an unfeeling, non empathy and little more than organic “pumps” to push their green blood around.

        Nothing at all new in this as that has been the modus operandi of a large part of the Eco and Cc operatives for quite a number of decades past.

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      • #
        Another Ian

        Maybe Slim should have gone on with the song he nearly wrote:-

        “What a beautiful sight is a bird with no gear”

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    TdeF

    Again with statistics and psychologist and surveys. In a Brietbart article on Mueller’s investigation.

    “Meanwhile, a new poll reported by Axios shows two-thirds of Republicans and one-third of independents believe it’s time for the Mueller probe to come to an end. Further, a whopping 80 percent of Republicans polled concur with President Donald Trump that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt.”

    The poll, commissioned by Public Policy Polling between August 27-28, 2018, possesses a margin of error of +/- 4.1%

    Let me guess. That means 1/25th so 25*25 or 625 people responded to the survey. What proportion of republicans and democrats is unknown, but opinion polls are being treated like accurate science and facts.

    I put this all down to the abuse of statistics by psychologists and lately by ‘Climate Scientists’ in establishing their ‘consensus’. Perhaps the worst example is 97% of Scientists believe by eliminating 9,900 people from the original survey of 10,000 ‘Climate Scientists’ and most significantly, all the meteorologists.

    Clearly you can do anything with surveys. They are often interesting but quoting a 4.1% accuracy is insane. That is no more than the square root of the number of respondents but it sounds far better than saying they only asked 600 people out of 300 million.

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      Robert Swan

      Have a read of this Wiki page and, using its definition rather than your “rule of thumb”, see if you can work out the sample size from the margin of error alone. Executive summary: you can’t: you need to know the desired confidence level and an estimate of the standard error. Perhaps you (and the pollsters) are using a different definition? I’ve shown you mine.

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        TdeF

        It seems an exact fit. Take a sample of 96. Standard deviation for a normal distribution square root or 10. 10% error. Fits perfectly. The ‘rule of thumb’ is factual and simple and adequate. The ridiculous part is thinking that surveying, let alone voting is randomly distributed. Worse when they use it to assess three alternatives.
        It would be far more informative to the public to say a mere 96 people responded than to claim an accuracy of 10.0% or 9.78%.

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          TdeF

          Yes, in every case you can work out the sample size from the margin of error quoted. Just try it.

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            Robert Swan

            Ok, I think I have a satisfactory explanation on the “rule of thumb”. Per the Wikipedia article the standard error is sqrt(p*(1-p)/n). This will be maximised if you assume p = 0.5 (equal yes/no responses). So that gives you sqrt(0.25)/sqrt(n) = 0.5/sqrt(n). This needs to be multiplied by the normal distribution offset “z” for the desired confidence level (95%, 99% or whatever). Now the “rule of thumb” is 1/sqrt(n) so it’s assuming z = 2. Two standard deviations leaves 2% on the tail, but since this is ± it’s 2% off each tail, i.e. 96%.

            96% vs. 95% confidence level explains why the rule of thumb gives 3.33% where the “taking the knee” survey said 3.27%.

            To conclude: rule of thumb is pretty good if you are sure they are working at the usual 95% confidence level.

            In the end though, as you say, the mathematical assumptions of randomness and uniformity are broken left, right and centre, so the whole thing’s bogus anyway.

            Won’t be surprised if nobody sees this, but it’s pleasing to reconcile the two viewpoints.

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          TdeF

          The same is true for the ridiculous 97% of ALL scientists agree with man made Global Warming. The survey said no such thing.

          This result was from a subset of only 100 people out of an original 10,000 originally selected as suitably qualified, and only within this deliberately selected tiny subset of the survey were 97 scientists out of 100 in agreement with man made Global Warming. Firstly the survey was not of all scientists at all but a restricted set and even within this set, only 1% was chosen. I suppose they would claim an accuracy of 10% according to the new silly system.

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    el gordo

    BoM prediction for August was a beat-up.

    http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5902

    They are unaware that global cooling has begun.

