Skeptics Handbook permeates Copenhagen

Part II of Climate Change Gone Dutch. This is one of the best advertisements I’ve seen yet for The Skeptics Handbook. Seeing footage like this gives me a warm glow. Thanks atomkerman. Priceless!

It’s 5 minutes and the fun starts at 2:00 mins. (Cue ominous soundtrack). Introducing… the dreaded skeptic — a faceless trench coated “mafia” man who surreptitiously leaves a copy of The Skeptics Handbook on the table for …  (gasp)… anyone to read. How dangerous. Friends of the baseless theory do what they always do, try to hide the graphs from public view. But the insidious copies are out there… people are reading them… the clock ticks.

Is the author of this a skeptic or a believer? I thought “pro-AGW”, but I’m not so sure… if you wanted to mock the amount of money and the carnivale of the bureaucrats, the opener above and Part I show just what an epic festival of gloriously squandered finance, Copenhagen 2009 was. Giant stadiums, huge video screens, throngs of people, and UNEP has the funds (from you) to hand-paint trains. Green activists hire entertainers to harangue people into taking short showers while the officials fly on collective holidays with grandiose dinners and events that massage their identities and sell them “soul-support” to assuage their guilt. How much fun can you have while kidding yourself that you are “helping the planet” and “protecting the poor” (and rolling about in giant fun-park balls). Check out the “Climate Confessional” five minutes into Climate Change Gone Dutch Part I.  We have blasphemed…

This video made my day 🙂

Hat tip to Anthony Watts. I would never have noticed this video otherwise.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

47 comments to Skeptics Handbook permeates Copenhagen

  • #
    Baa Humbug

    The fact that it made your day made my day Jo. Well done 🙂

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    Richard S Courtney

    I laughed out loud. Thank you.

    Richard

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    bill-tb

    You were a star and didn’t know it. I have used your work to quell arguments repeatedly.

    Great job.

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    Binny

    AGW Is the largest, best organised, and best funded scare campaign in the history of humanity. These campaigns had worked before but only on a national and allied nations scale. AGW is the first time a scare campaign like this has been attempted on a truly international level. Without the Internet and the wisdom of the crowd it may well have succeeded.

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    Bulldust

    Being half Dutch I followed most of the spoken parts, but it doesn’t change the take on the movie. Being a Dutch-made film… well, a lot of the time they are somewhat haphazard 🙂

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    Albert

    I love the entrance of the sinister skeptic with the music and the clock ticking, of course they used the clock ticking in their own propaganda against us and our children when we asked for proof that 2+2=3 and 2+3=8, they told us we have consensus and the clock started.
    They also said it in the Parliament to pressure an agreement for their hideous new taxes, the clock is ticking.
    Does anybody know whatever happened to poor Gracie from COP15, is she back at school or in therapy?
    Please don’t tell me she went for a holiday at the Maldives! she was warned! 

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Absolutely classic!

    And also very well executed – quite a “professional” looking job, in fact. Hmmm? 🙂

    10

  • #
    Bob Malloy

    Jo. Good to see the word spreading, I was talking with friends only two days ago, one said they lacked knowledge on the subject and asked how she could get information. I pointed her to your site and suggested she start with the skeptics handbook.

    I’ve just left Clive’s site, He’s not getting it all his own way. They sure are slow to post.

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  • #
    Bob Malloy

    For Baa Humbug,
    Caught your input to Clives site, well done but do you think he’ll become enlightened.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Bob,

    Just last weekend, catching up with some friends. I steered away form the topic out of politeness until they brought it up and were completely onside with the skeptics. My Jaw hit the floor.

    The Cabbie was right. the Average punter is concluding the AGW claims were completely overcooked.

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  • #
    Baa Humbug

    Bob Malloy:
    February 25th, 2010 at 10:31 am

    Hi Bob. No I doubt he even reads the responses. My purpose was to enlighten some ABC Drum readers to the importance of the emails. Hamilton represented the scientists involved as some caring sharing darlings who only took xmas day off with apologies.
    I focused on the emails only. I would like to have also responded to his other claims but the numbers of comments will mean it will all get lost in the noise.

