ABC tells us Clive James was brilliant, but not that he was a climate skeptic

Clive James was all these things,

Incredibly funny

hysterically funny

Brilliant, we all know

So skilled, and like a juggler with words

Disciplined,

Incredibly hard working

and really loyal.

 –quote,  Jennifer Byrne, ABC, 7:30 Report   22:10

But he was also very much, unmistakably, an outspoken skeptic. Something the ABC couldn’t bring itself to say. What was Clive James’s position on the most expensive national policy gambit in a hundred years?

The ABC lies by omission. If he wrote a glowing Chapter about Greta in his final years we know the ABC would have told the world.

Bless you Clive: Brilliant, funny, disciplined and a climate skeptic.

 

9.7 out of 10 based on 78 ratings

153 comments to ABC tells us Clive James was brilliant, but not that he was a climate skeptic

  • #
    WXcycles

    Taken from: Charlie November 27, 2019 at 11:37 am
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/27/apocalypse-deferred/#comment-2856533
    —-

    The imminent catastrophe goes on
    Not showing many signs of happening.
    The ice at the North Pole that should be gone
    By now, is awkwardly still lingering,
    And though sometimes the weather is extreme
    It seems no more so than when we were young
    Who soon will hear no more of this grim theme
    Reiterated in the special tongue
    Of manufactured fright. Sea Level Rise
    Will be here soon and could do such-and-such,
    Say tenured pundits with unblinking eyes.
    The sea supports the sceptics, but they, too,
    Lapse into oratory when they predict
    The sure collapse of the alarmist view
    Like a house of cards, for they could not have picked
    A metaphor less suited to their wish.
    A house of cards subsides with just a sigh
    And all the cards are still there. Feverish
    Talk of apocalypse might, by and by,
    Die down, but the deep anguish will persist.
    His death, and not the Earth’s, is the true fear
    That motivates the doomsday fantasist:
    There can be no world if he is not here.

    Clive James, March 2016.

    471

  • #
    graham dunton

    Are the ABC, (that’s our stuffed auntie), suffering from the retarded or selective input syndrome?
    A belief held by many; ME- is that occurs when touching that very sensitive nerve.
    This may be- classed as a medical condition, and if so, that is the question, which does deserve further comment

    110

    • #
      Komrade Kuma

      This disease has been around since I were a lad at university and it is really a selective narrative syndrome.

      If you want to be accepted by the cool dudes, the self proclaimed “progressives”, then you must only utter commentary in accord with the cool dude talking points and their official slant. If you do not comply then you don’t get invited anywhere let alone get laid and are basically shunned and bullied.

      Its a syndrome that evolves from simular considerations in primary school and one would think the mind would grow out of it by university but there is a needy, spineless and not that smart demographic that seems to remain afflicted.

      Apart from its toxicity, its all just a bit sad really.

      160

      • #
        farmerbraun

        I think it ‘s sometimes called socialisation -best avoided.

        50

      • #
        Deano

        While the discrimination you describe can impede a good person’s progress, it also eventually works against the perpetrators. It’s impossible for a whole group of people to all be ‘as one’ on every aspect of their chosen subject to control. Tensions rise.

        00

  • #

    However, both Their ABC and the Age will continue with the scare tactics, like the snow will never fall again or that we’ve reached the final tipping point:

    Good news? Emissions are down. Bad news? More bushfires and no skiing

    For some climate systems, the window to act may have already closed, scientists say, urging immediate action

    20

    • #
      RoHa

      I’ve been living in Brisbane for the last fourteen years, and I haven’t seen any snow since I got here. It’s Global Warming!

      50

      • #

        Snowflakes have been reported in Brisbane in 1882, 1927 and 1958. (No, not SJWs objecting to colonial statues, but actual snowflakes.)

        A friend of mine once printed T shirts that said SKI MT DRUITT. Don’t know how they sold. He was the type of entrepreneur who did more drinking than business.

        40

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    I guessing that no one actually went to the source, which in this case was an essay penned in 2009. There is lots about scepticism, but no thing to say the Clive himself was sceptical about Climate Change. It should be remembered that he was primarily a wordsmith, and would write about anything for money.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8322513.stm

    436

    • #
      Shannon Pace

      so this isn’t good enough for you, champ?

      https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/clive-james-chapter-in-climate-change-the-facts-2017

      based on your logic, we could say you were a skeptic as well, even though you bleat about alarmism, all the damn day long…

      280

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I see you didn’t read the article.

      170

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        I did, he is sceptical, but he does not link that to a personal position. But you will, no doubt. You really need the context, and that is, that he would take any topic, and any view, if there was money in it. His autobiography is chock full of this sort of stuff, much to the angst of his compatriots who were never cast in a favourable light.

        223

        • #
          Bill In Oz

          You are an utter BS Master Fitzroy.
          Here is Clive own poem on climate change nonsense !

          “The imminent catastrophe goes on
          Not showing many signs of happening.
          The ice at the North Pole that should be gone
          By now, is awkwardly still lingering,

          And though sometimes the weather is extreme
          It seems no more so than when we were young
          Who soon will hear no more of this grim theme
          Reiterated in the special tongue

          Of manufactured fright. Sea Level Rise
          Will be here soon and could do such-and-such,
          Say tenured pundits with unblinking eyes.
          Continuing to not go up by much,

          The sea supports the sceptics, but they, too,
          Lapse into oratory when they predict
          The sure collapse of the alarmist view
          Like a house of cards, for they could not have picked

          A metaphor less suited to their wish.
          A house of cards subsides with just a sigh
          And all the cards are still there. Feverish
          Talk of apocalypse might, by and by,

          Die down, but the deep anguish will persist.
          His death, and not the Earth’s, is the true fear
          That motivates the doomsday fantasist:
          There can be no world if he is not here.”

          231

        • #
          John Westman

          Of course PffTT the entire climate scam/fraud is driven by money. I am not going to list here the billions that have been poured into this scam/fraud.
          Nor am I going to list the recipients of these billions.
          It only requires a little education to be aware of what is going on.
          The entire scam/fraud is a political ideology-it has nothing to do with science

          190

          • #
            Maptram

            And don’t forget, in addition to the $billions being poured into stopping climate change by reducing (some) CO2 emissions, there are more $billions being poured into repairing damage caused by floods and fires, which will continue to occur, because they are not caused by climate change.

            80

        • #
          PeterW

          What remained constant was my scepticism, which is surely, as a human attitude, more valuable than gullibility.

          He goes on to say that the science around climate change is not settled, that scientists who specialise in the field are increasingly voicing their own scepticism, and he makes it clear that he is not a believer.

          In the ordinary use of language and accepted definitions, this does indeed make him a sceptic, and to claim otherwise appears -Prima face – dishonest.

          180

          • #
            PeterW

            To claim that the man would write about anything for money is not the same as claiming that he would write anything for money.

            The former is the realm of the journalist, the latter is the realm of the paid propagandist.

            The journalist may write about anything and remain honest, the propagandist – whether paid or in support of an irrational ideology, like our friend Fitz – is not.

            191

            • #
              Komrade Kuma

              The latter is also the realm of a lot of so called climate scientists, ‘science communicators’ and msm churnalists.

              30

        • #
          Kalm Keith

          ID’d, SRI 004a.