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    Bobl

    Today I had words with a teenage check out operator at the local woolies, as usual of late lamenting that I am no longer allowed to choose a sterile lightweight plastic bag. She tried to take me to task saying people litter, I said when was the last time you saw people litter a shopping bag and even if they did how does she think the shopping bag managed to get from plainland 150 km and 2 mountain ranges separated from the ocean to the ocean. Did they grow legs and walk there I suggested. She said “but they do” but your entitled to your opinion. I said its a matter of science that plastic bags do not grow legs and walk 150km to the ocean, opinion has nothing to do with it.

    I calculated for my MP an estimate of the “contamination contributed by Queensland’s shopping bags to oceanic plastic” and it was about 20 parts per quadrillion. With my electorates contribution being zero to 20 decimal places.

    I really hate this generational love affair with harming real people in order to pretend to care about the environment. It the same for Climate Change $800 per annum so the government can pretend they are reducing the temperature in 100 years time. Three 15c bags a week don’t seem bad untill you realise thats another $25 a year out of a pensioners budget… on top of the $800 extra from the power bill.

    I’m really sick of paying for other people virtue signalling, in a free and democratic society it should be up to me whether I choose a sterile lightweight bag or a dirty reusable one, it should be up to me to choose expensive renewable energy or cheap coal energy rather than being forced to pay for the useless green electron. It should even be up to me whether vaccines get injected into my or my children’s bodies.

    I want my free and democratic country back. I want the government to get out of the business of choosing how I should live.

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    Michael Spencer

    Well, what do you know? The Australian Psychological Society use certain credible? reference sites such as Skeptical Science, the Climate Council (Hmmmm Tim Flannery, Will Steffan), Beyond Zero Emissions. Nothing like having science-based, absolutely reliable information sources! (You certainly wouldn’t want to use ill-informed propaganda sites like joannenova.com.au, now would you?)

    It reminds me of a joke about two psychologists/psychiatrists who met one day. The first one looked the other deep in the eyes, and said: “You look alright! How am I?”

    And only today, alerted by a comment on Tony Heller’s blog (https://realclimatescience.com/2018/08/climate-groundhog-day/) Lo and behold! Children’s “climate change” propaganda, And guess who is the co-author if one of the recommended fairy-story books? None other than a certain Professor Michael E. Mann, esteemed ‘climate scientist” and pseudo-Nobel Prize winner!

    I was inspired to add a last and somewhat relevant page to this: http://galileomovement.com.au/media/ShouldYouReallyBeAlarmed.pdf.

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    EternalOptimist

    Two eco-psychologists pass in the corridor.
    They nod and one says ‘Good Morning’
    The other stops, furrows her brow, ‘Whaa???Are you mad? DENIER!!’

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    pat

    would theirABC be unaware of Susie Burke? not on your life:

    17 Aug: ABC: How the weather affects our mood — and our health
    RN By Michael Mackenzie and Sophie Kesteven for Life Matters
    Nicholas Haslam, a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne, has been looking into the links between weather, mood and behaviour…
    “You do find on sunny days that people are more benevolent to others.
    “There’s been studies showing that people tip better; there’s been some suggestions that stock market returns are better on sunny days.
    “There’s even interesting counterintuitive findings showing people think better or more clearly on days when the weather’s a bit more cloudy.”…

    Susie Burke, a senior psychologist at the Australian Psychological Society, has researched the impact of extreme weather events and long-term climate change on the mental wellbeing of people around the world…
    “We tend to refer to drought as having an indirect effect on people’s mental health, because … the associated economic stresses and strains … are the main pathway for people experiencing ongoing depression and anxiety [or] family stress.”
    That can have a ripple effect, leading to a decrease in community cohesion.
    More generally, Dr Burke says researchers have noticed an increase in hospitalisations for a range of mood and behavioural disorders during times of extreme heat and humidity.
    “That can be mood disorders like depression and mania; there’s also an increase in hospitalisation for schizophrenia, dementia, delusional disorders, and a range of anxiety and PSTD,” she says…

    Increased heat has also been linked to higher levels of violence, aggression, domestic violence, rape and civil unrest, she says.
    “All those things are associated with high temperatures, and researchers have done some good work noting those links,” she says.
    Dr Burke says researchers have noted that we underestimate the importance of a stable climate on our wellbeing.
    “One of the things with climate change is that a greater instability with weather can have profound health and psychological impacts on people,” she says…

