Congrats! US, Sweden, Australia have more climate “deniers” than anywhere

There are more skeptics in the USA than anywhere, followed by Sweden, Australia, Norway, Netherlands, Canada, Finland, and Germany. And in the same large report, we find that Australian “trust” in the media has fallen yet again from 44% last year to 38% this year.

As well as those listed dismissively as “deniers” (see the graph below) another 10% say climate change is “not very serious”. So about 1 in 5 people, are outspoken skeptics — which doesn’t add up with the “Four out of five news consumers say they consider climate change to be either somewhat, very or extremely serious (79%).” They had to rule out those who aren’t “news consumers” to get the figure up to 79%. It also doesn’t fit with many past surveys that show that half the people in Australia, and the UK and the US are skeptics.  (See “Polls“)

They don’t say how many people were neither concerned, nor unconcerned. Where is that data?

Skeptics, country by country. USA, Sweden, Australia lead list of "deniers".  Graph.

Skeptics, country by country. USA, Sweden, Australia lead list of “deniers”  | Click to enlarge.

From this report we can see why censorship is the main tool of the climate believers. People exposed to both sides of the story (even partially, such as The Australian does) is enough to enable more to shift to sensible positions. Only the poor sods who watch the ABC or read The Guardian, and Fairfax papers have no idea and little courage to form their own views.

Summary: This year’s survey shows that Australian news consumers are more than twice as likely than their counterparts in other countries to think that climate change is ‘not at all’ serious. The data reveal that perceptions of climate change reporting are strongly divided along generational and political lines.

It’s divided on predictable lines. The left believe in climate change and also believe the media tell the truth:

Those on the left of the political spectrum are more concerned about the issue and think the coverage is more accurate and informative, whereas those on the right are less concerned about it and view the reporting about climate change less favourably. Older generations are also less concerned, pay less attention to the coverage and are less likely to view reporting about it positively. While the distinction is most prominently seen in those aged 74 and over, Baby Boomers are also less concerned about climate change and pay less attention to news about it.

This survey was done in late January in the glowing embers of the summer heat and fires. This would have been Peak Believer Time downunder:

The number of climate deniers in Australia is more than double the global average, new survey finds

…new research …surveyed 2,131 Australians about their news consumption in relation to climate change.  The Digital News Report: Australia 2020 was conducted by the University of Canberra at the end of the severe bushfire season during January 17 and February 8, 2020.

On the good side more than half say they want impartial news and 62% think independent journalism is important for society to function. Scarily — that means 38% don’t think independent journalism matters.

Those who access news via commercial AM radio (i.e. 2GB, 2UE, 3AW) (35%), Sky News (35%) and Fox News (32 %) are less likely to think climate change is serious.

So one third of people think the news is giving them the whole story, one third don’t know, and one third are sure the news is fake:

News consumers are evenly divided in their opinion about the accuracy of reporting on the issue with one-third (36%) saying it is accurate and one-third (33%) saying it is not.

At least 1 in 5 admitted they just want news to reinforce their world view. At least they are honest.

  • more than half (54%) of news  say they prefer impartial news, but 19% want news that confirms their worldview
  • two-thirds (62%) of  say independent journalism is important for society to function properly
  • around half (54%) think journalists should report false statements from politicians and about one-quarter don’t
  • news consumption and news sharing have increased since 2019, but interest in news has declined
  • only 14% continue to pay for online news, but more are subscribing rather than making one-off donations

Trust in media is falling

These are Australian statistics, not global ones. Trust is in rapid decline.

Trust in news generally is falling across all platforms that participants said were their main source of news. Trust among those who mainly use print newspapers and magazines has fallen the most, dropping by nearly 20% since 2018 to a low of 39% in this year’s survey (see figure 6.3).
Trust in news is falling. Graph. 2020

Trust in news is falling. page 73.

Who do they blame?

Naturally, the believers consider everything except the possibility that the skeptics might be right. The report highlights a journalist who also happens to be an academic. Not-so-independent, eh?

Greg Jericho, Journalist, Guardian Australia/ Lecturer, University of Canberra, thinks it’s a conspiracy of “major media groups”:

IN SEEKING BALANCE, THE MEDIA FAIL TO COMMUNICATE THE SERIOUSNESS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

““So much of a journalist’s job when reporting on climate change is devoted to correcting falsehoods.””

“….the big problem with climate change is that major media groups are also behind the clouding of the truth. It is hard enough to convey scientific knowledge to the lay person without having to compete with news organisations who devote large space and time to those who push the view that climate change is a conspiracy. It is so very easy to fake reports about climate change – to suggest scientists in the 1970s believed we were about to have an ice age (they didn’t), that scientists ignore a multitude of factors such as sun spots and volcanic activity (they don’t), or to argue that the world hasn’t warmed since 1997, 2001, 2010 (it has), or that it has but not significantly (it has) and then throw in reference to hacked emails and “hiding the decline”. And such columns can be regurgitated, and once again the demand comes from readers for you to correct or answer them.”

So Jericho won’t even consider that his answers fail to persuade anyone because they are weak, wrong, badly researched, or just ignore the most serious skeptical positions.  And despite his assertions, newspaper records show scientists claimed we were headed for an ice age. The IPCC models don’t include anything on solar magnetic cycles, solar wind changes, or solar spectral cycles. And no sane adult believes that honest scientists would “use tricks” to “hide declines”. Since the Guardian hasn’t ever acknowledged that or tried to expose corrupt and inept scientists, everyone who knows about “hiding the decline” also knows that Greg Jericho doesn’t care about the climate or “the science”.

Only 37% of rightleaning consumers think climate change is very serious.

The interesting question that Jericho doesn’t even think of: When right leaning voters don’t care about climate change, why are right leaning parties pandering to left leaning voters so much?

Audiences expect there to be political debate across media outlets over aspects such as the efficacy of a tax cut – in a sense there is a balance that can be found when covering such issues. But the climate change debate, despite over 30 years of extensive coverage (Time Magazine named “The Endangered Earth” its “Person” of the Year in 1988), remains largely stuck. The finding of this report showing that 82% of leftleaning news consumers regard climate change as very or extremely serious compared to just 37% of rightleaning consumers is bad enough. But that only just over half of those who class themselves as politically “centre” are very or extremely concerned suggests those journalists attempting to seek a balanced path are mostly doing so by underplaying the issue.

The answer is that right leaning parties are cowering in fear that the left leaning journalists will be petty, nasty and target them spitefully. Fear and bullying can control politicians up to a point, but in the privacy of a ballot box, the voters keep choosing anything-but-climate-propaganda. Shall we have another “climate change election”?

A lot of the audience just isn’t listening

Jericho is baffled that even believers can’t be bothered with climate news.

And while you might expect that 36% of those who do not at all regard climate change as a serious problem to say they do not pay attention to any news on the issue, more worrying is that 27% of those who see it as “somewhat serious” also do not pay any attention to such news. That suggests a major media failing – especially given a higher likelihood for such people to live in rural areas that are at the sharp end of climate change impact.

While it may be right to put a majority of the blame on those political parties and media companies which seek to sow doubt about climate change, these results also suggest other media organisations perhaps should reconsider how they are telling the stories, and think more about how to reach those who are not currently listening.

My reply:

Dear Greg Jericho,

People on both sides stopped listening because one-sided repetitive news with no debate is stone-boring propaganda. If you want to learn how to reach those who are not listening, you might start by listening to them, instead of preaching at them. (Call it “interview and research”, eh?)

You could try treating readers with civility.  Calling them petty names like “denier” marks you as an unprofessional, ignorant writer, who hasn’t done his homework, and doesn’t know what skeptics think.  The people you call “deniers” are engineers, doctors, geologists, meteorologists and some even have Nobels, and others walked on the Moon.

The “undereducated” older folk you mention are streetwise farmers, business owners, truckies and taxi-drivers. They know a con when they see one. Only the babyface snowflakes are easy to fool.

If you told both sides of the story, people wouldn’t be reading blogs.

Thanks for sending traffic my way.

Jo Nova

 

Details of methods: The survey included 2,131 Australians out of nearly 90,000 in a panel. It may be well be very self-selecting. It’s only online, and bizarrely 7% were excluded because they hadn’t “consumed” news in the last month. (Why don’t they count?) People who don’t use the internet were 100% excluded by definition.

The survey was conducted by YouGov using an online questionnaire between 17 January and 8 February 2020. The sample is drawn from an online panel of 89,850 Australians. The final sample is reflective of the population that has access to the internet. To be included, respondents must have consumed news in the past month. As a result, 7% of the initial survey respondents were excluded.

 

REFERENCE

PArk et al, Digital News Report (2020) Canberra University.  PDF

9.8 out of 10 based on 68 ratings

171 comments to Congrats! US, Sweden, Australia have more climate “deniers” than anywhere

  • #
    Dennis

    More sceptics in Sweden?