    I did however notice a strong degree of anger among the alarmists. One even wanted to know what my scientific qualifications were, as if thats important to read and understand emails.
    I emailed the ABC asking for equal time to present counter views to Hamilton. Maybe others should do the same. You never know, we may get lucky and get some page space.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Great stuff there Baa Humbug,

    We seem to be doing the mainstream medias job for them these days.

    I don’t know if you caught the post on the Wong article a few minutes ago:

    http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d12-Hungarian-Physicist-Dr-Ferenc-Miskolczi-proves-CO2-emissions-irrelevant-in-Earths-Climate

    It looks like he’s currently between jobs since the end of last year.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    In words that will probably date me, “Sock it to ’em.”

    Oops, you already did. Congratulations on yet another great accomplishment for the cause!

    The media will sooner or later be forced to report on this stuff because more and more people are learning the truth. I’ve abandoned the MSM here in the states because of their bias and as their readership/viewership drops they are forced to reconsider what they’re doing. Time will tell.

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  • #
    pat

    clive spash is a ‘believer’ but thought this was an interesting piece nonetheless:

    24 Feb: ABC: PM: Mark Colvin: Dumped CSIRO professor calls for Senate
    inquiry
    Clive Spash is now Professor at the Department of International Environment
    and Development Studies at Norway’s University of Life Sciences.
    But until last year he worked for the CSIRO.
    Then he got into a fight with the organisation over a paper he wrote called
    The Brave New World of Carbon Trading.
    It argued that cap and trade policies like the Government’s emissions
    trading scheme were fundamentally flawed.
    The dispute ended with the CSIRO saying Professor Spash couldn’t publish his
    paper, even though it had been peer reviewed and cleared for publication in
    an international journal.
    Clive Spash told me today he was angry at the way the Science Minister Kim
    Carr had quoted selectively to a Senate committee from what he says was a
    confidential peer review report. ..
    MARK COLVIN: So what do you think it was about your paper that they wanted
    to suppress?
    CLIVE SPASH: The paper I was told was politically sensitive. Presumably this
    relates to the fact that the emissions trading scheme was going through the
    Senate and when I first started the paper and it was first submitted in
    February 2009 the issue looked like it wasn’t going to be problematic.
    By the time the Senate had rejected the emissions trading scheme for the
    first round, suddenly everything became much more politically sensitive.
    I think the main point is that I’m arguing in general terms about emissions
    trading schemes and their problems which cannot be redesigned. Most
    economists are arguing that you can redesign emissions trading schemes.
    MARK COLVIN: What are they?
    CLIVE SPASH: The problems? Economists assume emissions trading is the most
    efficient approach to regulating greenhouse gasses. In actual fact this is
    built around a myth of market efficiency. In the economist’s model there’s
    no oligopolies or monopolies or power interests and there’s no real means of
    addressing the relationship between very powerful companies and the
    government.
    When you then go for a system which is based around the model of
    competition, and competition doesn’t exist, you don’t get the market
    efficiency that you’re claiming.
    Also there’s problems then with the way in which compensation is negotiated,
    producing massive wealth transfers to the polluters; so rather than having a
    polluter pays principle, you have a polluter gets paid principle.
    MARK COLVIN: If you’re right, what should the Government be doing instead?
    CLIVE SPASH: The whole issue around climate change is really about the
    carbon and fossil fuel economy at its heart and it requires fundamental
    changes in the way that we run our economy.
    I would advocate certainly things like simple taxation, direct regulation,
    investment in alternative energy, these sorts of things.
    MARK COLVIN: A carbon tax?
    CLIVE SPASH: Yes a carbon tax but carbon is only part of the problem. At the
    end of the day we need fundamental behavioural change; we need the
    transition of the economy and the infrastructure.
    MARK COLVIN: That makes it very clear that you’re not among the climate
    sceptics.
    CLIVE SPASH: No and I never have been.
    MARK COLVIN: What do you think of the way that the debate has been moving?
    CLIVE SPASH: I think that the debate has gone backwards 30 years. I’ve been
    working on pollution issues for almost 30 years myself and I would say that
    we got to a point at the end of the 1980s where climate change was being
    taken very seriously and it was just before the IPCC was set up.
    And people were talking about the need for 20 or 30 per cent emissions
    reductions on 1980 levels. We’re now talking about five to ten per cent
    reductions on 2000 levels.
    http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2829301.htm

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  • #
    Baa Humbug

    MadJak:
    February 25th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
    Hi madjack. We sem to have stirred a few hornets nests at the ABC ha? I had just one reply that was without ad homs but even that one used the word deniosaurus lol.