    Life Matters has been examining how weather and climate can influence our decisions, change our cities and fuel our imagination. Catch the full five-part series here.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/how-weather-affects-our-mood-and-health/10124102

    Jan 2011: ABC: Disaster management for children
    By Penny Johnston (Penny Johnston is the presenter of Babytalk on ABC Radio)
    Bushfires, floods, natural disasters are hard enough for adults to deal with but how do little children cope? Dr Susie Burke is the Australian Psychologists Society’s Senior Psychologist for Disaster Response and she believes parents need to consider how children can be included in planning and recovering from natural disasters like the recent floods…

    Try not to talk too dramatically in front of the children. If you can wait until little ones are in bed before you de-brief with other adults. Little ears are often listening to conversations they can’t be expected to understand…
    As much as possible limit media coverage of ongoing disasters. If possible wear headphones so you can hear the reports without your children listening or limit news bulletins to one every few hours. Blanket news coverage of the same stories or footage repeated appears to small children as more and more devastation, they’re not able to distinguish between video replays and a new disaster occurring…

    AUDIO: 13mins20secs:If you are concerned there are some places you can go for help and these are discussed by Dr Burke in the podcast.
    http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/01/21/3118428.htm

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    Andrew McRae

    It’s 5:30pm, so far 85 comments and nobody has pointed out that this empowerment handbook cites as supporting references some works by our favourite scholars John Cook, Stefan Lewandowsky, Dana Nuccitelli, and even GetUp!

    On page 27 there is a text box titled “A WORD OF CAUTION IN LINKING EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE”. I won’t paste it all here, you can read it for yourself. When I make this next statement, I assure you I am honestly trying to make an accurate summary of that text box. The main risk they see in “using extreme weather events as a proxy for climate change” is not the awkward fact that extreme weather events have been decreasing in frequency (eg USA hurricanes and hot days), but that linking climate change to extreme weather is simply not catastrophic enough.

    Psychiatrists are the rare breed of scientist who routinely tell people what they should do, and it appears the applied wing of the APA have recently realised what power that gives them in the global warming game. Hang on, didn’t the USSR use psychology to isolate their dissidents?

    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
    Addendum.

    One name which kept appearing in the references (7 times) was Joseph Reser, so I decided to look for older research in case there was any obvious bias happening there. I wish I’d chosen someone else because by crikey can this guy waffle about split hairs. And I’ve only chosen one past paper, I don’t know if I could stand to wade through any more. Anyhow, here’s a few tasty tidbits from “Thinking Through “Conservation Psychology”: Prospects and Challenges”, J.Reser, Human Ecology Review, Vol 10, 2003. [espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:162117]

    What characterizes conservation psychology is the common interest and common purpose in psychological processes, parameters, and interventions relating to effective conservation initiatives and behaviour change.

    So the topic is unambiguously activism and not merely the study of conservation cognition.

    there are important omissions in the overview of other related and contributing fields. Those of particular note include art and environmental aesthetics, landscape architecture, phenomenal geography, place attachment and identity, culture and environment, protected area management, natural environment interpretation, risk appraisal and assessment, risk communication and representation, and natural history writing.

    This only shows how far advanced the climate skeptics are.
    • Art, Check. Cartoons by Josh, Fenbeagle, Bill Leak, M4GW, Kilez More, and others have all used art to represent our alternative climate futures and the players of the global warming game.
    • environmental aesthetics, check. Many times skeptics have pointed out how much worse landscapes look with wind turbines on them.
    • place attachment, check. We like having a country that we have a modicum of democratic influece over, rather than losing control of it in some half-baked trans-national treaty.
    • risk appraisal and assessment, check. For a long time we’ve said the risk of diverting vast amounts of money away from productive use is quite certain, it’s the environmental payoff and the future climate that has all the uncertainty.
    • risk communication and representation; check. Skeptics are famous for sowing seeds of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about climate change policy, in almost equal measure to the amount of mainstream fear and total credulity about global warming. We said we didn’t like the whole exploding-children argument, the Goreian tall tales of oceans engulfing new york, and the machinations behind the infamous hockey stick. It’s actually the environmentalists who side-stepped the risk communication problem by recasting the whole issue as a moral challenge, in which numbers play no part.
    • natural history writing, check. One of his references for good examples of this is David Suzuki. ‘Nuff said.

