Unthreaded

I’ll be away for a week with the family resting on warm beaches, near wandering rivers and spectacular gorges. I’ll be thinking of you. (Actually, I won’t be completely gone, though I may be beyond mobile range, and in uncharted non-NBN territory, there will still be some guest posts thanks to the o-so-talented pool of skeptics around here.)

If you have especially brilliant ideas, hot tips, or your comment goes lost, please email the dedicated select set of moderators at support AT joannenova.com.au. (Please don’t wear out the email address though. There are real people with real lives who have other commitments).

In the meantime, this thread is for commenters… there is so much to discuss. Like for example: the satellite that could have settled this: blown up I hear, and for the second time, how careless? Then there’s the Greenie-navel-gazing as they try to figure out what went wrong. “The long death of environmentalism“.[See here for some commentary.]

Australian Skeptics – put Weds 23rd March in your Diary. We’ll be protesting the Carbon Tax in capital cities. I will be speaking in Perth.

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138 comments to Unthreaded

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    Enjoy your break, Jo. Just don’t go falling into any gorges – we bush people know how clumsy you city folks are … 🙂

    Apropos the NASA fireworks display, I think it is something of a stretch to say that NASA would intentionally put thousands of person hours into building, testing, and calibrating a satellite, only to load it onto a rocket and blow it up. Not even they are that devious.

    No, I think this is yet another example of the “O” ring problem, where they are forced to use components that are past their use-by date – rubber perishes, plastics get brittle, metals get corrosion or surface pitting – any or all of which can cause equipment failure especially in low temperatures.

    Mind you, it is a bit fortuitous in terms of extending the scam for a bit longer …

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    Bulldust

    Rereke:

    Surely you are not suggesting NASA makes mistakes from time to time? Maybe they should have had Jimmy Hansen and Gavin on the team from the NASA GISS… they never, ever make mistakes…

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    pat

    enjoy yourself jo.

    just tried to post the following Murdoch media piece on Bolt’s blog on a relevant thread re water/dams and got this message:

    “Action Denied: Blacklisted Item Found
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/water-too-cheap-says-utility-boss/story-fn6ck51p-1226014992008

    this is the article with the extraordinary “unfortunately it rained” quote from Allconnex’s arrogant, overpaid boss, Kim Wood:

    3 March: Courier Mail: Greg Stolz: ‘Water is too cheap’
    Kim Wood, CEO of Allconnex Water, says Queenslanders have been getting their water too cheaply for too long and should get ready to pay much more…
    He said the State Government had bravely tackled the drought by investing $9 billion in the southeast water grid but “unfortunately, it rained”.
    “The state has done a brave thing, the outcomes are good, it did rain and money’s tight . . . that’s regrettable,” he said.
    Mr Wood voiced concern about the potential impacts of more rain on Allconnex’s revenue, but said the company was on track to exceed budgeted returns to its shareholders, the three councils….
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/water-too-cheap-says-utility-boss/story-fn6ck51p-1226014992008

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    Bulldust

    Oh isn’t this nice… Greg Combet, our fearless Climate Change Minister, says coal miners shouldn’t have to worry about their jobs under the “carbon price” regime:

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/8956722/good-future-for-coal-under-labor/

    This empty rhetoric may have something to do with the fact that his seat is in the Hunter Valley…

    So Mr Combet… my question to you is how well you think the coal miners are going to fare under the TWO new taxes (yes, count them) that Labor intends to introduce… aka the “carbon price” and the MRRT.

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    pat

    i have just re-posted the text of the article without the url on bolt’s blog, so hope it goes up.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    Bulldust: #2

    Surely you are not suggesting NASA makes mistakes from time to time?

    Of course not! Perish the thought. No, the problem is all of those pesky subcontractors and grant-funded scientists …

    Seriously, NASA does have a serious internal problem with the bean-counters and other administrators interfering with the science and engineering. I guess when you pay several thousand dollars for a titanium hammer, you had better darn-well use it to hit something, even if the thing you hit subsequently breaks.

    Caveat – I have never worked for NASA (I ain’t that bright), but I have worked in the States with folks that have, and by all accounts, it ain’t a happy farm.

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    Bulldust

    Here’s an interesting piece at the SMH, and reasonably balanced IMHO (Peter Harthcher):

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/call-for-a-peoples-revolution-20110304-1bi1v.html

    It talks of the “carbon price” protests planned for the 23rd, and also why attacking the indepdendents directly may be counterproductive. A fair bit of common sense IMO. It helps to distinguish the right-wing politics in Oz from that in the US. Actually I would go a step further to explain that the Liberals in Australia are probably positioned closer to the Democrats in the US. US politics is all relatively right-wing compared to Oz. Having said that, the politics in many European countries is further left again… so it’s all relative. Personally I think Australia has hit the happy balance in political terms. I say that having lived for many years in Holland, The US and Australia (and a couple other countries).

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    brc

    Bulldust – that is not a good article at all. It is biased and plain wrong and by even mentioning US politics is trying to forge a link that just isn’t there. This is a blatant attempt to try and link ordinary Australians action against Carbon Taxes with the American Tea Party movement, when in fact the two have nothing to do with each other. He threads this by comparing Cory Bernadis organisation as the leading force, whereas I have never heard of it and have been following this from day one. The strategy will be to try and brand this an Australian Tea Party – once that is done by the media, then the same attacks will be used. Mainly the portrayal of the Tea Party movement as a bunch of uneducated racist idiots – this same smear will be imported. He also calls GetUP a grassroots organisation whereas it’s actually an astroturf operation heavily funded by unions and other left-affiliated organisations. All of the action I have seen around protests dates has been from loose organisations of people agitating for somewhere to vent their anger. None has been organised by a political party. There is nobody leading the charge, as it were – although some will try and position themselves as leaders.

    I also find it very hard to believe that anyone is going to get out and protest for a carbon tax. I know GetUP has lots of unemployed people and students to activate – the ever present rent-a-crowd – but I can hardly see them marching in the streets with signs ‘more taxes now’. I could be wrong, I hope I am not.

    Do not be fooled for a minute – the SMH, Age and ABC see what is coming and they are preparing the smears so that when it arrives it is already labelled and packaged neatly as some sort of Bernadi organised meeting of the racists, bigots and fools. The cameras will go looking for the most dimwitted person in the crowd, and they will seek out some violence and/or racist views. Ordinary people and families will be ignored. I wouldn’t be surprised is some agent provocateurs from the left turn up and try and stoke trouble or try to mix in racist signs. We see it here on this blog – the Trolls and Mobys trying to make everyone look like racist anti-science bigots instead of a bunch of concerned Australians discussing matters which affect them. It’s even easier to turn up in a crowd and cause havoc for the cameras. If you go to a rally make sure you call out anyone who is presenting the wrong message and remember that passive protest is the name of the game. Leave the smashing up of buildings to the left side of politics.

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    elsie

    A new BBC series has started on SBS “Wonders Of The Solar System”. It is hosted by Professor Bran Cox. Last week the segment was “Empire Of The Sun”. In it he was admiring some huge falls in South America. He said it showed the power of the sun to evaporate water and then drop it as rain, etc. He interviewed a local scientist who said he had noticed a “rhythm” to the river height over a 100 years of accurate measurement. Could this be related to sunspots? No, came the answer. No correlation at all. But there was a very, very close relationship to the sun’s brightness over the past 100 years. The 2 graphs interposed were so matching as to be breathtaking. The same matches happened in African rivers and Indian monsoons as well as less rain at the fringes of the Sahara. I noticed too that the graphs were close to the temperature dips and rises during the 1900s. The point was made that only 1/10 of 1% of the sun’s brightness varied but it seems enough to affect the climate. (That’s a lot of energy when spread all over the earth.) Professor Cox admitted we knew very little about how weather/climate really works and is a mystery.

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    janama

    Mungo MacCallum writing in The Byron Shire Echo magazine

    Ah yes, the sceptics. Given the state of the science, it is about time we stopped dignifying them with that name, which suggests some sort of commitment to rationality. Even the alternative – deniers – implies they have given the question some serious thought. Let us call them what they are: mendacious, stupid or at best delusional.

    Some may sincerely believe the science is still not settled, or that it is all a vast conspiracy; many others are feeding the doubters out of sheer self-interest in search of commercial or political advantage. But their opinions are important only to each other. Their views should no longer be part of any rational discussion and they must not be considered at all by Gillard and her fellow decision makers.

    The misguided will, of course, be among those compensated; it is to be hoped that they spend at least some of the windfall on catching up with the science or, if that is too much effort, securing long-term accommodation in homes for the terminally bewildered along with their fellow flat-earthers. Clowns are all very well in their place, but in the words of the immortal Stan Cross cartoon, it’s time to stop laughing – this is serious.

    http://www.echo.net.au/opinion-piece/vague-promises-fuel-carbon-tax-stoush

    the arrogance of the left/greenies is unbelievable.

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    Graham

    Ever the wordsmith and laconic wit, Clive James slams the hypocrisy and opportunism of the “theory of catastrophic global warming (CAGW, to borrow the unlovely acronym)” proponents. (The article is reproduced in to-day’s The Weekend Australian.) Dorothea Mackellar is adored. Flannery and Clive Hamilton are pummelled. It’s well worth reading, as are other opinion pieces by James on the subject such as Climate change – a story too often told the same way.

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    Bob Malloy

    I received the following from the A.C.T.U this morning as part of a news letter.

    Taking action on climate change

    At the moment there is a lot of misinformation about the proposed price on carbon.

    Unfortunately there are reports of threatening emails being sent to a Member of Parliament. However, the proposed mechanism for a price on carbon pollution is a vital step forward in taking action on climate change.

    Unions representing workers in all sectors and industries are more than willing to make a strong start on the transition to a low pollution economy as long as the requirements for a ‘just transition’ are identified, examined in detail and properly addressed. This includes investment in new industries and compensation for households.

    Addressing these fundamentals will help maintain living standards and social cohesion for workers, particularly in industries such as mining and manufacturing that rely on carbon-intensive processes. Their communities, a number of them in regional areas, have local economies that have been built around these industries over decades.

    Climate change is one of the most pressing economic, social and environmental challenges we face, and Australians will be hit hard if we do not respond with urgent and decisive action to reduce carbon pollution, improve energy efficiency and support the transition to a low pollution economy.

    Right now is a crucial time to tell the government and the opposition that we support a price on carbon.

    I sent them the following reply:

    At the moment there is a lot of misinformation about the proposed price on carbon.

    Yes I agree at the moment there is a lot of misinformation on the need to price carbon. It’s all coming from our government, Ross Garnaut, Tim Flannery and the IPCC etc…

    For some accurate information please see the works of Richard S Lindzan, MIT, Bob Carter, James Cook University, Willie Soon, PhD, Physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, or spend some time at http://www.joannenova.com.au, http://www.wattsupwiththat.com or any of a multitude of similar sites.

    That a trade union organisation would promote corrupt scientist and support a scheme that could only further burden Australian Industry and cause energy poverty for those on pensions and low income earners is nothing short of deplorable.

    Yours
    Bob Malloy.

    PS. the following paragraph from your email is total B.S.

    Climate change is one of the most pressing economic, social and environmental challenges we face, and Australians will be hit hard if we do not respond with urgent and decisive action to reduce carbon pollution, improve energy efficiency and support the transition to a low pollution economy.