    That girl will be furious, how dare they.

    380

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      St Greta will blast all those heretics there in Sweden !
      🙂

      114

      • #
        Pauly

        Shall we call it the “Greta Effect”? The response of mature adults to uneducated teenagers who think they know better. Oh wait a minute. It already exists. That’s called responsible parenting.

        352

      • #
        OrignalSteve

        As long as its an icy blast…..

        61

    • #
      ImranCan

      Yes … maybe the Swedes can recognise one of their own for what she is .. an uneducated school drop out.

      341

      • #
        Fred Streeter

        Point of clarification, Mr Can.

        Dropout? She had completed her period of compulsory education. Truanting on Fridays is not dropping out.

        Uneducated? When she left with passes in 15 subjects, 12 Grade A, 3 Grade B?

        Why bother with personal jibes?
        Stick to the Science.

        25

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      She must be doing a good job!

      60

      • #
        Dennis

        She must be, not many school drop outs drive Tesla EV and travel like that girl does.

        Maybe there is a sugar daddy?

        91

  • #
    Carguy Pete

    I think that this is a testament to the effectiveness of you website Jo.

    422

    • #

      You have to give some credit to the alarmists whose phony arguments provides a bountiful selection of nonsense for Jo to pick apart on a daily basis.

      321

      • #
        OrignalSteve

        I’m always amazed that something so clearly farcical has become a phony “fact”.

        Its like mandating a belief in the mythical figure of Santa Claus…..

        No belief in a fella in red suit, no job for you…..

        Weird++

        61

    • #
  • #
    Dennis

    Meanwhile, in Australia, our sceptics listing behind the USA, next to Sweden, followed by Norway, the line up of Aussie parrot pollies cackle climate change at every media opportunity.

    And in NSW chose tenderer Gold Wind of China as the successful tenderer for new “renewable energy” projects, including pumped hydro equipped dams.

    According to Sky News Wednesday evening Australian companies that tendered for the projects were unsuccessful based on terms and conditions applying, but Gold Wind obviously is prepared to cut their return on investment with future electricity supply pricing profits clearly in mind.

    Finance journalist Terry McCrann pointed out that Gold Wind in China is indicative of the business plan.

    So much for post-pandemic revival of Australian industry rhetoric from politicians.

    The light at the end of the tunnel appears to be that the projects require FIRB (Foreign Investment Review Board – Federal Government) approval, and the rules have been changed recently to make certain that foreign investment is in the national best interests ….. like owning essential service generators?

    410

    • #
      Gary Simpson

      Wow! Looks like a wind of gold is set to blow directly to China. Now that’s a shift in the ‘climate’ that will really benefit someone.

      40

    • #
      Serp

      The danger of having the enemy own one’s power generation facilities has been highlighted time out of mind but there is a studied obliviousness to such cautionary talk; clearly the fix is in and nobody with the will to oppose this trend is in a position to do anything.

      Looking ahead thirty years the Uyghur model would be applied to the Australian population and we’d be sent to work as slaves in the factories our Han overlords build.

      And, by then in his dotage, Premier for Life Andrews would be using his Chinese name.

      81

      • #
        James Murphy

        I think t could be faster than 30 years. Look how fast various organisations have caved in to the nauseating idea that it is OK to treat people differently based on the colour of their skin. Useful idiots abound.

        90

  • #
    Peter bysouth

    Jo,
    I am worried about a new Dalton or even a possible Maunder Minimum. So I am highly worried about ” climate change.”

    330

    • #
      Dave in the States

      Here, we woke up to fresh snow on the ground, less than a week from the summer solstice. The fourth cooler summer and late start growing season in a row. This is becoming a trend.

      370

      • #
        Ian1946

        Where abouts are you Dave?

        20

      • #
        bobl

        Dave,
        It is a problem, we are in a warm period, and we are pretty certain that there are colder periods to come right up to a full blown glaciation. Shorter growing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere are almost certain and we need to jig our global food supply to consider that. That means shifting a lot of global food production to the southern tropics. I can say that while Australia is a food exporter, we are nowhere near prepared to feed the northern hemisphere over something like the Maunder Minimum.

        That can’t happen at the moment because of the the toxic warming obsession, no government is preparing for colder climates except I’d say China who has been trying to secure food sources in the southern Hemisphere. Russia also seems to understand that cooling is the larger threat.

        If we were serious about climate we would prepare for both contingencies (warming or cooling). Australia would be building water resilience EG the Hybrid Bradfield scheme.

        172

        • #
          farmerbraun

          There’s a faint hope that greenies in NZ will be able to see that more water storage can help maintain carbon sequestration when soil moisture is limiting.
          But it is faint.

          30

          • #
            bobl

            I did a quick calculation on the Hybrid Bradfield scheme and concluded that the sequestration from extra vegetation growth from increasing water availability in inland Australia was equal to between 1/2 and 3/4 of our total emission. So one $20 Bn project could offset up to 3/4 of all Australia’s CO2 and at a profit (of all the farmers along the scheme and downstream processors)

            I might add at this point that there isn’t any need to reduce CO2 as extra growth from CO2 fertilisation between 370 ppm and 410 PPM has already offset Australia’s total emission four times over. Too many sinks and we’ll start reducing CO2 too much and we don’t want to be reducing plant food. Indeed at this point not only have we offset our own Emissions but nearly 1/2 of the USAs emission as well.

            61

            • #
              Serp

              Seriously? Emissions calculations! There’d be more useful information found were you to count your freckles.

              31

        • #
          Analitik

          I remember Roy and HG doing a segment on “slacker rivers” and diverting their flow into the interior. I have no idea if they knew of the Hybrid Bradfield scheme.

          I imagine there would be pretty devastating consequences to the environment in both the regions where the water would be diverted from and to.

          10

    • #

      I usually ski over 100 days a year and have skied at least once every month somewhere in California for nearly 2 decades, despite the China virus and droughts, so I’m definitely not worried and looking forward to lift served skiing in the Sierras all year long.

      101

      • #
        Greg in NZ

        Children just won’t know what summer is.

        I remember seasons like that in Summit County, Colorado: even hiked Peak 10 (just shy of 14,000 ft) on July the 4th for some mid-summer turns… bliss!

        To be clear, I am not – nor have I ever met – this joker ‘Greg Jericho’ PBT (Peak BeLIEver Twit). Am also surprised little ol’ Noo Zeeland didn’t make it onto the list of top den!ers of the Gospel of Saint Greta; then again, it wasn’t a ‘survey’, more a scurvy dog, aaargh!

        70

        • #
          el gordo

          I know for a fact that the editor of Gutter Trash greatly admires Greg’s thinking, anyway this is the Guardian take.

          ‘Greg writes on economics for Guardian Australia and is the author of the celebrated Grogs Gamut blog. He is a former public servant and author of the book The Rise of the Fifth Estate: Social Media and Blogging in Australian Politics’

          40

  • #
    nb

    Wow. 38% What was the question?
    ‘Do you recall an article or TV information program that had some factual basis?’

    110

    • #
      AndyG55

      ‘Do you recall an article or TV information program that had some factual basis?

      So NOT the abc !

      120

  • #
    Zigmaster

    “ The climate chenge debate , despite over 30 years extensive coverage “ says it all. After 30 years every prediction of no more snow, soaring temperatures, looming tipping points, ice free arctic, more hurricanes Etc have all been made but have all been wrong. Anyone who has lived through those 30 years of BS on climate change have become sceptics on the evidence or lack of it. Meanwhile the millennials who have only witnessed and participated in the recent years of indoctrination are more likely believers.The leaders of the climate change cult have tried everything to get everyone on their side even adjusting the past to fit their narrative. Thirty years is long enough to have completed the clinical program to prove their theory and whichever way they spin it they have failed miserably to meet any of their primary endpoints.

    300

    • #
      Dave in the States

      Indeed. The the decades long experiment has run its course. They not only failed to prove their case, but their case has been disproved.

      130

      • #
        OrignalSteve

        Lest we forget –

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/oct/11/climatechange

        “Gore’s climate film has scientific errors – judge
        This article is more than 12 years old
        · Court rules documentary can be shown in schools
        · Presentation is ‘broadly accurate’ but lacks balance
        David Adam, environment correspondent

        Fri 12 Oct 2007 00.28 AEST
        First published on Fri 12 Oct 2007 00.28 AEST

        “Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, was yesterday criticised by a high court judge who highlighted what he said were “nine scientific errors” in the film.