    Unfortunately, the realities of effective conservation and environmental management are that any effective conservation initiative today, whether by way of research, theory or practical application, must be able to break through a chaotic and charged discursive landscape in which “natural”, “environment”, “sustainability”, “values” and “conservation” can mean whatever a vested interest chooses them to mean.

    A fairly frank admission here that language is not used for communication to aid understanding, but is bent to aid the political goals. Easy to recall examples of this. When concrete blocks are built on a hillside, it’s called conservation if it is for wind turbines and solar power, but it’s not conservation if the block is for anything else, but the hill side gets concreted either way. Similarly, sustainability seems to have economic sustainability edited out of it whenever it appears in an environmental context.

    Let’s introduce ourselves to those we do not know, exchange ideas, strategies and findings, roll up our sleeves, and ensure that the impressive good work in which we all have been engaged finds realisation in fundamentally changing how individuals and society think, feel and behave with respect to the natural environment.

    Again, the whole subject is activism masquerading as dispassionate scientific advice. If people want to perform science and activism, it would be better if they could refrain from wearing their proverbial white lab coat when advocating political actions. The method of science ends when you tell people what they should do.

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      pat

      Andrew McRae –
      no surprise to read the who is listed in the references.

      here’s Susie on ABC alongside some familiar CAGW names, including Glenn “Solastalgia” Albrecht:

      AUDIO: 29mins27secs: Oct 2016: ABC Earshot: Climate of emotion: despair
      Image:Polar bear leaning over edge of small piece of ice to look at reflection
      Scientists let us know all the facts and figures about climate change. They know just how quickly the icebergs are melting, and almost to the day when the Great Barrier Reef will be dead. If you don’t fully grasp the wide ranging and complex facts, it can feel like ‘too much’…
      Guests:
      Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the Global Change Institute, University of Queensland
      Professor John ‘Charlie’ Veron, Marine biologist, coral scientist, former Chief Scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science
      Dr Susie Burke, Senior psychologist at the Public Interest Team at the Australian Psychological Society
      Dr Glenn Albrecht, Philosopher…ETC
      http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/climate-of-emotion:-despair/7880378

      same lineup:

      Nov 2016: ABC Earshot: Climate of emotion: hope
      In this two part series we’re looking at how climate and environmental scientists, studying everything from the Great Barrier Reef to the impact of heatwaves, manage the ‘burden of knowledge’. How do they emotionally experience the science around global warming?…

      13 Aug: ABC Life Matters: Whatever the Weather: mood
      To mark Science Week, Life Matters has teamed up with the Bureau of Meteorology to examine the impacts of weather on our lives. Starting with weather and its ability to influence our mood and behaviour.
      Journalism Professor ***Lawrie Zion, and psychology researchers Nick Haslam and Susie Burke examine how weather, and our obsession with it, affects decision making, state of mind, and long term health.

      ***La Trobe Uni: Scholars: Professor Lawrie Zion, Director RFA- Transforming Human Society, DVC (Research) Office
      Lawrie Zion is Professor of Journalism and Director of the Transforming Human Society Research Focus Area. He also leads the five-year research ARC-funded research project, New Beats, which is investigating the aftermath of the recent mass redundancies of journalists.
      After graduating in History from the University of Melbourne in 1981, he completed a PhD at Monash University examining the pop music scene in Australia during the 1960s. He has over 25 years of experience in the media, including a nine-year stint at ABC radio, where he was based at Triple J, setting up the station’s Hottest 100 listener poll and presenting the arts and entertainment program, Creatures of the Spotlight. His radio documentaries include profiles of Barry Humphries, and Crowded House. He also worked as a writer, researcher and interviewer for ABC TV documentary series ‘Long Way To The Top’ and ‘Love Is In The Air’…
      He continues to appear regularly on ABC radio and on ABC TV’s ‘News Breakfast’…


      Zion did have a little media experience outside of ABC, but not much.