    Yes I’m a fan of Mickolczi, have his paper and Zagoni’s summary etc on my usb key. I just wish Miskolczi’s paper wasn’t so mathematically challenging even for the best mathematicians. No one has yet been able to refute his work. Maybe it’s way over everyones heads.
    I believe one day his work will be given the due respect it deserves.

    Saturated greenhouse in a world saturated with pseudoscience and scientific scams. Fitting really.

    10

  • #
    Speedy

    Roy

    I thought of putting a couple of entries in on MattB’s behalf so that he could share the glory but my conscience got the better of me!

    He can do it himself…

    Cheers,

    Speedy

    10

  • #
    MadJak

    Baa Humbug,

    I’ve got a real hand-grenade I’m going to throw for tomorrows posting.

    Then I’m going to ignore the comments. My posting will mention this.

    10

  • #
    MattB

    Speedy that would be very mischevious of you. Yourself, MadJack and Humbug truly are Jo’s own flying monkeys:)

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  • #
    MadJak

    Thanks Mattb,

    Weeee

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    allen mcmahon

    MattB
    better flying for Jo than turd mining with Lambert

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  • #
    MattB

    Allen. Better having a sense of humour than being a grumpy old man.

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    Baa Humbug

    I’m smiling but I don’t know what a flying monkey means. A Pauline Hanson please Matt

    10

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    Scott

    Hey guys go over to whattsupwiththat and read Anthony’s last post its brilliant

    10

  • #
    MattB

    I was thinking Mr Burns in the Simpsons, but this is the original I think form Wizard of Oz:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SESI19h4wDo

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    MadJak

    Scott – gotta link?

    10

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    bunny

    MattB @ 25

    Surely you are not comparing Jo to the Wicked Witch of the West? And I thought you were such a nice person.

    10

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    matty

    Australian senate will not debate ets until May at the earliest(Daily Telegraph). Not sure if the opposition are dragging this out deliberately but it would be a good idea. Rudd already squirming with his dead duck and it won’t get better for him.

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  • #
    MattB

    Bunny – in my initial reference it was Mr Burns actually (sorry Jo)… but the monkeys were the key. I must admit when I watched the Wizard of Oz clip I thought those three would enjoy the comparison with attacking a bunch of fools following a path of gold to the promised land.

    10

  • #
    MadJak

    Weeee,

    I allways thought dorothy was a ditz. I much prefered spike milligans Bad Jelly the witch myself.

    10

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    Anne-Kit Littler

    Greens take on sceptics

    “AUSTRALIAN green groups have called a strategy meeting to devise ways to hit back at the climate sceptics movement, amid fears they are losing the PR war.

    The groups, including Greenpeace, the Wilderness Society, World Wide Fund for Nature, Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of the Earth, have acknowledged that the public mood has shifted following the collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks and blows to the credibility of the IPCC.

    James Norman, of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the strategy of ignoring climate change sceptics had not worked as it had been taken as confirmation of their claims. ”The stakes are too high to remain silent or disorganised in the face of this systemic disinformation campaign,” Mr Norman said.

    He said the global campaign was being funded by anti-climate-change think tanks such as the American Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the British International Policy Network, which had both received grants from oil company ExxonMobil.

    ”I wouldn’t be surprised if they (ExxonMobil) have connections here in Australia as well,” he said.

    Think tank the Climate Institute, lobby group Get Up, and the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union will also attend the Sydney meeting, which is not open to the public or the media.