        “Mr Justice Barton yesterday said that while the film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of climate change, he identified nine significant errors in the film, some of which, he said, had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration” to support the former US vice-president’s views on climate change.
        ………….
        “The judge ruled that the film can still be shown in schools, as part of a climate change resources pack, but only if it is accompanied by fresh guidance notes to balance Mr Gore’s “one-sided” views. The “apocalyptic vision” presented in the film was not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change, he said.

        50

      • #
        OrignalSteve

        And…appears to be an allowance of an alternate view…by mistake?

        Why an apology for just doing their journalist job?

        The Lefts own “statue” of falsehood toppled….oh dear…..

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/bbc-apologises-over-interview-climate-sceptic-lord-nigel-lawson

        “BBC apologises over interview with climate denier Lord Lawson
        This article is more than 2 years old
        Exclusive: Lawson’s claim that global temperatures are not rising went unchallenged, breaching guidelines on accuracy and impartiality

        “The BBC has apologised for an interview with the climate change denier Lord Lawson after admitting it had breached its own editorial guidelines for allowing him to claim that global temperatures have not risen in the past decade.

        “BBC Radio 4’s flagship news programme Today ran the item in August in which Lawson, interviewed by presenter Justin Webb, made the claim. The last three years have in fact seen successive global heat records broken.

        “The Today programme rejected initial complaints from listeners, arguing that Lawson’s stance was “reflected by the current US administration” and that offering space to “dissenting voices” was an important aspect of impartiality.

        50

    • #
    • #
      yarpos

      He would do well to review that 30 years of extensive coverage for verifiable predictions that came to pass, rather than talking about it as an article of faith. Its a shabby foundation for a logical argument.

      30

    • #
      Carbon500

      Zigmaster: no climate change here, either – Met Office graphs of UK temperatures, rainfall and sunshine going back to 1910 from the Met Office:
      https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series

      20

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    This research is too narrow. It purports to measure climate skeptics; it more likely measures ‘everything’ skeptics. The narrative of the climate alarmists is contrary to the common experience of most ordinary people. Hence there is an effort to use ‘science’ to convince us that our common sense is simply wrong. This has been extended by the same crew to a wide variety of life’s arenas; one is instructed to believe their narrative instead ones own common sense and observations from our own environment.

    Three things have become true of the power seeking left.

    If it weren’t for double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

    They are right, and your ideas are so evil you have no right to speak; they are free, but you must obey.

    If they use a statistic, it is mis-used, mis-reported, or made up.

    We could touch a lot of bases by occupying a university town somwehere while tearing down a statue of Isaak Newton and wearing ‘save the polar bear’ T-shirts, while petitioning to
    defund peer review.

    180

    • #
      bobl

      Yes, the polling is naive, if you ask, “do you think the planet has warmed over the last 150 years” most people will answer yes, even if you say “should we reduce our impact on the planet to offset climate change” many people might answer yes – because lowering our footprint is a generally desirable thing. But then ask how much are you personally prepared to pay for “Climate Action” most people, over 80% percent will say nothing significant – IE less than say $10 a week.

      So plenty of people might identify with the cause if they are not personally impacted (someone else pays) but what really counts is how many people are willing to put their hard-earned on the line.

      51

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    Sorry, They could touch lot of bases. Its very early here.

    60

  • #

    ” …push the view that climate change is a conspiracy”

    That the climate changes is not a conspiracy, but the IPCC’s conflict of interest that requires a large effect from CO2 to justify the policy goals of the UNFCCC definitely enables one.

    110

    • #
      Boris

      co2isnotevil,

      I agree, although for something to be a “conspiracy” in the original sense of the word doesn’t necessitate every person or corporation who acts in concert with that proposition to be aware of all the vested interests involved, or their intentions to achieve those goals. The original Latin word “conspirare” – ‘to breathe as one’ could involve those in the know or those who are not in the know but follow for no other reason than “it’s good for business”.

      I know the modern English definition narrows it down specifically to those who know and set the action into being.

      20

  • #
    Reed Coray

    Congratulations Mr. Jericho. No truer words were ever written by a journalist than:

    So much of a journalist’s job when reporting on climate change is devoted to correcting falsehoods.

    but not in the sense you imply. Rather in the sense that almost everything AGW proponents write about climate change is “falsehood” designed to frighten, not inform. So “correcting falsehoods” should be a major goal of journalists. Unfortunately, finding a journalist who knows anything about science is like finding a hen’s tooth.

    I include one example [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/guardian-language-changes-climate-environment].

    In addition to providing updated guidelines on which images our editors should use to illustrate the climate emergency, we have updated our style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world. Our editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, said: ‘We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue’. These are the guidelines provided to our journalists and editors to be used in the production of all environment coverage across the Guardian’s website and paper:

    Item 3 on the Guardian’s list of guidelines is:

    3.) Use ‘global heating’ not ‘global warming’
    ‘Global heating’ is more scientifically accurate. Greenhouse gases form an atmospheric blanket that stops the sun’s heat escaping back to space.

    Now I don’t know if the Guardian/Australia is in anyway affiliated with the Guardian/UK, so I can’t criticize Mr. Jericho by “association.” But I recommend he get busy correcting the absolute idiocy of the Guardian/UK’s claim: “Stopping the sun’s heat escaping back to space.” If that were true, the Earth would long ago been a hot molten mass.

    170

    • #
      bobl

      Yes you are right, CO2 does not stop heat escaping to space, in fact it facilitates a lot of it, It is NOT a blanket at all. It diffuses IR so it’s more like a frosted glass window, or a fog within the stopband.

      91

    • #
      Konrad

      Quite so.

      Without radiative gases, our atmosphere would superheat due to the very poor radiative cooling ability of N2 and O2.

      Without radiative gases in the mix, our atmosphere would have no effective cooling mechanism. It is notable that no planet or moon in our solar system has managed to retain an atmosphere without radiative gases in their mix.

      100

      • #
        bobl

        That’s not even remotely true, most cooling occurs via direct radiation to space, without CO2 and Water the surface would still cool by direct radiation. Convection, conduction and latent heat mechanisms would still work to smooth out the temperature gradient and then there is that pesky Ideal Gas Law that squeezes heat in/out of gasses PV=nRT

        62

      • #
        Konrad

        The claim that our atmosphere has no effective cooling mechanism other than radiative gases is entirely true.

        In a gas atmosphere in a gravity field, contuction back to the surface then radiation to space does not provide effective cooling.

        You can test this with a simple fluid dynamics program. Set up two simulations: one with a gas column above a heated surface with cooling at the top of the column. The other with a gas column with only conductive heating and cooling at separate points at the lower surface.

        Near surface temperature will be similar for both columns, but the bulk of the second gas column above the surface will superheat.

        I know that after 30 years of propaganda it is hard to even contemplate, but our atmosphere (assuming 0.3 cloud albedo) is providing around 26C of surface cooling not 33C of surface warming. The key to understanding is to realize that the Stefan-Boltzmann equation cannot solve for solar thermal gain in liquid water. The foundation claim of the entire radiative greenhouse conjecture: “surface Tav of 255K without radiative atmosphere” is in error by nearly 60C.

        20

        • #
          AndyG55

          “The key to understanding is to realize that the Stefan-Boltzmann equation cannot solve for solar thermal gain in liquid water.”

          The temperature about half way to the Tropopause, ie above the planets natural water vapour barrier, is around -15ºC, as the S-B equation would predict.

          As Konrad states, applying S-B to the surface is absolutely anti-science

          20

          • #
            Konrad

            The S-B equation has its uses, but solar thermal gain in Earth’s surface materials is most certainly not one of them.

            With adjustments for conductivity, frequency specific absorbivity/emissivity and iterative calculation to accommodate intermittent illumination, the S-B equation is very useful for calculating radiative gain and loss in thin materials in a vacuum ie: spacecraft thermal control. The radiation design of the James Webb space telescope is the pinnacle of human achievement in this area. (The radiatively cooled engine bell of the early Space X falcon 1 was cool, but not 50 Kelvin cool).

            But the S-B equation fails for calculating solar thermal gain for planetary surfaces. Even for the simplest surface, the airless basalt regolith of the moon, the S-B equation has been proved to fail. The S-B estimate for average lunar surface temperature was shown to be in error by around 80C when compared to empirical measurements from the Diviner mission*. If it can’t work for the lunar regolith, there is no hope the S-B equation can work for Earth’s oceans.

            *Actually the data from the Apollo landings strongly indicated that the S-B estimate was in error. The attempt to end public access to this data is another shameful episode in the AWG Lysencoism.

            10

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Hello Konrad,

        Interesting that you say that an atmosphere consisting only of N2 and O2 would “superheat” and presumably be subject to infinite expansion and the loss of the entire atmosphere to surrounding space.

        Having just come from a long interaction with another contributor regarding the effect of Earth’s core energy on the atmosphere I am a bit wary about things at the moment, especially when the S-B equation is invoked.