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        Kinky Keith

        Really Bizarre Place that our Society has descended into.

        Publicly funded Degrees in Nitpicking leading to PhDs in Really Serious Nitpicking which obviously qualifies the person for a well paid job in Publicly funded Media where they can spread the Good News on the National benefits of Nitpicking.

        KK

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    pat

    ABC wrote up the Nov 2016 Earshot program which had an additional guest, Katerina Gaita:

    Nov 2016: ABC: Climate change meets party plans as activists organise dinners to save the planet
    RN By Gretchen Miller for Earshot
    Katerina Gaita is a climate communicator and a deep thinker.
    She says she cried for months when she read Philip Sutton and David Spratt’s book, Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action.
    “I remember waking up in the middle of the night and finding my cheeks were wet,” she said.
    “I guess it is the same as any grief; there’s a strange loneliness that comes from being amongst other people who aren’t feeling the same grief that you are.”…

    “So we borrowed the party plan model from Tupperware.”
    Ms Gaita now runs climate change themed dinner parties under the umbrella of ***Climate for Change.
    In Melbourne, where Ms Gaita lives and the events are hosted, there are regularly seven gatherings a week.
    “It’s our goal to reach hundreds of thousands of people over the next few years,” she said…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-07/climate-change-activists-organise-dinners-to-save-the-planet/7992282

    ***Climate for Change: Team
    Our Board:
    Alison Kelly
    As Principal Consultant for Alison Kelly Consulting, she has worked on projects within the agricultural and sustainability sectors, including delivery of the Carbon Farming Future’s Profitable Dairying in a Carbon Constrained Future project…

    Imogen Jubb
    She has worked with Australian Conservation Foundation, Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO, including co-authoring reports with some of Australia’s leading climate-change scientists.

    Anica Niepraschk
    Since moving to Australia in 2014, Anica has been heavily engaged in the nuclear-free movement and the Victorian Greens. Anica works as a Safe Climate Campaigner at Environment Victoria, leading its national campaign to phase out coal-fired power stations…ETC ETC
    http://www.climateforchange.org.au/team

    LinkedIn: Katerian Gaita: Advisory Board Member, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI), Uni of Melbourne
    November 2015 – Present

    20 June 2017: Melbourne Sustainable Society Inst: Climate Action in the time of Trump
    As part of its Climate Conversations series, the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI) is pleased to co-host an upcoming conversation in partnership with Dumbo Feather magazine, discussing reflections from leaders at the forefront of the Australian climate advocacy movement. What makes them hopeful in the time of Trump? What have we learnt? Where to next?

    The panelists will draw on their rich experience across a range of organisations in Australia’s climate activist movement that have been working to mobilise communities; shape the response to, and action on, climate change by both government and business; and shift the broader social and cultural conversation around climate change in Australia…
    This conversation is part of Dumbo Feather’s upcoming special issue on climate change and the environment, co-edited by ***Anna Rose.

    Panellists:
    Anna Rose, Rose – Author and Myer Foundation Innovation Fellow
    Victoria McKenzie McHarg – President, Climate Action Network Australia
    Kirsty Albion – National Director, Australian Youth Climate Coalition
    Katerian Gaita – Founding Director, Climate for Change.
    https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/past-events/climate-action-in-the-time-of-trump

    busy lot, the CAGW mob.

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      TdeF

      Amazing. They are serious. People against (man made) Climate Change. Mobilizing the masses with Climate Change parties. What would they do if someone proved to their satisfaction that it was all make believe? Cry for months?

      There may be a real need for deprogrammers in this Climate Change cult.

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    Jimmy

    People need psychiatric help for feeling guilty about “climate change?” We should be able to charge warmunists with mental abuse.

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      Annie

      The inculcation of feelings of guilt in vulnerable people is absolutely wicked. We should not be made to feel guilty for being who we are. I believe human beings are meant to be on this planet and enjoying it. I believe it has been given to us to use, not misuse or abuse, but most certainly to use without guilt. Our dominion of the planet is not a licence to be greedy and polluting but it is to make use of the planet’s resources for the benefit of all people.