          Y?’s there a SR.

          KK. Memorial cmnt.

          [Apparently you need a lesson on what constitutes an echo chamber and the difference between that and healthy dialog. Morn your friend if you need to. Personally I hope Andy is well.]ED

          32

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          REPORT CARD on Peter:

          Ecology……………………………PASS
          Gullibility…………………………CREDIT
          Reading Comprehension..FAIL

          122

        • #
          Ian Hilliar

          Clive’s essay Mass Death Dies Hard” was published in “Climate Change. The Facts 2017 Published by the IPA, edited by Jennifer Marohasy. No contributer was paid for any article…..;..

          110

    • #

      How about you read what Clive actually wrote:

      Well-Versed in Warmism’s Folly

      80

    • #
      Deplorable Lord Kek

      ” There is lots about scepticism, but no thing to say the Clive himself was sceptical about Climate Change”

      Nope, just “Mass Death Dies Hard”

      “When you tell people once too often that the missing extra heat is hiding in the ocean, they will switch over to watch Game of Thrones, where the dialogue is less ridiculous and all the threats come true. The proponents of man-made climate catastrophe asked us for so many leaps of faith that they were bound to run out of credibility in the end”

      https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Climate-Change-The-Facts-2017.pdf

      70

  • #
    PeterS

    If anyone thought things couldn’t get any worse, they are dead wrong.

    The Green New Deal is Not for Americans

    We have an Australian version and it’s gathering strength with very little opposition. This is one area where we are way in front of America, sadly. I now understand why it is being implemented; to cause division in the population that will eventually lead to a civil war and hence a revoluti0n to overthrow our Western democratic systems.

    50

    • #
      Dave

      The same policy is underway in NZ. Along with the feverish launch of the feel good bring everyone together De-Colonize movement.

      00

    • #
      Dave

      Possibly related to your comment are the multinational war games that have been happening on a yearly basis in NZ for several years now.
      The last one practiced blockading country roads, and simulated the suppression of rioting rural folk.
      The war game is set in a “fictitious” “two Island” pacific nation that has unrest flare up in the provinces due to a new govt policy.

      10

  • #
    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      Yep, proves my point, he would write anything for money, and to stir the pot. All this article does is rehash 10 years of anti science media, there is not one ‘fact’ that has not been debunked, countered or proven to be an outright lie.

      334

      • #
        R.B.

        Somebody is projecting.

        92

      • #
        R.B.

        Somebody is projecting.

        82

        • #
          mothcatcher

          Somebody is repeating

          22

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Not only is he repeating but continuing to offer insult to the blog proprietors and to those who use the blog to genuinely explore ideas.

            He’s had more than three strikes so isn’t it time to acknowledge that he doesn’t believe in free speech.

            Anybody who doesn’t believe in free speech should now be Banned, Excised, Blocked!

            DKK

            30

      • #
        Deplorable Lord Kek

        Something that is inconsistent with what you have asserted does not ‘prove your point’ – just the opposite in fact.

        Needless to say that the onus is on you to provide evidence to support your claim that Mr James would ‘write anything for money’.

        Merely asserting your assumption as ‘fact’ is not evidence.

        Interesting btw that in your attempts to make Mr James acceptable to the cliamte change religion you reiterate a couple of the logical errors prevalent in the climate change ‘science’:

        (1) cagw proponents demand others disprove their case rather than they prove their own;

        (2) cagw proponents assume the existence of their worst case scenario, sans evidence.

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        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          you are missing the point. Clive wrote for a living, and he was also famous for the skill in which he practiced his craft, and he was incredibly persuasive. But he was using climate science as a stalking horse to show how hyperbole and exaggeration are not in the Media’s best interest. He repeatedly makes that point. He also is highly selective in his quotes, but like a lawyer he is only using the facts he needs to prove his case, discarding anything which might discredit it.

          Read any of his collections to see what I mean
          — (1992). The dreaming swimmer : non-fiction, 1987–1992. ISBN 9780330331210.
          — (1993). Fame in the 20th Century. ISBN 9780563362746.
          — (2001). Reliable essays : the best of clive james. ISBN 9780330481298.
          — (2003). As of this writing : essays 1968–2000. ISBN 9780393051803.
          — (2004). Even as we speak : new essays 1993–2001. ISBN 9780330493062.
          — (2005). The meaning of recognition : new essays 2001–2005.
          — (2007). Cultural amnesia : necessary memories from history and the arts. ISBN 9780393061161.
          — (2009). The revolt of the pendulum : essays 2005–2009. ISBN 9780330457392.
          — (2011). A Point of View. ISBN 9780330534383.[90]
          — (2013). Cultural cohesion : essential essays. ISBN 9780393346367.

          216

          • #
            Deplorable Lord Kek

            You say:

            (1) “Clive… was incredibly persuasive”
            (2) “hyperbole and exaggeration are not in the Media’s best interest”

            but

            (3) you still quote “the conversation” and “the Guardian” as reliable sources even though they are entities well known for “hyperbole and exaggeration”

            So, on the one hand you are claiming Mr James to be very persuasive and that he “prove[d] his case”; but from a functional or practical point of view you completely disregard that very case you claim he so adroitly proved.

            So, either (1) you suffer cognitive dissonance (a common affliction among the alarmist hoity toity) or (2) you are not mounting a serious argument but just here “to stir the pot.”

            90

          • #
      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        This is what he starts out with
        “I speak as one who knows nothing about the mathematics involved in modelling non-linear systems. But I do know quite a lot about the mass media, and far too much about the abuse of language”

        He is not talking about science, but how media corrupt the message with unhelpful and inaccurate adjectives, using climate change as his stalking horse. He is a sceptic, but not in the way you would want him to be.

        222

        • #
          Deplorable Lord Kek

          Actually, he addresses the systematic predictive failure of ‘the science’:

          “The mere fact that few of Flannery’s predictions have ever come even remotely true need not be enough to discredit him. ”

          “Actually, a more illustrative starting point for the theme of the perma-nently imminent climatic apocalypse might be taken as 3 August 1971, when the Sydney Morning Herald announced that the Great Barrier Reef would be dead in six months.”

          “In the middle of 2016 some of the long-term experts on reef death began admitting that they had all been overdoing the propaganda.”

          160

        • #
          R.B.

          James wrote that he can’t dig into details of the science, the exact a priori reasoning that leads to conclusions reported in the paper about an impeding apocalypse. This is like the vast majority of the population, including true believers like yourself. He then writes of why he still is a sceptic based on the multitude if scares that were predicted by,as turned out to be, idiots.

          110

      • #
        sophocles

        there is not one ‘fact’ that has not been debunked, countered or proven to be an outright lie.

        … thus spake The Fitzroy, Idiot and Fool.

        So this:
        I speak as one who knows nothing about the mathematics involved in modellingnon-linear systems. -Clive James
        is an “outright lie? which has been countered? Debunked?

        The Pointman is touting for nominations for The 2019 Pratties Award. Are you nominating yourself, Mr Fitzroy?
        You’ve opened your mouth yet again, and changed both socks and shoes along with your feet … it’s worth a nomination: you might win!

        110

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘ … there is not one ‘fact’ that has not been debunked’

        That is not true, the GBR lives.