    PPS. I in no way endorse any abusive or threatening emails to politicians, however while wishing someone would die, is regrettable, it in no way is a threat on ones life.

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  • #

    I’m a member of CANdo. We are yet not fully organised in my opinion, an executive has to be formed to maximise the effect as the organisation is lacking in leadership and direction. Until such time the appropriate funding will not materialise.

    Since the CO2 tax was announced the membership has grown 25% and I would encourage anyone that reads this to consider joining CANdo to assist in fighting this tax.

    The left are adept at organising in numbers as a force, it’s their mentality as people not are individualists and that’s are shortfall.

    http://network.conservative.org.au/

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    That was messy? People not of the left are mostly individualists, we have to unite to defeat this.

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    Jonova says “I’ll be away for a week with the family resting on warm beaches, near wandering rivers and spectacular gorges.”

    Sounds a lot like my home town Broome and the Kimberleys. However this is a superb ‘wet season’ and means access to spectacular gorges is restricted. Wherever you are, have a great holiday, it is well deserved.

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    Graham:#12
    March 5th, 2011 at 10:31 am

    What a great link that was to the James article. I recommend all to read it. Thankyou Graham

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    The Loaded Dog

    brc@9

    Do not be fooled for a minute – the SMH, Age and ABC see what is coming and they are preparing the smears…..

    Absolutely brc, and you can be damn CERTAIN “GetUP” and as many of the pinko layabout eco-zealots that can be mustered WILL crawl out of the swamp compound with the specific intention of creating trouble and shutting down opposition to their “cause”

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    Binny

    In regard to the satellite failure. I think we can fall back to the old saying ‘If it comes to a choice between a conspiracy and incompetence, go for incompetence every time’

    An effective conspiracy requires 100% commitment and perfect timing by everyone involved.

    Incompetence on the other hand merely requires a (in this case very slight) lack of commitment and imagination.

    Which phrase do you think of better describes NASA at the moment?

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    The Loaded Dog

    Analysis by Media Monitors this week showed a highly unfavourable reaction to the carbon tax on commercial radio, and a favourable reaction to the policy on ABC radio in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

    Well, knock me over with a feather.

    Who would have guessed?

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/talkback-climate-heats-up-on-carbon-tax/story-e6frg996-1226016147761

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    wes george

    brc @ 9 clearly sees tomorrow:

    the SMH, Age and ABC see what is coming and they are preparing the smears so that when it arrives it is already labelled and packaged neatly as some sort of Bernadi organised meeting of the racists, bigots and fools. The cameras will go looking for the most dimwitted person in the crowd, and they will seek out some violence and/or racist views. Ordinary people and families will be ignored. I wouldn’t be surprised is some agent provocateurs from the left turn up and try and stoke trouble or try to mix in racist signs. We see it here on this blog…

    Our media elites watched what was done in the states against the tea party movement and missed the whole strategic significance of what happened. The smear, fear and hate campaign against the tea party and conservative not only failed, it backfired big time as it enraged and motivated ordinary people who would never have become activists to get involved with politics. It failed because the Internet, blogs and cheap digital vidcams and even twitter allow us all to be direct witnesses to current events, bypassing the big media for the real truth striped bare of the pro-Labor/Green government propaganda.

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    A C of Adelaide

    We are told that this carbon tax will be neutral and that everyone will be fully compensated. In that case, whats the point? The only point I can see in it is that 10% of the tax money is to be syphoned of to the UN. This would appear to be the only outcome, and the only conceivable reason for the tax.
    I’m wondering if this isn’t some way of providing a budget for Kevin Rudd in his next incarnation as a UN climate change ambassador? Is this Juila’s way of finally getting rid of him?

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    mullumhillbilly

    Pity about the OCO satellite, it might have been able to strengthen this conclusion from Hermann Harde of the Helmut-Schmidt-Universität Hamburg, Germany. “How much CO2 really contributes to global warming? Spectroscopic studies and modelling of the influence of H2O, CO2 and CH4 on our climate.” http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/EGU2011-4505-1.pdf

    “The simulations for the terrestrial and atmospheric warm-up show well attenuating and saturating progressions with increasing CO2-concentration, mainly caused by the strongly saturating absorption of the intensive CO2 bands and the interference with water lines. The climate sensitivity CS as a measure for the temperature increase found, when the actual CO2-concentration is doubled, assumes CS = 0.41 ̊C for the tropical zone, CS = 0.40 ̊C for the moderate zones and CS = 0.92 ̊C for the polar zones. The weighted average over all regions as the global climate sensitivity is found to be CS = 0.45 ̊C with an estimated uncertainty of 30%, which mostly results from the lack of more precise data for the convection between the ground and atmosphere as well as the atmospheric backscattering. The values for the global climate sensitivity published by the IPCC cover a range from 2.1 ̊C – 4.4 ̊C with an average value of 3.2 ̊C, which is seven times larger than that predicted here.”

    see also http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/how-much-co2-really-contributes-to-gw-further-analysis/

    So, the finding, based on new methods of spectral analysis, is that water vapour is a sufficiently strong greenhouse gas at the specific wavelengths where carbon dioxide is important that the earth’s atmosphere is saturated with absorption gases at those wavelengths. And if this is so then the addition of more carbon dioxide won’t make any difference.

    The IPCC on the other hand make the assumption that the wavelengths at which absorption takes place are far from saturated. http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/2577-being-sensitive-about-climate.html

    Pending more detail on the paper, it will be very interesting to see if the uncertainties mentioned will favour an even lower CS because warmed gas is convecting upwards and re-radiating to space.

    Pie-in-the-sky tax anyone?

    Janama @11; Mungo Madness is the archetypal sanctimonious chatterati, a hollow do-as-I-say-not-as-I-doer. I would stop laughing if he ever had to be taken seriously.

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    A C of Adelaide

    WOW!

    I urge everyone to do themselves a favour and flick back to comment 12 and follow the link to Clive James’s piece

    Thank you Graham@12

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    incoherent rambler

    bypassing the big media for the real truth striped bare of the pro-Labor/Green government propaganda

    People go to the net to hear what they want to hear.

    Interest group bulletin boards have been around longer than the internet, it is not something new. What is new is the extreme positions that the MSM adopts.

    You make a valid point that the news media no longer reports, it is intertwined with the media outlets agenda (which is usually leftist).

    I am not old enough to have experienced WW2 propaganda. But surely it could not be much worse than the news that currently emanates from (let me name them in worst descending order) the ABC(web, radio, tv), SBS, the Age and SMH, CH 7 tv.

    Many have commented here that the MSM no longer matters because they no longer watch, listen or read from it. This is burying your head in the sand. This blog is a nice place where even John Brookes comes to seek an intellectual challenge. Sadly the MSM (tv) is still the primary news source for the vast majority of Australians and it feeds them twaffle.

    However much we agree with each other on this forum it does nothing to influence wider community views. It is like an underground resistance passing around secretive leaflets.

    The challenge before our current society is how to develop a civilized discussion of scientific, social and poltical issues, rather than just chatting with the people that agree with our point of view. This is a problem for all. I might add that the likes of John Brookes, Matt B. actually enhance this blog because of their dissenting views. They challenge and it generates a response.

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  • #

    Donna Laframboise has an excellent expose of the infiltration of the IPCC by activist ecotards.

    The article is specifically about Dr Richard Moss, VP of WWF.

    Here is a couple of salient questions asked by Donna

    # Why did a VP of the WWF attend an IPCC workshop in Berlin last November? Why was Moss’ WWF affiliation not declared in that context? Why does the workshop documentation instead say he’s affiliated with the Joint Global Change Research Institute?

    # Now comes the million dollar question: What is a VP of the WWF doing serving as a Review Editor for Working Group 2, Chapter 15 of the latest edition of the climate bible – the one that is being written as we speak?

    # When the IPCC announced the list of people participating in the AR5 (Assessment Report 5) last June why did it not reveal that the WWF is Moss’ employer? Why did the IPCC tell us, instead, that he’s affiliated with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory?

    We sort of get an idea how the IPCC reports ended up with so many references to extremist groups such as the WWF and Greenpeace don’t we?
    And this is the group (IPCC) that our governments blindly rely on when justifying the imposition of their useless taxes on us and wasting billions of our dollars on useless green projects. Incompetent? Definetely. Dishonest? Is the Pope catholic. Crooked fraudsters? Does a bear $hit in the woods.

    Well worth the read.

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    A C of Adelaide

    I have just been re-reading Clive James piece ( see link at Graham #12 )
    and I remembered wondering some time ago if people who believe in global warming are more likely to spend all day in air-conditioned houses, air-conditioned supermarkets, air-conditioned cars, and air-conditioned offices. To them the weather outside is always unpleasantly hot – or unplesantly cold – or something because they have so little experiences of it. Your average man in the street like thoise who actually work outside for a living are more inclined to be a bit indifferent to a hot day – shit happens. Working in the bush for most of my working life a few days of 40 degree heat are not unusual.
    Is this the reason why the better educated (read office workers) are more concerned with global warming than the less educated (read out doors workers)

    I’m wondering if Clive James isnt actually pointing in the same direction

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    A C of Adelaide

    Re Ba humbug @27

    All these NGOs World Vision, World Wildlife Fund, Green Peace, Red Cross, etc They are all effectively multinational corporations with more or less the same business model as all the other multinationals. A group of careerist executives advertise howdesirable their “products” are in order to extract revenue from their customer base. The revenue funds their corporate expansion, their multistorey head offices in such exotic locations as Geneva, Brussels, and Zurich, and it pays their executive salaries. It also funds certain on-ground works which will form the basis of their next round of advertising campaigns. The product they sell is absolution, which is just another form of self-gratification like a fast car of overseas holiday.
    What I find amusing is that a multinational like McDonalds gets heavy criticism for underpaying its front line employees, but these NGO get no criticism for paying their front line employees nothing.

    It is astonishing to me that the left fall in behind them so uncritically. Must need the absolution I guess.

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    Neville

    Agree with what you’ve written at 27 Baa but I still think that the more important point is the bi- polar attitude to increased co2 emissions on the one hand ( bad,bad) and the fervent support and promotion of coal exports on the other. ( good, good.)

    This must be untenable for any journalist to stomach surely, I mean at least don’t slug us at home with this stupid tax and then go gang busters with exports.

    We only emit 1.3% of global emissions so we can assert conclusively with 100% accuracy that our effort will not make a bee’s dick bit of difference to CAGW.

    I’ll admit Bolt and McCrann have been pushing this truth but I’m not sure any other journos have up to this point.

    But why isn’t this the number one story all over the MSM and all the blogs as well?
    You could hardly have hypocrisy writ larger than this over a century of journalism.

    The first two charts here should be studied by everyone to just understand the incredible scale of Chinese development from 1990 out to 2030. Click to enlarge.

    http://rainforests.mongabay.com/09-carbon_emissions.htm

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    Bulldust

    brc:
    Hmmm … I guess I didn’t see it that way when I skimmed through that article the first time. Seemed more like he was saying the political situation is quite different between the US and Australia, which is something I would definitely agree with. A bit of hand waving and gesturing saying Bernadi is an Aussie Tea Partier doesn’t make it so. That’s not to say some pollies won’t jump on board with the protests.