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    largolarry

    Most of the AGW crowd seem to have an irrational fear of a life giving molecule CO2, minor changes in temperature, imaginary increase in hurricanes. tornadoes, rainfall, lack of rainfall etc. etc.. This is in addition to things like salt, plastics, immunizations, butter, margarine, milk and apples. Minor radiation does are considered as life threatening and miniscule exposures to many chemical sends them into hysterics. It seem to me that all the above sounds a clinical description of some sort of psychosis.

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    • #
      PeterS

      In other words the AGW crowd fear so many things there has to be another reason for their fear other than the fear of the object itself. You can tell from the way they argue their cases on whatever subject – they never provide factual evidence, just platitudes and when they are confronted with real evidence to explain they are wrong they go off at tangents with verbal abuse and end up having a tantrum. There can only be one root cause to all this – they are mentally deranged or unbalanced and need medical assistance.

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        el gordo

        They are not deranged, but they are severely misguided. Respect for authority, group think and virtue signalling are all part of the psychological mix.

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        • #
          PeterS

          completely unable to think clearly or behave in a controlled way, especially because of mental illness
          https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/deranged

          There are several reasons to explain why alarmists are so adamant about what they believe even in the face of factual evidence to the contrary, and not all these reasons are due to a mental illness. However, according to the definition of the word many are definitely are deranged, especially those who refuse to accept the evidence at hand.

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    PeterS

    The current discussion on how alarmists are mentally deranged can be extended to the certain Western leaders (no names but we all know who they are/have been) can and should be put up as a good examples of that disorder. Let’s hope enough people are awake to all this by the time we have the next federal election and the ALP+Greens lose by a landslide irrespective of how weak the LNP policies are on energy and other important areas. At least we can now stand a much better chance of saving ourselves from a socialistic catastrophe.

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    OriginalSteve

    Surprise….as ive said befoe, the green agenda could not have moved forward so fast and effectively unless there had been tight collusion between govt, industry and NGOs.

    https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/31/u-s-foundations-now-spend-over-1-billion-a-year-on-green-propaganda-and-dirty-tricks/

    “U.S. foundations are now spending over $1 billion a year to advance the global warming agenda – an amount several orders of magnitude bigger than the sums spent promoting climate change skepticism.
    The eyewatering sum is revealed in an investigation, conducted by Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, into some of secret forces and nefarious methods pushing the climate change agenda in the U.S. and beyond.

    What the report clearly demonstrates is that – regardless of President Trump’s attempts to introduce an element of scientific rigor and economic practicality to America’s climate and energy policies – a powerful, richly funded and determined Green Blob is working to undermine the Administration’s efforts at every turn.

    Among the familiar names involved in the scheme are former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, disgraced former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, three left-leaning state governors – Andrew Cuomo (New York), Jay Inslee (Washington) and Jerry Brown (California), plus, of course the inevitable Al Gore. The institutions involved include fake-neutral, pretend-scientific green activist group the Union of Concerned Scientists, Harvard Law School and the Rockefeller Family Fund.

    One of the more dubious schemes exposed in the study – the result of numerous FOI requests from highly reluctant institutions – was a plan to encourage the offices of sympathetic Attorneys General to push through climate change legislation by secretly providing them with off-the-books staffing funded by green-aligned non-profits.

    The report argues that these arrangements were at best dubious and possibly illegal.”

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      PeterS

      Clearly the best way to fight such evilness is to keep things simple and basic. In our situation the LNP should just state the obvious that voting for ALP+Greens is a vote for much higher power prices and far more power blackouts. Add a strong dose of reality by showing how much of the rest of the world is going down a different path by building several hundreds of coal fired power stations, and explain why and also why many of them are using our coal, which according to the left we should not use for ourselves. If all that doesn’t get the attention of the voters then nothing will and we might as well give up, sit back and watch our nation crash and burn when Shorten becomes our next PM. Your move Morrison.

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      PeterS

      I wonder if Turnbull went to New York to discuss plans for our future with the Green Blob.