        ‘Actually, a more illustrative starting point for the theme of the permanently imminent climatic apocalypse might be taken as 3 August 1971, when the Sydney Morning Herald announced that the Great Barrier Reef would be dead in six months.’

        40

      • #
        bobn

        Are you on drugs? Your posts are pure fantasy. I suggest you get help, or education.

        60

      • #
        mothcatcher

        Peter – I visit Jo’s site less often than I used to, because it has become something of an echo chamber, with very few dissenting voices appearing, so I would normally welcome your contributions. HOWEVER, it seems to me that you are performing the classic functions of a troll. I don’t believe for one moment that you yourself believe Clive James was a ‘sceptic for hire’. Clearly he wasn’t, and his scepticism on the issue of the Climate Apocalypse was constant, intelligent, and very well argued. You’re just throwing utterly disingenuous spokes into the works.

        Raise your game, perhaps?

        82

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      Yep, proves my point, he would write anything for money, and to stir the pot. All this article does is rehash 10 years of anti science media, there is not one ‘fact’ that has not been debunked, countered or proven to be an outright lie.

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      • #
        Bill In Oz

        [SNIPPED email coming.]

        82

        • #
          Annie

          That’s not very nice B.

          50

          • #
            Bill In Oz

            Sometime Annie
            T’is the only way
            To sort a problem
            Brutal ? Yes !
            Effective and to the point ? Yes !
            Just like Clive James so often did.
            He had no time for idiots either.

            [No Bill. Even when PF is totally, completely wrong, we don’t need to be crass and contrary views are always welcome here. Unlike believer silos. – Jo]

            70

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Anybody who gets 21 Reds all the time should be “discontinued”.

        Free Speech doesn’t exist in an environment that allows, and encourages, truth to be covered and diluted by rubbish.

        10

    • #
      Mentat

      Dear Mr. Fitzroy

      A key point in Clive James’ essay is that the so called evidence based climate and energy public policies are in fact, evidence and due diligence free and based only sophistry and illusion. As you appear to further this by your evidence free comments, rather than citing any relevant evidence.

      If you wouldn’t mind citing the particular empirical evidence from peer reviewed journals that convinced you of the scientific merit of the CAGW ‘theory’ – that would be a useful and better contribution.

      130

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        • #
          AndyG55

          [snip] evidence. [snip] science from PF.

          Never changes, [SNIP for yelling- jo]
          Back to doing more important things.

          150

          • #
            Peter C

            Andy,
            Whatever it was that you tried to say, I give it a tick.

            40

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Andy, I think maybe it’s time also for me to do more important things as well. When the blog is 97% clogged with rubbish and misinformation it is devoid of Free Speech which can’t exist in the current environment.

            DKK

            10

          • #
            AndyG55

            Jo yet again makes it clear that freedom of expression is only allowed by some people.

            Seems PF is her favourite person.

            So be it. She is welcome to him. !

            [May I remind you of three things? 1) This blog is open to all who want to read and comment as long as certain rules are followed. You know what those rules are. 2) Peter Fitzroy treated you better than you treated him until he had enough and started complaining. 3) Peter Fitzroy, right or wrong, is as welcome on this blog as you are.] AZ

            21

            • #
              Kalm Keith

              Andy,

              Essentially this blog is about defining the techniques, process and manipulation that has made it possible for activists to overthrow democracy.

              In practical terms that ideal seems to have been successfully thwarted by the intruders who are enabled by the pc concept of “free speech”.

              I believe that the last twenty years is full of tells that confirm that politicians believe the average voter is so confused that they can do whatever they like; and what they like has little to do with proper leadership of a nation.

              One recent commenter said it clearly when they wrote that the current disruptor had destroyed another thread. Destroyed another thread.

              If, on this blog, we cannot act in such a way as to protect the rights of the bulk of commenters then we have obviously become a glaring example of the problem we are trying to understand and hopefully fix in the larger world.

              It’s a complex problem for Jo operating this blog where most of us are not public figures.

              KK

              00

            • #
              AndyG55

              AZ. Appeasement is such a wonderful thing, is it not !

              Or “sucking up” to political correctness and just accepting the lies and deceit and the trolling, without response.

              That is the way forward.. ask Chamberlain.

              [You do have a flair for the dramatic. It’s too bad this is not your private blog. If it was you would be surprised at what it takes to keep it going. And your attitude would change toward readers who become discipline problems because it drives people away. It distracts from the reason Jo runs this blog. You might even have to pay moderators to keep the unruly inline and I would not be working for nothing.

              None of that is true, however. And your hostess here calls all the shots whether you like it or not. I make no distinction between one reader and another. If simply watching what’s going on and then stating what I see bothers you, then be glad I don’t own this blog because I might be more harsh with disciplinary measures than Jo. When Peter Fitzroy gets out of line he gets the same treatment you do. Only so far he hasn’t forced it to go public.

              Andy, try growing up. You would be surprised at the difference that would make. No one wants you to leave, we just want you to drop the chip on your shoulder. Peter Fitzroy is not your personal enemy. Let Jo worry about him.

              One more time: if you think he’s wrong, tell him so and say why. If you want to challenge him to provide evidence, good. You can even point it out if he doesn’t follow through. But it ends with that. Period.] AZ

              (Another moderator chips in support for Jo and AZ, who tolerate unpopular views, because blogs like this are set up for discussion and debate, following common sense posting rules benefits everyone who prefer threads that are FREE of unsupported name calling and the useless rancorous replies. You have a science background, use that to answer him and others you do not agree with, while leaving out the language Moderators have had to work hard snipping out. You are one of the worst offenders on this blog, yet you are still here because Jo and the Moderators try hard to tolerate your frequent lapses, but some day you will be put on Moderation like you were at WUWT, like you were at No Tricks Zone (Pierre Gosselin openly stated you are moderated a lot, snipping your words a lot), to which you quickly ran off never to post again. Frankly you waste moderators time having to keep bailing you out over and over……….) CTS

              [I agree, waste of time. More than likely he will stop commenting which is the one thing we don’t want. But apparently he won’t change either. What do you do with a situation like this? For the benefit of everyone, this blog only works if we maintain the discipline to let Jo worry about the ones we disagree with. Stay away from the personal attack.] AZ

              11

            • #

              I take the GeeUppers very seriously because I take the climate beat-up very seriously. My belief is that the climate agenda has been confected by cynics with no interest in climate – and obviously no interest in conservation! – to be used as the pointy end of Fabian Globalism. (Remember, I am definitely a conspiracy theorist.)

              This doesn’t mean the GeeUppers are in on the fix. There may be an element of coordination and coaching, but they may be sincere while being naturally drawn to authority and the collective.

              Certainly, they will always defend the hive, which makes them GeeUppers. For me, it’s about following what they follow, seeing what brings them out. A couple of years back, any mention of Musk or a Musk enterprise could bring on a flurry of them, from all over. Now, not so much. Water releases was a hot button for them a few years back. Less so now.

              Right now the main themes are modern climate exceptionalism and appeals to rank and authority. So in harping on these points they show me their game, a game which is at least to some extent coordinated and coached. So thank you, GeeUppers.