    Obviously any sceptical marches will be nothing like the Tea Party, but merely people protesting a completely unwarranted tax regime. This is commpletely unlike the GST so many commentators like to compare it to… the GST replaced wholesale sales taxes with a retail tax. In the case of the business I ran at the time there was no need to change prices at all… our W/sale sales taxes worked out to approximately 10% on retail before the GST.

    Anywho… if nothing else the article probably serves as a heads up to expect some flak come March 23rd.

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    Graham

    incoherent rambler @#26

    I might add that the likes of John Brookes, Matt B. actually enhance this blog because of their dissenting views.

    Absolutely. To the extent that John et al are engaged in the right spirit, others of their persuasion will feel welcome to join in. Therein, surely, is a means to “influence wider community views”, the lack of which you rightly lament.

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    Lawrie

    Mungo MacCallum is no different from Jula Gillard and Greg Combet in so far as they all want to shut down debate by propagating only their version of the truth. If they were really interested in truth they would have a royal commission or such like with all comers welcome. Shutting down debate is a sure sign of a lack of confidence in your position.

    As for the results which depended on listeners radio preferences it would seem an accurate reflection of community attitudes to the tax. Without putting too fine a point on it; listeners of the ABC tend to be idealists, many reliant on the government teat, and listeners of Alan Jones etc are pragmatists who live in the reality and who, I believe, are in the majority. They must be or Australia would never have progressed to where it is.

    Barry O’Farrell has made the CO2 tax a state election issue largely because the voters want it that way. The result while not a referendum will cause the PM some very uncomfortable moments.

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    Llew Jones

    janama @11

    Ha Ha. Mungo is an expert in Climate science? Mungo is a smart alec journalist who got third class honours in an arts degree. Just missed out on a fail. Don’t know what it’s like these days getting into uni but those who weren’t bright enough to make it in to the natural sciences ended up in the humanities. Poor old Mungo couldn’t excel in an artie fartie course when most of his neurones were probably still working. So what hope now.

    Someone sent me an email(I’ll have to read it later)in which the addle brained Oakes is also trying to get in on the “Aussie Tea Party” hysteria.

    “Mungo MacCallum was educated at the elite Cranbrook School, a short walk from where he lived with his mother and father in his grandmother’s house in Wentworth Street, Point Piper. After leaving school, Mungo MacCallum went to the University of Sydney where he obtained a BA with third-class honours.”

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    Binny

    incoherent rambler: @26

    Your reference to World War II propaganda is interesting.

    My mother (now aged 91) was well into her 50s, before she accepted that not only had Darwin been bombed but it had been bombed severely.
    And this was in spite of the fact that refugees from Darwin had actually moved to her town not long after the bombing.

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    Lawrie

    33 Addendum

    Especially the move out of the Lodge.

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    mc

    john brooks@ 67,previous thread.

    As for the disingenuous crocodile tears for the worlds poor, that really is the pits.

    As for the disingenuous crocodile tears for the world’s natural environment, that really is the pits.

    Pretty insulting being on the receiving end of such an obnoxious, repellant and completely presumptuous attribution hey john?

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    brc

    Bulldust you read correctly. But this is phase one of the operation. The first is to link the Australian anti-carbon tax movement to the US Tea Party. The second part is to smear the anti-carbon tax movement with the same smears that the Tea Party movement got hit with. There’s plenty of material to import. Just read the Huffington Post sometime. Ask the average democrat voter who was in a Tea Party protest and they will respond with racists and right wing fanatics. Actually go to one of the rallies and you would have found a cross section of American politics.

    Remember, as far as the Australian media is concerned – American Republicans are the evil people that supported George Bush. And the Tea Party is painted to represent the far-right of the already evil-right Republican movement. The linking of Australian protests is to create Tea-Party headlines. Just look at the page title of that article you linked. Sure, it’s a broad discussion of many items. But the page title is built to rank on the internet for people searching for Cory Berandi and Tea Party – even though the article title is nothing like it. When someone finds it in Google, it will simply say – Cory Bernadi Tea Party. Trust me I do this stuff for a living, I know how it works.

    A real grassroots movement on the conservative side of politics scares the living crap out of SMH and ABC journalists. Of that you can be sure. One of the strongest reasons the bias is hidden in plain sight is because most conservative (or middle ground swinging) voters grumble in private and shut up in public. Witness time after time John Howard delivered a drubbing to Labor opponents, while, if you had listened to the media the day before it was likely the Labor candidate was going to win. So getting this apathetic bloc of voters out and stamping their feet threatens the left-leaning journalist, both because they’d have to report on it (through gritted teeth) and because such a show of strength would bring many more out in public, no longer scared to be vilified and ridiculed by the popular press for believing in things like ordinary marriages, freedom of choice and lower taxes.

    This attempt to link Australian politics to the Tea Party is as sure as try to conflate any modern economic reform with ‘Thatcherism’ or ‘Reaganism’. Labor supporters have been tring to flog the ‘Tory’ tag into being for years with no success. I know it’s wrong, you know it’s wrong, but you and I aren’t in the business of creating headlines. Thus the message is clear : the anti-carbon tax movement is a uniquely Australian political phenomenon, borrowing nothing from the USA. It is by Australians about Australian politics and largely party-neutral – though obviously more Liberal supporters than Labor supporters. I personally would be marching if it was Malcolm Turnbull doing the lying and scheming.

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    janama

    Graham: @ 32

    I agree, that’s why I posted his rave – sorry I should have added sarcasm indices.

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    DaleC

    Following up on Gregg’s interesting little survey a few posts back, the proposed tax on cardon dioxide needs to be expressed as an easy to understand cost-benefit analysis. Trying to quantify Australia’s share of emissions as 1.5% of 3% is meaningless at first glance (percent of what? on what time scale?). Instead, in coarse terms, grant that over the last 100 years CO2 has increased by 100 parts per million (300 to 400) due to industrialisation, of which Australia’s contribution is roughly one part per million (allowing for low industrial base compared to NH for much of the 100 years). What price to remove our one part per million? Total shut down. If we reduce emissions by 10% (highly optimistic, and takes no account of exported emissions as industry just moves off shore), then our share reduces to one part per 1.1 million.

    10% reduction will cost $XXXX. The ‘benefit’ is to move from 1 part per million to 1 part per 1.1 million.

    Does anyone have an estimate for $XXXX?

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    wes george

    Hey, Scraper @ 15,

    I went to have a look at the Can Do Conservative website and you can’t even view your “about us” or FAQ without signing up. That is total BS, dude.

    The modern conservative movement should be about the liberation of information, you know, the free market of information, services, goods and capital.

    I might well like to sign up to the Can do org, but I ain’t gonna sign up to some crap I can’t even read what their values and objectives are first.

    Then I looked at the Great Southern Cross Constitution that your name icon links too. GSC objectives are utterly meaningless as a document of political philosophy. Mao and Stalin wanted the same things for their people. So did the American founding fathers. From the same starting point we got two very different results. Why? Because the two parties, the authoritarian collectivists and the free enterprise individualist went about trying to achieve their goals in polar opposite ways… We all want a good outcome, the devil is in the details about how to get there from here. Problem is GSC has no details to offer.

    The Great Southern Cross Constitution makes no mention of what sort of economic philosophy would guide the party towards its goals. Therefore, one has to assume the GSC would simply use government power to mandate their objectives. This is little different than the plan the Green/Labor coalition have for us. The government taxes, redistributes the loot to their mates to further their goals. We, the people, are left always the poorer and less free in the end.

    You want to start a movement?

    Open up the can do conservative website to all comers. Don’t be afraid of debate. Don’t limit access to information. You won’t even know who you are yourselves until you test your ideas in the open marketplace. Opposition is definition.

    Seize the moment.

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    Binny ‘935),
    My paternal grandfather was cycling to (or from) his RAAF base in Darwin, with his rolled-up greatcoat on the back of his bike (for, I believe, he found the weather rather warmish) when he perceived a passing Japanese ’plane. After the bomb exploded, and he brushed off the dust, and gathered his wits and his bike, he noticed that his greatcoat had been shredded by shrapnel and had thereby protected his lower back. So, even in Darwin greatcoats can be handy.
    He was, of course, unable to tell his family until after the war.

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    joe v.

    Who was it who reflected:- “Every piece built by the lowest bidder”, as they sat waiting for blast off in the nose cone ?

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    Voe Gee

    wes george:
    March 5th, 2011 at 9:27 pm says:-

    Hey, Scraper @ 15,

    I went to have a look at the Can Do Conservative website …………

    The modern conservative movement should be about the liberation of information, you know, the free market of information, services, goods and capital.

    Don’t you think conservatives do so much better for society in opposition ?

    Their instinctive scepticism makes them a natural check on the well meaning ‘though sometimes naive optimism of dedicated socialists as they become rather too comfortable with having their hands on the levers of power.

    Rather that having the gullible to keep tabs on the enterprising individualists in power.

    While the C’s might even handle power better, their individualism can make them rather more adept at adapting it to their own advantage, over time.

    The inept watched over by the adept, rather than the other way around.

    Hey, no-one said democracy was perfect, but having competing ideologies in power for limited timespans seems to have served most at some point.

    The greatest danger seems to be in letting the politicians, of both sides, tinker with or usurp that delicate balance that got them there. While this they will naturally try to do, they must never be allowed to sidestep or lose their fear of the ballot box.

    Many Turkey’s would never have existed if it weren’t for Christmas.

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    Joe V.

    elsie:
    March 5th, 2011 at 10:16 am , says:-

    A new BBC series has started on SBS “Wonders Of The Solar System”. It is hosted by Professor Brian Cox. …….. Professor Cox admitted we knew very little about how weather/climate really works and is a mystery.

    One waits to see just how on-message, or otherwise, this the BBC’s latest populist Professor really is – or could it herald a subtle shift in the message ?

    They really seem to play on the Professor bit ‘though.

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    From BishopHill, Clive James (Australian Journalist who has long resided in the UK) has an article in Standpoint magazine about a poem that all Australian school children used to have to recite. Called “My Country” by Dorothea Mackellar, it includes the lines:-

    I love a sunburnt country,
    A land of sweeping plains,
    Of ragged mountain ranges,
    Of droughts and flooding rains.
    I love her far horizons,
    I love her jewel-sea,
    Her beauty and her terror —
    The wide brown land for me.

    James contrasts this with the claims that the Australian drought was due to global warming, as were the recent floods.

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    elsie

    Joe V, 45

    They really seem to play on the Professor bit ‘though

    Well, no, I am the one who emphasised his status. Actually he is a young person but shows a real knowledge and enthusiasm for hard physics. He has hosted previous shows regarding quantum physics for e.g. In short, for his young age he knows a whole lot more than Al Gore and Tim Flannery types. He did not even hint at the co2 climate change issue. But, of course, he might when he comes to Venus and Earth. What I liked was his lesson about our sun. The sun was much dimmer at the start. And like many new born stars was probably a variable. i.e. it varied in brightness a lot.Some stars vary weekly or monthly or by a few years. Eventually they ‘settle down’. But variation that is hardly noticeable still occurs despite sunspot activity. This seems to have been ignored by the warmists. There is no way of telling how much variability has occurred over the past thousands of years let alone millions.