        A simplistic view of your restricted atmosphere would seem to be as follows;

        The atmosphere layer in immediate contact with the solar heated surface takes in energy by conduction, it then expands and rises through the cooler layer above it. Convection.

        At altitude the new conditions, including lower pressure, induce the gas to lose energy with resultant increase in density and downward fall through rising warmer gases.

        Are you saying that this is not the case?

        What I’m trying to understand is the justification for your outline.

        KK

        00

        • #
          Konrad

          “At altitude the new conditions, including lower pressure, induce the gas to lose energy with resultant increase in density and downward fall through rising warmer gases.”

          I am indeed saying this is not the case. What you are describing is “Adiabatic cooling” as airmasses rise. The definition of adiabatic: An adiabatic process occurs without transferring heat or mass between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings. ie: the apparent cooling as a rising airmass expands does not reduce its buoyancy.

          Air masses lose buoyancy through diabatic processes: turbulent mixing at their outer edges, precipitation and most critically radiation. The primary process for energy/buoyancy loss from airmasses used to be known as “radiative subsidence” in meteorology. But since the late 80’s the AGW faithful have worked tirelessly to erase the role of “radiative subsidence” from tropospheric convective circulation in the Hadley, Ferrel and Polar circulation cells.

          20

          • #
            Kalm Keith

            I agree with the idea coming from your comment above, namely, that the S-B equation is too often abused and misrepresented as the example of Lunar estimates shows.

            Also thanks for the example of where it does work.

            There’s some confusion still over the convective process and questions I raised about energy loss during convection.

            Bobl has put it up,

            http://joannenova.com.au/2020/06/congrats-us-sweden-australia-have-more-climate-deniers-than-anywhere/#comment-2341159

            Are you saying that the upper atmosphere is unable to lose enemy to space if water and CO2 are absent?

            KK

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            • #
              Konrad

              As per the upper atmosphere, yes I am saying it has little ability to lose energy by radiation to space. This is why the lapse rate reverses above the tropopause. It is also why all strong vertical convective circulation stops at the tropopause. This is the level at which the atmosphere has run out of the most critical radiative molecule: H2O.

              Heating in the upper atmosphere is largely due to solar absorption at shorter frequencies, particularly UV. This is why the upper atmosphere expands and contracts by over 100 km between strong and weak solar cycles. The primary cooling mechanism for the upper atmosphere is conduction to the radiative layers below. But this is a largely ineffective mechanism. In the mesosphere, molecular temperatures rise to many hundreds of degrees until the poor radiative ability of Nitrogen and Oxygen can balance solar absorption.

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              • #
                Kalm Keith

                Thanks Konrad, an interesting outline of something I’ve never really looked at before.

                🙂

                KK

                10

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    Two reasons why polls of this type are questionable:
    1. The following – in quotes – appeared in a letter about another topic by a self-described professor at UC Berkeley History:
    . . . it is being treated as an axiomatic and actionable truth without serious consideration of its profound flaws, . . .

    That fits the CO2/AGW nonsense. People just don’t pay much attention after the big lie is circulated for 30+ years, and nothing happens.
    [Maybe I should say that everything that happens is attributable to climate change. No one pays much attention.]

    2. I’ve worked on a few surveys, on the street and via mail, and all are unsatisfactory in one or more ways. I’ve been on the receiving end of telephone polling. Now we do not answer the ringing phone unless the caller identifies who she or he is. After a couple of calls from the same unidentified number, it gets blocked. On the web, we simply ignore pools being pushed at us.

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  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    This is not a number of folks, this is a percentage.
    And good on you.
    But I got to thinking but numbers. Got to do something while the epoxy on the new kayak is curing out.

    Te population of Australia is, in round numbers, 25,000,000. And there is probably no country in the world whose people have a better reputation in the US than Aussies.
    the Paul Hogan effect, Koalas are impossibly cute, we had no better ally during the war, whatever.

    In very round numbers, the loud and obnoxious Americans in the cancel culture, in a few of our large cities, campus towns and Washington DC, who dominate the media and academia
    and carry the progressive flag in causes from climate change to lavender lives matter, probably number the same amount.

    But like progressives everywhere, they are parasites- they know it though they may think of themselves as symbiots. They have no theory of wealth creation, only redistribution.
    In the current instance, redistribution is rather immediate, through looting and occupation; and intimidation of corporations into large donations to unaudited causes with hazy objectives.

    But if you subtract out this Australia size chunk of humanity; or simply let them self segregate into their own communities and echo chambers, you still have an America of over 3oo million souls that works pretty well. We produce and consume far more per capita than anyone, with enough left over for the 25 million parasites to be fat and rich —
    although some are “poor” I’d venture that if one has to be poor it’s better to be poor in America that most places.

    America’s greatest strength historically has been it’s federalist government; these Jacobin masses haven’t been able to seize all power that way a government can in Venezuela;
    so they can ruin only one city or state and usually only a part of that before fading away. I hope that is still the case; most of our states and localities are still not engaged in idiocy. The US has 700 odd cities with populations over 50,000. The 690 that aren’t in the news can still be lived in normally. Half, MOL, are actively resisting the madness; no one on either side suggests that our next election will be hugely different that 50-50

    I think you can double the number surveyed that are skeptical of climate change, and all the other fads of the left, usually promoted together. They are too busy earning a living and enjoying life to bother arguing with people who have nothing but contempt for them in the first place.

    Oh, and here’s a little warning. I mentioned before the high esteem in which American’s hold Australians. A number of folks on the discontented left, convinced that American is
    irredeemably and evil and victimized by original sin, have convinced themselves that Australia and New Zealand are Paradise and talk of emigrating.

    I’d be happy to see them go but you don’t want them.

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    • #
      PeterW

      Richard… I agree with you on much of the above, including the benefits of the Federal system, something which we share. Our States and Shires are a source of constant frustration, but I would not be without the benefit of looking across State borders and thinking, “I’m glad we haven’t followed their example”.

      The system isn’t broken. The voters are – to the extent to which we see problems. There is no system so good that it can compensate for ignorant, selfish and myopic voters.The best that it can do is to limit the harm that they do while we work on root causes…… if we will.

      I include as part of the problem, those whose self-indulgent cynicism is an excuse for political disengagement. That was the same mentality that has led too many countries – going right back to the Roman Empire – down the road to totalitarianism. The first Dictator may not be too bad, and may deal with significant issues, but Dictators never relinquish power easily and those who qualify by dint of ruthlessness are rarely benign.

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        WXcycles

        I include as part of the problem, those whose self-indulgent cynicism is an excuse for political disengagement.

        You can not expect people to vote for the totally corrupt and antithetical to our interests. It’s not going to happen. Either the system punishes the political trash and gets real about ending corruption or I will not vote for those disgusting creeps in suits.

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        • #
          PeterW

          Don’t kid yourself.

          There are candidates worth voting for, and doing so does make a difference. You allow yourself to be bluffed into believing that only the major parties matter. You are part of the problem.

          Also…. while the Romans were not “democratic” as we understand the term, they were ardent Republicans to the point of fanaticism. It is a fallacy to ignore the very distinct difference between that system and the Imperial dictatorship, merely because it does not fit our expectations of universal franchise.

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      • #
        WXcycles

        That was the same mentality that has led too many countries – going right back to the Roman Empire – down the road to totalitarianism.

        The Roman Empire was not actually a Democracy, it was an imperial system with a ruling authority embodied in the Emperor of the day, usually called “Caesar”. That was the real imperial authority and was endowed via open military approval, plus the often grudging required support of the Senate (hence the tension and distrust between the military force and the Senate). Voting was adult males only and the poor were almost completely excluded from voting. There was an idealistic attempt of a veneer of creating a Democratic Republic, but Rome was very much a military dictatorship, with low to no accountability to the people or Senate, other than the expressed public will of ‘the mob’.

        Corruption was rife, adult male voter cynicism was well placed and reasonable. No matter what else occurred they were living in an authoritarian military dictatorship, and it did not tolerate opposing views for long.

        Emperors do not have opposition parties.

        And elected Senators had business interests to pursue and were not preoccupied with the quibbles of the lowly rabble, they had the military system to protect them … if they grovelled to the Caesar.

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      • #
        Boris

        PeterW,

        The system includes the electorate. It’s broken because the electorate is subject to the media’s power of lies and disinfo, academia and state education, who all effect psychological manipulation. The group who controls the money power can finance structuring the sub-systems within to make it good for business to go along and not make waves, position agents with key strategic positions in governments & the bureaucracy. If the problems of principled candidates arises the use blackmail and bribery. (remember Abe Saffron, although by day involved in organised crime, he surreptitiously sent Mossad plenty of dirt on Australian politicians) Of course, now they have more modern methods but Epstein type operations still play a role.