              The other reason I welcome contradiction is the obvious one. I don’t want to be part of The Conversation for skeptics. I’d rather an actual conversation with anyone at all. And yes, an actual conversation includes “this is what climate change looks like” and those frequent invitations to gang-review. I can live with that, if the alternative is to be like the The Conversation.

              00

          • #
            PeterW

            Andy, old mate.

            This is what trolls DO.

            His aim is not to convince, but to anger and bully people into giving up – either giving up civil discourse, or giving up conversing altogether.

            On a small scale, it is no different from the actions of terrorists who cannot hope to defeat a nation-state militarily, but anticipate that the nation-state will eventually exhaust its resources and/or political will trying to swat mosquitos.

            WE have this ideal that the debate is about people of good-will comparing ideas and evidence in order to arrive at a closer approximation of the truth (Defined as that which best describes reality). Trolls like PF do not care about the truth, only that their voice is the only one heard in the public space.

            Never forget that debating on the internet is a spectator-sport. We do not debate in order to persuade that climate-religion fanatics…. we debate in order to persuade the unconvinced onlookers.

            Soldier on!

            10

        • #
          sophocles

          Mr Fitzroy proffered opinion, progpaganda, and model output from:
          acs.org: Invalid: Bad Science. Water Vapour will not condense without any charged particles (ions) to form condensation nuclei.
          the conversation: Invalid. Opinion and propaganda. Absorption of IR energy is not absorption of heat
          cgd.ucar.edu: Invalid. Computer models up to and including CMP6 are not evidence. Strongly exaggerate temperature.
          folk.uio.no: Invalid. Computer models. Ditto
          tandfonline.com: Invalid: a Simulation based on Computer Models. Ditto

          You’re a Gullible. So where is your evidence, then?

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          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            assertion is not refutation now is it. I was asked for “particular empirical evidence from peer reviewed journals” which I supplied (the guardian article contains the links to the science). What do you proffer in return? sweet fanny adams.

            014

        • #
          el gordo

          Looking at the last link.

          ‘Thus the possible positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation can cancel one another out and complicate matters. The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research.’

          Water vapour is poorly modelled and at the moment there is no positive feedback and negative feedback rules. Over the next couple of decades we should expect an increase in low cloud cover, do you know why?

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          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            Yeah – for water vapour, the problem lies in the large cell size and the rapid change in phases of water (solid, liquid and gas) from moment to moment. Unluckily for us the computing resources and measurements needed are only a dream atm

            06

        • #
          el gordo

          We know from the hiatus that CO2 does not cause global warming, so all the other links are worthless.

          It would be in your interest Mr Fitz to engage and sharpen your arguments by leaving out anything to do with temperatures. H2O is the elephant in the room.

          100

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            So that science is settled? CO2 does not cause warming – expect to see a lot of papers retracted in the near future.

            06

            • #
              AndyG55

              “CO2 does not cause warming”

              FINALLY you have realised the FACT. PF !!

              There are actually NO papers that prove it does,

              … so only those making random anti-science suppositions need be retracted.

              They should never have passed peer-review in the first place.

              20

        • #
          el gordo

          IPCC – Climate Change 2007: Working Group I

          “Water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas, and carbon dioxide (CO2) is the second-most important one. ”

          20

        • #
          Geoffrey Williams

          Peter, you quote ‘The Conversation ‘ and it’s response to a question regarding CO2 content in the atmosphere; I find this response totally inadequate. Here’s why . .
          The base of the article is how in 1850 Tyndall and Foote found that the earth’s temp. was entirely due to the small concentration of CO2 creating a ‘a natural greehouse effect’. There is also reference to a ‘blanket in the atmosphere’. The use of annalagous terms is totally unhelpfull and misleading. There is no greenhouse and mo blanket. We should have moved on since 1850.
          The fact is that CO2 molecules in the atmosphere are outnumbered by 2500 : 1. It would seem counter intuitive to myself how such a small number of particles could absord and reradiate significant heat.
          Then there is the statement quote ‘most outgoing infrared radiation is absorbed by heat trapping gases in the atmosphere. These then can release or re-radiate that heat. Some returns to earth’s surface, keeping it warmer than it would be otherwise’
          This last statement is does not convince me that CO2 is a problem.
          You can believe what you like . . .
          GeoffW

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          • #
            Chad

            Yet another thread derailed by the fool Fitsroy. !
            For christ sake stop feeding this TROLL !

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            Peter Fitzroy

            I used that to show how far back this goes. There are thousands of papers dealing with parts of the changes in climate over the last 100 or so years. Is it enough to know they exist? And before you dismiss any of them, do you have anything which debunks, for example ‘most outgoing infrared radiation is absorbed by heat trapping gases in the atmosphere. These then can release or re-radiate that heat. Some returns to earth’s surface, keeping it warmer than it would be otherwise’

            As to CO2 – if it’s atmospheric concentration had not increased, would there have been an increase in water vapour?

            17

            • #
              Kalm Keith

              Ad infinitum, this is put out as comment;

              “These then can release or re-radiate that heat. Some returns to earth’s surface, keeping it warmer than it would be otherwise’”

              Unfortunately Peter, that comment is another piece of “Science” lifted from the University of Skeptical Science web page. Enough said.

              Yesterday I travelled in an aircraft at altitude; over 11,000 metres above sea level. The external temperature was Minus 58°C.

              Below us the temperature increased steadily, so recent research confirms, to about Plus 15°C at sea level.

              All qualified scientists know why this happens and the thermodynamics behind it but cannot say so publicly for fear of becoming another Peter Ridd.

              It gives me no pleasure repeating myself here so maybe I should find something better to do with my time. But before I go I want to apologise for mocking you, I should acknowledge that you are just another hapless victim of the mentality that drives our politicians from local government up to the United Bloody Nations.

              I especially want to apologise for having labeled you as the Safe Room Inhabitant No 004a. Unlike the central character of Les Miserables, you have been a follower, not someone capable of forming independent opinion. My apologies also to Victor Hugo.

              In truth you have not been protected on the blog as all those forty people who have on occasion “judged” you would confirm.

              Free speech is a very delicate concept that can be misrepresented and it can leave us unsure of the public truth of anything put out as information.

              DKK.

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              Mark D.

              I used that to show how far back this goes. There are thousands of papers dealing with parts of the changes in climate over the last 100 or so years. Is it enough to know they exist? And before you dismiss any of them, do you have anything which debunks, for example ‘most outgoing infrared radiation is absorbed by heat trapping gases in the atmosphere. These then can release or re-radiate that heat. Some returns to earth’s surface, keeping it warmer than it would be otherwise’

              None of this is proven. The older it is the more likely something more recent offers alternative understanding.

              As to CO2 – if it’s atmospheric concentration had not increased, would there have been an increase in water vapour?

              Who said there has been an increase in water vapor?

              Bonus advice: it is water in all form (not just vapor) that comprises the whole elephant Peter. You are naive and yet a beginner if you don’t know this.

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Own goal Fitz, the last link contradicts all the others (which are pretty dated science really)

          I agree with you Fitz, water vapor is the elephant in the room and co2 is not even honorable mention.

          Therefore all attempts to legislate against carbon should be halted immediately.

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        • #
          Michael262

          Peter,
          When will you learn that here, the facts are of no value.

          06

          • #

            Which fact was that Michael262? The one you never name…?