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    wes george

    Don’t you think conservatives do so much better for society in opposition

    ?

    Absolutely not. Should be the other way around. The self-righteous morally outraged whingers and rent seekers are so much more effective petitioning a rational government for “progressive” values than actually controlling the levers of state power. It’s like giving a stoned teenager the keys to the Holden V8 for schoolies week. Woo hoo! Thanks, Dad! Can I have your credit card too???

    Conservatives, precisely because they ARE the silent majority, the normal people with mortgages, real jobs, small businesses and real lives have little patience with organizing collectively. Most people aren’t intellectually committed to “individualism” they’re just responsible and self-reliant citizens who like to work and play hard. Their individualist values are simply the outcome of a life lived well, not the goal.

    Ever seen a mob of conservatives outside a government ministry chanting, “The people united will never be divided, hey, hey, ho, ho…” Didn’t think so. Conservative don’t have time to astroturf.

    Also Conservatives make lousy opposition because the mass media always unites as the propaganda arm for left-of-center government. That makes for bad governance because a fawning media never properly challenges Green/Labor policy as they would a conservative policy. Thus Green/Labor policy untested by critical scrutiny is usually sophomoric, half-baked and yet it gets a tick to pass by our media every time. We all lose out in the end.

    Always better at management than the Left, conservatives in government put the media back into its place as well. Ever notice how journalists seem to rediscover their “core values” of “speaking truth to power” whenever conservatives are in government?

    What this nation needs today is for the party of sound management skills to take the helm, not a continuation of the Bob and Julie Follies.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    incoherent rambler: #26

    I am not old enough to have experienced WW2 propaganda. But surely it could not be much worse than the news …

    Well, I am not old enough either.

    I have however, studied the tools and techniques used to deliver propaganda during both World Wars, and I have to say that the current propaganda is extremely amateurish in comparison, for which we should all be extremely grateful.

    During the World Wars, the Media consisted of radio, newsprint, and posters, all of which was controlled by a Ministry of Information, with a central core of writers and designers, all delivering a consistent message.

    Today, with the Government ownership of major broadcasting channels, and a large chunk of the MSM being owned by just a few “Media Moguls”, the Government can still retain a fair degree of influence over the general message. However, they cannot control the the consistency with which that message should be delivered.

    For example, the core message was/is about Anthropogenic Global Warming. But that that implies a gradual change – far too slow for the impatient young. So some bright spark put the word “Catastrophic” in front of it to “harden” the message (their term, not mine). So then people expected it to happen in a few weeks, and then felt let down when nothing unusual occurred.

    But wait! Something unusual did occur … we had blizzards in the autumn in northern Europe and North America.

    Unfortunately that was not what the alarmists wanted, because it was not about warming at all. Hmm, bad karma.

    Now at this juncture a professional propagandist would have made the point that nobody had said that the warming would be relentless, and it was only reasonable to expect some fluctuations in temperature, so there was really nothing to see here, so move along folks.

    But the amateurs, not really understanding how the game is played, tried to change the rules on the fly, and started calling it Anthropogenic Climate Change, which would also include cooling as well as warming (and presumably rains of toads, and manna falling from heaven, et cetera). This does nothing but create cognitive dissonance – the “you what?” factor.

    Suddenly, the “average person in the high street” started to question the orthodoxy, and started to find out a little more for themselves, and so they started to find the contrarian writers in “thinking” magazines, and from there they found their way to the blogs (both for and against), where they came up against more amateur propagandists; but curiously only in those blogs that were still pushing the orthodoxy.[1] Those fighting the orthodoxy had rational argument (in the main), and humour (What? These people are having fun?).

    And so, slowly people have started to see through the inconsistencies in the propaganda message. And this has occurred precisely because the delivery methods could not be centrally controlled.

    Disaster films that depict people being freeze dried in a hurricane, or a tidal wave washing over the Himalayas, don’t actually add to the credibility, either.

    The great risk now, is that the internet, which supports the blogs and other spontaneous information exchange mechanisms, will slowly become centrally controlled as well. We are starting to see this happening in China, North Africa, and Iran. I am sure that the UN are also exploring ways in which the social side of the internet can be controlled without disrupting the commercial aspects of the medium.

    The internet is just too democratic to be allowed to survive in its current form.

    [1] As an postscript, I think we sceptics owe a great debt to the RealClimate site. Gavin and the team did much more for our cause than they did for their own. I could not have devised a better Agent Provocateur site, if I had tried.

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    The Loaded Dog

    Don’t you think conservatives do so much better for society in opposition ?

    Just like they do WAY better in Government.

    (until of course they get arrogant and ignore the will of the people)

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    joe v,
    Alan B. Shepard, Jr., astronaut on Freedom 7 and Apollo 14, once said: “It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.” According to Gene Kranz in his book, Failure Is Not an Option:

    When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he had replied, “The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.”

    Shepard was paraphrased in the film Armageddon; Rockhound (Steve Buscemi) says: “You know we’re sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon, and a thing that has two hundred thousand moving parts built by the lowest bidder.”

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    Neville: #30

    We only emit 1.3% of global emissions so we can assert conclusively with 100% accuracy that our effort will not make a bee’s dick bit of difference to CAGW.

    It has nothing to do with emissions of anything. It actually has nothing to do with Australia, per se.

    It is everything to do with Combet, as Australia’s representative at Cancun, putting his hand up to provide slush money to the UN, so that they can then redistribute it (less expenses) in the form of largesse to the poorer nations of the world, in order to buy their votes in the General Assembly (or to prevent individual countries buying their votes, which is probably more to the point).

    Australia has promised this money to the UN. And you only need to look to where Prime Ministers aspire to go, as the next step in their career path, to see why this tax must go through.

    You might think that this is all about graft, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    wes george: #41

    Ooo, powerful stuff: “Seize the moment”.

    Carpe Diem, if you want it in Latin. Carpe Jugulum if you are a vampire.

    But of course, you are totally right in your advice, I just could not let your final epithet pass. 🙂

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    wes george # 48

    I went to a mass rally of Conservatives once …

    But it got a bit cold, so the other two people went home.

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    Roy Hogue

    Joe V. @51,

    Alan B. Shepard, Jr., astronaut on Freedom 7 and Apollo 14, once said: “It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”

    That really comes home when you consider that NASA lost two space shuttles in flight and killed three Apollo Astronauts in a dry run sitting on the launce pad. It would seem they were not only supplied by the lowest bidder but managed by them as well. Apollo 13 was also nearly deadly.

    All three of those events (excluding Apollo 13) were foreseeable and one of them should have resulted in criminal negligence charges against whoever failed to act on the problem with the solid fuel rocket engine O-rings in the freezing temperature and prevent the launch. But no, like the amazing disintegrating fuel tank insulation that took down the second shuttle, it’ll probably be all right. “What, me worry?” — Alfred E. Newman

    Remind anyone of carbon taxes, spending more money than you have, and other current problems?

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    Roy Hogue

    Oops, Deadman at 51.

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  • #

    @41, thanks for the heads up on not being able to access FAQS unless you sign up. Not a good look in my opinion. The site is the work of Cory Bernardi and if I’m not mistaken the Blog host is also a member.

    As for Great Southern Cross…well that has absolutely nothing to do with CanDO but I will unveil one fiscal policy. Due to the debt this government has racked up we will have to sell an asset to pay down this debt as the interest bill (over $10B a year) will kill the future budgets.

    I propose to invite all the AGW believers to Bob’s birthday party in Tasmania and sell the lot to China. China will need the labour to construct the Franklin Dam. Now, that’s what I call “poetic justice”. Just joking, or am I?

    Oh, my name is scaper…by the way. Funny that as it is one of my business names and so many get it wrong.

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    Percival Snodgrass

    “janama” (11),
    What else would you expect from the Hippies and Dope Heads of bryon bay?

    Certainly not any common sense or intelligence!!

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    Here watch an AGW wannabe alarmist pinko hippie getting ripped by a sceptic

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9ajk7iYMv0&feature=player_detailpage

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    Bulldust

    I love that one Baa Humbug… throughout his body language was “get me away from her! She’s tearing me to shreds!” Hilarious.

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    pat

    5 March: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Transport Secretary Philip Hammond reveals his ignorance of wind power
    Philip Hammond’s claim that onshore wind power ‘pays its way’ is completely off-beam, says Christopher Booker
    Talking on the BBC last week about wind turbines, which are at the centre of our Government’s energy policy, the Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, said “onshore wind doesn’t need subsidy any more, onshore wind can pay its way”. This was so laughably untrue that one has to wonder whether Mr Hammond was being deliberately untruthful or whether, which is almost worse, he is so ignorant that he actually believed what he said….
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8363643/Transport-Secretary-Philip-Hammond-reveals-his-ignorance-of-wind-power.html

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    wes george

    Rereke @ 49

    “The great risk now, is that the internet, which supports the blogs and other spontaneous information exchange mechanisms, will slowly become centrally controlled as well. We are starting to see this happening in China, North Africa, and Iran. I am sure that the UN are also exploring ways in which the social side of the internet can be controlled without disrupting the commercial aspects of the medium.

    The internet is just too democratic to be allowed to survive in its current form.”

    I totally agree the freedom of information access the Internet provides is the only reason why we are not already living in a Green/Laborite collectivist paradise today with $150/ton carbon tax and negative economic growth, “the recession we have to have” in order to “save the planet.” Our government owned media, the ABC along with various corporate monopolies would have never allowed Climategate to see the light of day, nor a thousand other data points which refute the CAGW myth. But 10-10-10 style eco-snuff fantasies would be all the rave…

    For now the Green/Labor coalition and our media elites haven’t fully assimilated the fact that their power to control public opinion via the MSM media is rapidly imploding. When they finally wake up and smell the coffee, they’ll be in the wilderness of opposition. But they’ll be back as what goes around comes ’round again.

    So it’s in that next political cycle of Green/Labor government, maybe in 2016-18 that we can expect calls to regulate blogging by government taxation and certification. Much like customs and airport security, why not regulate admission to Australian cyberspace in the same way? You know, for public safety reasons…

    This will be preceded (as brc notes) by a dishonest smear campaign against “dangerously uncivil speech.” Tony Windsor showed us how it works. Play back the foul-mouthed rant that some unidentified bogan leaves on your cell phone (what? Can’t fire up a real bogan? Then hire a Moby!) Then orchestrate a media circus about dangerous, deranged conservative rhetoric and how some one might get hurt if we can’t all just submit quietly (STFU) to whatever a government with no mandate wants to do to us.

    We might expect the imposition of political rating scale too, much like the entertainment rating code, where certain ideas are blocked for viewing by minors. There could be a tax imposed upon points of access to the Internet. A modem tax. ISP regulation will become so burdensome as to limit the number of portals to only the well connected. Meanwhile, free Internet access will be given to the “disadvantaged” but this access will only go to a government sanctioned “Intranet.” And, of course, every byte of information will have to pass through the government owned National Broadband Network where smart filters with Turning-like powers to discern content will make surveillance and thus regulation of online traffic possible in the near future.

    Welcome the Green/Laborite Brave New World.

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    Kevin Moore

    Re:Elsie@47

    Re the Suns varying brightness and its possible effect on climate, I am wondering if as the Moon has a reflectivity of around 7%, equivalent to a bitumen road, could it be possible that it operates as some form of heat sink? The Earths average reflectivity I read is around 31%.

