Skeptical view makes Australian front page: climate madness, dishonesty, fraud, deception, lies and exploitation says Maurice Newman

The giant boondoggle is coming undone.

What makes this article remarkable is the strong language coming from a credible source on the front page of a major national daily. We have crossed another line in the decline and fall of the Great Global Warming Scare.  Maurice Newman is chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council , was Chairman of the ABC, and of the board of the Australian Stock Exchange. He was Chancellor of Macquarie University until 2008. The Op-Ed and news article today sums up the worst of the last five years of climate, and is the first time I can recall seeing a well respected commentator use such unequivocal and damning language and so prominently. There is no hedging here, no pandering. Newman obviously reads skeptical blogs and is very aware of what is going on. Ponder that he was Chairman of their ABC, and if someone of his sensible insight could not clean it up, we need far more drastic action (that’s another topic we will explore soon).

His opinion piece in the Australian (Crowds go cold on climate cost), is discussed on the front page as a news item titled “Climate policies helped kill manufacturing, says Maurice Newman”. A broader audience amongst the intellectual hierarchy of Australia now knows they can ramp up their dismissals. Skeptics have gained ground.

Maurice Newman Op-Ed:

IN his marvellous chronicle of human gullibility, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay wrote: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”

It’s a pity Mackay did not live long enough to include anthropogenic global warming in his list of popular delusions. There has been none bigger.

He talks about the diabolical state of Germany and the UK,

“Australia, too, has become hostage to climate change madness. It has been a major factor in the decimation of our manufacturing industry. The Australian dollar and industrial relations policies are blamed. But, for some manufacturers, the strong dollar has been a benefit, while high relative wages have long been a feature of the Australian industrial landscape. It is the unprecedented cost of energy, driven by the Renewable Energy Target and carbon tax, which, at the margin, has destroyed our competitiveness. And for all the propaganda about “green employment”, Australia seems to be living the European experience where, for every green job created, two to three jobs are lost in the real economy.

“The scientific delusion, the religion behind the climate crusade, is crumbling. Global temperatures have gone nowhere for 17 years. According to climatologist Roy Spencer’s research, “Over the period of satellite measurement, 1979-2012, both the surface and satellite observations produce linear temperature trends which are below 87 of the 90 climate models used in the comparison” – that is, 97 per cent were wrong.

“If the IPCC were your financial adviser, you would have sacked it long ago….

“…the climate change establishment, through the IPCC, remains intent on exploiting the masses and extracting more money….

On industrial wind plants, cosy relationships, and government subsidies, he asks the questions that should have been asked five years ago: Where is the outrage? Where is the media scrutiny?

“Why are taxpayers promoting for-profit enterprises?

“From the UN down, the climate change delusion is a gigantic money tree. It is a tyranny that, despite its pretensions, favours the rich and politically powerful at the expense of the poor and powerless. But the madness of the crowds is waning and, as Mackay writes of the perpetrators: “Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later.” We can only hope it comes before most of us descend into serfdom.

The news item on the front page refers to the Op-Ed and starts:

“THE unprecedented cost of energy driven by the renewable energy target and the carbon tax had destroyed the nation’s competitiveness, Tony Abbott’s chief business adviser has declared.

“Maurice Newman also says climate change policies driven by “scientific delusion” have been a major factor in the collapse of Australia’s manufacturing sector.

The news goes on to quote another industry head who agrees with Newman, and includes quotes from his op-ed like this:

“When necessary, the IPCC resorts to dishonesty and deceit,” he said.

Wind farms score savage attention — farms that are not even complete and approved recieved government subsidies:

“He said the issue involved “the pain and suffering of little people living in rural Australia, environmental damage, fraud on a grand scale, deception, lies and concealment“.

That a great way to end 2013. Happy New Year!

9.3 out of 10 based on 254 ratings

711 comments to Skeptical view makes Australian front page: climate madness, dishonesty, fraud, deception, lies and exploitation says Maurice Newman

  • #
    Dave

    .

    Great to see this on the front page Jo, and he gave it to the stupid windmills also.

    Just the title “exploition” should be “exploitation”.

    Happy New Year everyone.

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    • #
      Brian Hother

      the denier delusion continues. Maurice Newman has zero expertise and no credibility on this issue. His opinion has no effect on reality

      Temperatures are on course to rise at least 4 degrees by the end of the century, according to research that finds earlier climate models projecting smaller increases are likely to be wrong.

      The research, by a team led by the University of NSW, says a 4-degree rise in temperature would be potentially catastrophic for agriculture in warm regions of the world, including Australia.

      Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-planet-to-warm-by-4-degrees-by-2100-20131231-304nw.html#ixzz2p6Ch26Nq

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      • #
        Streetcred

        Nothing more than the fraudulent wail of an ‘academic’ funding prostitute … perpetuation of the religious belief in global warming despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

        904

        • #
          Brian Hother

          You quote “evidence”, but all I ever see is blog opinion.

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          • #
            Heywood

            Oh look. Another Michael the Tosser Activist. Awesome.

            From the guy who quotes the SMH as evidence. Real credible source there. Might as well have quoted The Guardian.

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              Just point me to where you have ever quoted anything but blogs

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              • #
                Heywood

                Because you have been posting here long enough to know me, why don’t you point out where I have quoted anything. Or are you making assumptions?

                Love the condescending activist tone too. Looking at the multitude of posts you have made here, you have no friends to spend new years day with. Shame really.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                have no friends to spend new years day with. Shame really.

                Bit like you then

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              • #
                Heywood

                Yeah, my five posts vs your fifty odd. What a life you lead.

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          • #
            Winston

            Brian,

            All models show greater warming (in the Nintendo universe) than current observations ( http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-global-LT-vs-UAH-and-RSS.png ). Now “studies show” a greater warming, even though observations suggest they overestimate warming- you cannot see the failure in logic, not to mention denial of reality, there?

            An analogy for you:

            I have just developed a new chemotherapy regime for Stage IV Breast Cancer. I conducted a randomised double blind prospective trial of 200 people, 100 receiving the new regime, and 100 receiving the standard regime currently in practical use. After 5 years, survival rates in new regime group are 25/100, the rate in the control group 35/100. Would it seem prudent or logical or scientific to suggest that I was now increasingly convinced by the result that the new regime was an improvement on the old one, and would it not be negligent and unethical of me to conduct further human trials on more unsuspecting victims patients to continue to evualate a treatment that was demonstrably less effective than the previous standard?

            The level of delusion among alarmists is reaching a tipping point, Brian. Doubling down on a losing hand is the height of stupidity. It cannot end well.

            826

            • #
              Winston

              evaluate*

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              Im affraid that the ” denial of reality” is yours, not mine.

              Global warming predictions prove accurate
              Analysis of climate change modelling for past 15 years reveal accurate forecasts of rising global temperatures

              The new research also found that, compared to the forecast, the early years of the new millennium were somewhat warmer than expected. More recently the temperature has matched the level forecasted very closely, but the relative slow-down in warming since the early years of the early 2000s has caused many commentators to assume that warming is now less severe than predicted. The paper shows this is not true.

              http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n4/full/ngeo1788.html
              http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/27/climate-change-model-global-warming

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              • #
                AndyG55

                No wonder you are WOEFULLY IGNORANT if you rely on Nature and the Guardian for your information .

                835

              • #
                Brian Hother

                Ah, more ad hominem because thats all you have. How about some of your so called science.

                673

              • #
                Winston

                None so blind.

                443

              • #
                Brian Hother

                None so blind.

                Yes the ad hominems continue, but I must be blind because I still cant see the scientific evidence that you posted in support of your opinion. Is it because you just make it all up?

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              • #
                Winston

                I know you are “affraid”, Brian. But, I’m sure with therapy we can work you through it.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Such effort to actually avoid posting anything credible. Must be a really headache for you.

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              • #
                bobl

                @Brian Hother

                You want hard science, how about a little high school math

                Those same scientists you reference in your appeals to Authority also say

                The Earth is 33 degrees warmer than it should be due to GHG (Greenhouse Gases), but we also know from Nasa that the CO2 spectrum is 85% Opaque meaning that 85% of the energy in the CO2 stopband is being converted to another form presumably heat ( The Greenhouse effect)…. Oooh scary dontcha know….. So let’s go on

                Let’s forget about other GHGs and the lapse rate for the moment and pretend all the 33 Degrees is caused by good-ole control knob CO2

                Then 33/85 = 0.39 degrees climate change for each percent energy extracted by CO2. But since 85% of the warming potential of CO2 is used up (it’s logaritmic you see) then only 15% of the energy remains to be turned into heat, and the IPCC says it’ll cause – Little kids turn your eyes away, this is really scary – 2 Degrees to 4.5 Degrees per doubling (Source AR5). Now let’s calculate this for a 100% CO2 101.3 KPa atmosphere, and we’ll assume that at 100% CO2 the captured energy by CO2 is 100% of the available energy (Which is close but not quite true it’s about 99.95% but close enough). That takes 13 Doublings which the IPCC says would cause between 26 degrees and 58.5 degrees warming.

                26/15 to 58.5/15 = 1.73 to 3.9 degrees per percent IR intercepted

                Let’s summarise

                IPCC Scientists on total GHG greenhouse effect so far (using measurement)

                0.39 degrees per percent IR intercepted

                IPCC Scientists on total GHG greenhouse effect in the future (using models)

                1.73 to 3.9 degrees per percent IR intercepted

                Dunno what you think, but I call bull$hit, what makes the IPCC soooo sure that the warming with respect to energy change – Not CO2! is going to occur at a rate 5-10 times what has happened on the earth so far

                You wanted science – don’t come back until you can explain that …

                For the locals,
                Yes yes, I know that taking account of the lapse rate and non Carbon related GHGs, like ozone, results in only 8 degrees of the 33 being due to CO2 and Water but hey, when you are talking to the likes of Brian one has to simplify. For those who know their science the CO2 + H2O related warming from blackbody so far is estimated at 8/85 or 0.094 degrees per percent IR energy extracted by CO2 related GHGs and that’s assuming that CO2 is the control knob that controls all water Vapour on earth. This means that the IPCC is asking us to believe that future warming will be at a rate that is up to 41.4 times what has gone on before

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                You want hard science,….gone on before

                An enormous thought bubble full of summaries with not a single link to back it up. What a waste of time it was typing that lot.

                Let’s forget about other GHGs and the lapse rate for the moment and pretend all the 33 Degrees is caused by good-ole control knob CO2

                What nonsense
                Isn’t most of it due to water vapour

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              • #
                William Astley

                Comon man. You are confusing the fantasy model world where CAGW exists as it must to perpetuate the scam, from the real world that we live in. The validity of a model is determined by comparing it to observations. If a model does not agree with observations the model is incorrect.

                Comparison of short term changes in temperature to top of the atmosphere radiation. Negative feedback planet resists warming by an increase in cloud cover in the tropics.

                http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf

                On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi2

                “We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity.

                Curiously the warmists scientist have not discussed the “Latitudinal Temperature Paradox’. The AGW warming has a predicted signature. More warming where there is more long wave radiation emitted to space. That is not observed. We have spent billions and billions of dollars on ‘climate research” and the warmists ignore observations that completely disprove their models. (Lindzen and Choi’s negative feedback is the likely explanation however the predicted warming in the tropical troposphere did not occur which indicates that there is a second problem reality vs models.)

                http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/figure-72.png
                The warmists and media have screamed from the roof tops the fact that the planet has warmed. They have completely hidden the fact that lower latitudes have not warmed which disproves catastrophic AGW. They have hidden the failure of CAGW theory by focusing on the polar warming and calling the polar warming amplification with no comment that the polar warming is not predicted by the general circulation models (GCM).