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    pat

    gosh – theirABC tacking CAGW…again

    AUDIO: 2 Sept: ABC Sunday Extra: Philippines commission probes big fossil fuel companies
    The Philippines Commission on Human Rights is holding a landmark inquiry into the effects of climate change on human rights, and the extent to which the big fossil fuel companies are responsible for climate change and its impacts.

    It is the first inquiry of this kind, made necessary, according to the Commission, because “Among those who are suffering the most from the effects of climate change is the Philippines. Nowhere has it been more dramatically demonstrated than in November of 2013, when our country was visited by Typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda.”

    Typhoon Haiyan, in November 2013, was the strongest typhoon ever recorded to hit land.

    Guest:
    Yeb Sano, ***former Philippines climate envoy, ***now Executive Director for Greenpeace SE Asia.
    Presenter: Hugh Riminton
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/2018-09-02/10183864

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    • #

      Haiyan was the strongest recorded at landfall. However the exclusive club of sub 880 mbar cyclones (Haiyan was 895) are from the 1950s and 1970s last I checked. Haiyan and Patricia (1915) had the highest recorded wind speeds, but recording wind speeds is something we’re better at now.

      So we must conclude that Cat 5 cyclones are not achieving the very low pressures of yesteryear though they are picking up speed. Also, they may be getting better at making landfall…though not in the US or Australia or most other places.

      Or we can conclude that since it’s too much trouble or risk for Hugh Riminton to ascertain these easily available facts the ABC should be turned off and kept off…while it awaits defunding.

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      • #

        Of course, I meant Patricia (2015). We St George supporters have a thing for last century. Yes, I go right back…and I can assure you that even before Rock Around the Clock the ABC was infested by self-important twerps with plummy voices. (At least they promoted the half-decent Menzies rather than a wastrel and wrecker like Turnbull.)

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  • #
    angry

    Father’s Day changed to Parents’ and Carers’ Day so as not to make kids uncomfortable.

    BLOODY SICKENING !!

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6120699/Fathers-Day-changed-Parents-Carers-Day-not-make-kids-uncomfortable.html

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    Crakar24

    The latest iteration of climate linguistic gymnastics is agw causes arctic sea ice to melt which in turn causes more snow which in turn causes permafrost to melt through insulation it always comes back to those blankets trapping heat hey lol.

    Also the word is the IPCC will attempt to link heat trapping blankets to cooling

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    pat

    2 Sept: France24: AFP: Can crunch talks bring the Paris climate treaty to life?
    As the pace of global warming races ahead of efforts to tame it, diplomats from more than 190 nations begin crunch UN climate talks in Bangkok Tuesday to breathe life into the Paris Agreement…
    The pact also promises $100 billion annually from 2020 to poor nations already coping with floods, heatwaves, rising seas and superstorms made worse by climate change.
    “The Paris Agreement was like a letter of intent,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.
    Unless detailed rules of implementation covering dozens of contentious and unresolved issues are agreed upon, he and other experts said, the landmark treaty could run aground…

    The most persistent sticking points in the UN talks revolve around money…
    This tension flared spectacularly in July when the UN’s flagship climate finance initiative, the Green Climate Fund, suffered a boardroom meltdown after members could not agree on funding priorities…

    An even more daunting — and arguably urgent — task facing diplomats in Bangkok and Katowice is ratcheting up voluntary national commitments to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions…
    Under the Paris accord, countries are not required to revisit these commitments until 2023.

    ***But waiting that long could doom the planet to runaway global warming, scientists warn in a UN special report obtained by AFP, to be officially unveiled in October.
    “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5C report will show the need for increased ambition if we want to have a functional human civilisation in the future,” said Wael Hmaidan, executive director of Climate Action Network, which groups hundreds of climate NGOs…

    “We need to see announcements of increased ambition from some of the big countries that put out 2030 commitments — China, India, Brazil, the European Union, Japan,” said Alden Meyer, policy and strategy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington…