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    janama

    Percival Snodgrass: @ 58

    Mungo MacCallum is hardly a dope smoking hippie – he was a member of the Canberra press Gallery for years and retired to the North Coast (Ocean Shores) in the early 90s.

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    A C of Adelaide

    I was just thinking over Julia’s options and clearly the option suggested by Jonova is one course of action which could defuse the situation and is perhaps the most sensible.
    I’m thinking that business may not roll over for her, and even the unions are starting to see trouble ahead with jobs going off shore.
    The expected NSW election results wont help. I can just hear Keneley now on Saturday night blaming fed labor for her result.

    So here is another option she could explore.
    Bring in a carbon tax but link it to a program of nuclear power generators as part of a CO2 reduction mechanism.
    This would sure wedge the oposition on the tax and would leave the Greens declaring they want to cut CO2 but saying no to nuclear and thereby they would be left on their own to defend the indefensible of wind and solar. ( Labor would just have to run that item from the telegraph on how the English can no longer expect 24 hour power )
    It would sure take balls or perhaps desperation.
    Any thoughts?

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    incoherent rambler

    Another 10 years or more before labour backs nuclear.

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    John Brookes

    Hey janama, I like Mungo MacCallum, and I think “dope smoking hippy” is not too far off the mark. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…..

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    Binny

    wes george @62
    Labour/The Greens are unlikely to regain power for another generation.
    Which is unfortunate because part of the reason they are so bad at government is simply lack of practice.

    The Australian political cycle, operates something like this:
    The coalition government presides over a long period of economic prosperity.
    A generation of young voters grows up during this period of economic prosperity, knowing nothing but the coalition government. They want change (as young people always do) so they vote in a Labour government. Labour government crashes the economy. Slightly older and a lot wiser people vow never to vote labour again.
    Coalition government repairs the economy and presides over a long period of economic prosperity. A generation of young voters grows up during this period of economic prosperity, knowing nothing but the coalition government. They want change (as young people always do) so they vote in a Labour government. Labour government crashes the economy. Slightly older and a lot wiser people vow never to vote labour again.

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    mullumhillbilly

    dalec@40

    ….Australia to remove 1ppm CO2 from the atmosphere… what would it cost?

    An interesting question indeed, and a very transparent way to deal with the practicality of those who advocate things like a 350ppm target.

    Here’s a flip side to your proposition. Suppose Australia adds, rather than sequesters, 1ppm of CO2 over say the next 50 years. Is anyone going to argue that we are being globally irresponsible if we do that much or less? Let’s follow the numbers.

    1.At current 390 ppm, the global atmospheric mass of CO2 is about 3.16*10^15 kg, or 3000 gigatonnes (wikiP).
    2. To add 1ppm, we’d therefore need to emit 30,000 Mt CO2.
    3. Australia’s current annual C emissions (wikiP, fossil fuels and cement only, and excl land use) are ~380Mt yr.

    Therefore, it will take 80 years at the current rates of emission for Australians to add 1pmm CO2 to the atmosphere. But of course, not all emissions stay in the atmosphere; biosequestration and ocean absorbtion will offset some of it. On the other hand a BAU scenario would show substantially increasing emissions over time. Let us suppose then, that the net effect of growing annual emissions minus natural offsets is such that we’ll add 1 ppm in the next 50 years instead of 80.

    So the noble aim of a Carbon price (ETS, tax whatever), is to reduce our emissions growth by what… 10%? 20% ? 50%.?

    Suppose Chairman Bob and Jemima Waddle-Duck squeeze us so hard with the Green Glory tax that we put out 50% less emissions growth than BAU, every year for the next 50 years. So, 0.5ppm less in the future.?? (heroically assuming that none of the “saved” emissions are simply transferred offshore of course).

    Any warmists out there who can count on their fingers, please explain why you think this would be worth doing? (and no re-hash of JB’s silly littering analogy from other threads please).

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    Percival Snodgrass

    “Mungo MacCallum”, a former member of the canberra press gallery……
    Say No More!!!
    Clearly another deluded Leftist Traitor!!

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Re Binny #68

    To quote former president Harry S Truman “The only thing you don’t know about people is the history that you haven’t read”

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    wes george

    Binny @68

    The Australian political cycle, operates something like this:

    The coalition government presides over a long period of economic prosperity.

    A generation of young voters grows up during this period of economic prosperity, knowing nothing but the coalition government. They want change (as young people always do) so they vote in a Labour government. Labour government crashes the economy. Slightly older and a lot wiser people vow never to vote labour again.

    Coalition government repairs the economy and presides over a long period of economic prosperity. A generation of young voters grows up during this period of economic prosperity, knowing nothing but the coalition government. They want change (as young people always do) so they vote in a Labour government. Labour government crashes the economy. Slightly older and a lot wiser people vow never to vote labour again….

    Excellent summary of the cycle, Binny!

    I only have one minor point to add. Just as the Green/Labor coalition has captured the language around the CAGW debate. You know, “carbon pollution”. “deniers’ and “climate change”, may I suggest that now is the time to realize that the proper name for insufferably up-themselves government we currently enjoy is most properly called a Green/Labor Coalition.

    Repeat it every where you go….

    Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition.
    Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition.Green/Labor Coalition.
    Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition. Green/Labor Coalition.
    Green/Labor Coalition.Green/Labor Coalition.
    Green/Labor Coalition.

    Green/Labor Coalition.

    The bloody Green/labor Coalition!

    Bob’s your uncle!

    🙁

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    Keith H

    Bob Malloy @ 13.

    The silence of Union members, particularly in the Coal Industry, whilst the former Union hacks they put into Parliament lead the charge to destroy their jobs, has puzzled me.

    My theory is that the large Super Fund monies the ACTU and various Unions control must be heavily invested in alternative energy Companies. I think the fact the BBC has most of their members Pension Fund similarly invested is one of the main reasons they are so biased and pro-AGW.

    Any thoughts?

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    Keith H

    Incoherent Rambler @ 26

    You make some very good points. The great difficulty in getting a civilised discussion going is that so many people in so many fields have locked themselves inro a position from which they cannot withdraw without severe loss of face. Oddly, I think Nature itself is going to provide the biggest hurdle for the AGW lobby because mean average temperatures are falling all over the world and the Sun looks like having one of it’s regular “sleeps”. There is every indication from history and the observations of real scientists who just don’t rely solely on computer models,
    that the world is on track for 10-20 years cooling at least. I know the UNIPCC scientists are already positioning themselves and pushing the line that “AGW is responsible for everything” hot, cold and in-betweeen but I think only the most gullible will swallow that for long!

    Re WW II. I am old enough to remember the propaganda in those days and some was excusable as on the Allies side, it was used in order to keep up the morale of the civilian population; e.g., minimising reports of casualties, losses of military hardware and battle defeats in the early days of the war and over-inflating enemy losses of men and equipment etc. No doubt all the warring countries did the same and for the same reasons.

    However, Hitler’s Dr.Goebbels took it to a whole new level and effectively “brainwashed” most of the population by strict control of all forms of media and actively producing propaganda films and downright brutality.

    Like most authoritarian regimes they placed great emphasis on indoctrinating children as did Stalin with Communuism, to the extent that many children denounced their own families for various anti-government “crimes” or utterances. The formation of the “Hitler Youth” movement became a very
    powerful and effective early recruiting tool.

    The AGW lobby has done it’s homework very well, because it has obviously expanded and improved Dr.Goebbels methods to have brainwashed so many people world-wide. I do stress I’m only comparing the brainwashing methods and in no way suggesting AGW proponents share any other affinity with those terrible men of history, but in my memory I have never seen such media bias nor so many closed minds on any matter before nor so many professionals so willing to shred their integrity and professionalism.

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    Tim

    The new ad and PR campaign catchline would go something like this:

    ‘NASA- We put the politics into science – for you!’

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  • #
    incoherent rambler

    Keith H #74,75

    The great difficulty in getting a civilised discussion going is that so many people in so many fields have locked themselves inro a position from which they cannot withdraw without severe loss of face.

    One of the things that has advanced western science is the ability (and necessity) of scientists to be able to say “oops, I was wrong, I was mistaken…”, if not publicly, at least to themselves. In the recent past loss of face was less important (I guess) than working with something meaningful. One acknowledges the mistake and moves on.

    “there shall be no debate” is not science (medicine maybe).

    The “loss of face” issue has inhibited more than one culture in the pure sciences. The intransigent positions (“I could not possibly be wrong”) adopted by those pushing the CAGW barrow is unlike any of the scientists and mathematicians that I have ever worked with. Indeed, certainty of CAGW as publicized was my first warning sign that something was wrong with the science.

    If (for example) Nature was to provide an editorial that admitted they have made some mistakes and were enacting measures to avoid a repeat performance, their subscriptions would, I suspect, improve. But, the point you make in #74 is valid. For the individuals involved, self interest is a great motivator.

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    brc

    Heard Wayne Swan (acting PM – save us!) on the radio today. He said ‘a carbon tax is not really like a tax because it doesn’t come out of your paypacket’. I might have got the words slightly wrong because I nearly crashed the car in astonishment. Here is the man that screwed the pooch on the mining tax sales job and he’s at it again. With someone like this in charge of selling the tax while Julia is away, her problem of how to shelve the tax will probably be solved for by tongue-tied Swanny.

    Taxes only come from income, eh Wayne? Funny, I don’t remember it being called the ‘goods and services price’. I’ll remember that next time I buy a birthday cake, fill up my car, buy some beer, sell an investment, hire some staff or buy a house. All that time I thought that any money paid to the government was a tax, and blow me down it’s all just pricing. Like petrol pricing, beer pricing, staff pricing, house purchase pricing and return on investment pricing. I can’t wait to fill in my next price return to the Australian Pricing Office.

    Heaven help us if we actually need a PM while Julia is shivering on the White Office steps waiting for someone to recognise her as a leader of a country and not the woman who does the flowers.

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  • #
    Joe V.

    Binny:
    March 6th, 2011 at 4:14 pm says it so well:-

    The Australian political cycle, operates something like this:
    The coalition government presides over a long period of economic prosperity.
    A generation of young voters grows up during this period of economic prosperity, knowing nothing but the coalition government. They want change (as young people always do) so they vote in a Labour government. Labour government crashes the economy. Slightly older and a lot wiser people vow never to vote labour again…. etc.

    The Economic bi-cycle.

    Indeed,…what could be more economic than a bi-cycle.

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  • #
    MartinGAtkins

    A little ditty for Judas Gillard

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU33yoC114E

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  • #
    Bob Malloy

    Keith H:
    March 6th, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    The silence of Union members, particularly in the Coal Industry, whilst the former Union hacks they put into Parliament lead the charge to destroy their jobs, has puzzled me.

    My theory is that the large Super Fund monies the ACTU and various Unions control must be heavily invested in alternative energy Companies.

    Any thoughts?

    As a unionist, and being brought up to believe in Labor and the reforms they brought to the work place in the past, I no longer see a future for the party, as it stands now. It has no right to use the labor name any more, they are nothing more than a gang of egotistical thugs where grass root members no longer have a say in policy.

    As for the way unions are either saying nothing, or like the ACTU actively promoting the cause, I have no idea Keith.