                Latitudinal Warming Paradox
                As CO2 is more or less evenly distributed in the atmosphere the potential for CO2 warming is the same for all latitudes. The actual warming due to CO2 is linearly dependent on the amount of long wave radiation at the latitude in question before the increase in CO2. As most amount of long wave radiation that is emitted to space is in the tropics the most amount of warming due to the CO2 increase should have occurred in the tropics. That is not what is observed as shown in Bob Tisdale graph. The following is a peer reviewed paper that supports the above assertions.

                http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
                “These effects do not have the signature associated with CO2 climate forcing. (William: This observation indicates something is fundamental incorrect with the IPCC models, likely negative feedback in the tropics due to increased or decreased planetary cloud cover to resist forcing). However, the data show a small underlying positive trend that is consistent with CO2 climate forcing with no-feedback. (William: This indicates a significant portion of the 20th century warming has due to something rather than CO2 forcing.)”
                “These conclusions are contrary to the IPCC [2007] statement: “[M]ost of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”
                Curiously the polar warming has abruptly and suddenly reversed. There was a 50% increase in summer sea ice in the Arctic and there is now two sigma record sea ice in the Antarctic for every month of the year. Atmospheric CO2 has not changed. Something must have changed to cause the sudden cooling of both poles. (Hint the sun.) Another curious observation is the sudden inhibiting of the La Niña / El Niño cycle. Changes in observations require a physical explanation.

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              • #
                george

                This guy is having a lend of you,Nobody is that stupid(except that clown trapped in the ice) and on top of it all Quoting Nature and the Guardian. It has to be a joke.<:o)

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                You are confusing the fantasy model world where CAGW exists as it must to perpetuate the scam,

                Another totally unbiased voice pipes up. But at least some links to explore, wonderful.
                Bit worrying though that all you can find is “Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi” and an article in the “Energy & Environment”

                http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf is so out of date and debunked.

                There was a 50% increase in summer sea ice in the Arctic

                An old distractio which is simply nonsense, every year since 2010 has been below the 2000 average
                http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
                There are many papers that predict or explain the increase in Antarctic sea ice, its another debunked myth
                http://www.sciencemag.org/content/296/5569/895.abstract
                http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GL037524/abstract

                and seriously in an Energy Jounrnal whose editor Boehmer-Christiansen said, “I’m following my political agenda — a bit, anyway. But isn’t that the right of the editor?”
                Not convincing, sorry
                http://www.sciencemag.org/content/302/5643/273.abstract

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              • #
                Backslider

                Brian Hother learnt some new words this week:

                ad hominem

                thought bubble

                I bet his mommy is real proud of him……

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “This guy is having a lend of you”

                Either that or he truly is totally ignorant.. scary thought, I know, but people like that truly do exist !

                Anyway, I’m doing some painting in the garage, and today has been much more fun than watching layers of paint dry 🙂

                Thanks Brian for today’s hilarity. 🙂

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                I’m doing some painting in the garage, and today has been much more fun than watching layers of paint dry

                You have been inhaling the solvent too deeply, you should wear a mask.
                Here is a paper for you
                http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17453883

                Malfunctioning of the …. central nervous systems as a result of latent-toxic effects of solvent exposure has received little attention.

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              • #
                Heywood

                “I bet his mommy is real proud of him……”

                Something tells me he has two daddies… Just a hunch.

                242

              • #
                Scott

                ah Padawan the delusion is strong in this one.

                you even linked to articles stating that the previous models were wrong.

                Then those models are even further from the reality

                Then you claim that is proof of sceptics being wrong

                What an intellectual you are

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “inhaling the solvent too deeply”

                Something tells me you know ALL ABOUT inhaling solvent.

                And other substances.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “you should wear a mask.”

                Hint to Brian.. the solvent is meant to be outside the mask.. NOT inside !!!

                maybe you are past the stage of learning that.. habits die hard.

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              • #
                Andrew

                Gee, in a massive shock the single paper that forecast ONE C per century or 0.25C (a paper written 13 years AFTER the start of the “decade ended 1996” began, and after 0.25C had ALREADY OCCURRED during the late 20th Century Warm Period) proved eerily accurate! I’m shocked!

                I’m even more shocked that Warmboy takes that as endorsement of the models today that predict 4-6 times the rate of gerbil worming as that predicted by the model that the Guardian praised (and from which apparently drew conclusions about ALL OTHER computer models).

                Here’s another prediction: The All Ords averaged over the decade ended 2023 will be much higher than it was averaged over the 1990’s (when it began at about 1500). My computer models told me this. Please pay me for my stockmarket advice – it’s eerily accurate.

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              • #
                bobl

                So Brian, can’t handle high school math can we ….

                Heres another

                T=C x Ln(Relative CO2 rise)

                T is the temperature ries (0.7 degrees since about 1850) and Relative CO2 rise is 400ppm/270 PPM what is C

                Take C
                Substitute in the Formula
                T=C x ln(2) to get the climate sensitivity

                Answer – 1.3 or there abouts

                IPCC over 3

                Of course since Brian decries my math from before and disagrees that the real climate sensitivity over the last 150 years is below the IPCC central estimate of 3 deg per doubling producing no math or arguments of his own. Brian must be refuting not only the science but also the high school math as well. Note no debunking of the actual argument – just dismiss it as a thought bubble.

                Brian is a clearly a Math sceptic, for him 1+1 is clearly what ever the IPCC says it is and add on a bit for good measure.

                Brian, unlike yourself, I am smart enough to do the math, and guess what, some relatively simple math exposes the IPCC science as being hopeless – I don’t use handed down science from any authority – I do the science and math myself. How about you tell me why I’m wrong, math expected!

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Hello Bother

                Yes; “None so blind” as those who believe but will not or cannot spend the time and effort to educate themselves before

                shooting off their mouths.

                I would give anything to hear an original “science based” comment from just one “warmer”.

                Unfortunately that wont happen as we are dealing with mass hysteria and a new religion peopled by the usual easily led,

                gullible, uneducated followers.

                KK

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              • #
                PhilJourdan

                How about the “denial of opinion”? Your quotes are all opinions. There is no facts in them. Do you know the difference between opinion and facts?

                Or are you just denying you know the difference between Opinion and facts?

                40

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                As Brian has already pointed out bobl’s calculation neglects the contribution of greenhouse gases other than CO2, notably H2O.

                However a calculation of the sensitivity factor, the temperature rise with doubling of CO2 concentration, can be made using the limited data set for temperature and CO2 concentration since the muana loa station began operating in 1958.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/normalise/scale:0.75/offset:0.2

                The temperature trend for the hadcrut4 data is

                0.124 ± 0.023 °C/decade (2σ) giving a temperature increase for the entire 54 year period of

                0.670 ± 0.128 °C (The error margin is 19%)

                The change in CO2 concentration for that period is from 315 to 400 ppm (We will neglect the small error in CO2 concentration as this data is much less noisy than the temperature data)

                The equation for temperature rise with increasing CO2 is therefore

                0.670 = k log(400/315) where k is the proportionality constant.

                0.670 = k x 0.239

                k = 0.670/239 = 2.80

                The temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 concentration is therefore

                2.80 x log2 =

                1.94 ± 0.37 °C

                This is within the IPCC range of 1.5 to 4.5 °C

                It also is in agreement with the calculation for temperature and CO2 data since 1850 of

                2.04 ± 0.07 °C

                http://oi46.tinypic.com/29faz45.jpg

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Poor Dr Brain-less.

                Still wasting your time on meaningless calculations using a synthetic data set.

                And making assumption about unproven correlations.

                hint, your assumption has been proven wrong by the last 17 or so years of basically zero temperature rise.

                And if you want to use that data set, at least remove the half a degree or so of CAGW-meme adjustment first.

                First rule of any calculation.. CHECK THE VALIDITY OF YOUR DATA

                else you will end up making a FOOL of yourself. … AGAIN !

                82

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                AndyG55

                My “synthetic data set” is from satellite measurements of the University of Alabama Huntsville, published by skeptic heroes John Christy and Roy Spencer.

                I make no “assumption” of any correlation. The data demonstrates the correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature.

                You are the one who assumes that there has been 17 years or so of basically zero temperature rise, or rather insists on it in the face of the evidence presented to the contrary.

                I have posted Dr Christy and Dr Spencer’s temperature data with linear regression analyses below at 1.1.1.3 demonstrating that your assumption is false.

                You have thus demonstrated that you are a fool who does not understand science or mathematics and whose only form of argument is mindless abuse.

                errata: Apologies to the mathematically literate. Dr Christy and Dr Spencer’s temperature data from 1958 to the present is 56 years not 54. The result should therefore be adjusted by a factor or 56/54 =

                2.01 ± 0.38 °C

                36

              • #
                AndyG55

                No, you WFT link clearly uses HadCrud4. a massively maladjusted data set

                you even state “The temperature trend for the hadcrut4 data is….”

                That is what you have based your calculations on.

                You are an out and out LIAR to say otherwise.

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              • #
                MemoryVault

                This is within the IPCC range of 1.5 to 4.5 °C

                That was the IPCC’s projected range last month.
                The AR5 Final Draft about to be released (and already leaked) drops it down to 1.3 °C max which is pretty much indistinguishable from noise, over a century.

                Please try to keep up.

                81

              • #
                AndyG55

                Ending now, and heading backwards for nearly 17 years.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.4/trend

                TREND IS DEAD LEVEL.. NO WARMING FOR NEARLY 17 YEARS

                82

              • #
              • #
              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Still falling back on abuse I see.

                My analysis of temperature trends used UAH data. As this data does not go back to 1958, I substituted Hadcrut4 data for comparison with Muana loa CO2 data. My mistake.

                However, this graph demonstrates that there is no significant difference between the two sets from 1979.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/mean:12/offset/plot/uah/from:1979/mean:12/offset:0.26

                If you wish to be picky, the UAH data set from 1979

                Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)

                actually shows a larger temperature trend than the Hadcrut4 data from 1958, although of course the error margins are larger.

                Trend: 0.124 ±0.023 °C/decade (2σ)

                Feel free to upwardly adjust the Hadcrut4 calculation accordingly.

                As for your remarks concerning the DEAD LEVEL NO WARMING FOR (NEARLY)17 YEARS

                I wrote:

                Thus the periods which skeptics like to claim show a pause are too short to show anything within statistical significance, and attempting to fudge the data by judicious inclusion or exclusion of the extreme el nino year of 1998 is perilously close to scientific fraud, but I will be charitable and ascribe it to ignorance.

                You have not only cherry picked a particular data set, you have taken cherry picking of the time period down to years and months in order to produce your desired result, which in any case is statistically meaningless as far as showing any “pause” is concerned.

                Here are the other data sets for your cherry picked time period, again demonstrating that with short term periods you can cherry pick almost any result you like.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.4/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1997.4/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.4/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.4/trend/plot/uah/from:1997.4/trend/offset/plot/wti/from:1997.4/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/trend

                27

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                I noted above that very small differences in the various data sets from 1997.4 above nevertheless gives widely varying linear regression trends due to the low signal to noise ratio, although the resulting large error margins means that they are not statistically different, nor are they different from the trend for the data from 1958.