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            • #
              Michael262

              Jo,
              You reject all the evidence put forward by science and you want ME to give you more ?.
              All this while failing to prove otherwise yourself, and you claim to be a scientist ?.
              The burden of proof is with you, you must leave the brown bunker.

              07

              • #

                Michael262, you’ve never posted any evidence other handwaving vaguely at acronyms like NASA or pretending to speak on behalf of “science”. It would be an advance for you if you linked to meaningless simulations and cherry picked correlations that have no cause and effect connection.

                You can prove me wrong by linking to one of your 170 previous comments here, but apparently your job is just to pour out the same old bluster and lies. Yawn.

                You want our money to change the worlds climate, you provide the evidence. If it’s overwhelming, I’m sure you can find some…

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “The burden of proof is with you”

                No mickey. The burden of proof is with YOU and your fellow scammers

                So far YOU HAVE NONE.

                And there is no empirical evidence that increased atmospheric CO2 causes warming

                It exists ONLY IN MODELS, and has NEVER been observed or measured anywhere on Earth’s surface

                Prove me wrong

                Present those measurements.

                Present this “science” that your tiny brain-washed mind relies on. !!

                40

            • #
              Michael262

              Oh Jo,
              My point exactly, you want me to link you to all the evidence that you ignore so you can say its all lies without evidence ?
              Never have you submitted any proper evidence like a good little scientist, hence your existence here.

              06

            • #

              Yes, I’ve noticed that Michael’s only and repeated themes are rank, privilege and importance. Though he constantly refers to what he considers mainstream authorities, he is no more interested in what they say than in what we say.

              It’s like the old Ronnie Corbett sketch where the little bowler-hatted bloke with the ordinary job begs the news vendor to sell him the Times (pre-Rupert) so he can look important on the bus.

              30

            • #
              Michael262

              [snip]

              04

          • #
            Kalm Keith

            Conversely it might possibly be said that there’s no value in “facts”.

            DKK

            30

        • #
          R.B.

          Your first paper merely collates results of other people’s modelling. You have even less of an idea that Clive James about the mathematics involved in non-linear systems. You’re just one of these people who puts up papers as if they were smart enough to critique them. You can’t even notice that there are absolutely no details of what went into the modelling to critique.

          20

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi, that sounds like the comments frequently made by AG.

        Had no effect.

        10

    • #

      I don’t have heroes and am uncomfortable with admiring or being admired. There’s just too much clay in all feet, especially my own.

      That said, Clive James did a good job as a popular essayist and entertainer pointing out the the insanely anti-scientific nature of the political confection called “climate science”, so slack and manipulative it refuses even to find terms to define its own subject. I mean “climate change”? Really? Why not just say “stuff, ‘n all”?

      It can’t be said often enough. This comical yet lethal fad flies in the face of geology, stratigraphy, speleology, glaciology, history and archaeology…and that’s just what gets ignored on or near the earth’s surface. Then there’s the wider physics and cosmology that have to be ignored.

      So how do they get away with it? May as well ask how Communism got away with it. The climate beat-up, as the pointy end of Fabian Globalism, is supported by big money, big politics and big media just like Bolshevism, a movement with no popular support where it took hold. (Trotsky died even richer than Al Gore. Tell you anything?) Turn on the refuse media or read an academic survey (groan) and you are part of the great climate movement. Talk to your neighbour or walk your dog and there is no great climate movement. Like the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is pure conjuring, but it is deadly conjuring.

      I said the climate beat-up is just like Bolshevism. I meant to say that it is Bolshevism.

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      • #
        PeterW

        It’s been said, but there are marked similarities, even if we ignore the rufous background of so many prominent Greens….

        60

        • #
          sophocles

          Peter:
          They will never admit to such corrosion and will ignore all attempts to draw their attention to it. They will strenuously deny it’s their problem but insist it’s in the eye of the unbelieving, the denier beholder.

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      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Great insight there Mosomoso, defining the problem is a good start on the way to fixing it.

        At the moment all levels of government are on a rorting spree unparalleled in Australian history.

        We, The People have a job to do to end it.

        DKK

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  • #
    Tides of Mudgee

    A wonderful wordsmith was Clive and he will be missed. His descriptions were pure gold and he once described Barbara Cartland with her powdered white skin and huge false eyelashes as looking like two crows had smacked into the white cliffs of Dover. ToM

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I liked his comment (2009) about Flannery; “It is dangerous to stand between Flannery and a television camera. If the giant wombat could have moved at that speed, it would still be with us.”

      200

      • #
        Bill In Oz

        Did he really say that Graeme ?
        Wonderful !

        30

      • #
        sophocles

        Brilliant observation. 😛

        (Giant Wombat got caught in the laschamp magnetic excursion along with Neanderthal Man. I wonder what Clive would have made of that re Flannery?)

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      • #
        George4

        Yes, that made me really laugh when I read it, and so very true.

        To take a conspicuous if ludicrous case, the Australian climate star Tim Flannery will probably not, of his own free will, shrink back to the position conferred by his original metier, as an expert on the extinction of the giant wombat. He is far more likely to go on being, and wishing to be, one of the mass media’s mobile oracles about climate. While that possibility continues, it will go on being dangerous to stand between him and a TV camera. If the giant wombat could have moved at that speed, it would still be with us.

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  • #
    pat

    a few paras from the end, BUT a telling remark…

    28 Nov: AFR: Clive James had a complex relationship with Australia
    Part of a quartet of famous Australians who fled the monocultural tedium of the country in the early ’60s, the writer had a complex relationship with the land of his birth.
    by Andrew Clark, Senior Writer
    Politically James maintained he was on the left, but he was a climate change sceptic…
    https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/clive-james-had-a-complex-relationship-with-australia-20191128-p53eum

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  • #
    Bill In Oz

    On all things about Clive James
    I am biased !
    After all he loved dancing Argentine Tango
    Just like me.
    And this lovely aspect of his life
    The ABC chose to censor out.
    NOT MY ABC
    SOME OTHER BUGGERS
    And has been for a decade or so !

    30

    • #
      JoKaH

      Bill, I don’t remember Clive having a passion for dancing the Argentian Tango when I was at school with him at Hurstville Primary or at Sydney Technical High. In those days he was more interested in military aircraft and in later school years, motor racing. He was particularly intersted in motor cycle racing but lost interest when his next door neighbour was killed in a race. Although he could have gone to Sydney High School which would have suited his talents better, he went to the more technically inclined school to be with his classmates. After high school he went off to Sydney University while I went to UNSW and, despite being close schoolmates for seven years I can’t recollect ever meeting him again, although I did get a mention in his “Unreliable Memoirs”.


      A lucky guy to have spent so much time with him… – Jo

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      • #
        Peter C

        Argentinian Tango,

        I think that is a reference to his notorious affair with Leanne Edelstein (What big… you have Mr Wolf). Hilarious at the time, but did not phase Clive at all, nor Leanne as far as I could tell. Unfortunately Clive’s wife chucked him out of the home as a result He lived in a council flat for a short time but seemed to be able to better his circumstances soon after.

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        Bill In Oz

        I don’t know how Clive discovered Argentine Tango
        Probably in London where there is a big Tango scene,
        But it goes back a long way.
        He made a TV program about BA’s, Argentina & Tango in 1995
        And he’s been dancing before that.
        Here’s the link for those with 56 minutes to spare
        Watching Clive at his inimitable best !