        Don’t forget to include dividing our once homogeneous society so divide and conquer tactics can assure that we can’t rise up against the tyranny when it’s needed for global plans.

        Of course there’s similar treacherous individuals/forces in every western “democratic” nation with unusual bedfellows in the orient. The key is to use subterfuge as well as deception so “only one man in a million…..” recognises it.

        By now any potentially good “candidates worth voting for” must play the game or have no career, so with salami tactics, media induced voter mind delusion and bread & circuses we are moving to the disaster some of us see unfolding in the not too distant future.

        But identifying the malaise and the perpetrators is less of a problem now as it’s getting so obvious it’s hard to deny.

        The real problem is crafting a war declaration with a realistic and an actual mobilisation which successfully brings the treachery to an end and the perpetrators to an adequate trial.

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      🙂 🙂

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    • #
      Reed Coray

      AMEN!

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    • #
      Boris

      “…… only redistribution. In the current instance, redistribution is rather immediate, through looting and occupation; and intimidation of corporations into large donations to unaudited causes with hazy objectives.”

      Richard,

      I think you’re too optimistic… I hope you’re right but I fear you’re wrong.

      It’s not common knowledge that many corporations have indeed donated willingly: Soros’ Open Society Foundations provided funding. Both George Soros and Michael Bloomberg have been astroturfing these “grassroots” kinds of organizations for years, with just one instance being the $30 million each “for black and Latino men in New York City” in 2011. In 2007 the Ford Foundation & Casey Family Programs.

      The network behind the scenes in the federal and state governments and corporations means that the US is on a long term course of doom. The type of take down we see the US being involved in other countries in the recent past, such as, most recently the Ukraine, via the colour revolutions is coming to the US.

      10

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    Jo, that’s a punchy response to Greg Jericho.

    Great.

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  • #

    The top readers of my blog are:
    1) US
    2) Australia
    3) Netherlands
    4) Norway
    5) UK
    6) Canada
    7) France
    8) Germany
    9) Sweden
    10) New Zealand

    Clearly these nations are in the lead of understanding that the climate hoax is based on geothermal denial.

    We need to call out the real deniers of science.

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Greg Jericho: “It is so very easy to fake reports about [global warming] – to suggest scientists in the 1970s believed we were about to have an ice age (they didn’t),”

    Hysterical believers in failed doomsday global warming like Jericho are the real deniers, low-info, gullible fools easily dismissed with the truth:

    1972, Walter Cronkite warns of coming ice age

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4JX1S9YZBo

    1980: Walter Cronkite on Doomsday Global Warming

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU9s0XyEctI

    No-one denies the last ice age, unless you believe only in global warming.

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    • #
      bobl

      Well I was there (In the 70’s) and there WAS serious concern that we were as a species pretty much unprepared for entry into the next ice age (or cooling event). This was based on the undisputed cyclic nature of our climate, the inevitability of the next glaciation and the fact that we were statistically overdue for the next glaciation.

      They are right, the next glaciation is inevitable and as a species we need a plan to plow through it, it could be 100,000 years long. We are pretty lucky to have warming at the moment, but that can’t last.

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    • #
      yarpos

      Dear Greg

      I was there as a young adult in the 70s

      The absolutely did get hysterical about a looming ice age. The also played the peak oil card. My best mate sold his one year old Torana XU1 because of the end of oil. Now that was a real tragedy.

      Happily we had no social medua and the sane people could just say bullsh1t and move on, not having to soak in propaganda every day.

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  • #
    Fred Streeter

    Taking Friday’s off for a year to protest?
    Finishing one’s compulsory education with 12 A Grades and 3 B Grades?
    Meh! That’s not an uneducated dropout.

    Now, I left school as soon as I was 15 with NO qualifications!
    That’s what I call an uneducated dropout!

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    SciAm 2015: In a survey of Iowa farmers “only 10.4 percent of participants agreed with the statement, “climate change is occurring and it is caused mostly by human activities.”

    In 2011, Arbuckle and his colleagues used the annual Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll to survey over 1,200 farmers in the state about their views on the subject.
    Only 10.4 percent of participants agreed with the statement, “climate change is occurring and it is caused mostly by human activities.”
    The highest number of respondents, 35 percent, said climate change was caused about equally by natural changes in the environment and human causes.
    Just under a quarter (23 percent) said climate change was mostly caused by natural changes, 27 percent said there was not sufficient evidence, and 4.6 percent said climate change was not occurring.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-do-farmers-think-about-climate-change/

    via tom nelson @tan123

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    • #
      Richard Ilfeld

      And precisely zero percent would take the advice of a “climate scientist” with respect to what to plant next year.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        Strange logic indeed, I’m guessing you would also not ask a brain surgeon about dentistry

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Wouldn’t take the advice of a “climate scientist™” on climate !!

          Climate scientists are as empty about next year’s weather as they are about future climate.

          A coin would do as good a job.

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        • #
          Travis T. Jones

          “Strange logic indeed, I’m guessing you would also not ask a brain surgeon about dentistry”

          Did you paraphrase a failed 97% meme or just confuse it?

          2012, Dr. Kevin Trenberth: Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition?
          “You published “No Need To Panic About Global Warming” (op-ed Jan 27) of the climate science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology.”

          https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204740904577193270727472662#articleTabs%3Darticle

          Of course, it was a major blunder by Trenberth as cardiologists will recommend oral care fixed before an heart operation:

          2018: Gum disease and the connection to heart disease
          https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/gum-disease-and-the-connection-to-heart-disease

          Science. Settled.

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          Richard Ilfeld

          Peter, my wife and I farmed for a living when young. The process of deciding what and when to plant
          is not rocket science, but it is scientific; in the US the operative expert is usually the county agent, who is the repository
          for local statistics on growing seasons, and the conduit for DOA weather information, which is quite different that
          that provided for NOAA for the general public. I’d imagine Australia has a similar analog.
          My comment was obviously shorthand for the notion that the folks involved in the climate research we discuss here
          are very far from the business of farming; I’d surmise that you knew that perfectly well and had a different purpose to your
          post.

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        • #
          glen Michel

          You should have used the one about the doctor and cancer Peter. That analogy is used far often so even clods like you can understand. But as Andy says you can’t trust a climate scientist about climate. Crazy stuff eh?

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        • #
          Carbon500

          Peter Fitzroy: re.your comment’strange logic indeed, I’m guessing you would also not ask a brain surgeon about dentistry’: here’s a true story about why you should not trust even someone who appears to be an expert.
          My teeth are a testament to the good works of the dental profession. Over the years (I’m 71) I’ve had a lot of work done on a regular basis, and for good reason – mostly root fillings and crowns because nature did not endow me with good teeth.
          Some thirty years or more ago, a new young dentist came to the practice I’d been going to for years. Two or three years went by, and I became suspicious of the fact that he hadn’t done any work on my teeth. His check-ups involved a perfunctory look around my mouth, with no detailed checking of each tooth with gentle probing as had been usual in the past.
          One day, a large filling dropped out of a molar just before I was due to have a check-up. I decided to test him. ‘Everything alright?’ he asked. ‘Yes, fine, no problems as far as I know’ I answered. What happened? He failed to spot (or deliberately ignored) the obvious huge crater in my molar. I changed dentists straightaway.
          The moral of this tale is that there are competent individuals and incompetents in all walks of life – including climate research. Check everything and make up your own mind. Never mind if the IPCC say this or NOAA say that – does it seem plausible? Remember that vast sums of money and status are also strong motivators.

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  • #
    WXcycles

    Details of methods: The survey included 2,131 Australians out of nearly 90,000 in a panel. It may be well be very self-selecting.

    But Australia and USA have the most ‘evidence’ of the ‘damage’ of climate change. That can’t be right!

    Even France made #22 … but … Paris agreement?

    People who don’t use the internet were 100% excluded by definition.

    That’s because such people could not possibly know that the world is coming to an end, that temperature is hotter every year, that mass-extinction has almost run its course, due in part to insufficient superglue supply, and a decline in foppish hysteria from the young, impressionable, under-educated ignoramus university students (at least in the UK tube system, where they get roughed up for their amazing stupidity.

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    I was almost in agreement until I read that Mr Jericho’s use of the forbidden word “marks you as an unprofessional, ignorant writer,”

    I can understand why I have to endure so many ad Homs when commenting here

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “I can understand why I have to endure so many ad Homs when commenting here”

      Basic masochism. Your form of attention seeking.

      You don’t have to come here, you know. !

      “marks you as an unprofessional, ignorant writer”

      Which is exactly what he is.

      He writes only from a far-left anti-science point of view, not based on reality.

      About time you started facing facts for a change,

      … instead of getting all “victimised” about facts you don’t like.