                However, the trend for each data set from 1958 (1979 for the satellite data) have sufficient signal to noise so that the trend plots are very similar, and the error margins within a statistically significant warming range.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1958/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1958/trend/plot/rss/from:1958/trend/plot/uah/from:1958/trend/offset/plot/wti/from:1958/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/trend

                A further illustration of the extremely limited utility of short term, high error trends as an indication of what is really happening with temperature is given by this plot which breaks up a sixty year trend into consecutive 15 year sections.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1923/to/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1923/to/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1983/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1968/to:1983/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1953/to:1968/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1938/to:1953/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1923/to:1938/trend

                AndyG55 wants to push the short term analysis to nonsensical limits claiming a cooling trend for GISS data from 2002 to the present.

                In fact the trend is

                Trend: -0.009 ±0.185 °C/decade (2σ)

                In other words the trend within 95% confidence limits is somewhere between cooling of 0.194 and warming of 0.176 °C/decade. You can drive a bus betweeen those margins.

                Andy can have no objection to a claim of a warming trend for UAH data since 2003:

                Trend: 0.051 ±0.350 °C/decade (2σ) (A b-double road train through those margins)

                But my view remains that short term data sets are next to useless in identifying the real temperature trends.

                25

              • #
                AndyG55

                “But my view remains that short term data sets are next to useless in identifying the real temperature trends.”

                BRAVO..

                So stop cherry picking short terms..

                I say lets take it out to several thousand years. start at the top to the Holocene OPTIMUM. or the RWP….. COOLING !!!

                You just want to start by cherry-picking some low starting point in the short period of the mutilated instrumental record to try and prove a worthless point.

                You aren’t proving anything by doing this.

                It is MEANINGLESS, as I have said all along.

                Thank you for FINALLY realising this point !!

                The ONLY IMPORTANT THING is what is happening now and recently..

                The real trend may have been upwards since a cherry-picked mid 1950’s …….. (we can’t be sure because the records are now so mangled)….BUT

                RSS and GISS now show that the Earth’s surface is COOLING !!

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Andy, We are all well aware of large climate variations in the past over thousands and millions of years due to natural forcing factors. As long as a human population of a few hundred thousands could pack up all their belongings and carry them to vacant greener pastures, this did not present a huge problem for humanity.

                The time scales we are intersted in as far as AGW goes is a couple of centuries in the past and decades and centuries into the future. The effect of climate change for 7 billion plus people dwelling in cities and dependent on surrounding productive agricultural land presents quite a different problem for humanity.

                The temperature record for direct measurements on which the effects of AGW can be evaluated goes back about 150 years. Your preferred satellite data going back to 1978 can also supply statistically significant temperature trends.

                Statistically meaningfull results can be obtained when analysing data covering a few decades or more.

                As I have demonstrated above, meaningful data cannot be obtained by examing data less than about two decades. The signal to noise ratio is too low, resulting in different headline trend rates for different but very similar data sets, and high variablity can be obtained by simply changing the time frame by a year or afew, but including the error margins large enough to drive a bus through you cannot distinguish between widely varying headline trend values within statistical significance.

                Thus, at the risk of repeating myself, the temperature data for RSS and GISS for short periods show cooling only for the headline rate but the headline rates for short periods of other data sets show warming.

                Including the error margins demonstrates that all such data sets contain a large cooling trend and a large warming trend within the statistically significant range. That is 17 15, 10 or less year data sets are inconclusive as far as providing information of the actual trends is concerned.

                Any scientist who attempted to make claims of warming or cooling in a manuscript or at a conference talk on the basis of such data would be kicked to death by the referees or during the question session.

                25

            • #
              John Brookes

              Hottest November in Australia since records began.

              29

          • #
            tom0mason

            ‘Evidence’ not required as you are only going on about a model output, and as any sane intelligent person understands, it is worthless.

            Tell me how do you explain the 17 year ‘pause’, despite CO2 levels continuing to rising?

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              ‘Evidence’ not required

              The big copout

              ‘Evidence’ not required

              Its a figment of your imagination, there is no pause. If you have evidence to the contrary, then post it.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Evidence’ not required ”

                Ah.. so that’s why you haven’t produced any.

                313

              • #
                Brian Hother

                Well you just need to read it, look up the page. Where have you posted anything?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Seriously.. the only links you appear to have posted are to newspaper articles and Nature.

                Neither of these in any way constitutes scientific evidence.

                If you knew ANYHING about science.. you would know that.

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              • #
                tom0mason

                What is this Brian Hother, we have to find ‘Evidence’ that you crystal ball gazers (climate modelers) are any good when they have already proved themselves profoundly inept at forecasting.

                Basically temperatures and CO2 levels are within normal natural bounds and the alarmist are now starting to panic as the noose tightens around their funding necks. Can you or anyone prove that they are not within natural limits – NO.

                Model predictions, no better than crystal ball gazing – ha!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                we have to find ‘Evidence’

                You say the models are wrong. You need to back it up, dont twist and turn to try and squirm out of of it.

                446

              • #
                tom0mason

                You, Brian Hother, are the big cop-out for not supplying ‘Evidence’ for the ridiculous notion that CO2 and global temperatures are outside normal natural limits.

                Evidence against the notion, the hypothesis, the unsubstantiated idea that the world is warming outside of normal natural limits, is not required as this is an imagined catastrophe. This planet is still operating within known historical limits and as far as anyone can tell will do for some considerable time yet.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Nature…….(not)…in any way constitutes scientific evidence

                Priceless denier-ism.
                So where is your evidence, still cant find it?

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                This planet is still operating within known historical limits and as far as anyone can tell will do for some considerable time yet.

                Another personal thought bubble or, dare I ask again, you have some evidence.
                You wont accept a peer reviewed article from Nature, but your own thought bubble are evidence.LOL

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              • #
                tom0mason

                “Another personal thought bubble or, dare I ask again, you have some evidence.”

                Do you have evidence that nature is not in control of the climate? That our planet is now exceeding historical records for temperature and CO2 level?
                Or are you so enveloped in your modeled world that historical reality is beyond you?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Oh FFS…..Do some research for yourself, if you are capable, bozo !!!!.

                We are currently about half way between the NATURALLY OCCURING warm and cool temperatures of the MWP and the LIA.

                Considerably lower than the RWP and even lower than the warm period before that.

                We are only just above the LOWEST temperature point for the whole Holocene. !!

                So yes, we are WELL WITHIN NATURAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY !!!!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                We are currently about half way between the NATURALLY OCCURING warm and cool temperatures of the MWP and the LIA.

                Considerably lower than the RWP and even lower than the warm period before that.

                We are only just above the LOWEST temperature point for the whole Holocene. !!

                Link to some science, I’m not interested in your thought bubbles

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              • #
                Martin

                Thomas Stocker of the IPPC in the last report press conference.
                http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/2968268131001#2700762412001
                4:50 to 5:25.

                Its a figment of your imagination, there is no pause. If you have evidence to the contrary, then post it.

                And you call us ‘deniers’, unbelievable…
                If someone has only the segment it would be nice to post it. I couldn’t find it.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                LOL All I hear is debunking of your position. “There is not enough data” is what I hear.
                To save me listening to almost 18min of “Sun” opinion gibberish, what should I be listening to.
                Better still cite it for me in the IPCC report

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                Backslider

                You say the models are wrong. You need to back it up, dont twist and turn to try and squirm out of of it.

                No Brian. YOU say that the models are right. We await with bated breath for the empirical evidence to back up that assumption.

                Bring it on (I know you can’t).

                The thing is this sonny – in science experimental evidence must demonstrate the hypothesis. Climate models are not scientific experiments. Statistics is not science.

                The empirical evidence is that climate models are woefully and pathetically innacurate, with 97% of forecasts shown to be wrong.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                No Brian. YOU say that the models are right.

                Wrong, I don’t say anything, the peer reviewed literature say so.

                We await with bated breath for the empirical evidence to back up that assumption.

                You just need to read the articles I linked to, you guys know what a link is don’t you?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Link to some science, I’m not interested in your thought bubbles”

                These are NOT thought bubbles, they are facts directly from accepted science.

                You can look up the science yourself.. I am NOT PAID to teach junior high school level any more,

                especially as you show absolutely ZERO aptitude for learning.

                If you want some lessons, get passed high school,

                do a proper science degree at a reputable university,

                then perhaps we can discuss directions for your further education.

                I am willing to help you if you show that you are not going to be wasting my time.

                In the mean time.. at least try to work out the basics of simple research, please !

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                Backslider

                Wrong, I don’t say anything, the peer reviewed literature say so.

                You posted this, without references. It is equal to making the statement yourself:

                Global warming predictions prove accurate
                Analysis of climate change modelling for past 15 years reveal accurate forecasts of rising global temperatures

                Further:

                You just need to read the articles I linked to, you guys know what a link is don’t you?

                No sonny. These do not provide any empirical evidence for your argument. You need to learn the difference.

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                Streetcred

                Hother … look at the linked graphing of the ‘models’ versus reality … it doesn’t strike you as being odd that reality is heading south and your ‘models’ are heading north ? … seems like a bit of severe dissonance between ‘models’ vs reality. I expect that you suffer the same cognitive dissonance.

                http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-90-models-global-Tsfc-vs-obs.jpg

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              • #
                PhilJourdan

                So you have no clue about the null hypothesis? Or are you now DENYING the null hypothesis?

                Why are you denying reality?

                41

              • #
                Franny by Coal light

                Streetcred says:-

                … it doesn’t strike you as being odd that reality is heading south and your ‘models’ are heading north ? …

                Har, har. Maybe that’s why the doomed Chris(tmas) Turkey expedition has encountered it heading for the South Pole.

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            • #
              AndyG55

              “YOU say that the models are right”

              This dweeb obviously has ZERO UNDERSTANDING of scientific/engineering modelling procedures.

              Hint.. one of the FIRST things you do is to VALIDATE your model against REAL WORLD data.

              The climate models have been a MONUMENTAL FAILURE in this regard.

              So much so that they have resorted to manipulating the real data to try to make it match the models.

              even then…. they have failed miserably.

              A simple comparison of real world data against the models would tell anyone (except a crass brain-washed moronic fool) that that is the case.

              That comparison has been provided.. and he doesn’t even have the intelligence to understand that.

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            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Martin, tomomason and others,

              There is no evidence of a pause for the last 17,16 or 15 years as frequently claimed by skeptics.

              This graph shows UAH satellite temperatures with a trend from 1979 to the present, from 1979 to 1997, and from 1997 to the present (17 years).

              http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/trend/from/plot/uah/from:1997/trend/plot/uah/to:1997/trend

              Breaking up the data set at the beginning of 1997 gives two trends lower than that of the entire period, but in fact the last 17 years shows a greater warming trend than the previous 18 years.

              This graph shows the same data with plots from 1979 to 1999, and from 1999 to the present (15 years).

              http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/trend/from/plot/uah/from:1999/trend/plot/uah/to:1999/trend

              Both the partial trends are very close to the longer term trend.

              The difference depends on whether or not you cherry pick the extreme el nino year of 1998 to be in your data set.

              The data from 1979 shows statistically significant warming:

              Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)

              But the 18, 17 and 15 year data sets being short have very large error margins. In the case of the 17 year data from 1997, the trend is

              Trend: 0.093 ±0.208 °C/decade (2σ)

              That is the trend is between cooling of 0.115 and warming of 0.301 °C/decade.

              Thus the periods which skeptics like to claim show a pause are too short to show anything within statistical significance, and attempting to fudge the data by judicious inclusion or exclusion of the extreme el nino year of 1998 is perilously close to scientific fraud, but I will be charitable and ascribe it to ignorance.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Talk about cherry picking.. Why not use one of the other 3 main data sets.