    I can only speak for the union I am in, and to the best of my knowledge they have never listed any green energy sources in their portfolio, I’ll have to recheck my annual statements.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    incoherent rambler: #77

    … “oops, I was wrong, I was mistaken…”

    I was taught that the three most important words in science are: “… that is strange …”

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    Mark

    Just heard the 12 noon news.

    It seems Tony Abbott is having “two bob each way”. He believes in climate change (as do we all) but fails to state exactly what he means and then goes on to support mitigation efforts.

    This sort of agnosticism just doesn’t inspire confidence that he can be counted on if it comes to a fight.

    Just what goes into the water of the world’s capital cities?

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    Mark

    Bob Malloy #82

    I once heard a Labor stalwart from long ago say:-
    “Labor party members used to come from the cream of the working class, now they come from the scum of the middle class”.

    Ouch!

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    Bob Malloy

    Mark:
    March 7th, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    I once heard a Labor stalwart from long ago say:-
    “Labor party members used to come from the cream of the working class, now they come from the scum of the middle class”.

    Ouch!

    Doesn’t hurt a bit.

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    Bob Malloy

    How depressing can the evening news get?

    News Item, greens set to reap record votes in NSW elections. Defecting Labor voters expected to give greens boost at the poles.

    When is the coalition going to directly target the greens hidden policies? Lets expose these wolves to the uninformed electorate, Time is running short people.

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    Mark

    I knew it wouldn’t hurt you, Bob!

    It was inevitable that many gen Yers and the younger gen Xers would move to the Greens. The only possible reaction to this is for the major parties to place them last on their tickets. It’s almost certain that the Coalition parties will do just that. If the Labor party doesn’t then they will get up with Green fleas.

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  • #
    Kevin Moore

    Just in addition to the questions I asked @ 63, If the moon has a reflectivity of 7%, a little above the absolute minimum practically achievable of about 5%, how come the moon landing pictures showed a light coloured soil with a high reflectivity?

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  • #
    MattB

    Kevin – surely you know the answer to that? No?

    Answer: The moon landings were faked.

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    BobC

    Kevin Moore:
    March 8th, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    Just in addition to the questions I asked @ 63, If the moon has a reflectivity of 7%, a little above the absolute minimum practically achievable of about 5%, how come the moon landing pictures showed a light coloured soil with a high reflectivity?

    The Moon’s average albedo is 12%, about that of weathered (not new) asphalt.

    The Moon soil looks light in the landing pictures for the same reason the Moon looks bright at night — it’s seen against a black background.

    Do this test: Using a manual exposure camera, determine the exposure proper for a used (not new) asphalt parking lot in bright sunlight. Take a picture of the Moon on a dark night using the same exposure. The surface of the Moon will be properly exposed.

    MattB:
    March 8th, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    The moon landings were faked.

    Now I see why you have trouble constructing a logical argument.

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    Col. of Blackburn

    @Binny
    I have read that statement before. However if one were a ‘Conspiracy Theorist’, one could have a field day with the idea that two satellites, which many believe will produce data which will put paid to the unscientific mumbo jumbo put out by ‘climate experts’ like Flannery, Garnaut et al, failed to launch!

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    Kevin Moore

    BobC@ 92

    Another question then:- Stars should have been visible in the black sky but none can be seen in photographs, and why did the astronauts say that they could not remember seeing any stars?

    The sources on the internet I looked up said that the moons reflectivity is around 7%. Could you cite your source please.

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    MattB

    “why did the astronauts say that they could not remember seeing any stars? ”

    Ans: They were in a large shed in the desert.

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    brc

    Not a bunch of moon-landing-is-faked-cranks. No reason will get through to these people. If you think global warming couldn’t be a conspiracy because of the number of people involved, you should realise that the same argument applies to moon landings. Thousands of people involved, not one opens their mouth, despite the untold fame and money available to someone with the evidence?

    Look outside if it is daylight while you are reading this. See any stars? (apart from the sun) No? Why then would you expect to be able to see stars during daytime on the moon. Astronauts were in constant daylight while on the moon. Hence no stars. It’s not the blue sky that hides the stars (after all, air is transparent), it’s that big yellow thing that obliterates all other tiny light sources. Trying to spot a star while the sun is out is like trying to see an LED next to a stadium light. Even your streetlights seriously detriment your ability to see stars, and a streetlights is a tiny fraction of the light output of the sun.

    That this stuff still gets debated worries me more than the co2 scare campaign. I can see how people can buy into the co2 scare campaign. I cannot see how people believe moon landing hoax stuff for 10 minutes.

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    July

    Couldn’t agree more brc. The “moon landing was faked” crowd are pretty typical of this blog so don’t stress too much. For these people Elvis still lives and ufo’s are a massive cover up by the US military. This pretty much sums up the level of debate here.

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    Percival Snodgrass

    Only CRETINS believe that the Moon Landings were faked!

    This is the menatlity of these Gaia Worshippers!

    Not the sharpest tools in the shed!

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    MattB

    Really Percy? I’ll be sure to let my mate Elvis know.

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    Kevin Moore

    Examples of the fact that stars are very visible from about 100 miles up :-

    “The Star Trek film crew at Paramount had an ex NASA Astrophysicist working with them as a consultant – and all the space backgrounds to star trek episodes are full of pin point stars.”

    “I will always remember Endeavour [CSM] hurtling through that strange night of space.Before us and above us stars spangled the sky with their distant icy fire [Apollo 15].” source National Geographic.

    Then again they allegedly went to the moon at a time of peak solar activity and also passed through the Van Allen radiation belts twice which fact would have killed them the first time through as the craft had no radiation shielding.

    Then again their Kodak film would have been fogged by X-ray radiation and rendered useless for taking photographs.

    Then again when standing in the Sun on the Moon the temperature can get as high as +82 degrees Celcius. And when in the shade the temperature can go down to minus 118 degrees Celcius. The Hasselblad camera with its Kodak film would again be useless.

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    brc

    “I will always remember Endeavour [CSM] hurtling through that strange night of space.Before us and above us stars spangled the sky with their distant icy fire [Apollo 15].” source National Geographic.

    Of course it is possible to see stars if you’re on the dark side of the earth, or the dark side of the moon for that matter. You’re not going to see any stars while the sun is in your field of vision, though. Take a look at pictures of the space station : http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/ – no stars in that either. Unless the space station is also just a model in a lab?

    I’m sure cameras and film can be made to live at such extremes. Considering all the other technical expertise that went into the project, making an environment-proof camera would seem like a pretty simple assignment that could be well-tested beforehand. It’s not like it was a last minute decision to throw a couple of disposable cameras on board on the way to the launch tower. The contract for the moon cameras was awarded 2 years before they took off. Plenty of time to solve technical issues – one of which was making sure the shutter mechanism worked in a vaccuum. Kodak developed special film for them. I suppose all the people who developed the special cameras and processed the film were also in on the hoax? Just what is it that keeps these people from speaking out? Is it a death threat? Does NASA have roving teams of hitmen snuffing out those who threaten to, or do speak out? Surely a few odd corpses would have turned up by now.

    You also maintain that there was no shielding on the craft, I’d like to see a reference on that. I’ve seen the remaining LIM at Kennedy space centre and it looks pretty well shielded to me. Gold foil if I remember correctly. Considering x-ray staff in a hospital stand behind a simple wall it can’t be that hard to shield x-rays. It’s also something they would have thought of.

    Gah, what am I doing, I’m arguing with an idiot. I’ll be dragged down and beaten with experience. Men landed and walked on the moon. Laser reflectors were left behind and can be detected. Get over it. One day people will go back and return some of the equipment left behind. But even then I doubt you lot will believe that. It’s no wonder the CAGW theory holds such sway when people are prepared to ignore evidence in order to hold a theory in their head.

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    Kevin Moore

    On the Lunar Module Armstrong was standing above a rocket engine producing 10,000 pounds of thrust And in the radio communication we heard nothing, and what about the total lack of shake or stress in his voice? The heat and vibration transmitted to the entire frame of the craft would have been an utterly bone rattling, nerve shattering experience.

    By what circumstance is it possible to hover and then land on rock with an engine burning at 1,788 degrees celcius [ when throttling back to 65%] and neither affect the rock nor melt the dust directly under the engine,let alone not dig a hole. And wouldn’t that also have melted the gold Mylar on the legs and deposited dirt on the LM’s footpads? Rock melts at approxiamately 1,000 degrees Celcius.

    During the take-off from the lunar surface why were no exhaust gases and smoke from the hypergolic fueled ascent engine visible? Where there is fire there is smoke.

    [I’m rather certain there are other blog sites that address this subject. Any further comments about faked lunar landings will be removed. Persistent posters on this topic will be moderated] ED

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  • #
    lmwd

    Bob Malloy @ 87

    Surely not! The Liberals are expected to win, but I was kind of hoping for a Greens thumping to send them a message. What was the news story basing this on? Polling?

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    brc

    On the Lunar Module Armstrong was standing above a rocket engine producing 10,000 pounds of thrust And in the radio communication we heard nothing, and what about the total lack of shake or stress in his voice?

    Honestly, we must be nearing the bottom of the argument barrel now. I can hear the scraping sounds.

    The SR71 has a total of 65,000 pounds of thrust in what are essentially quasi rocket motors – also operating in an atmosphere which I’m sure you’ll agree is much better at transmitting sound waves than a vacuum. Pilots were not only able to talk on their microphones, the unwritten bragging rule was who could maintain the most nonchalant tone with the SR71 at max throttle. Neil Armstrong and the others were all the product of the test pilots scheme. Maintaining cool under pressure was their stock in trade. These people were tireless professionals who dedicated a decade of their life to the one project. I don’t think some screaming hissy fit would have been expected, even if he had run out of fuel and plunged to his death on the lunar surface. You should show these guys some respect.

    Mods : sorry, just saw your message. I don’t mind if you kill this one. [nope] ED

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    BobC

    July:
    March 8th, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    Couldn’t agree more brc. The “moon landing was faked” crowd are pretty typical of this blog so don’t stress too much. For these people Elvis still lives and ufo’s are a massive cover up by the US military. This pretty much sums up the level of debate here.

    First time I’ve ever seen “Mooners” here, but snarky, unsubstantiated comments like yours are a dime-a-dozen from the warmists.

    Perhaps you’re having trouble following the more technical arguments?

    [Exactly! can we invite them to find any other “typical” comments in any other JN thread to substantiate their claim? Thanks BobC.] ED

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    Percival Snodgrass

    Here is the profile for this Communist Traitor “Simon Sheikh”, the national director of this alp (australian LIERS party) funded “getup”….

    http://www.linkedin.com/pub/simon-sheikh/5/363/a51

    Look at his background.
    • Analyst at NSW Treasury
    • National Vice President at United Nations Youth Assoc

    A real scumbag!!

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    BobC

    Kevin Moore:
    March 8th, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    BobC@ 92

    The sources on the internet I looked up said that the moons reflectivity is around 7%. Could you cite your source please.

    Good grief, Kevin! I LINKED my sources — don’t you know how a mouse works?

    Another question then:- Stars should have been visible in the black sky but none can be seen in photographs, and why did the astronauts say that they could not remember seeing any stars?