    Greenpeace spokesman James Lorenz said the meeting was ”a good opportunity for environmental organisations to put their heads together and have a think about what’s going on”. Groups would plan strategies for the year.” (emphases mine)

    Hmmm. Oddly familiar terminology. Hands up those who think Clive “let’s-scrap-democracy” Hamilton was part of this cosy little huddle … and that his 5 articles (what happened to No. 5??) are the vanguard of this new smear campaign?

    Just an aside, but what the heck is the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union doing in there? Particularly known for their dirty tricks campaigns, maybe they were just needed as useful thugs …

    10

  • #
    Jacques Voorhees

    Jo, just want you to know that my daughter downloaded your Skeptics Handbook, and she is using it to help fight the leftist “group think” on AGW, among her classmates at University of Virginia Law School in the U.S. She has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and also physics, and notes that the argument about the saturation effect of CO2 is spot on, and should end the whole AGW argument by itself. She also likes your constant reminder to ignore everything but the link between CO2 and temperature. So…just wanted to thank you for the handbook, and provide another example of it spreading virally.

    10

  • #
    Mark D.

    CLIVE SPASH: I think that the debate has gone backwards 30 years. I’ve been
    working on pollution issues for almost 30 years myself and I would say that
    we got to a point at the end of the 1980s where climate change was being
    taken very seriously and it was just before the IPCC was set up.
    And people were talking about the need for 20 or 30 per cent emissions
    reductions on 1980 levels. We’re now talking about five to ten per cent
    reductions on 2000 levels.

    CARBON = Pollution? Right? Anyone?

    “AUSTRALIAN green groups have called a strategy meeting to devise ways to hit back at the climate sceptics movement, amid fears they are losing the PR war.

    The groups, including Greenpeace, the Wilderness Society, World Wide Fund for Nature, Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of the Earth, have acknowledged that the public mood has shifted following the collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks and blows to the credibility of the IPCC.

    James Norman, of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the strategy of ignoring climate change sceptics had not worked as it had been taken as confirmation of their claims. ”The stakes are too high to remain silent or disorganised in the face of this systemic disinformation campaign,” Mr Norman said.

    This is going to get fun! The more they try to spin this;
    “the strategy of ignoring climate change sceptics had not worked” the more they will lose. Bring it on!

    10

  • #
    P Gosselin

    I ought to make100 copies of the Skeptic’s Handbook and drop them off here and there at the next climate pow-wow here in Germany. Could make for some interesting video of the German climate-stasi scrambling to get rid of it.
    It goes to show that your work is making an impact, and you can be proud of it.

    10

  • #
    MadJak

    Jacques@33,

    It’s good to hear your daughter is providing some balance. I am sure you will make sure she’s well equipped.

    Last weekend a friend told me their son wanted to write an opposing view on AGW for his VCE year at high school. He was told that if he did that he would be failed, straight away.

    He had to get a special dispensation in order to write his opposing views on AGW for his VCE year. He did get the dispensation and he did pass.

    Of course, that’s just anothr example of aussie beaurocrts being employed for no good reason if you ask me.

    10

  • #
    Tel

    ”I wouldn’t be surprised if they (ExxonMobil) have connections here in Australia as well,” he said.

    Yeah, we generally call them “servos”, but they seem to get grumpy when I go in there asking for payment.

    I dunno, I try to implement all those great ideas coming from the Greens and somehow it just doesn’t work out 🙁

    10

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    george

    Clive number five is up and running.

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  • #
    MadJak

    and here is my post (you guys might find this interesting, I did) :

    “Where are the defenders of Science?” Asks Clive Hamilton

    The easy answer is that they have been ridiculed, run to the ground, defamed and sacked, and they weren’t in the Man Made Global Warming camp, either.

    I am talking about the real scientists who stood by their convictions and paid a brutal price.

    Enter a Dr Ferenc Miskolczi. He’s has an MS. Degree in Nuclear Physics, a Ph.D in astronomy, another Ph.D in earth sciences, a degree in software engineering, a degree in philosophy and 30 years work experience in atmospheric Radiative Transfer, radiation measurements and remote sensing. He did many other things too, of which I know even less about.