                2 of them show NO WARMING for nearly 17 years, the other shows NO WARMING this century.

                But you know that.

                Keep picking, Dr Brainless.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                And your moronic continuance of applying simplistic linear analysis to a chaotic semi-cyclic system is really quite hilarious !!

                Keep up the farce little one. 😉

                41

              • #
                AndyG55

                But since you want to play your silly little games..

                By realising that the 1998 was a release of energy from the ocean, it is very easy to exactly what is CURRENTLY happening.

                Before 1998 there was a steady slow upward trend,

                then the ElNino release and stabilisation

                then a gradual cooling since 2001. That is what is CURRENTLY happening.. COOLING !!!

                And all indications are that this cooling trend will get STEEPER over the next few years.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:2001/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1995/trend

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              • #
                AndyG55

                And I didn’t pick the 17 year interval..

                That was Ben Santor. iirc.

                So…. we have reached that point when even the most rabid of your climate priests have to say that the CAGW/CO2 hypothesis HAS FAILED

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              • #
                VirusP53

                Andy yet again you claim something that has not one single piece of truth to it … No published climate scientist or any major scientific agency in the world has claimed or believes their “is” , “was” or “ever will be” a cooling trend ..

                The FACT is temperatures have risen steadily since records aka the TREND .. You only have to look at the latest report today from BOM showing our temperature rises over the last 100 years yes a long term measurement not the furfys like the short cherry picked 10 – 20 year period skeptics constantly use…

                The overall TREND is temperatures have risen you can go back 400,000 or 800,000 years of ice core data to see this as well … So their is not just one source of information to confirm this.. So again are you saying NASA , NOAA et al have all this data wrong ..

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              • #
                Backslider

                The overall TREND is temperatures have risen you can go back 400,000 or 800,000 years of ice core data to see this as well

                That is really really funny. If you look at things on that scale then you will quickly see that today’s temperatures are on the low side. You will also see that today’s level of atmospheric CO2 is on the VERY LOW side…. so low in fact that the entire planet could be said to be on the brink of extinction (death to all at 150ppm).

                31

              • #
                AndyG55

                Little amoeba, we are somewhere between the MWP (warmer than now) and the LIA (cooler, and which we appear to have stopped warming from, unfortunately)

                We are WELL BELOW the RWP and way , way below the temps of the Holocene Optimum.

                The Holocene trend has been downwards basically all the way, and the small warming of the second half of last century was just a small ripple.

                YOU are welcome to go back 300 years to the depths of the LIA if that’s what you want.. just move to Siberia or somewhere like that.

                Me, I much prefer the Current Warm Period..

                http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/histo3.png
                “In fact for the entire Holocene — the period over which, by some odd coincidence, humanity developed agriculture and civilization — the temperature has been higher than now, and the trend over the past 4000 years is a marked decline. From this perspective, it’s the LIA that was unusual, and the current warming trend simply represents a return to the mean. If it lasts.”

                20

          • #
            William Astley

            In reply to: Brian Hother
            January 1, 2014 at 4:54 pm
            “Bit worrying though that all you can find is “Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi” and an article in the “Energy & Environment” & “Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth by David H. Douglassa and John R. Christy” is so out of date and debunked.”

            William:
            Name calling and an appeal to the fact that editors in many journals have been and will be fired for publishing observational data that disproves CAGW does not change observations that disprove CAGW (i.e. reality does not change if one tries to ignore it). Please do provide an explanation for the Latitudinal Warming Paradox (Limits of CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth by Douglass and Christy) and Lindzen and Choi’s Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implication. Also please explain why there is no tropospheric hot spot. Also please explain why there 340 warming and cooling cycles (period between warming and cooling 500 years and 1500 years same as the Northern hemisphere) in the Southern Hemisphere in the last 250,000 years that match the pattern of warming that we are currently experiencing. Note there was also warming and cooling cycles in the Northern hemisphere which correlate with cosmogenic isotope changes. Explain Bob Tisdale temperature anomaly Vs latitude. That data disproves CAGW. The so called skeptics are not skeptical. The CAGW theory is not correct.
            http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/figure-72.png
            The warmists and media have screamed from the roof tops the fact that the planet has warmed. They have completely hidden the fact that lower latitudes have not warmed which disproves catastrophic AGW. They have hidden the failure of CAGW theory by focusing on the polar warming and calling the polar warming amplification with no comment that the polar warming is not predicted by the general circulation models (GCM).
            Latitudinal Warming Paradox
            As CO2 is more or less evenly distributed in the atmosphere the potential for CO2 warming is the same for all latitudes. The actual warming due to CO2 is linearly dependent on the amount of long wave radiation at the latitude in question before the increase in CO2. As most amount of long wave radiation that is emitted to space is in the tropics the most amount of warming due to the CO2 increase should have occurred in the tropics. That is not what is observed as shown in Bob Tisdale graph. The following is a peer reviewed paper that supports the above assertions.
            http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
            http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
            On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi2

            Here is another paper that discusses the fact that region of the planet (tropical troposphere at 8km, the lower troposphere is less effected by CO2 due to the overlap of the absorption spectrum of water and CO2, there is of course less water in comparison to CO2 at 8km) that the GCM predict should have warmed the most (roughly 4C) has not warmed at all.
            http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
            A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions
            We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.

            http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
            William Davis and Taylor data is on the Antarctic Peninsula. Temperature on the Antarctic Peninsula correlates with the Southern Ocean temperature rather as it removed from the Polar vortex. Svensmark’s paper explains why the Antarctic Ice Sheet cools when the Greenland Ice Sheet warms (cyclically) which is called the Polar see-saw and is exactly what we currently observing.
            Davis and Taylor: “Does the current global warming signal reflect a natural cycle”
            …We found 342 natural warming events (NWEs) corresponding to this definition, distributed over the past 250,000 years …. …. The 342 NWEs contained in the Vostok ice core record are divided into low-rate warming events (LRWEs; < 0.74oC/century) and high rate warming events (HRWEs; ≥ 0.74oC /century) (Figure). … ….The current global warming signal is therefore the slowest and among the smallest in comparison with all HRWEs in the Vostok record, although the current warming signal could in the coming decades yet reach the level of past HRWEs for some parameters. The figure shows the most recent 16 HRWEs in the Vostok ice core data during the Holocene, interspersed with a number of LRWEs. …. ….We were delighted to see the paper published in Nature magazine online (August 22, 2012 issue) reporting past climate warming events in the Antarctic similar in amplitude and warming rate to the present global warming signal. The paper, entitled "Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice – shelf history" and authored by Robert Mulvaney and colleagues of the British Antarctic Survey ( Nature , 2012, doi:10.1038/nature11391),reports two recent natural warming cycles, one around 1500 AD and another around 400 AD, measured from isotope (deuterium) concentrations in ice cores bored adjacent to recent breaks in the ice shelf in northeast Antarctica. ….

            http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612145v1
            The Antarctic climate anomaly and galactic cosmic rays

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          • #
            Craig King

            Just have a look outside, that should be proof enough for anyone man.

            Fannying about with hundredths of a degree that can only be revealed by dodgy statistics and strange proxies isn’t proof of anything.

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        • #
          Brian Hother

          ‘academic’ funding prostitute

          So ad hominems are Ok on this blog. Can I use them too?

          Here is evidence, the upward trend continues unabated.
          http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
          http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_MERGED_Global_IB_RWT_GIA_Adjust.png

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Oh dear. ignorance is rife with this one.

            That graph on Roy’s site clearly shows basically NO WARMING from 1979 -1996

            Then the El Nino release of energy

            Then a statistically ZERO trend from 2000 to now.

            There has been NO WARMING THIS CENTURY !!!!!

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              A novel interpretation of the graph, do you have any expertise in this field or is it just your thought bubble?

              There has been NO WARMING THIS CENTURY !!!!!

              You say it so loudly it must be true

              Then the El Nino release of energy

              Where is this energy before it is released?
              Can you point me to a paper or 2 on it or is it just your intuition?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “do you have any expertise in this field”

                YES. A significant amount.

                Do you really want to go there ??

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “You say it so loudly it must be true”

                I once used to try to teach low IQ 13-15 year olds.

                Being LOUD was one technique for getting through their thick skulls.

                I sort of hoped the technique might work on you.

                Seems I have to learn some primary school techniques !!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                I once used to try to teach low IQ 13-15 year olds.

                But you found they were too clever for you?

                328

              • #
                AndyG55

                You remind me of them so much.

                Even your come-backs are at or below their level.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “do you have any expertise in this field”

                Well.. it seems you don’t want to go there.

                Didn’t think so. ! 😉

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              • #
                Andrew

                There has been NO WARMING THIS CENTURY !!!!!

                You say it so loudly it must be true

                Don’t know why Andy says it. I say it because I downloaded the HadCRUT4 data and did the regression since the turn of the century and noticed that the trend in the temp anomaly was negative. And that’s being kind – other datasets show a greater negative trend. Or to look at it point to point, the last 3 years of this century to date are cooler than the first 3. That’s why I say it – because it’s a mathematical fact.

                Why do you deny the science? When you see data with a declining trend, what process do you go through to say “Look at all that warming this century”?

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            • #
              AndyG55

              “But you found they were too clever for you?’

              Oh dear.. is that really the best you have ?

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          • #
            Heywood

            “the denier delusion continues”

            “So ad hominems are Ok on this blog. Can I use them too?”

            I bet you can’t see the hypocrisy there.

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          • #
            tom0mason

            Yes you hypocrite.

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              All this anger must be a substitute for facts. Why dont you give me some of your science to back it up?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                We are waiting for you.

                But so far.. nada, zip, NOTHING !!!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                But so far.. nada, zip, NOTHING !!!

                Couldn’t have put it better. Thats all you guys have posted. Where are the links to data to back it up?
                So far nothing.

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              • #
                tom0mason

                “All this anger must be a substitute for facts.”
                You offer zero facts – models are NOT fact, IMO they are modern day crystal ball gazing.
                The fact is that nature and not man controls the climate – or have you some evidence to the contrary.
                Tell me (again) how do you explain the 17 year ‘pause’(as per UN-IPCC report), despite CO2 levels continuing to rising?

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Tell me (again) how do you explain the 17 year ‘pause’(as per UN-IPCC report)

                Can you give me a link to this? I dont believe it exists. As usual you make up all sorts of quotes without a shred of evidence to back them up.
                Still waiting for something more than just your thought bubbles.

                Here is something for you
                http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html

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              • #
                AndyG55

                ” I dont believe it exists.”

                Ahh !….. so now YOU are denying what all the top climate scientists have admitted.

                But YOU don’t believe…

                I guess that is what really matters !!! roflmao !!!!

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              • #
                tom0mason

                The fact is that nature and not man controls the climate – or have you some evidence to the contrary?

                No answer still!

                142

              • #
                Brian Hother

                I dont accept that the quote exists until you give me a link. Im saying that you have just made it up. So link please if you have one.

                Ahh !….. so now YOU are denying what all the top climate scientists have admitted.

                Show me where they have said this

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/690/6k8c.png/

                Very unimpressive. A photo of a graph from wood from the trees. Is that your scientific research LOL.
                Tell me, why does the graph start in 1997? Ever heard of “cherry picking”?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Very unimpressive”

                Didn’t think that you would accept that EVERY temperature data source that exists shows ZERO trend over most of this century.

                Wood for trees uses data directly from recognised climate data bases, as is.

                You have your own ‘other’ source, maybe ?