    Perform the same experiment I suggested at #92: A camera set for the proper exposure of a parking lot in bright sunlight (or the Moon — same exposure) WILL NOT record images of stars, no matter how clear the night or bright the stars seem. As an optical engineer, I could explain this phenomena to you, but it would probably be a waste of time — just do the experiment.

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    BobC

    Kevin: Here and here are a couple of websites that may bring you to your senses.

    Sorry, ED — I’m done with this topic. [OK!] ED

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    BobC

    OK, one more shot: [you promised] ED

    Kevin: [snip I promised too]

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    Vince Whirlwind

    Excellent, NASA satellites provide a better understanding of the world around us:

    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-070&cid=release_2011-070

    The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerating pace, according to a new NASA-funded satellite study. The findings of the study — the longest to date of changes in polar ice sheet mass — suggest these ice sheets are overtaking ice loss from Earth’s mountain glaciers and ice caps to become the dominant contributor to global sea level rise, much sooner than model forecasts have predicted.

    The nearly 20-year study reveals that in 2006, a year in which comparable results for mass loss in mountain glaciers and ice caps are available from a separate study conducted using other methods, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes a year on average. That’s enough to raise global sea level by an average of 1.3 millimeters (.05 inches) a year.

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    Mark D.

    Vince from your excerpt Paragraph three:

    “The pace at which the polar ice sheets are losing mass was found to be accelerating rapidly”

    Really? Accelerating? Rapidly? please clarify. Oh I know those aren’t exactly your words but you quoted them so please elaborate.

    By the way, please also explain how sea level rise as “found” by warmists is slower than predicted for the supposed ocean “stored heat” BEFORE this “recent discovery of enough polar ice melt” causes another 1.3 mm of non-existent sea level rise?

    Damn you are stupid………

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    Vince Whirlwind

    What are you saying, Mark?

    NASA are faking it again, is that it?

    Did you read the article?

    “Accelerating” means a comparing two similar rate measurements over time.

    Your second quesiton is quite simple: satellite measurements tell us what the sea level rise actually is. We know the rise is caused by multiple factors, so increasing the precision of the measurement of one of those factors allows us to increase by inference the precision of the remaining estimated factors.

    I’m not entirely sure why you’ve decide that *I*’m stupid. I can assure you that I am not.

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    Brian G Valentine

    Hey Vince baby how come the NASA study doesn’t mention the 2% increase in ice over the eastern Antarctic continent?

    Near as I can figure, Antarctica has seen about a 1% loss in the West, 2% growth on the East

    The glaciers build up, the ice sheets slide off, just like they do on the roof of your house when the snow gets too heavy on top

    That NASA funded study is CRUD, Vince, and it is paid applause for NASA so they don’t sound stupid.

    cf – Colonel Gaddhafi paying people to carry his picture around on a placard (and shoot people who “complain” about him)

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    Mark D.

    Vince can you recognize propaganda?

    “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.”It is the careful use of manipulative words.”

    Give me a non AGW daily example of “accelerating rapidly” any subject at all in daily life. I’ll wait for your answer.

    While you are at it, take a look at this:

    Abstract:
    A number of published papers and openly available data on sea level changes, glacier retreat, freezing/break-up dates of rivers, sea ice retreat, tree-ring observations, ice cores and changes of the cosmic-ray intensity, from the year 1000 to the present, are studied to examine how the Earth has recovered from the Little Ice Age (LIA). We learn that the recovery from the LIA has proceeded continuously, roughly in a linear manner, from 1800-1850 to the present. The rate of the recovery in terms of temperature is about 0.5°C/100 years and thus it has important implications for understanding the present global warming. It is suggested on the basis of a much longer period covering that the Earth is still in the process of recovery from the LIA; there is no sign to indicate the end of the recovery before 1900. Cosmic-ray intensity data show that solar activity was related to both the LIA and its recovery. The multi-decadal oscillation of a period of 50 to 60 years was superposed on the linear change; it peaked in 1940 and 2000, causing the halting of warming temporarily after 2000. These changes are natural changes, and in order to determine the contribution of the manmade greenhouse effect, there is an urgent need to identify them correctly and accurately and remove them

    http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=3217&JournalID=69

    This link goes to the PDF (1.5Mb) http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?FileName=NS20101100012_47058306.pdf&paperID=3217

    Recently published (CHECK)
    Reputable author (CHECK)
    Reputable publisher (CHECK)
    Peer reviewed (CHECK)
    Natural, non-anthropogenic, non-scary explanations (CHECK)
    No denial (CHECK)
    .

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    Vince Whirlwind

    Mark,

    can you recognize propaganda?

    Yes, *I* can.

    The first example of “accelerating rapidly” that springs to mind would be the velocity of an object under the influence of gravity. How is your question relevant?

    As to your reference to a Akasofu’s paper – what point is it that you are trying to make? Or, to put it differently, what do you think the paper is saying?

    The question is – in what way do you think Akasofu’s inexpert take on climate change trumps the considered opinions of the world’s experts in the field, and why?
    Have you read any expert reviews of Akasofu’s paper which list the many errors and contradictions in it?

    To bring this full circle: were you aware that Akasofu admits freely that he is no expert on climate? Were you aware he allows himself to be listed by the Heartland Institute as a “Climate Expert”?

    So, Mark, can *you* recognise propaganda?

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    Mark D.

    Nice prompt reply Vince. More argument from authority. I didn’t say it trumps. But why is it propaganda? Do you know which oil company funded the report?

    “Accelerating Rapidly” would that be linear or logarithmic or something else?

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    Vince Whirlwind

    You didn’t say it “trumps” anything, no, but in *your* argument from authority, you used one inferior authority and ignored the many superior authorities that contradict it. This means you are using incomplete information to conduct a poor analysis to arrive at your deeply flawed conclusion.

    “Accelerating Rapidly”, in this context, would describe the numbers, as published in the study.

    You *have* read the study you’re commenting on, right?

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    Mark D.

    The answer Vince as hard as it may be for you grasp is that you don’t know propaganda. A rapid acceleration would be easy to spot. There is no logarithmic rise in sea level. No logarithmic rise in co2. no logarithmic rise in temperature. You try to slip your way out of answering my question by dumping it back on the authors from NASA and yes NASA has a political agenda.

    Sorry you are not going to persuade me to change my mind, not even in my comment at 111.

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    David

    Vince at 112

    “Accelerating” means a comparing two similar rate measurements over time.” means a race – you are mixed up – check WIKIPEDIA for “Acceleration”!

    Keep it it Mark D!

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    BobC

    I’m, curious Vince: Just what are we supposed to conclude about the 20 year measurements of mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica?

    Greenland, for example, is obviously much colder now than it was 1000 years ago (Gisp2 ice core + the fact that Viking farms are still appearing from under the ice), and hence presumably losing ice at a slower rate than then.

    In fact, the current temperature in Greenland is lower than it has been over most of the last 10,000 years. Note that the peak temperature in Greenland occurred about 8,000 years ago.

    We don’t have (as far as I know) a good proxy for melt rate data, but it seems a reasonable assumption that it would roughly follow the temperature. What conclusions could be drawn from taking any randomly chosen 20 year period from this graph and extrapolating it linearly?

    The answer is: Not much. Even the (theoretical) calculation of contribution to sea level rise isn’t reflected in actual measurements of sea level rise (which appears to be de-accelerating), so one wonders if they are really measuring ice loss or something else.

    Regardless of what they are actually measuring, this data has absolutely nothing to do with the question of why climate changes, or what causes it. Warmists like yourself would like to simply assume that Humans are responsible for the last 50 years of climate change. First, you need to be able to explain the last 10,000 years (at least), since current climate change is nothing unusual in that period.

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    Mark D.

    David @ 119, Thanks.

    Here I thought it was just Vince and me in this empty hallway 🙂

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    Vince Whirlwind

    Mark, I suspected you had not read the article upon which you are commenting on it and now I have the proof.

    In the NASA report, the phrase “accelerating rapidly” did not refer to CO2, nor did it refer to sea level, not even temperature. And nor was the phrase “accelerating logarithmically” – that’s just your fairly blatant straw man.

    Is it too much to ask that you actually read the NASA report you are trying to criticise?

    As for Bob, if you intend to explore and develop the science being done by scientists such as the ones I have quoted, you can write up your opinions and have them checked by your fellow-experts. [snip]

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    Mark D.

    Vince, perhaps I went too fast for you. My first reaction was to the specific language seemingly always found in pro AGW reports. Specifically “accelerating rapidly”. “Accelerating rapidly” would not be a linear plot. I don’t need NASA to tell me this. (sure it may not be exactly logarithmic either). My argument is simply if the NASA report was accurate we should be able to detect it in sea level rise. If mass loss were “Accelerating Rapidly” it would also be easier to detect as time moves forward. This is not a “Sraw Man”.

    Next let me ask you:

    According to this NASA report Arctic Ice mass loss is “accelerating rapidly”.
    According to other Pro AGW reports for the last say 10 years suggest we are losing polar ice at “unprecedented rates”
    According to theory of AGW we have “hidden heat” in the deep oceans which will cause sea level rise.
    According to Pro AGW reports world wide glaciers are “in peril”

    Vince,
    where is all this “lost Ice” going?
    Where is all the sea level rise that would HAVE to be happening and at “rapidly increasing rates”?

    is it here?: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.pdf

    All that scary ice melt and we don’t see the sea level rising outside of norms*. In fact as Bob mentioned above, it seems that sea level rise is decelerating.
    *{you are aware that sea levels have been rising for a very long time?}

    So the score:
    These reports are constantly using language designed to frighten i.e. PROPAGANDA
    Virtually NONE of the predictions (dire or otherwise) made by AGW “scientists” have come to fruition.
    Not the global surface temps,
    not the global sea level rise,
    not the increased weather extremes,
    not the world food production problems.

    What IS happening is detailed observation with incorrect assumptions of many complex interrelated systems and their NORMAL VARIATIONS.

    Look for the words; “Unprecedented”, any deviation that is “Rapid”, “well understood”, etc.
    Ask yourself why are they compelled to use such language?
    Why are you compelled to repeat them without challenging yourself to be more skeptical?

    Do you think I’m in denial?
    Have I mentioned Moon landings?

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    BobC

    Vince Whirlwind:
    April 5th, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    As for Bob, if you intend to explore and develop the science being done by scientists such as the ones I have quoted, you can write up your opinions and have them checked by your fellow-experts. [snip]

    Ah Vince, your ability to fail to understand simple argument is undiminished, I see:

    I made no attempt (or alluded to any desire) to “explore and develop the science” done by the NASA scientists. The idea that I want to do so is an idea born in your own confused mind. I made no comments whatsoever on their methodology (or its accuracy) of determining Greenland and Antarctic mass loss — that is, the actual science of the paper.

    I did point out several well-established facts, however, and also asked you a question which you have apparently missed (or don’t want to answer):

    1) The scientists’ assumed connection between Greenland and Antarctica mass loss and sea level rise is not borne out by the actual data (also, see here), which shows sea level rise decelerating (indeed, reversing) – negatively correlated with the mass loss acceleration. This does not disprove, but certainly calls into question, their assumption that mass loss = ice loss.