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    • #

      Would you call someone the N word? Both racial epithet’s and applying the D word to scientists who are skeptical that the IPCC should have more legitimacy than the scientific method comes from hate and ignorance and neither should be tolerated.

      Attack the science, not the scientist. Of course, those who are deluded to accept that the alarmists agenda of destroying free market capitalism is for the ‘greater good’ won’t attack the skeptics science because it will only show how weak the pseudo-science supporting alarmism actually is.

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    • #
      el gordo

      Settle down.

      ‘On the good side more than half say they want impartial news and 62% think independent journalism is important for society to function. Scarily — that means 38% don’t think independent journalism matters.’

      I’m thinking 38% don’t understand the concept of ‘independent journalism.’

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Mr Jericho is a bit like you, having absolutely ZERO background in anything to do with real science.

      Why is he commenting on scientific issues he has absolutely ZERO real understanding of?

      Yes, he exudes scientific ignorance in his every comment.

      Live with it, and be brain-washed by his rantings, if that is what you choose to be.

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    • #
      • #
        Evidence Please

        For scientific information I prefer NASA or the CSIRO, etc, etc.
        Would you get your medical advice from Bolt or your doctor ?.

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        • #
          robert rosicka

          CSIRO are predicting what exactly for this snow season ?

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        • #
          el gordo

          ‘I prefer NASA or the CSIRO, etc, etc.’

          NASA should stick to space exploration and the atmospheres of other planets, both near and far.

          The CSIRO and BoM have become corrupted by the idea that a harmless trace gas is making temperatures rise, but the hiatus put an end to that.

          To the sun worshippers I say give me your hindcast or I’ll have to conclude solar forcing is meaningless.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Still EVIDENCE-FREE, hey.

          So sad.

          Post some of your precious evidence, we like to have a good laugh.

          50

        • #
          AndyG55

          “For scientific information”

          Lots of NEW coal being mined and coal fired power stations being built.

          Facts, you really don’t like them, do you 😉

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        • #
          R.B.

          “scientific information I prefer NASA or the CSIRO, etc”

          That shows a stunning lack of understanding of the method. The sort of mistake only someone who really thinks parroting an official line is the definition of educated.

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        • #
          Fred Streeter

          But, but, link 1 is to information from Greenpeace, and link 2 is to information from the Indian Ministry for Coal.

          Trusted and reliable sources.

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Ha ha ha ha .

          And ha.

          30

        • #
          Roger Knights

          “For scientific information I prefer NASA or the CSIRO, etc, etc.”

          Irrelevant: the text of the two links indicates they are about the increasing mining and use of coal in India and China, not about “scientific information.” Your comment was just knee-jerk denial.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      And again, I ask..

      What do we “deny” that you are capable of providing real empirical proof for ?

      The word “denier” is totally inappropriate and meaningless, and meant only as a slimy ad hom.

      You may as well say that we “deny” Grimm Bros fairy tales.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        It is yet again noted that neither Mr. Fitz or Ms. Evidence-Free are able to produce one single bit of real empirical proof that the slight but highly beneficial warming since the coldest period in 10,000 years has anything at all to do with human released CO2.

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    • #
      Evidence Please

      ….And then continues on to call the evidence accepters “babyfaced snowflakes”.
      The denier label is applicable to those whose continue on despite the mounting evidence, especially when they can’t offer counter evidence that survives scrutiny. The antivaccers make the some complaint.
      Its also interesting that Jo attacks the overwhelming majority of scientists ( not truckies, engineers or farmers) who endorse AGW by saying science is not conducted by a show of hands and then upholds a public poll as some sort of victory.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        ” Overwhelming majority of scientists ” , that would include Mickey Mouse and Dumbledore or is it the other one with 97% that turned out to be only a few % ?

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      • #
        el gordo

        ‘ … despite the mounting evidence …’

        There are no positive feedbacks in the system, so that assumption is hollow.

        ‘ … then upholds a public poll as some sort of victory.’

        The other side has been doing that for years and as you know its all about the wording of the questions.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          ‘ … despite the mounting evidence …’

          Of which he is totally unable to produce one single piece.

          Its getting quite funny in a sad slap-stick kind of way. 🙂

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          • #
            yarpos

            As usual its about the feels and the emotive claims

            Amusingly even when talking about evidence

            50

          • #
            sophocles

            Yeah. Right with you, Andy.

            We ask to be shown this “mounting evidence” and what do we get?
            Just “mounting assertions” — never evidence.
            Pah. Useless …

            20

      • #
        bobl

        Just playing the game, the Alarmists set the rules.

        The problem is that who you call “Den1ers” contains people who are able to scientifically/Mathematically defend their position. Well sorry those that do their own work aren’t denying anything, they are at the edge.

        For example some latecomer models are forecasting 5.2 degrees warming per doubling when the demonstated all cause warming from 1850 to now comes out as 1.4 deg per doubling if you assume all warming since the LIA was caused by CO2. If you (like the IPCC) accept that 50% of it was then Co2 warming sensitivity works out to just 0.7deg per doubling.

        IE Demonstrated warming over the last 150 Years is less than 1.4 deg per doubling, Model forecasts over the next 100 years > 5.2 deg per doubling and the physics of the universe hasn’t changed in the meantime.

        There is no supporting evidence for accelerated warming.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          And of course there is the fact that there has been a 50 year long grand solar maximum,

          That wouldn’t cause any warming at all, would it. 😉

          CO2 is the source of all warming, not the SUN !

          Just ask a “climate believer™” 😉

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          • #
            bobl

            Well that’s the whole point really, if you take the last 150 years during the rise to the solar maximum and attribute all the warming to CO2 you still only get a demonstrated 1.4 deg per doubling, take out the 50% the IPCC says comes down to the sun and you get a demonstrated warming of 0.7 per doubling if you assume all the balance was down to CO2.

            I can’t claim to have created this argument, I credit the idea to the great Bob Carter (who I really miss). Bob basically said we’ve seen only 1 degree of warming in the last 100 years, what makes you think the next hundred years will give us 6 degrees (given the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and temp).

            I just ran the math on that Idea, up till now if we extract solar effects and attribute all the rest to CO2 the warming is 0.7 C / doubling of CO2,hence:

            What makes you think that the sensitivity to CO2 is going to change from the observed 0.7/doubling to the modelled 5.2/doubling, save the laws of the universe suddenly changing.

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            • #
              AndyG55

              …..the warming is AT MOST 0.7 C / doubling of CO2.

              But has never actually been observed or measured.

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            • #
              Kalm Keith

              “what makes you think the next hundred years will give us 6 degrees (given the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and temp).”

              It’s an Inverse logarithmic relationship.

              Would that mean 0.006 C increase.

              KK

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              • #
                sophocles

                Dr Willi Dansgaard made a `climate’ forecast in 1969/1970:

                the climate will continue to grow colder during the 1970s and early 1980s;
                then it will become gradually warmer again so that by 2015 we shall be back
                to where we were in 1960 — no better; and after that it will start becoming
                colder again.

                In short, the outlook for the next fifty years is decidedly chilly.

                It’s now 2020 and it’s been pretty accurate. Cooling has started.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        You talk about “evidence”

        But in all your babyface rantings you have yet to produce one single bit of empirical evidence about anything

        You remain, as always EVIDENCE-FREE.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        “the evidence accepters”

        Except there ISN’T any real evidence.

        You keep proving that. !

        You are are “accepting” what is essentially a computer modeled fairy tale.

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      • #
        Kalm Keith

        I am a scientist and can categorically state that the Climate Models supposedly linking human origin CO2 to World Atmospheric Temperatures are a ridiculous piece of work.

        Climate Models do not link CO2 levels to variations in atmospheric temperature as claimed by the global warming proponents.

        It is all sleight of hand.

        KK

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      • #
        AndyG55

        But of course, Jo isn’t holding up the survey results as scientific evidence, is she.

        Just as evidence that the CO2 con hasn’t work all that well with rational, down-to-Earth minds.

        Seems she know way more about real science than you ever will.

        20

    • #
      PeterW

      Fitz .An ad-hom fallacy is one in which personal attacks are used in place of facts and logic.

      As the normal rebuttals of your arguments address your errors, dishonesties and abuse of logic, they are not ad-hom arguments. Correctly identifying your manifest character-flaws after rebutting your arguments is not an ad-hom, either.

      Which means your own accusatory post is the primary ad-hom here, and it is entirely reasonable to respond that you are showing yourself – yet again – to be a hypocrite.

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    Another Ian

    Observations of the downhill slide of media trust started long age. Examples at

    https://realclimatescience.com/2020/06/nothing-ever-changes-2/

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  • #
    el gordo

    History will show that the Murdocracy had a big impact on Australia’s political culture.