                And NO, 1997 is not cherry picking, because the start point is NOW and you work backwards for as long as there is a zero trend.
                And in at least 3 of those data sets, that is now very close to being 17 years!
                ALL the others show zero or slightly negative trends since about 2002

                Sorry if that is too complicated for you to understand, I’m trying to keep it really simple for you.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                And NO, 1997 is not cherry picking, because the start point is NOW and you work backwards for as long as there is a zero trend.
                And in at least 3 of those data sets, that is now very close to being 17 years!
                ALL the others show zero or slightly negative trends since about 2002

                Sorry if that is too complicated for you to understand, I’m trying to keep it really simple for you.

                Why cant you find a single credible source that backs your analysis of this data. If its true, it must exist.
                So genius, why doesn’t the peer reviewed literature support your analysis. Hint, because it nonsense

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              • #
                AndyG55

                ““
                Ahh !….. so now YOU are denying what all the top climate scientists have admitted.

                Show me where they have said this

                The fact that you even need to ask for a link shows that you have made ZERO ATTEMPT at any sort of prior research.

                ie you are totally ignorant of most aspects of climate science.

                This ignorance is reflected in ALL of your posts.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Ahh !….. so now YOU are denying what all the top climate scientists have admitted.

                What have all the top climate scientists admitted. You think you can type any BS and people are gullible enough to prove it. The lack of links is reflected in all your posts.
                ” I SAID IT SO IT MUST BE TRUE”
                Hahahahaha

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Why cant you find a single credible source that backs your analysis of this data”

                Gees, you are so incredibly thick..

                Go to Wood for Trees and run the same analysis yourself, ignorant twerp !!!

                Its very basic linear trend stuff.. even a twit like you should be capable of that !!!

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                AndyG55

                “The lack of links is reflected in all your posts”

                Unlike members of the AGW cult, I don’t keep links at hand.

                And I’m certainly not here to waste my time searching for them for you.

                I can assure you, however, that people like Phil Jones, IPCC, Trenberth etc etc have all made statements CONFIRMING this FACT.

                The real problem is that you OBVIOUSLY have not spent any time at all researching the issue, otherwise you would KNOW this.

                Every post you make reeks of ignorance on the subject you are trying to argue.

                You should be ASKING QUESTIONS and trying to learn, rather than trying to create a FACADE of knowing anything.

                If you truly want to learn.. Ask you questions in a reasonable format, and be prepared to accept the answers.

                Remove your brain-washed mind-block !!

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                David W

                How about the head of the IPCC? It took all of 5 seconds to find this – you hurt yourside by holding your breathe until you get what you want – this conversation is for adults

                http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/ipcc-head-admits-17-years-of-no-warming/

                how about the Met?

                http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/13212-global-climate-warming-stopped-15-years-ago-uk-met-office-admits

                And why, oh why, if truth is on your side, is it necessary to revert to dishonest tactics to prove it right?

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQMs1xm7jGw&feature=related
                (pay particular attention to the email at the 30 second mark)

                I could EASILY go on and on with links galore – they are so SIMPLE to find if you really wanted to that it is obvious who the denier is… wake up and join the rest of us to make the world a better place, not one with a green boot heel on it’s neck.

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              tom0mason

              Get yourself educated –
              17 year pause (I am assuming you can stray away from you safe warmist blanket and enter the academic world) If you get stuck do ask for help.

              http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=IPCC+17+year+pause&btnG=Submit&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=

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                Brian Hother

                http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=IPCC+17+year+pause&btnG=Submit&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=

                So a Google search is your scientific evidence, LOL.
                How embarrassing that this is the best you can do

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              • #
                AndyG55

                That’s Google Scholar, idiot !!!

                You seriously have NO IDEA, do you.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                That’s Google Scholar, idiot !!!

                I know what it is idiot and unlike you I know what it isnt. It is not evidence. Its like waving at the library from a distance and saying “its in there” when someone asks you for your references when you submit a paper for review. It is excuses from fools who cant find anything to back up their thought bubbles. It is what the teachers of 15 year old handicapped student would say if they are too lazy to do their job.

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                Backslider

                Its like waving at the library from a distance and saying “its in there” when someone asks you for your references when you submit a paper for review. It is excuses from fools who cant find anything to back up their thought bubbles.

                Your primary reference is The Sydney Morning Herald…. LMAO!

                Oh, that’s right, you linked to Dr Roy Spencer’s graph, but then gave us your own thought bubble on what the graph shows. WHy don’t you show us exactly what Roy Spencer has to saay about it? Does he deny the lack of warming as you do?

                BTW, you need to go back to Warmist Troll Kindergarten and learn a few more insults other than “thought bubble”.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Gees, first time you have known what anything was. !!

                And I didn’t say they were handicapped.. they were just like you.. academically non-inclined.

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                Brian Hother

                Your primary reference is The Sydney Morning Herald

                No the primary references are peer reviewed articles that are commented on in news articles, but for some reason “Nature” is viewed as some kind of conspiratorial warmist rag. The joke is on you guys for showing your denier petticoats. Blogs have more credibility here it seems, the ignorance and defensiveness is what makes me

                …. LMAO!

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              • #
                Backslider

                No the primary references are peer reviewed articles

                Which you have not read and which you in no wise understand.

                for some reason “Nature” is viewed as some kind of conspiratorial warmist rag.

                nobody here has said that at all. Typical warmist, you just make stuff up.

                The point is that just because an article appears in Nature, or any other peer reviewed journal does not make it fact. Comprende?

                We all know that climate modelling by itself is not science. The science part of it is when you compare the output of the models with empirical evidence and say “Shit!…. all the predictions are wrong”. The paper you refer to recognises that the models are wrong and the lead author admits that they do not know what to feed the models to get them even close to being right. Read the paper.

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            llew Jones

            Well if you don’t trust those skeptical of alarmist climate change scientists try a couple of the leading warmist scientists on the reality of the temperature pause or hiatus rather than the sort of fools who ,misreading the climate, get themselves trapped in Antarctica:

            Here’s a juicy little bit of reality from none less than Kevin Trenberth:

            “Leading climate scientist Kevin Trenberth has told reporting climatescience.com that he believes the pause in global warming may be caused by long term changes in the Pacific Ocean.

            Trenberth and colleague John Fasullo argue in a new scientific paper that the massive El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event that occurred in 1997 and 1998 triggered the pause. They say that the El Nino caused a large loss of heat from the deep ocean to the sea surface that resulted in a cooling of the oceans. Since then the deep ocean has been absorbing heat back from the upper ocean and so cooling the atmosphere.

            The implication is that the heat being absorbed from the atmosphere by the oceans has offset the underlying and ongoing warming of the atmosphere due to green house gases. As the deep ocean waters have slowly warmed they have taken heat from the upper ocean which has then cooled the atmosphere. This is the cause of the apparent hiatus in global warming that has manifested itself as a halt in the rise in global mean atmospheric temperatures seen in the second half of the 20th century.”

            Not convinced that GT trend has paused? Well try James Hansen for size on the “pause aka “been flat””:

            ” Posted on January 16, 2013

            by Judith Curry

            “The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing. – James Hansen et al”

            I notice elsewhere you refer to Roy Spencer’s graphs which you misunderstand. He has suggested for some time that most if not all the changes in climate are most likely due to natural internal variability. Seems on the surface, at least, that Trenberth and Hansen have finally seen that natural variability may… may just be a more significant contributor to climate change than alarmists have previously been willing to concede.

            As far as the Age/SMH/Guardian are concerned they trade in unadulterated alarmist bullshit when it comes to climate science. Never trust a scientist who works in academia but rather look to those like Spencer and Christy who actually have real jobs in climate science. The former are merely posers. As far as you are concerned sonny grow up and join the adults on challenging sites like Jo’s.

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              Links?

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                Backslider

                Links?

                Do your own research. Come back when you think you have some actual empirical scientific evidence for your b*****.

                You see sonny, we do not simply accept that because something has been stated in a peer reviewed journal that its correct. We demand empirical scientific evidence, not conjecture and speculation.

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              • #
                ExWarmist

                Try this.

                Trenberth

                and

                Curry reporting Hansen

                Took me less than a minute to find both on Google.

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              • #
                tom0mason

                Why provide you with links?
                You have demonstrated neither the ability to use them, or competence in interpreting what the links say, and like all fools stuck in their own bubble of thoughts, you have no leave this modeled world.
                Please, for the new year, I recommend that you read something informative and shows a good scientific methodology, say “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” by Charles Darwin. From which you may discover that you are a sorry example of a human specimen because of your paralysis in adaptation, caused by your irrational fear of the future.

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              • #
                ExWarmist

                Actually Brian – you have a very real problem right here.

                By your own words – you were completely ignorant that the pause in temperatures is mainstream science, as testified by Trenberth, Fasullo and Hansen.

                Given that you are mistaken about a foundational item such as the pause in temperatures, what else are you mistaken about?

                Your Confidence looks like Hubris.

                What else do you not know?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                ‘What else do you not know?’

                From his posts…basically EVERYTHING !!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Curry reporting Hansen

                Took me less than a minute to find both on Google.

                Oh dear me! Your lack of understanding is showing.

                The current stand-still of the 5-year running mean global temperature may be largely a consequence of the fact that the first half of the past 10 years had predominantly El Nino conditions, and the second half had predominantly La Nina conditions.

                Dont you understand that the “5-year running mean global temperature” is an analysis tool and not an indicator of trend. Its no wonder you guys are struggling with this. The “5-year running mean global temperature” in 2000, 2001 and 2002 were still elevated by the unusally strong “El Nino conditions” of 1998
                Why dont you read the whole paper from the organ grinder and not the monkey
                http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130115_Temperature2012.pdf

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                Brian Hother

                You see sonny, we do not simply accept that because something has been stated in a peer reviewed journal that its correct. We demand empirical scientific evidence, not conjecture and speculation.

                I was told earlier you don’t except any science in “Nature”. So do you except ANYTHING in peer reviewed science or are they all controlled by the “Mysterious Force” that wants to destroy the world.
                Let me guess, you get that “empirical scientific evidence” from the blogs you read, from people who can say whatever they like. Usually the thinker, the more right winged and the empty their heads, the more believable they become

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            • #
              MemoryVault

              Tell me Heffer,

              Are you here for any reason other than your own self-aggrandisement –
              that is, to support your own self-image as a Legend In Your Own Lunchtime?

              If so, you may as well F-OFF now, as we’re really not interested. We’ve heard it all before.

              If you actually really believe you have something to say and contribute, then FFS could you get on with it?
              So far you’ve been about as informative and entertaining as watching paint peel.

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            Corndog

            Sea level rise is linear, for global sea rise catastrophy to occur it would need to begin increasing non-linearly. No peer reviewed paper is needed to understand this point it is an obvious fact. When sea level rise begins to increase non-linearly come back and talk to us. By the way don’t try to append the satellite data to the tide gage data that is an obvious no-no in science, again no peer reviewed paper needed to understand that either.

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            PhilJourdan

            Brian, that is sea level rise. And it does continue to rise. Unabated. But it does destroy the meme that it is accelerating since the rise is linear, not parabolic. Which would be required for an accelerating rise.

            So you are attempting to prove there is no evidence for AGW? That is a good start.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        They are using models that have been PROVEN BY REALITY to be monumentally wrong !

        Then they are saying that the ones that even got close were incorrect and should have been WRONGER.

        What sort of idiot does that ?

        And you want to pass them off as some sort of expert … seriously.. !!!!!

        Start using your own meagre brain for a change, instead of relying on the paid apologists of a failed hypothesis/religion.

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        • #
          Brian Hother

          What sort of idiot does that ?