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjomk4iwRss&fbclid=IwAR2R78mdEhMXMfw2Y6ltpW0MWIJEzdISFSmIlaEbkuBRNjDnyoWsWFRnBUE

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    pat

    11 Dec 2009: BBC Magazine: Climate change – a story too often told the same way
    A point of view
    Having one-sided discussions about climate change helps no-one, says Clive James in his weekly column…
    Language of alarm
    Over the last 10 years we have heard a lot about how civilisation would be in trouble if it didn’t soon do something drastic about global warming. But this impressive message tended to sound less impressive as time went on. It wasn’t just that the globe uncooperatively declined to get warmer during the last 10 years.
    It was that the language of alarm wore out its welcome as it became ever more assertive about what had not yet happened.
    The brief, unarguably still hot period, when the world had somehow refused to grow any hotter was soon explained, although it seemed strange that it had not been predicted…

    Today, after recent events at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, that supposedly settled science is still the story, but the story is in question. Suddenly there are voices to pronounce that the reputation of science will lie in ruins for the next 50 years.
    For two Hermies at least, nobody will trust a single thing that a scientist says…

    As I said in one of these columns earlier in the season – In praise of scepticism – before the events at the Climate Research Unit, my only position on the matter of man-made global warming was that from my own layman’s background reading I thought the reported scientific unanimity that global warming is man-made, and likely to be catastrophic, was always a more active area of scientific debate than you would have guessed from the way the media told the story.

    Just saying that much was enough to get me condemned by one of the broadsheet ***environmentalist gurus. He said I was an old man resistant to the facts because I didn’t care what happened to the world after I was gone…
    But the guru still had a point when he said my scepticism about the settled science was a wilful defiance of established fact. Unfortunately the fact had been established largely by the media, who had been telling only one story. If you said the story might have two sides, that sounded like scepticism.

    People in my position had to get used to being called sceptics, as if scepticism were a bad thing. We even had to get used to being called denialists, although clearly it was an unscrupulous word…READ ALL
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8408386.stm

    ***environmentalist guru and XR godfather Monbiot:

    ***3 Nov 2009: Guardian: Clive James isn’t a climate change sceptic, he’s a sucker – but this may be the reason
    My fiercest opponents on global warming tend to be in their 60s and 70s. This offers a fascinating, if chilling, insight into human psychology
    by George Monbiot
    There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed…

    Plenty of intelligent people have also declared themselves sceptics.
    One such is the critic Clive James. You could accuse him of purveying trite received wisdom, but not of being dumb. On Radio 4 a few days ago he delivered an essay about the importance of scepticism, during which he maintained that “the number of scientists who voice scepticism [about climate change] has lately been increasing”. He presented no evidence to support this statement and, as far as I can tell, none exists. But he used this contention to argue that “either side might well be right, but I think that if you have a division on that scale, you can’t call it a consensus. Nobody can meaningfully say that the science is in.”

    Had he bothered to take a look at the quality of the evidence on either side of this media debate, and the nature of the opposing armies – climate scientists on one side, rightwing bloggers on the other – he too might have realised that the science is in. In, at any rate, to the extent that science can ever be, which is to say that the evidence for man-made global warming is as strong as the evidence for Darwinian evolution, or for the link between smoking and lung cancer. I am constantly struck by the way in which people like James, who proclaim themselves sceptics, will believe any old claptrap that suits their views. Their position was perfectly summarised by a supporter of Ian Plimer (author of a marvellous concatenation of gibberish called Heaven and Earth), commenting on a recent article in the Spectator: “Whether Plimer is a charlatan or not, he speaks for many of us.” These people aren’t sceptics; they’re suckers.

    Such beliefs seem to be strongly influenced by age…
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/02/climate-change-denial-clive-james

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    • #
      Maptram

      As most of us know, the climate scientists, and many non scientists, keep telling us that world average temperatures are rising, there is proof that rising atmospheric CO2 levels are causing the higher temperatures, and that if the world average temperature increases by 1.5°C all sorts of disastrous events will occur, rising sea levels, floods, fires, droughts.

      What the climate scientists don’t seem to understand is that the world average temperature is a meaningless temperature constructed out of all the measured (and frequently homogenized) temperatures from the countries that measure temperatures. Average temperatures do not distinguish between averages from extreme highs and lows, or averages from temperatures around the average. Average maximums don’t distinguish between maximums that occur for a short period of time then drop back or stay high for a period of time. And as far as I can see, the temperatures from which averages are calculated don’t take into account the effect of the wind, the apparent temperature. In the Arctic and Antarctic, in theory the only time an increase of 1.5°C would have any effect, would be if the temperature increased enough for the ice to melt and cause seas levels to rise, from about -0.5°C to 1.0°C, but when the wind blows at say 50 kph, the apparent temperature will be about -20°C or lower, so the ice won’t melt.

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      • #
        Chad

        ^^^^ and also the “climate scientists” cannot prove the causal linkage between CO2 increasinf and temperatue change.
        Just one of many gaping holes in the “established” science.

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  • #
    pat

    first 5min34sec – ABC’s Jonathan Webb (ex-BBC): longer, hotter, earlier summers, BoM predicts another dry summer.
    then it’s on to representation of women in science in Australia:

    AUDIO: 9min 44sec: 29 Nov: ABC Breakfast: Science with Jonathan Webb: The ‘tipping point’ in Climate Change
    As scientists study the changes that are unfolding in the world’s climate – from deepening droughts in Australia to thawing permafrost in the Arctic – they often discuss the idea of “tipping points:” points of no return, for key components in our planet’s climate system…
    They warn of a “global cascade,” in which these tipping points start to tumble like dominoes.
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/science-with-jonathan-webb/11748836

    continuing ABC’s “the farmers want climate action” theme, featuring some of the same farmers they had on the “AM” program yesterday – and more reinforcing of the absurd figures from the Vote Compass “Australia Talks” survey, which ABC intend to use in the same way as “97% of scientists” believe” became a mantra for the CAGW mob:

    29 Nov: ABC: Meet the farmers embracing climate change and thriving
    By national rural reporter Caitlyn Gribbin
    Jeff Burch roars with laughter when asked if he’s turning into a greenie.
    “I don’t know if I’d go that far!”
    But it’s a fair question to pose to the winemaker…
    “I’m not a science specialist on weather, I just know the facts are that we’re getting less rainfall, we’re getting more different weather patterns,” he said.
    Australian politics is again arguing about the issue, but Mr Burch reckons the naysayers “might have to get real”.
    “There’s no doubt in our mind that climate change is going to happen,” he said…

    Annual rainfall at his Margaret River winery is down 20 per cent. Further south at Mt Barker, it’s more than halved.
    Records show it’s also getting hotter, which is where a brand new vineyard comes into play.
    Mr Burch has made the big move of relocating his top chardonnay to a property further south, for a cool $3 million.
    “We know it’s cooler there … the temperatures are lower,” he said…

    ***Mr Burch is not alone in his desire to take action on climate change.
    In fact, 79 per cent of Australians think Australia has a responsibility to take action on climate change, even if the biggest emitting countries don’t follow suit, the Australia Talks National Survey found.
    The prevailing attitude among Australians (60 per cent agree) is that “climate change is a serious problem and immediate action is necessary”…