    “Businesses are looking to countries to build on the commitments they made in Paris,” said Jennifer Austin, policy director for We Mean Business.
    “Strong, clear policies are what give businesses clarity and confidence.”…
    Wael Hmaidan (CAN): “The bottleneck for a real transformation is political will at the national level — heads of state,” he said…
    https://www.france24.com/en/20180902-can-crunch-talks-bring-paris-climate-treaty-life

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    pat

    ***I’m not saying Speers didn’t include “the impact of climate change” in some statement or other – Sky is as CAGW-infested as the rest for about 22 hours each day – but there is nothing about CAGW in the quote included in this article by Holly Byrnes:

    2 Sept: news.com.au: Sky News political editor David Speers issues election warning: ignore the bush at your peril
    DAVID Speers and his Sky News team earned record ratings for the remarkable rolling coverage of the leadership spill. Now he’s got a hot tip for election victory as the news channel prepares to roll out across regional Australia today
    by Holly Byrnes
    SKY News political editor David Speers has pleaded with the two major parties to make the run up to the next election about “policy and not personalities” – or risk the rise of a Donald Trump-style Australia.
    As the news channel rolls out across regional Australia today, on the free-to-air WIN network for the first time, Speers said political parties risked electoral ruin if they ignored the issues affecting the bush…

    Not having a policy plan around the drought, immigration, ***and the impact of climate change on the environment would spell disaster at the ballot box, he predicted.

    “We’re seeing debates around the drought, around immigration and getting more new arrivals to want to stay in regional Australia … how best to maximise the potential of different farming areas … and these are all really important debates to have. And let’s hope we can encourage a bit more of that through our programming.”…
    https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/sky-news-political-editor-david-speers-issues-election-warning-ignore-the-bush-at-your-peril/news-story/018b12fda13bd01fcd0f55220404cda5

    Daily Telegraph profile: Holly Byrnes is the National TV editor and a former Sydney Confidential editor and fashion columnist for News Corp Australia. She has more than 20 years experience in journalism…

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    Another Ian

    Ramping up the need for help

    “The “Hot Mess” of the PBS video about global warming”

    “They seem to think CO2 will stay in the atmosphere for millennia. They seem to forget how much our biosphere likes CO2. They also seem to forget that if they say the problem will be around for millennia, it’s likely the ucrrent set of humans view the video will shrug their shoulders and say “Eh, there’ nothing I can do about it.”. ”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/02/the-hot-mess-of-the-pbs-video-about-global-warming/

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    Lewis P Buckingham

    We are bounded in our material existance.
    Threats to that existance, beamed into our bedrooms and living areas continually assert this.
    For the marketer it is a sales problem to the baffled, confused, anxious consumer wanting certainty in buying decisions.
    For the mentally ill it is a step into further anxiety.
    The hot media, particularly facebook, texting and video, however transmitted, does not allow sober reflection.
    One of my friends, who often lives on the streets, is constantly anxious about ‘climate change’.
    For him it is just another catastrophe yet to be experienced, inevitable,bad, sad and unstoppable.
    The media outlets and massively rich elites who advocate more of the same, like PBS news hour with its glib ‘education’
    have a lot to answer for in causing unnecessary agitation and anxiety in the population.
    The psychologist in question is right to have identified the problem of climate anxiety, with the adage to treat it.
    The concept that a ‘solar cell a day will keep the climate away’ however will lead to further anxiety in her patients.

    http://westernweekender.com.au/2017/11/23784/

    ‘Ms Husar also voiced her concern for locals who will be tempted to turn their air conditioning off this summer, despite frequent hot and humid days that Penrith is likely to face.’
    “We have more people out here facing bill stress than anywhere else in New South Wales.”

    The most vulnerable will be caught as renewable subsidies are phased out and the big electricity providers , like AGL, continue to game the system at the
    expense of the poor.
    Perhaps a more nuanced look at the statistics of climate may lead her to a ‘road less travelled’.
    Political action at the ground level, particularly in Sydney’s Western suburbs, would do a lot to assuage the
    more extreme manifestations of ‘climate stress’.

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    Joe Archer

    You might consider publishing this article:

    http://hanblecheya.blogspot.com/2018/07/was-nuclear-energy-sabotaged.html

    It is instructive to question why govts would lie about climate change. Just follow the money.

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