          Well it appears as though Roy Spence does.
          http://www.drroyspencer.com/
          Isn’t he one of your denier champions, or do you only listen to him when his message suits you?

          Start using your own meagre brain for a change

          So ad hominems are Ok to use here you moron

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          • #
            AndyG55

            And were on Dr Spencer’s site particularly are you looking at?

            Where has he adjusted a model that is manifestly WRONG to make it EVEN MORE WRONG ?

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            • #
              AndyG55

              crickets chirping… still !!!!

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              Scott

              Andy, don’t waste time on the dill. Ad homs, non sequiturs and euphemisms are all he has. He knows there’s not a shred of evidence to support AGW (forget the climate change straw man garbage). 

              The fact he keeps asking for links but he himself then provides links to SMH etc says a lot. Oh, hang on, he’s also learnt to use ‘thought bubble’ as well.

              I would suggest Chris Landsea’s resignation from the IPCC after Trenburth’s deliberate and blatant lies claiming CO2 had been undeniably linked to tropical storms would be enough, or climategate, or Pachurai having to admit the ‘peer reviewed’ Himalayan glacial melts was in fact not per reviewed nor was it true, or that the arctic is not ice free as predicted, nor has there been runaway global warming, nor was there ever a tropical hot-spot as Hansen claimed (remember his ‘smoking gun’ catch cry?) but no. He just blathers on aimlessly.

              Why try to convince the fool? If he’s happy enough parting with his money on a myth let the fool go ahead. The fact is that Brian is a dwindling breed of deniers clinging on to a laughable theory dreamed up by an idiot called Hansen.

              Chris Landsea’s resignation just for Brian.

              http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html

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              • #
                AndyG55

                orrrrr…… but its fun on an overcast day 🙁

                and I need the occasional break from the other stuff I’m working on.

                please let me play with the dopey troll !

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            AndyG55

            It seems you were unable to read, or unable to follow through, on the suggestion in my last sentence in the previous post.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Not ad hom.. just statement of basic observation.

            Each post you make reinforces that observation.

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            Heywood

            “So ad hominems are Ok to use here you moron”

            You started it with the use of the term ‘denier’ dip$hit. Unless of course you want to detail exactly what is being denied by the posters here.

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              I think you need to re-read my first post. It was clearly a reference to Maurice Newman. If you identify with his views then thats your problem not mine.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Maurice is a climate realist. he looks at the science and finds it very lacking.

                There is nothing proven to DENY, so how can he be a denier !!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Maurice is a climate realist

                No he is a businessman who is incapable of interpreting the science himself and chooses to deny the scientific advice of the vast majority of experts in the field. A bit like you really, minus the business brain I suspect.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Maurice is a climate realist.. he sees what is REAL, not what is imagined or modelled by climate models that have been debunked by REALITY.

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              • #
                tom0mason

                Sorry Brian Hother, “It was clearly a reference to Maurice Newman.” IMO no it was not you started the ad hominems…An agreement to stop using them would be nice, and lets get back to facts.

                1. Nature controls climate, unless you can supply evidence to the contrary.

                2. Models do not explain the 17 year pause (as acknowledged by UN-IPCC).

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                Heywood

                Your first post was an ad hom, moving onto argument from authority, and then a quote from some enviro-loon reporter from the SMH. What was your point?

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                Radical Rodent

                Mr Hother, you do seem able to whip up some annoyance. Understandable, really, as you demand links yet, when given, you dismiss them; you then rely upon linking to a publication that for years has been a much derided in its ethos and content, as if it was some sort of oracle (hint: it is not). Check out some of the world’s most respected (still, despite much evidence to the contrary) weather organisations, the UKMO, NASA and NOAA; all have admitted that there has been NO significant rise in temperatures this century.

                Look at your much-vaunted climate models: all were based on the premise that CO2 was the driving factor in temperature, so that increasing CO2 would increase temperatures. Observations show that CO2 has continued to rise as predicted, yet temperatures have not. Surely, even to someone such as yourself, that has to show that the basic premise is wrong, and CO2 has little, if anything, to do with temperatures. As Richard Feynman so eloquently said: “If the facts do not fit the theory, then the theory is wrong.”

                I, too, was a Believer. What rang my bell was a petulant response to a request for the data upon which the entire scam is based: “You only want this data to prove me wrong.” Well… yes. That is what ALL true scientists want; all true scientists want their theory put through the treadmill of verification. Einstein’s most spirited defence of his theory was: “It only takes one fact to prove me wrong.”

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              • #
                AndyG55

                RR, this poor entity has its “mind-block” very securely fastened.

                No amount of REALITY can be allowed to impinge upon his brain-washing.

                The Borg have him well and truly in their grasp.

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              • #
                Radical Rodent

                Yes, AndyG55. It is a shame that the time difference with the more extreme southern counties of England has made me rather late to the discussion, as I would have enjoyed engaging in the banter. I take it this person is a regular on this site? Perhaps I might join in later discussions.

                What really irritates me is that this whole debacle will be portrayed as yet more “proof” of global warming! (Note: I do not call it “climate change” as the only metric for measuring “climate change” is by temperatures – there are no climatometers that I know of, therefore, it is global warming… or not, of course.)

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                as you demand links yet, when given, you dismiss them;

                I dismiss nonsense blogs, you lot dismiss peer reviewed science journals like “Nature”

                organisations, the UKMO, NASA and NOAA; all have admitted that there has been NO significant rise in temperatures this century

                Have they, where. More invention and wishful thinking on your part or you have a like for me to read?

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              • #
                Radical Rodent

                The UKMO issued a press release on 26th December, 2012 to that effect (hoping, perhaps, that it would pass unnoticed); NASA and NOAA followed shortly after. Even I, with my own uninterest in many news media, managed to catch all three; if you are unable or unwilling to see what is happening all around you, please do not expect us to do your work for you. I am sure that if you go to the web sites of those organisations, you will find the information, though it will probably be well-hidden, as they are desperately hoping that most of the population are as gullible as you seem to be, and will not bother doing any real searching.

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            ian hilliar

            Why bother with brian hother? Is that your real name, Whiney briany? Bet you wish you were on that ship of fools. I wish you were, partying with like minded warmists, while waiting for a ” natural” break in the weather, so you and your ilk can run away and leave the poor Russian crew to carry the can.

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          • #
            PhilJourdan

            Denier? really Brian, what is a denier? What exactly is being denied? A meme? Surely, even you have proven the science is not being denied by Spencer.

            So perhaps denier is just the lame term that weak minded in-duh-viduals make when they have no clue what they are talking about and are seeking to end the educational experience with mindless ad hominems.

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      • #
        bobl

        The research, by a team led by the University of NSW, says a 4-degree rise in temperature would be potentially catastrophic for agriculture in warm regions of the world, including Australia.

        Brian,
        This would be the same University of NSW that currently has it’s research team, encircled by 3-4M ice in the Antarctic, in the middle of Summer? Right?

        BwHa Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha ….

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      • #

        Ah, Brian, that’s all you’ve got isn’t it?

        The Science says this ……

        The Science says that …..

        The Science indicates …..

        Now, step back a bit and stop looking only at what you think the Science is telling you.

        Consider this. If there is a Cancer that you are told is going to kill you. The only cure is to completely cut it out, and then follow up with treatment to further make sure, radiation, chemotherapy, etc. However, foremost above that, and the very first thing that HAS to be done is to CUT IT OUT. Take it away. Destroy it.

        Okay then, now that you have stepped back from only looking at the Science, turn your head a little and look at the root cause of what the Science tells you, the emissions of CO2.

        You can do the treatment later, but first, if this is supposedly going to be so damned detrimental to all of us, then you need to CUT OUT this danger of yours.

        Far and away the largest contributor to CO2 emissions is the electrical power generating sector, which makes up 45% of those CO2 emissions.

        Have they cut out that cancer?

        No.

        Have they immediately told all those Countries to stop construction of new CO2 emitting power plants?

        No.

        Have any large scale coal fired plants closed down, directly because of this cancer?

        No.

        The only coal fired plants which have closed are the smaller ones, and not because of this CO2 cancer, but because they were time expired after anything up to 50 years and more of continuous service.

        Even then, where those smaller plants have closed, they are replaced, not only in full, but by more than that, by Natural Gas fired plants, also large scale emitters of CO2.

        Have they told China to stop constructing new large scale coal fired plants?

        No. In fact China is full steam ahead on a huge construction program, with one new large scale plant opening up every 7 to 10 days, and have been doing this for the last 6/7/8 years and will continue for at least the next 5 years and more. The same applies, on a lesser scale with India. The same also applies for other still Developing Countries, and in fact is proceeding in Countries already developed. All of these large scale coal fired plants have an operational life span of 50 years, and consider that again. 50 more years ….. from toady, with years more construction of new plants still ahead.

        Are they doing this to thumb their nose at this cancer?

        No. They are doing it to bring electrical power to between a quarter and a third of the whole World’s population, who have very little, and in most cases no access to electrical power at all.

        Because of this cancer, has any Country stopped all CO2 emissions from the electrical power sector?

        No.

        So then, what have they done?

        The only thing they have done is sought to make money from it, with the imposition of a CO2 Tax, and ETS legislation.

        Does that stop those plants cold?

        No. They still do what they always did, generate large scale electrical power. Only now, they pay money to the Government for doing that.

        Have they sought to replace those coal fired plants so they can be closed?

        Well, sort of. They actually think they can achieve this with the introduction of Wind power and solar power, spinning that so the ignorant public who don’t bother to look for themselves will think they can achieve this, something so patently false, it’s laughable. They pay for this with (some of) the money raised from their ETS, throwing money at entrepreneurs who know how to grab hold of Government money.

        These forms of power generation, wind and solar are never really investigated for the lack of power they produce, but it’s like replacing a 2014 Mercedes Benz with a 1957 Trabant with only three wheels.

        So Brian, you can quote all the bogus Science that your handlers tell you to use.

        Until your side of this debate (joke there) step back and look at what is actually being done, then your religion will continue to have a following, as you all bow down to The Science.

        You need to open your eyes and see what is being done, which is nothing of any consequence at all.

        Cut out the cancer first.

        Until you do that, you’ve got nothing.

        Tony.

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          Brian Hother

          Ah the straw-man cometh. Were did I ever mention any personal opinion on:

          *stop construction of new CO2 emitting power plants
          *Have any large scale coal fired plants closed down
          *imposition of a CO2 Tax
          *ETS legislation
          *power generation, wind and solar
          *Government money

          If you want my opinion on these issues, then why not ask, instead of just inventing straw-man crap

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            AndyG55

            roflmao!!!.. you seriously missed the point, didn’t you. DUH !!!

            And NO, we don’t want your opinion on those things.. my sides have had enough laughter already today.

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              we don’t want your opinion on those things

              Thats why I havnt offered it. I have realised that opinion without evidence is useless hot air. Im just wondering when that penny drops on ” your side”.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                You haven’t offered ANYTHING, except empty rhetoric.

                No evidence, no data, no facts, no science…..

                just empty propaganda junk statements, just like all the other catastrophists that come here.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                You haven’t offered ANYTHING, except empty rhetoric.

                No evidence, no data, no facts, no science…..

                just empty propaganda junk statements, just like all the other catastrophists that come here.

                Isn’t that what passes as intelligent analysis with you?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                nothing more is needed.

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                Backslider

                Brian Hother belongs to the same warmist cult as Michael the Idealist…. he believes that anything written in a peer reviewed journal is FACT (so long as it supports his religion).