    As the Australia Talks National Survey found, more than 70 per cent of people living in rural areas support action on climate change, a sizeable majority, despite being lower than the 85 per cent of inner-metro residents…

    Broad support for climate action
    •79 per cent think Australia has a responsibility to take action on climate change, even if the biggest emitting countries don’t follow suit; a majority of voters across all parties want action, except One Nation voters (34 per cent)
    •The most common belief about climate change (60 per cent) is that “Climate change has been established as a serious problem and immediate action is necessary”
    •45 per cent say Australia should respond to climate change by changing our lifestyles and reducing energy consumption, but 20 per cent think climate change is a problem but Australia won’t do anything about it…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-29/australia-talks-farmers-embracing-climate-change-thriving/11738820

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  • #
    Deplorable Lord Kek

    the “tipping points”:

    30 years ago: we have 10 years left to act

    15 years ago: we have 10 years left to act

    NOW: we have 10 years left to act

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    pat

    29 Nov: ABC: Boris Johnson and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage replaced with blocks of melting ice at climate debate
    by ABC/Reuters
    At the beginning of the climate-themed debate, the show’s host, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, said invitations were open to both leaders but since they did not take up the offer the ice posed as a reminder about global warming.
    The move did not go down too well with Johnson’s Conservative Party, which has since filed a complaint claiming that the broadcaster broke impartiality rules…

    Will the station get in trouble?
    TV broadcasters in Britain are required to remain politically impartial, with strict guidelines during election periods, and can be fined or even have their licences cancelled if they do not comply…

    “Put your leader Boris Johnson alongside the other leaders and stop playing games. Don’t refuse and then threaten our license — it’s a slippery slope,” Channel 4 news editor Ben de Pear said in reply…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-29/uk-pollies-replaced-with-blocks-of-ice-at-climate-debate/11749128

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  • #

    […] ABC LIES BY OMISSION. Clive James was witty and brilliant etc etc. Jo Nova reminds us he was also a climate skeptic! […]

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  • #
    Zane

    Canada is bringing in new climate levies, carbon taxes, and even rain related imposts. The virtue signalling progressive leftist liberal globalizers headed by the Justin True-deau will not back off…

    https://www.greaterfool.ca/2019/11/26/the-rain-tax/

    Unfortunately the purveyor of Canada’s most read finance blog is a true believer in CC… Sad.

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  • #
    pat

    a little weather:

    28 Nov: KTLA: In ‘Rare Sight,’ Snow Covers Area Charred by Cave Fire Near Santa Barbara
    by Kristina Bravo
    VIDEO: SANTA BARBARA’S CAVE FIRE TRANSFORMED
    Snow fell in areas as low as 3,000 feet in the Santa Barbara County mountains on Thanksgiving Day, blanketing some spots charred by the 3,100-acre Cave Fire that’s yet to be fully contained Thursday, officials said…
    “The recently charred chaparral covered in snow is a rare sight for the Santa Barbara South Coast,” spokesman Mike Eliason said…

    28 Nov: LA Times: I-5 through Grapevine reopens, Cave fire fizzling out after snow and rain wallop Southern California
    By Alex Wigglesworth, Joseph Serna, Rong-Gong Lin II, Alene Tchekmedyian
    In Santa Barbara County, Fire Department spokesman Mike Eliason stood alone atop a ridge and surveyed the smoldering landscape of the Cave fire as snow began to fall.
    “This is just really unique. We’ve never had fire with active snowfall near the point of origin,” Eliason said. “It was a very thankful moment. Thankful that no one got injured, no one lost their home, that the snow came over heavy rain. And I’m just thankful that everybody got home safe.”
    Some firefighters were allowed to return home as weather conditions helped bring the fire under control, he said…
    “It was weather whiplash — an abrupt change from hot and dry to unusually frigid. Like 0 to 60 in a Tesla,” (climatologist Bill Patzert) quipped. “I think as far as the fire season, we can say R-I-P. … There are quite a few storms lined up.”…

    VIDEO: 46sec: 29 Nov: Yahoo: Heavy Snow Covers LA County as Warnings Issued Over Dangerous Conditions
    Heavy snow covered California’s Los Angeles County on November 28 as the National Weather Service issued warnings for dangerous wintry conditions and up to two feet of snow.
    In a video shared by Michael Dubron, a firefighter paramedic, snow is seen falling fast on a white landscape and a helicopter in Lancaster. “Please be safe dangerous conditions right now,” Dubron wrote…
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/heavy-snow-covers-la-county-195302508.html

    29 Nov: Fox59: Cold Turkey: fourth straight year Thanksgiving fails to reach 50°
    by Brian Wilkes and Krista McEnany
    It was a chilly start this morning across central Indiana. Low temperatures were nowhere near the coldest on record for a Thanksgiving, which is 1° set in 1930.
    November 2019 has been running awfully cold; it ranks 6th coldest to date, which is even colder than November 2018 was by this time. For the fourth straight year Thanksgiving in Indianapolis will not reach 50 degrees…
    Seven years ago we topped out at 63 degrees (6th warmest) and the warmest was 69 degrees in set 1896 and 1973…

    28 Nov: USA Today: Thanksgiving storms dump snow on much of the US – and it isn’t over yet
    by Doug Stanglin
    As a strong winter storm, which dumped a foot of snow around Minneapolis, weakened and moved to the northeast on Thursday, a second storm pounded Northern California, setting up the likelihood of heavy snow spreading across the northern tier of the country as travelers head home at the end of the weekend.
    “A major winter storm will continue to produce heavy mountain snow and high winds across much of the Western United States through Thanksgiving Day before tracking over the Rockies on Friday,” the National Weather Service said. “This storm will go on to produce significant snow and blizzard conditions across the Northern Plains through Saturday before moving to the Great Lakes and Northeast Sunday and Monday.”…

    Nine inches to a foot of snow around Minneapolis forced the city to declare a snow emergency Wednesday…
    Forecasters said heavy snow is likely through the end of the week from the Sierra Nevada to the central and northern Rockies, with 1 to 2 feet of snow in many of these areas.
    By Friday, as the storm moves eastward, snow is forecast to develop across the northern Plains, where winter storm watches are now in effect…
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/28/thanksgiving-weather-snow-storm-moving-east-sunday-travel/4325127002/

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    Greg in NZ

    Heard (your) Kerry-Anne Walsh (ABC?) on the radio this moaning grieving the loss of a “great and loved Australian” – nah, not a skerrick of his sceptical outlook nor his cutting down of all things ‘anthropogenic’ or ‘tipping point’-ish or ‘Doomsday around the corner’ nonsense / non-science.

    Was waiting for her to mention this weekend’s forecast sub-zero snowfalls on the tops – not just Tassie but Victoria AND New South Wales – but nah, nuffink (as Princess Jacinda is wont to say). Never EVER mention the cold, the snow, the freezing… especially in summer, in Australia.