    2) I also pointed to the fact that Greenland’s current temperature (according to the NOAA GISP-2 Ice Core) is less than it was 1000 years ago — and indeed is lower than it has been for most of the last 10,000 years. Both the current Greenland temperature, and the rate of warming are completely unremarkable when compared to this history. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that the current rate of ice melt in Greenland (and its rate of change) is also completely unremarkable, compared to past periods in the NOAA record.

    The question I asked you (which you either didn’t understand, or ignored) is: How does this study have any relevance whatever to the validity of the AGW hypothesis?

    To be perfectly clear: How does a measurement of ice cap mass loss (which may, or may not be caused by ice loss), during a period when both the temperature and rate of change of temperature are well within normal bounds compared to the last 10,000 years have anything whatever to say about the hypothesis that Humans are responsible for the last 50 years climate change?

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    Vince Whirlwind

    Bob, I’m interested in your “well-established facts”.

    In 1) you claim there is an assumption. Where in the NASA report is this assumption stated?
    You also state that “sea level rise decelerating”. According to which authority is this a “well-established fact”?
    According to BoM, the sea level rise has accelerated from 1.2mm/yr to 3.2mm/yr, and as far as I know nobody in the profession disagrees with them.
    So, it’s a bit confusing that you are stating as “well-established fact” something which the actual experts do not agree with.

    2) You say “Greenland’s current temperature” and link to data which does *not* show Greenland’s current temperature. Conveniently absent from your linked graph is the last 100 years of steep warming.
    http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig2-20.htm
    It’s a bit difficult to claim something as a “well-established fact” when you appear to be providing non-factual information.

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    BobC

    Vince Whirlwind:
    April 6th, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    Bob, I’m interested in your “well-established facts”.

    In 1) you claim there is an assumption. Where in the NASA report is this assumption stated?

    The paper uses various techniques to measure “mass loss” — then concludes that the sea will rise based on all the mass loss being explained by ice melt. Do they explicitly state this? No. Is it obvious to anyone who can read for content? Yes.

    You also state that “sea level rise decelerating”. According to which authority is this a “well-established fact”?
    According to BoM, the sea level rise has accelerated from 1.2mm/yr to 3.2mm/yr, and as far as I know nobody in the profession disagrees with them.

    The sea level data I linked to (here and here) plainly disagrees. For an explanation of how BoM got their “accelerated” measurement by cherry-picking trend durations, see here.

    2) You say “Greenland’s current temperature” and link to data which does *not* show Greenland’s current temperature.

    Ice core data cannot be extracted until the snow cover turns to ice, trapping the entrained gasses. This happened in the GISP2 core at about 100 years of snow deposition. Inconveniently, there was not a weather station at that site for the previous 100 years. However, here are some 100+ year records from coastal Greenland stations which show that, while the temperature did increase sharply in the 20th century, it peaked in the 1930s and has almost returned to that level now.

    These local records are not friendly to the AGW hypothesis since, as the site notes:

    “Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for period of warming to arise.”

    Which supports my contention that the current conditions in Greenland are far from “unprecedented” as the AGW theorists claim.

    It’s a bit difficult to claim something as a “well-established fact” when you appear to be providing non-factual information.

    On the contrary, I linked physical data from organizations like NOAA. Are you implying that this is “non-factual”. You, on the other hand, are still linking to Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” graph, which has been shown to be bogus. (Here for example is a description of how Mann’s algorithm will produce a “Hockey Stick” graph from random “data”.)

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    Mark D.

    BobC, I think you are being most patient when Vince says

    According to which authority is this a “well-established fact”?

    even when you provide a direct link to University of Colorado at Boulder!

    Vince, I dare you to suggest that the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research is not worthy or is in some way not respected. My goodness is that what it has come to? “my Authority is better than your Authority”? Good science there Vince….but based on what I read here at Jo Nova I wouldn’t be putting my money on BOM.

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    Vince Whirlwind

    But Bob, the Colorado Uni link you give us says nothing of the sort, while your second link seems to point to some blog where an obviously faulty analysis of sea level data is apparent.
    Basically, the BoM disagrees with you. So does CSIRO. A well as every other equivalent body in the entire world.
    In other words, far from being a “well-established fact”, it is merely your opinion based apparently on an analysis failure.

    Your second “well-established fact” was based on a false assertion as to “current” Greenland temperatures. You were wrong. Current temperatures are very much higher than what you were claiming, and for this I rely on the experts such as the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment:
    http://amap.no/acia/
    – Page 8 shows the 100 years of warming that you for some reason left out. It shows that recent warming is far greater than that of the 1930s.

    Your obsession with the thoroughly vindicated “hockey-stick” is noted.
    Its latest vindication came from Richard Muller at the Berkely Earth Surface temperature project who said:
    “In our preliminary analysis of these stations, we found a warming trend that is shown in the figure. It is very similar to that reported by the prior groups: a rise of about 0.7 degrees C since 1957.”
    He also addressed Anthony Watts’ complaints:
    “we are consistently finding that there is no enhancement of global warming trends due to the inclusion of the poorly ranked US stations.”

    Bob, take a step back and have a think about why you think your opinion is so right, when it is contradicted by all the experts in the field. Have you considered the possibility that it is you, and not they, who is wrong?

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    BobC

    Vince;

    Your trust in whoever you decide (for whatever reason) is an “expert” is touching. I think perhaps you shouldn’t try buying a used car by yourself.

    How, for example, can the Hockey Stick of Mann be “thoroughly vindicated” by anyone, when it has been shown that Mann’s “analysis” algorithm will produce essentially the same graph when fed random numbers as “data”?

    If this does not indicate to you that the “Hockey-Stick” graph is meaningless as a description of the real world, then you have a problem with logic.

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    BobC

    Vince Whirlwind:
    April 7th, 2011 at 9:32 am

    Your second “well-established fact” was based on a false assertion as to “current” Greenland temperatures. You were wrong. Current temperatures are very much higher than what you were claiming, and for this I rely on the experts such as the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment:
    http://amap.no/acia/
    – Page 8 shows the 100 years of warming that you for some reason left out. It shows that recent warming is far greater than that of the 1930s.

    Well now; Page 8 (of the ACIA Graphics document, “Graphics set 1”, which you failed to note) shows “Annual average change in near-surface air temperature” for land stations between 60 and 90 deg N. It does not show Greenland temperatures as you claim.

    Nevertheless, the ACIA graph clearly shows that current temperatures have barely reached the values obtained in the 1930s and 1940s. This composite graph actually looks remarkably similar to the actual raw data from Greenland coastal weather stations that I linked to. (Here they are again, in case you missed them the first time.)

    None of these graphs (either the ACIA composite one or the actual Greenland data sets) show “100 years of warming”. They all show that Greenland (or the Arctic, for the ACIA graph) warmed up in the 1920s and 1930s; cooled down again in the 1960s and 1970s, then warmed up again to finally (now) reach the peak temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Note that the first warming (20s and 30s) was done without the benefit of high CO2 levels — demonstrating my point that current Greenland (and apparently whole Arctic) conditions are anything but “unprecedented”.

    How Vince can look at graphs that show exactly what I described, then claim they refute me is anybody’s guess. I encourage all to look at the graphs linked here and see for themselves.

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    BobC

    I would suggest checking everything Vince says before believing it — he apparently isn’t capable of looking at data objectively (or else he deliberately falsifies his reports).

    For example, I claimed that, contrary to Vince’s assertions, sea level rise is not “accelerating”, and gave some links. Vince claimed:

    But Bob, the Colorado Uni link you give us says nothing of the sort, while your second link seems to point to some blog where an obviously faulty analysis of sea level data is apparent.

    On the first page of the first link is a graphic that clearly shows that sea level rise is not accelerating — in fact, there are indications that, for the last 7 years, it has been decelerating.

    The second link is a plot of sea level data from the ARGOs floats from 2004 to 2010 which clearly shows that, during that time, sea levels were actually decreasing slightly.

    So, what is it Vince? Are you incapable of reading graphs and other data and drawing conclusions, or are you just lying?

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    Vince Whirlwind

    Bob, your analysis of the Colorado University’s data is not competent. The Colorado University does not agree with your analysis of their data. Your attempt to extrapolate from a very short sequence of data into a long-term trend is entirely fallacious. The various competent professional bodies do not agree with you and their analysis says the sea level rise is accelerating.
    If I can use a simple analogy for those you have successfully confused: you can’t point at the temperature change between 6pm and 9pm on a summer evening as proof that summer is ended. And yet this is precisely the trick you are using to falsely claim sea level rise is decelerating.

    On the Greenland temperatures, you clearly stated “current temperature” and pointed at data that was 100 years from being current.

    Both of these are examples of your inability to provide accurate and trustworthy information and should help people realise that the place to go to inform themselves on these issues is NASA, or BoM, or CSIRO, or every other international research organisation who, without exception, refute your assertions.

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    BobC

    Well Vince, if you want to claim that sea level rise has accelerated since the depths of the Little Ice Age (1750), you are probably right. Also, glaciers began to melt back starting in about 1850.

    The problem with this data is that it can’t be pinned on Human behavior, since most of the anthropogenic CO2 release has occurred since 1950.

    Your claim that sea level rise IS accelerating was not qualified by “on the average over the last 200 years” or something meaningless like that — no you just claimed it was accelerating. Both the data from U of Colo and the data from the Argos float system clearly show otherwise.

    I invite anyone to look at the linked data — who you gonna believe, Vince or your lying eyes?

    Oh, and the claim that “this is just a temporary cooling” is a prediction based on the AGW hypothesis. Currently, the AGW hypothesis has shown nopredictiveskill greater than random chance.

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    Roy Hogue

    Vince should be satisfied that his guru of all things global warming, Al Gore, has bought up lots of beachfront property lately.

    What, me worry?

    Unlike the old cigarette commercial, a few silly millimeters don’t cut it!

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    BobC

    For anyone tempted to consider Vince as a reliable judge of data, HERE is an updated version of the satellite sea level data that Univ of Colo uses. (There have been complaints that CU is not prompt in updating their data set — maybe now we know why.)

    Here is a graph of the raw, unsmoothed data, taken from NOAA’s NetCDF file linked on the previous link.

    Perhaps Vince meant that sea level rise accelerated during the recovery from the cooling period in the 1960’s and 1970’s. (You know, when all the “experts” were claiming that “global cooling” was going to cause an ice age, and industrial emissions were responsible. Apparently, industrial emissions can cause anything, just like AGW can explain anything 😉 .)

    At any rate, Vince’s claim that “sea level rise is accelerating” is obviously belied by this data, which clearly shows that sea level rise is slowing down, or even stopping — certainly not accelerating.

    Like I said: Who you gonna believe — Vince or your lying eyes?

    So, come on Vince — tell us that this data out of NOAA’s archives is “inaccurate and untrustworthy”.

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    Vince Whirlwind

    I see you [snip]

    [I see you roaming about thinking nobody is watching…………try posting on current threads or risk being banished] ED

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    BobC

    Vince, if you’re going to keep sneaking around old threads, why don’t you post a quote and link from the Univ of Colo sea level site that backs up your claims below. Show us where CU says that their sea level data “shows accelerating sea level rise”.

    Vince Whirlwind:
    April 14th, 2011 at 11:38 am

    Bob, your analysis of the Colorado University’s data is not competent. The Colorado University does not agree with your analysis of their data.

    Of course, if all you have is B.S., then the moderator will probably continue to block you.

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