                No understanding whatsoever of the scientific method, or even what peer reviewed literature is for that matter.

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                Mortis

                I am stunned you guys feed your trolls so well – makes them get big and hairy. Phil Jones, the Met and the head of the IPCC all say no warming in 15-17 years and still he clings to his belief system, so none of us are going to get through to him if they can’t. Maybe when he hits the age of reason…

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            Dave

            WHOOOOOSSSSHHHHH…………………..

            Duck, something just passed overhead Brian.

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              WHOOOOOSSSSHHHHH…………………..

              The sound of more evidence, or is it just more hot air,….or maybe its both at once again.

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              • #

                Ah Brian,

                that’s what amuses me so much about people like you.

                You come here and spray everyone, not just one person, but all of us. You speak down to us from on high, proclaiming (without actually mentioning it) that you are obviously superior to us. You don’t even bother to address anything we say, or respond to it, just spray everyone.

                Why do you bother, if you know it all. Why not just write us off, and not bother at all.

                Are you so scared that you have to have to come here and spray everyone who responds, just for the sake of spraying, worried that an opposing point of view might be put out there.

                People like you are absolutely wonderful for blogs like this.

                There’s probably more people lurking at this site than actually commenting, something quite obvious when you look at the actual comments, and then the number down the right side which shows the people currently at this site, right now, and the number right now is 71. There’s not even that number of people who have left comments here, let alone doing it right now.

                Those umm, lurkers, see people like you commenting, and they just think to themselves, without ever having to comment, that those on your side of this debate are really unwilling to even consider an opposing point of view, just talking down at us and spraying for all it’s worth.

                Really, Brian, just why do you even bother? You already know you’re right.

                Hooroo!

                Tony.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                you are obviously superior to us

                I’m sorry if you feel inferior, thats not my purpose. There is a solution to this dilemma though, education instead of empty opinion, try it.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Oh and if you are lonely, hug a tree, it does it for me.

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                AndyG55

                “I’m sorry if you feel inferior, thats not my purpose”

                That’s fortunate.. because you are failing miserably ! 🙂

                And when you finally get out of junior high, maybe we can discuss your next step wrt education. You seem to have missed out so far.

                As for hugging a tree…… each to there own…

                its probably the only way thing that “does it” for you….

                But I’m not going to get into the psychology behind your personal issues.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Yes, evidence does tend to pass way over your head.

                Or perhaps it is straight through, with nothing to block its path.

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                Backslider

                Oh and if you are lonely, hug a tree, it does it for me.

                Ahhhh… so you are a lonely tree hugger who knows nothing whatsoever about science.

                Ooops!… Now I will be accused of ad hom. Ok Brian, explain to us all how the scientific method work and what a NULL Hypothesis is 😛

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                Winston

                It is very enlightening reading Brian’s burnt offerings regarding CAGW.

                What you will notice is that his initial comment about “denier delusion” was an extremely rude ad hom straight off the bat, designed purely to provoke angry responses while pretending to engage. Not at any stage did he present in the numerous posts above any convincing supportive evidence of any note, in fact he produced a link to UAH data of Roy Spencer’s which he chose to interpret the way it best suited him, while glaringly overlooking the obvious lack of warming in the last 15 years on the very same graph, and the pitiful actual warming apparent over the entire satellite record (where any proven attribution from man is entirely lacking), which commences (coincidently of course) at the base of a cold phase of global temperature oscillation.

                He then reverses the onus of proof away from the proponents of CAGW theory (where it belongs) onto skeptics by asking them to provide evidence with links of a countervailing theory to replace the failed hypothesis he is trying vainly to sell. We then have the usual cries of “listen to the science”, “experts say”, “models show” etc which merely entrenches the current paradigm regardless of its merit in complete contradistinction to scientific method, which is meant to welcome inconvenient questions and rebut any cogent arguments from any and all comers, whether they have a PhD in Climastrology or are mere physicists, engineers, doctors, or Pakistani taxi drivers for that matter.

                He then impugns the intelligence and credibility of Maurice Newman (and everyone else for that matter- such irony there) without even attempting to address any one of the points he made, nor does he address any of the commenters points since, by his own admission, his opinion would be just so much “useless hot air”- that is the first thing he has got right. Brian then suggests we should all get an indoctrination “education”- sounds like the self-justification of a scientologist suggesting that we all can’t criticise their “religion” until first we have been seen by one of their counsellors behind closed doors.

                The thing is Brian, either your hypothesis has a leg to stand on or it hasn’t, and that relies entirely on its predictive accuracy, and at this point in time this “accuracy” is not significantly different from zero. When, and only when, the data correlates with your predictions, then we may become belatedly convinced, but that cannot happen until some honesty occurs from the alarmist side, but such is the deceptiveness, disingenuousness and semantic word games that one has no trust whatsoever that the preachers scientists who frequent your cult are even capable of objective and dispassionate evaluation of that data as it comes to hand.

                As for links:

                http://www.co2science.org/articles/V7/N51/C3.php

                Please by all means explain the many rapid climate shifts, both warming and cooling, throughout the Holocene interglacial period, of course confining yourself purely in terms of the all powerful CO2 molecule as the primary, omnipotent climate driver that you contend it to be- knock yourself out.

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                Winston

                PS. I hope you and that tree will be very happy together.

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                tom0mason

                Brian
                Your lake of factual evidence is amazing.
                Found any facts that refute –

                1. Nature controls climate.

                2. Models do not explain the 17 year pause.

                A little more educations for is at –

                http://drtimball.com/2013/why-and-how-the-ipcc-demonized-co2-with-manufactured-information/

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                ExWarmist

                Brian says…

                Oh and if you are lonely, hug a tree, it does it for me.

                Brian – Trees are made of Carbon…

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                Richard S Courtney

                Brian Hother:

                You have made many posts in this thread but only two statements. Both are wrong.

                The so-called “hiatus” in global warming is admitted by the IPCC. In reality it is not a “hiatus”: it is a halt to global warming because nobody can know if warming will resume or cooling will initiate.

                Simply, there has been no statistically significant rise in global temperature ( discernible at 95% confidence) for at least 17 years according to all data sets (RSS says 22 years). This is easily determined for yourself by accessing the data sets so there is no purpose in saying more because either you are interested in checking it for yourself or you are a deluded fool.

                Secondly, your trust in climate models is mistaken: they do not emulate the climate system of the real Earth. I explain this as follows.

                None of the models – not one of them – could match the change in mean global temperature over the past century if it did not utilise a unique value of assumed cooling from aerosols. So, inputting actual values of the cooling effect (such as the determination by Penner et al.
                http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/07/25/1018526108.full.pdf?with-ds=yes )
                would make every climate model provide a mismatch of the global warming it hindcasts and the observed global warming for the twentieth century.

                This mismatch would occur because all the global climate models and energy balance models are known to provide indications which are based on
                1.
                the assumed degree of forcings resulting from human activity that produce warming
                and
                2.
                the assumed degree of anthropogenic aerosol cooling input to each model as a ‘fiddle factor’ to obtain agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature.

                As long ago as 1999 I published a peer-reviewed paper that showed the UK’s Hadley Centre general circulation model (GCM) could not model climate and only obtained agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature by forcing the agreement with an input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.

                The input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling is needed because the model ‘ran hot’; i.e. it showed an amount and a rate of global warming which was greater than was observed over the twentieth century. This failure of the model was compensated by the input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.

                And my paper demonstrated that the assumption of aerosol effects being responsible for the model’s failure was incorrect.
                (ref. Courtney RS An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of global climate using the general circulation model of the UK’s Hadley Centre Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999).

                More recently, in 2007, Kiehle published a paper that assessed 9 GCMs and two energy balance models.
                (ref. Kiehl JT,Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GRL vol.. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007).

                Kiehl found the same as my paper except that each model he assessed used a different aerosol ‘fix’ from every other model. This is because they all ‘run hot’ but they each ‘run hot’ to a different degree.

                He says in his paper:

                One curious aspect of this result is that it is also well known [Houghton et al., 2001] that the same models that agree in simulating the anomaly in surface air temperature differ significantly in their predicted climate sensitivity. The cited range in climate sensitivity from a wide collection of models is usually 1.5 to 4.5 deg C for a doubling of CO2, where most global climate models used for climate change studies vary by at least a factor of two in equilibrium sensitivity.

                The question is: if climate models differ by a factor of 2 to 3 in their climate sensitivity, how can they all simulate the global temperature record with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
                Kerr [2007] and S. E. Schwartz et al. (Quantifying climate change–too rosy a picture?, available at http://www.nature.com/reports/climatechange, 2007) recently pointed out the importance of understanding the answer to this question. Indeed, Kerr [2007] referred to the present work and the current paper provides the ‘‘widely circulated analysis’’ referred to by Kerr [2007]. This report investigates the most probable explanation for such an agreement. It uses published results from a wide variety of model simulations to understand this apparent paradox between model climate responses for the 20th century, but diverse climate model sensitivity.

                And, importantly, Kiehl’s paper says:

                These results explain to a large degree why models with such diverse climate sensitivities can all simulate the global anomaly in surface temperature. The magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing compensates for the model sensitivity.

                And the “magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing” is fixed in each model by the input value of aerosol forcing.

                Thanks to Bill Illis, Kiehl’s Figure 2 can be seen at
                http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/8167/kiehl2007figure2.png

                Please note that the Figure is for 9 GCMs and 2 energy balance models, and its title is:

                Figure 2. Total anthropogenic forcing (Wm2) versus aerosol forcing (Wm2) from nine fully coupled climate models and two energy balance models used to simulate the 20th century.

                It shows that
                (a) each model uses a different value for “Total anthropogenic forcing” that is in the range 0.80 W/m^2 to 2.02 W/m^2
                but
                (b) each model is forced to agree with the rate of past warming by using a different value for “Aerosol forcing” that is in the range -1.42 W/m^2 to -0.60 W/m^2.

                In other words the models use values of “Total anthropogenic forcing” that differ by a factor of more than 2.5 and they are ‘adjusted’ by using values of assumed “Aerosol forcing” that differ by a factor of 2.4.

                So, each climate model emulates a different climate system. Hence, at most only one of them emulates the climate system of the real Earth because there is only one Earth. And the fact that they each ‘run hot’ unless fiddled by use of a completely arbitrary ‘aerosol cooling’ strongly suggests that none of them emulates the climate system of the real Earth.

                In conclusion, I ask you to please refrain from continuing to snow this thread with nonsense which has no relation to reality. It is disruptive.

                Richard

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                Mortis

                There is always the chance that he is a professional troll – he sure acts like it

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                Mortis

                @Richard S Courtney

                Bravo sir, well said.
                Also, I believe there is the possibility that this isn’t a pause, but a peak, and that doesn’t sound good to me.I am sure others more informed than me have considered this but I am guessing it will be a few years before that shows in the data as a trend if true? Does anybody have anything on the amount of time to determine a trend in this instance? I would assume at least a decade…

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                Richard S Courtney

                Mortis:

                In reply to me, at January 2, 2014 at 3:57 pm you ask

                Also, I believe there is the possibility that this isn’t a pause, but a peak, and that doesn’t sound good to me.I am sure others more informed than me have considered this but I am guessing it will be a few years before that shows in the data as a trend if true? Does anybody have anything on the amount of time to determine a trend in this instance? I would assume at least a decade…

                Of course that possibility exists because the future is not known.

                Climastrology uses 95% confidence levels to assess linear trends. There are good reasons to dispute both the applied confidence level and the use of linear trends. However, that is what they use and, therefore, I am answering your question using the assumption that you are addressing the temperature time series in that manner.