    Now this guy and a Dr Miklos Zagoni at NASA prepared a paper which proves that C02 has no significant effect on the atmosphere. His Paper was peer reviewed and published in 2004 and has not been debunked.

    In a nutshell, his science says simply that “In the Earth’s atmosphere, further greenhouse warming would violate fundamental laws of physics.”

    In 2006 his colleague resigned in part due to his idea that his “Idea for the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results” – Referenced in his letter of resignation here:
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/25310277/Dr-Miskolczi-Resignation-Letter

    Now, In December last year, Dr Miskolczi was “let go” from NASA too. It seems tensions about not getting the paper released may have caused it. He does seem to think that the main reason why the AGW thing is being pushed is because of the Coal driven rise of China as an economic and military threat to the good ‘ol USofA.

    Now for the reporting on this, well, no, not the ABC (no surprise to me), but here:
    http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d12-Hungarian-Physicist-Dr-Ferenc-Miskolczi-proves-CO2-emissions-irrelevant-in-Earths-Climate

    And his rebuttal to the smearing on Real Climate (which Clive here seems to use as a source) of truth follows:
    http://miskolczi.webs.com/Answers_to_some_criticism.htm

    The start of his summary rebutting what the realclimate websites’ attempt to discredit him:
    “It is apparent that Nick’s opinions regarding Miskolczi’s data and results is stemming either from a complete lack of understanding regarding radiative theory, or a deliberate attempt to falsify or discredit Miskolczi’s data, relations, equations, solutions and ultimately his analysis of the greenhouse effect. Nick Stokes and RealClimate.org, NOAA, NASA, and the UN/IPCC have failed to disprove Miskolczi’s work. This group is pushing an agenda. ”

    Gee Pushing an Agenda? Of course they are, again, Climategate proved how corrupted RC is. Oh, that’s right; you didn’t hear about that either did you?

    No one has managed to refute this science since it was published in 2004 with good reason.

    All I ask of you is that you ask the simple questions:
    “According to KRudd, Penny Wong and Clive Hamilton this man is a “Denier”? What is he denying?
    “Now why didn’t ABC let me know that this guy existed and what his science was about?”

    It’s been fun playing with you, I’m off to spend some time with the big kids now.

    /end of jacks post. 499 words, so i had one left over for abcs 500 word limit

    10

  • #
    george

    MadJak, I had a Miskolczi feeling after your quip last night…

    Waiting for the predictable responses on that blog, but well done sir.

    10

  • #
    Mark D.

    Madjak, 499 swords (the pen is mightier)

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    Pete H

    “a faceless trench coated “mafia” man who surreptitiously leaves a copy of The Skeptics Handbook on the table for … (gasp)… anyone to read.”
    The faceless one is me, in the bar, in Shanghai!

    10

  • #
    MadJak

    OK,

    I think it was another rout for the scientoligist warmistas for Clives rant.

    Some feeble attempts at rebuttal from the warmistas, but nothing of any significance.

    The real irony is that for his last rant entitled “Who’s defending the science” it was only the sceptics who were proposing and defending the science as the warmistas tried almost every stunt clive was whining about to try and discredit it.

    True Irony. Great work everyone.

    10

  • #
    allen mcmahon

    Matt #25
    perhaps your role could be Santer’s Little Helper

    10

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    MattB

    I’ll pay that one.

    10

  • #
    Pete H

    MadJak:
    February 26th, 2010 at 10:06 am

    Please give a hint to Anthony on WUWT on http://www.scribd.com/doc/25310277/Dr-Miskolczi-Resignation-Letter

    I followed your link and was incensed and this sort of information needs to be worldwide and I thank you for your research! I will confess to sending the link to Dellingpole ( I forgot to do the H/T to you, sorry! (Red face 🙁 )at his blog and would hope he would use it. ITS A BIGGY!

    H/T to you

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  • #
    MadJak

    Pete,

    Thanks for that. Paul actually put up the report first on 10 Wong reasons to tax us. I just did some digging around and decided, kewl, I can run with that.

    It would be great to see Mr Delingpole run with it.

    I think especially now that the Institute of Physics has just put the knife into the hockey stick team, I would say it’s very appropriate and relevant.

    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm

    10