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    • #
      pat

      Shane Warne at the Adelaide Oval – very unusual to see so many beanies and hoodies at this time of year.

      meanwhile –

      1 Nov: KXLF Butte, Montana: October was an historic weather month
      by Mike Heard
      Morning lows dropped well below zero and Bozeman airport hit -14° below zero twice! That is a new all-time record low for the month. Because of the extremely cold temperatures in the last week of the month locked us into historic cold average temperatures.
      In fact, SW Montana endured it’s top 5 coldest October on record and for Belgrade, Dillon, and Butte this past October was ranked #1 or the coldest ever October on record.
      Mountain snowpack is through the roof for this time of year with well above normal SWE or snow water equivalent.

      Not everyone is happy with this early arrival of winter weather. The AG producers left cut hay, wheat and corn in the fields. Extreme winter temperatures are always hard on livestock…
      https://www.kxlf.com/weather/october-was-an-historic-weather-month

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    Gerry, England

    He presented a very enjoyable show here in the UK for a number of years. A good man.

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    Deano

    This is crass but, my favourite memory of James was his New Years special ‘Year in Review’ special around 1993. Elle McPherson was one of his guest award presenters and wore a catsuit with a plunging neckline that went down to her navel. Clive just looked comically nervous at even standing in the same room as her dressed like that. She was in on the joke.

    20

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    Alan Jenner

    Thanks Jo for pointing this out. But what a surprise! The ABC had no choice but to idolise him, but for some (not too hard to understand) reason, just couldn’t bring themselves to mention this , well, uncomfortable part of his thinking. Love your blog.

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    Gman

    The overarching theme of Clive’s poem is that, regardless of the science, in the end humans will be gone, but the planet will still be here.

    00

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    JohnW

    Yes, Clive James was a skeptic, but not a very good one. He himself says he did not understand the maths of modelling – and what else? – and he was driven by the idea that dissenters against IPCC science should be banned. So he decided to be a dissenter. He does not reveal much science, as has been pointed out here already. Whatever denier science he uses has been debunked already.
    I have read Tony Eggleton’s book on climate change (CUP, 2013) and what he says about your claims about Climate Change, as well as claims by Plimer and Carter. Very revealing.
    James’s skeptical mishmash supports none of you in any useful way.

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      Al Gore doesn’t reveal any science. Have you complained about him speaking up?

      PS: Shame you can’t remember any of the killer-forgettable factoids from that book you read. We could discuss them…

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    JohnW

    I see where Kalm Keith @November 30 writes about temperatures from about 11000m in the air down to sea level and tells us the temperatures increase. He is clearly referencing the “greenhouse signature” and claims only skeptics understand this. I do not need to remember all the “factoids” in Eggleton’s book; I have it before me now. On page 181 Eggleton looks at your claim there is no evidence of maximum tropical atmospheric warming around 10 kilometres, the so-called ‘hot-spot’, and therefore global warming is not being caused by greenhouse gases. You have used computer modelling to come to this conclusion, yet you deride computer modelling as a method because it would not count as evidence.
    As well, on page 182, he discusses your ideas about CO2 levels rising and falling hundreds of years after temperature rises (which climate scientists themselves pointed out and which Eggleton discusses further in Chapter 8); your idea that we have had many hottest years but this does not mean much! Are you serious?; and your idea that CO2 is absorbing all it can, answered in Chapter 4.
    So after reading about climate change in Eggleton’s book and having read Carter’s “Taxing Air” and so much denial trash in Murdoch’s publications, I find it very difficult to take the denial muddle seriously.

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      Eggleton may be just making stuff up?

      . You have used computer modelling to come to this conclusion, yet you deride computer modelling as a method because it would not count as evidence.

      I use 28 million radiosondes which measured the upper troposphere looking for the hot spot that they never found.
      no modelling involved.

      As well, on page 182, he discusses your ideas about CO2 levels rising and falling hundreds of years after temperature rises (which climate scientists themselves pointed out and which Eggleton discusses further in Chapter 8);

      And the crime here is …. that I quote climate scientists?

      your idea that we have had many hottest years but this does not mean much! Are you serious?;

      The earth started warming from around 1680 — long before man made CO2. The seas started rising and the glaciers started shrinking before we built a single coal fired power station. No one disputes that. So can CO2 cause warming before it rises? Obviously soemthing else caused the warming. Modelers don’t know what it was.

      ; and your idea that CO2 is absorbing all it can, answered in Chapter 4.

      I said “almost” all. This is just spectroscopy. Even your favourite scientists agree with me and I quote them.

      If you stick around and search here you’ll find I explained all these points. Read the skeptics handbook. Google for stuff like joannenova hot spot / sea levels / radiosondes.
      I’ve never heard of Eggleton. So that’s interesting. Thanks.

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    JohnW

    Tony Eggleton has been Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University. He graduated with first class honours in Science from the University of Adelaide, then completed the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, USA. His extensive research into mineralogy gained him the degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Adelaide in 1999. In retirement he worked on his book and says tried to find a coherent science of denial, but found none.

    He does not make things up. His book, published by Cambridge University Press in 2013, is heavily supported by numerous references to sources, including the IPCC.

    I have no intention of trying to refute the claims of a climate skeptic. But I would point out that your claim that temperatures began rising in 1680 seems rather odd when that is right in the middle of the Little Ice Age, when temperatures were slightly lower for a while.
    But when we have had “warming at the rate of 1 degree C in 60 years; that is, 20 times faster than any previous sustained rate of temperature change” (Eggleton, p133) and umpteen highest global temperatures since 1998, you say it means nothing.
    You need to look around at Australia and the world burning – 30,000 wild fires world-wide. Carbon dioxide has increased from 280ppm pre-industrial times to 410ppm today. The rapid rise in temperature in this century is described by Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” graph and proven correct by others.
    In the atmosphere now is a considerable amount of CO2 with carbon isotopes which come only from the burning of fossil fuels. And there are other sources of CO2 produced by human activity. This demonstrates the human interruption of the role of CO2 in the pre-industrial role of keeping the average world temperature at about 14 degrees C.
    While there are other drivers of temperature, no one can point to any other driver as the culprit – and there are big fears for the release of methane from the tundra region.
    There is no point in trying to equate present data with the past; there is no comparison. Even wild-fires are greater now and destroy vast areas of the landscape, property and life.
    There is growing anger that all this “debate” between the IPCC and skeptics with vested interests, paid by people with big money to muddle the argument, as we saw with smoking and the tobacco lobby, has delayed appropriate action to such and extent that it might be too late to avoid disaster That is not alarmist. The data points in that direction. Certainly, nothing said by skeptics gives us any assurance at all.
    And Clive James’s effort at skepticism is just a farrago of muddled skepticism. He was not very convincing except for skeptics.
    I will not intrude on your site again. Nothing to see here.

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      John,

      1680AD was the “mid” point of the Little Ice Age which by definition makes it the lowest point too. (Getit?)

      See 120 proxies of the era here, and notice that all bar tree rings and pollens put the lowest point just before 1700. 1680 specifically comes from the Central England Temperature record.

      I know it’s hard (red-pill blue-pill etc) — you are being used. Open your eyes. The vested interests on the believer side vastly, by 3000 to 1, outdo the money bloggers earn living off donations. http://joannenova.com.au/2010/03/the-climate-industry-wall-of-money/

      Of course, that’s irrelevant in science. Only the Evidence matters.

      I used to be a believer. I raised funds for the Greens party.

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