    ‘Those who access news via commercial AM radio (i.e. 2GB, 2UE, 3AW) (35%), Sky News (35%) and Fox News (32 %) are less likely to think climate change is serious.’

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  • #
    RickWill

    The Laverton RAAF base has a reasonably long temperature record and the built environment around the base has not changed dramatically since the base was established. I checked the minimum temperature recorded there yesterday:
    June 17th 2020 -: 8.3C
    Going back in decades for same data:
    2010 -: 9.4C
    2000 -: 5.0C
    1990 -: 5.3C
    1980 -: 8.5C
    1970 -: 6.4C
    1960 -: 8.7C
    1950 – 3.9C

    So the minimum temperature on the 17th June over some decades varied over a range of 5.5C. Also the minimum was higher in 1960 than in 2020.

    As people age and actually observe nothing different with climate they naturally become skeptics of said projections. We live daily with a range of temperature sometimes 20C or more. Any claim that 2C increase is going to cause catastrophic changes should be met with laughing derision.

    The temperature in Alice Springs has been as cold as -8C and as hot as 45C; a range of 53C. Would anyone actually notice 2C warming if there were not gauges to measure such small changes.

    My phone advises me that it is 8C outside in my location right now. I would be happier if it were 20C but I will accept 8C as survivable.

    Time is on the side of CAGW skeptics. As time goes by and nothing changes those who are skeptics will increase in number. The kids being fed this tripe in schools will become even more vocal skeptics as they will realise they have been taught rubbish. Like all religions, CAGW will die as the new believers are educated and realise the ministers of the faith are in it for the money.

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      Serp

      And yet I read in a review of a book on tree rings in the current Spectator Australia that “Such analysis provided key evidence for the 1998 Hockey Stick graph, which stirred up a hornet’s nest of opposition from deniers, but has since persuaded all but the lunatic fringe that the spike in global temperatures is something seriously abnormal.”

      Sad to report that the UK is so deeply overrun by climatism that this disparagement of the “lunatic fringe” is just innocuous simple good manners by people too well bred to examine actual data.

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      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      G’day Rick,
      On a slightly different note, I’ll claim a local record error from Weather zone for today: forecast minimum +3, actual +11C. The previous record error I’ve observed here (Mudgee airport) was only 5 !!
      I reckon the CO2 concentration didn’t change that much overnight, but we know their models don’t handle clouds very well…
      Cheers
      Dave B

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  • #

    Keep up the good work Jo.
    We have wall to wall pure rubbish on climate, we have the BOM busily distorting and tampering, and dud politicians screaming about this issue – yet we still have people not buying into the bs. Which is good to see.

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    dinn, rob

    we’re all being taken in by the multinationals–
    3-1-20 The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority1 citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.
    This report estimates that more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019, and some of them were sent directly from detention camps.2 The estimated figure is conservative and the actual figure is likely to be far higher. In factories far away from home, they typically live in segregated dormitories,3 undergo organised Mandarin and ideological training outside working hours,4 are subject to constant surveillance, and are forbidden from participating in religious observances.5 Numerous sources, including government documents, show that transferred workers are assigned minders and have limited freedom of movement.6
    Companies using forced Uyghur labour in their supply chains could find themselves in breach of laws which prohibit the importation of goods made with forced labour or mandate disclosure of forced labour supply chain risks.9 The companies listed in this report should conduct immediate and thorough human rights due diligence on their factory labour in China, including robust and independent social audits and inspections. It is vital that through this process, affected workers are not exposed to any further harm, including involuntary transfers.
    The ‘re-education’ campaign appears to be entering a new phase, as government officials now claim that all ‘trainees’ have ‘graduated’.15 There is mounting evidence that many Uyghurs are now being forced to work in factories within Xinjiang.16 This report reveals that Chinese factories outside Xinjiang are also sourcing Uyghur workers under a revived, exploitative government-led labour transfer scheme.17 Some factories appear to be using Uyghur workers sent directly from ‘re-education camps’.
    The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has identified 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labour transferred from Xinjiang since 2017. Those factories claim to be part of the supply chain of 83 well-known global brands.18 Between 2017 and 2019, we estimate that at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to factories through labour transfer programs under a central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid’ (援疆).19
    [SNIP] https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Excellent. I’ll avoid those mentioned.

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    • #
      PeterW

      So the solution to actions by an overly powerful government is more power in the hands of other governments?

      Not approving of those business methods…. I just get twitchy when private organisations get the blame while the. Government doing the actual enslaving – and no doubt on-selling the produce via government-owned entities – gets a free pass?

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    OrignalSteve

    Jo, of interest?

    https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/infectious-disease/Genetic-study-suggests-peoples-blood/98/i23?utm_source=NonMember&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=CEN

    “Genetic study suggests that people’s blood type may affect their COVID-19 risk
    “People with type A blood may have higher risk of severe illness, while those with type O may have lower risk
    “by Alla Katsnelson, special to C&EN
    “JUNE 11, 2020 | APPEARED IN VOLUME 98, ISSUE 23

    “On June 8, the personal genomics company 23andMe released preliminary results from a study of 750,000 people that came to similar conclusions. The company found that people with blood type O were 9-18% less likely to get COVID-19 than people with other blood types. The results from both of these recent studies align with those from a handful of other reports published earlier this year, including two preprints from a Wuhan (medRxiv 2020, DOI: 10.1101/2020.03.11.20031096) and a New York hospital (medRxiv 2020, DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.08.20058073), and a peer-reviewed study from Wuhan (Br. J. Hematol. 2020, DOI: 10.1111/bjh.16797).
    …………
    “Blood type influences blood clotting and a growing body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 pathology often involves overactive blood clotting.
    People with type O blood have lower levels of proteins that promote blood clotting. “This also strengthens the argument that group O individuals are least likely to be severely damaged by this disease,” Yamamoto says.

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      One day we O-negative types will take over the world, bwahaha!!! Make way for the 7%ers – oh wait, I’m a minority – O-neg Lives Matter too!

      Sadly, having briefly lived in Scotland during the mad cow nonsense AND having had a few too many melanomas chopped out of me, the Red Cross won’t take my blood even though they desperately need O-neg donors.

      And smokers apparently are less likely to catch the C-19 lurgy too: right, where’s my rollies, time for a ciggie…

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      • #
        sophocles

        Did you know that in 1935 you had one chance in 1700 of `catching’ a melanoma?
        Sun screens were invented in 1935 and block UVB very well. They’re not good at blocking UVA.
        Now, you have one chance in 66 of a melanoma …

        You catch melanomas when you block the UVB from your skin — they’re caused by a large excess of UVA esp. UVA without UVB.
        So don’t use sunscreens (or take plenty of vit-D3).

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  • #
    Boris

    Best news I’ve heard all week.

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  • #
    OrignalSteve

    Jo, of interest?

    https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/Pepcid-treat-COVID-19/98/i25?utm_source=NonMember&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=CEN

    “Can Pepcid treat COVID-19?
    “With clinical trials ongoing, doctors try to unravel how famotidine could be working to fight the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2
    “by Bethany Halford
    “JUNE 15, 2020 | APPEARED IN VOLUME 98, ISSUE 25

    “Take famotidine, the active ingredient in the over-the-counter heartburn drug Pepcid. The histamine-H2-receptor antagonist works by preventing stomach acid production. That it would have any activity in an infectious disease is a bit of a head-scratcher.
    …………
    “The patients who got famotidine fared better. According to the study, they were far less likely to die or require a ventilator—a twofold decrease in risk—than those not receiving the drug. The results were published in the peer-reviewed journal Gastroenterology later in May (2020, DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.05.053).
    ………………….
    “But H2 receptors aren’t just in the stomach—they’re all over the body. Malone and colleagues argue that COVID-19 is disrupting mast cells, which release histamine and other signaling molecules in response to an inflammatory or allergic reaction. These cells can be found at the boundary between tissue and an external environment. They’re on the skin and line the gut and lungs. Malone reasons that mast cells could be responsible for the overactive immune response, often described as the cytokine storm, which does damage to patients with severe cases of COVID-19

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    Another Ian

    A bit O/T but

    “Global Warming: Facebook Thinks its Opinion is Better than Yours”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/17/global-warming-facebook-thinks-its-opinion-is-better-than-yours/

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  • #
    Another Ian

    And while I’m there

    “To Halt Climate Change, We Need an Ecological Leninism”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/17/to-halt-climate-change-we-need-an-ecological-leninism/

    That is enough to curdle your cornflakes IMO

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    • #
      farmerbraun

      Looks like it’s time for Russel Norman to stand up then.

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    • #
      Bill In Oz

      There is interesting stuff in this :
      “we have to be honest about the situation we find ourselves in. COVID-19 has brought about the sudden obliteration of the climate justice movement in terms of everything that had been built up by the end of 2019. Since early 2020, COVID-19 has completely paralyzed all the most promising developments in the environmental movement — Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Ende Gelände, and so on — this is a situation of grave disaster. Prior to this, there had been a growing momentum toward aggressively disrupting business as usual, and while there have been attempts to temporarily move these actions online, there is simply no way to exert the same kind of pressure through digital means……

      The whole strategic direction of Lenin after 1914 was to turn World War I into a fatal blow against capitalism. This is precisely the same strategic orientation we must embrace today — and this is what I mean by ecological Leninism. ”

      He’s admitting that Covid 19 has completely broken the media obsession with fake ‘climate Change’. And so the only way to gain ‘victory’ is through Leninist methods as in 1917-23.

      I wonder what exactly he has in mind with this ecological Lenism ? Lenin’d arrival in Russia from Switzerland in 1917 ( helped by Germany, Denmark & Sweden ) preciptated 6 years of civil war in Russia with 3-4 million dead there alone and many more elsewhere in Poland, Ukraine etc.. Is this what he proposes “Must” be done ?

      Sounds completely like vicious old style communist smelly horse dung to me.

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  • #
    Analitik

    The following is from the summary of the report’s Climate Change section

    One of the most interesting differences is between regional and city news consumers. Those living in regional and rural areas are less concerned about climate change and pay less attention to news about it. Given this survey was in the field during the bush fire season that hit regional and rural Australia hardest, these findings appear surprising. One might assume that those under the most threat of fire and who had been through the drought would be more concerned about climate change. However, the results might simply reflect the ageing nature of regional and rural communities and a tendency toward more conservative politics.
    The responses on journalism performance require deeper reflection.

    Regional news consumers consider the coverage to be less accurate and less helpful than their counterparts in the city. This possibly reflects that news media are not comprehensively reporting the impacts of climate change on regional and rural communities. The coverage might also not be providing stories about solutions or adaptation that are useful to people in those parts of the country. In which case, news outlets could consider more constructive ways of reporting on the issue that are more relevant and useful to the experience of regional and rural news consumers.

    The utter certainty of the writers over Climate Change is indicative of the position taken by basically all of the journalists and academics. They don’t even hint at the possibility that the “science” may not be settled and that those who are dealing and experiencing the effects of climate have found the endless predictions of warming to be wrong, decreasing the trust they have for the media on the issue.

    The issue of fuel loads from green policies for “carbon sequestration”, and the resulting devastation of the bushfires when they struck, would have further undermined the trust over Climate Change reporting in rural regions. Again, the certainty of journalists and academics leads them from even considering that the experiences of those people maybe relevant in how they view the media reports and evaluations of the fires, especially when they know that the centralisation of reporting now ensures the views are formed by and targeted to suburban and inner city dwellers.

    It’s almost possible to hear the echoes while reading the report.

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    RoHa

    There are people who trust the media?

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  • #
    tom0mason

    I used to have an alarm clock, and by making a loud and furious noise it woke me up each working day.
    Now I see alarm in so many places, MSM alarm, climate alarm, biosphere collapse alarm, COVID19 alarm, etc., but unlike my clock these alarms do not serve a useful function. All these extraneous alarms do is make me weary, as they are ALL BASELESS twaddle put about by mostly young and over-excited political advocates, or older and well paid political alarmists (like M. Mann, Attenborough aka Addledborough, etc.) .

    Sure we should be aware of what might happen but no computer can forecast the future with anything like the accuracy that most people think they can. Without accurate and periodic MEASURED data to verify all aspects of the models, Alarmism will not just go away, it will tediously continue.
    Want to know what the future holds? Ask sooth-sayer, or fortune-teller or any number of other ‘futurologist’ for they, like the alarmist, tell you what you wish to hear by paying them.
    As wikipedia says —

    Precognition (from the Latin prae-, “before” and cognitio, “acquiring knowledge”), also called prescience, future vision, future sight is a claimed psychic ability to see events in the future.. As with other paranormal phenomena, there is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a real effect and it is widely considered to be pseudoscience.

    Maybe wikipedia needs to update their entry to include non validated or verified computer models.

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  • #
    Murray Shaw

    I knew I was not alone.
    Nice to see it written down though.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    Those addicted to mainstream news,
    Only hear climate activist views,
    Which are left-wing of course,
    And a new Trojan horse,
    To tighten their globalist screws.

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    • #
      Choroin

      a poet and a scholar, though do you have a license to limerick?

      CRUCIFY HIM !!

      🙂

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      • #
        AndyG55

        I would love to see a “collected Ruairi limericks” page with context for each one. 🙂

        Always great work, to the point, and funny.

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  • #
    Choroin

    The interesting question that Jericho doesn’t even think of: When right leaning voters don’t care about climate change, why are right leaning parties pandering to left leaning voters so much?

    In my opinion, I think this has more to do with *DONORS* to the LNP and the neo-feudalistic desires of the Lords at the Australian Business Council than it does about the voting public.

    – Labor and the Greens support warmism because it helps them fight the culture war to tear down the economic foundations of capitalism
    – LNP support warmism because their donor class will capitalize on the economic plantation model which carbon credits and derivatives will provide.

    I guess some of the LNP’s support for warmism is based on fear of the now highly indoctrinated public, but mostly it’s because they’re still a neo-liberal shill party which I only vote for every election (through preferences though, ofc, not primary where possible) because they’re only Syphilis compared to leftwing Ebola.

    %age who said climate change was “not serious at all”

    Regarding the ‘denier’ poll by nation, I’m still not even clear whether the question contextualized “climate change” as being man-made or not.

    I could agree that natural climate change is quite serious and worth studying to mitigate bad investment decisions, yet think the theory of anthropogenic influence to be ludicrously over-played, and I’d be considered a Greta luvvy?

    Our Universities can’t even design polls correctly anymore, just as they now offer activist courses to students who actually applied for journalism courses.

    Epic fail.

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    • #
      sophocles

      the question contextualized “climate change” as being man-made or not.

      \

      There is “climate variation” and “climate change.” They are not the same.

      Climate change is, by definition, caused by mankind whereas climate variation is all natural.
      So far, climate change has not been seen. 😀

      00

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    JCW

    Love Jo’s reply!

    30

  • #
    Mickey Reno

    You Ess Ay You Ess Ay

    I’ve always hated when my fellow Americans broke into this chant during international sporting events, but in this case, I feel like a REAL winner.

    20

  • #
    Wayne Job

    This term climate denier is so dumb. Nobody with a working brain denies there is a climate and it changes every year.
    Summer autumn winter and spring, in Victoria we have all four seasons in one day sometimes,I certainly do not deny the climate.

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  • #
    Michael P

    Not only that,but the polls are blatantly false in respects to who they poll. Once I had a site contact me to congratulate me about a poll they made which they referenced me,after I had a “discussion” with one of theses groups in the street fund-raising to which I replied rather curdly asking them to kindly remove me as I did not miss for my name to be used without contacting me first. I think the group in question was the World Wildlife Foundation,but can’t remember entirely.

    30

  • #
    Damian Ousley

    After 30 years of crying wolf with all the doomsday predictions not coming to pass, it is little wonder people are switching off to the dire warnings of doom to the unsupported theory of global warming and supposid CO2 climate change. The stroller they cry out the more they look like delusional fools and idiots. The only concern is where mankind will obtain long range energy requirements. The best candidates at the moment is Nuclear. Solar and wind generation are intermittent and only with massive battery or other physical methods such are gravity water pumping and Hydropower generation can they provide some representation of 24 hour power supply to the grid. The environment,that is the planets surface would have to be modified to even meet today’s world electrical requirements. So much so that the conservationists are now calling out the the green movements as ecological vandals.

    20

  • #
    Damian Ousley

    After 30 years of crying wolf with all the doomsday predictions not coming to pass, it is little wonder people are switching off to the dire warnings of doom to the unsupported theory of global warming and supposid CO2 climate change. The stroller they cry out the more they look like delusional fools and idiots. The only concern is where mankind will obtain long range energy requirements. The best candidates at the moment is Nuclear. Solar and wind generation are intermittent and only with massive battery or other physical methods such are gravity water pumping and Hydropower generation can they provide some representation of 24 hour power supply to the grid. The environment,that is the planets surface would have to be modified to even meet today’s world electrical requirements. So much so that the conservationists are now calling out the the green movements as ecological vandals.

    20

  • #
    bobn

    To judge if these Polls have any validity we need to know the precise questions being asked.
    in many questionaires I receive there is a question: Do you believe in climate change?
    Naturally i answer yes since climate has changed naturally for millions of years.
    I totally deny that man has any measurable impact on global climate. But the ‘man-made’ question is not asked.
    So where would i appear in their statistics, being a denying believer in climate change?

    20