                The time required to discern a trend at 95% confidence depends on the variance of the data set. We are discussing the future and it cannot be known what the variance of the future data will be. Hence, a definite answer to your question is not possible.

                However, assuming the variance of the future data has similar variance to the variance of data from the past century, then 15 years would indicate if a surface temperature trend (be it positive or negative) were discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence.

                I hope that helps.

                Richard

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                Richard S Courtney

                I see that my reply to the question from Mortis has obtained a ‘thumbs down’.

                My answer was purely factual and included all needed caveats. Hence, I would be grateful for an explanation of the ‘thumbs down’.

                Does somebody think my answer was incorrect and if so then why?
                I would appreciate correction of any error in my answer.

                Or is it simply that ‘truth hurts’ and someone has lashed-out in response his/her pain?

                Richard

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                Mortis

                Richard S Courtney:
                Thank you for taking the time to respond. I know it wasn’t a very narrowly focused question and the answer was within the range I was considering (caveats well taken btw), I just wasn’t sure about modern data trend analysis – college is now a long time ago for me 🙂

                and the thumbs down must be a petty strike by one of the trolls here – it wasn’t me

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        john robertson

        Way too funny, you do realize this “study” referred to, acknowledges that, they got it wrong with all the IPCC computer model projections to date?
        In other words, yes all our models, our average of model runs and endless doomsaying, were wrong… but this time, we tweaked the right parameters and we are absolutely sure we get it right.
        How does the IPCC improve on their certainty?

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          Backslider

          but this time, we tweaked the right parameters and we are absolutely sure we get it right.

          Well no, they didn’t. They have just guessed again, admitted quite clearly by the lead author:

          And in particular, we don’t know what you have to put into a climate model, what equations you have to put in, to get it to do the right thing. So I think one of the things that I would like to work on is to try to make that link, which we can’t currently make. – Steven Sherwood

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        Maurice Newman has zero expertise and no credibility on this issue. His opinion has no effect on reality

        Nobody’s opinion has any effect on reality. Reality is reality, it does not bend to opinion nor to consensus.

        What we are discussing is the interpretation of reality, and the actions of people, based on whatever interpretation they choose to put on it. And that is driven by motivation.

        So the question becomes, “Why would Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, choose to speak out against the hypothesis of Anthropogenic Climate Change at this time?”. The question is not about specialised qualifications, but about motivation. Think about that, and then give us your answer.

        A contrary question might be, “Why does Dr Roy Spencer, claim that warming has continued unabated, and that we still have a need to fear for our lives, and the lives of our children unborn”. Again, the question is not about specialised qualifications, but about motivation, so what are Dr Spencer’s possible motivations? There is probably a list of them, if you care to look. Share them with us.

        Nobody on this site doubts the underlying scientific principles. It is the way in which the results of measurements are “interpreted” that is in debate. But “interpretation” is a political concept, and not a scientific one, and in that way, Maurice Newman and Dr Roy Spencer, are presenting different political opinions about how a graph might be interpreted.

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          Brian Hother

          The first part I agree with but the last part,

          But “interpretation” (of data) is a political concept, and not a scientific one

          is the biggest load of codwollop I have ever read

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            AndyG55

            Ahhh.. an admission that you don’t read your own posts. !!

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            Ross

            “But “interpretation” (of data) is a political concept, and not a scientific one

            is the biggest load of codwollop I have ever read”

            Brian , can please tell us why the IPCC had their get together in Stockholm before they released the Summary for Policy Makers of the new IPCC report ? At that meeting they reviewed the sections of the reports written by the scientists and made changes to what the scientists had said. There were 10 pages of alterations. Now if the scientists were accurate then presumably there would NO changes required. So either the scientists are not correct or as we know the bureaucrats and activist scientists at Stockholm change the words and data to suit the political agenda.

            http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/10/02/10-pages-of-ipcc-science-mistakes/

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              Brian Hother

              http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/10/02/10-pages-of-ipcc-science-mistakes/

              Another blogs. Blogs, where is real science is done. Every post you guys make is just confirmation that facts is are what you are interested. Its like that movie A Few Good Men. You are defending the world from those Commie bastards that want wreck it all

              Col. Jessep: You want answers?

              Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to.

              Col. Jessep: *You want answers?*

              Kaffee: *I want the truth!*

              Col. Jessep: *You can’t handle the truth!*

              [pauses] You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties you want me on that wall….

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                Backslider

                Sonny. Your first post here linked to The Sydney Morning Herald. You have nothing to say.

                Ross was not making a point of science, thus his link is perfectly appropriate.

                You on the other hand wish to bag everybody who doesn’t believe warmist crap, yet you have not provided a single link to a peer reviewed paper in support of your arguments. Not one.

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                Richard S Courtney

                Brian Hother:

                Earlier, I asked you to please refrain from continuing to snow this thread with nonsense which has no relation to reality. Unfortunately, you have done it again on another matter.

                It is the custom and practice of the IPCC for all of its Reports to be amended to agree with the political summaries. The facts are as follows.

                The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is agreed “line by line” by politicians and/or representatives of politicians, and it is then published. After that the so-called ‘scientific’ Reports are amended to agree with the SPM. This became IPCC custom and practice of the IPCC when prior to its Second Report the then IPCC Chairman, John Houghton, decreed,

                We can rely on the Authors to ensure the Report agrees with the Summary.

                This was done and has been the normal IPCC procedure since then.

                This custom and practice enabled the infamous ‘Chapter 8′ scandal so perhaps it should – at long last – be changed. However, it has been adopted as official IPCC procedure for all subsequent IPCC Reports. Appendix A of the present Report, AR5, states this where it says.

                4.6 Reports Approved and Adopted by the Panel

                Reports approved and adopted by the Panel will be the Synthesis Report of the Assessment Reports and other Reports as decided by the Panel whereby Section 4.4 applies mutatis mutandis.

                This is completely in accord with the official purpose of the IPCC.

                The IPCC does NOT exist to summarise climate science and it does not.

                The IPCC is only permitted to say AGW is a significant problem because they are tasked to accept that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” that can be selected as political polices and the IPCC is tasked to provide those “options”.

                This is clearly stated in the “Principles” which govern the work of the IPCC. These are stated at
                http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf

                Near its beginning that document says

                ROLE

                2. The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.

                This says the IPCC exists to provide
                (a) “information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change”
                and
                (b) “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”.

                Hence, its “Role” demands that the IPCC accepts as a given that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”. Any ‘science’ which fails to support that political purpose is ‘amended’ in furtherance of the IPCC’s Role.

                This is achieved by amendment of the IPCC’s so-called ‘scientific’ Reports to fulfil the IPCC’s political purpose by politicians approving the SPM then the IPCC lead Authors amending the so-called ‘scientific’ Reports to agree with the SPM.

                All IPCC Reports including the IPCC AR5 are pure pseudoscience intended to provide information to justify political actions; i.e.Lysenkoism.

                I fail to understand why you and some others refuse to accept that the IPCC adopts and obeys the practices and procedures stipulated in the IPCC’s own official documents.

                Richard

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                Bob Malloy

                Richard S Courtney.

                Thanks so much for your timely return to “Jo’s”, your link to the IPCC’s charter will help me on a matter I refer to on another post. 🙂

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                Brian Hother

                Hi Richard, please to meet someone else prepared to use a name.

                All IPCC Reports including the IPCC AR5 are pure pseudoscience intended to provide information to justify political actions; i.e.Lysenkoism.

                I fail to understand why…..

                any normal non retarded person would be expected to believe this crap.

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                Richard S Courtney

                Brian Hother:

                Thankyou for your post at January 2, 2014 at 9:49 pm which says IPCC Reports are “crap”.

                I dislike your language, but I agree that your use of that word is a completely appropriate description of the the nature and contents of IPCC Reports.

                However, sadly, there are people who choose to “believe” the IPCC Reports which – as you say – are “crap”.

                Richard

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            Do you believe that there can only ever be one interpretation that can be placed on any set of data?

            What a lack of imagination you must have.

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      • #
        Rod Stuart

        Note that the snoozer Brian attacks Maurice Newman’s credibility, rather than argue the points Newman makes.

        ‘The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.’…..George Orwell.

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        • #
          Brian Hother

          argue the points Newman makes

          I have re-read hid article and don’t find any points that he make which are supported by any evidence he cites. They are just his unsupported opinions, not a shred of evidence to be seen anywhere near him. A bit like you guys.

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            john robertson

            Since you bring it up, what is Brian Hother’s credibility, and expertise to pontificate on climate science?
            If that is your real name.
            Totally off topic of course.
            Do you bother to read the articles you wave to?
            Those citations at the bottom, actually should be read.
            What no citations?
            So its opinion pieces you are waving.
            Rereke makes a fine point, that tool, the scientific method, cares nothing for expertise and credibility.
            Either you use it and argue science or do not and argue from authority.

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              Brian Hother

              You have been detained by a full length mirror I’m afraid

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              Backslider

              If that is your real name.

              Google only brings up Monty Python’s Life of Brian… LMAO!

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              PhilJourdan

              reading him all in sequence, it is clear he is offering nothing. Just yanking your chains. He accuses everyone else of the tactics he is employing, and making them attempt to prove a negative. All the while completely ignoring basic science.

              He is trolling. As such, the more responses he gets, the more he rolls in his trolling.

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              • #
                MemoryVault

                he is offering nothing. Just yanking your chains.

                Yeah, but he’s doing wonders for Jo’s online stats.

                Between him, Dribblebladder and the Master Baiter, JO is a shoe-in for the Webbloggies awards again this year.

                Brings a whole new meaning to the term “useful fool”.

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              • #
                Mortis

                As such, the more responses he gets, the more he rolls in his trolling.

                and is therefore seen as exactly that by the common fence sitter. I mean, if you knew very little about AGW, the carbon “scare”, poles melting, etc., and come here (or similar sites) to see what others are saying, which side looks like the one to whom you should listen? Bri Bri’s posting isn’t wasting our time or gaining him anything. If you add the recent shake in the faith of the average person in their green-placating government, Obamacare, NSA snooping, etc., it is the perfect storm to push people away from the idiot AGW troll legions and towards our position. So, ol’ Bri Bri is a two-fold useful idiot.

                Thanks again Bri 😉

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          • #
            Brian Hother

            So pages and pages of distracting opinion and none of you have been able to find a single credible source to support poor old Maurice Newman’s self-flagellation, but then I had not really expected anything. Just all sitting around, nodding in agreement like sheep.

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            • #
              tom0mason

              So pages and pages of your distracting opinion and have not been able to find a single credible source of evidence against Maurice Newman’s. Your public self-flagellation is amusing, but then I had not really expected anything less from Brian; who sits around, eyes staring at the latest warmist propaganda, and sagely nodding in agreement like a sheep.

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              Rereke Whakaaro

              This is a troll bot (that may be made of flesh and blood, but that is immaterial), but it is no scientist.

              It is totally unaware of the way science actually works.

              How do you carve an elephant? You get a very large block of stone, and you cut away all of the pieces that do not look like they are part of the elephant.

              And that is the way that science works. You cannot prove a cause for an effect. All you can do is to eliminate all of the things that you can think of, that will not cause the effect, and what you are left with is a possible, or even probable cause for the effect. But you can never claim that it is the only cause for the effect.

              All real scientists understand this. All real scientists know this is the way that science actually works. Ergo, this troll is no scientist.

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                Mortis

                spot on Rereke, but he is serving the purpose of making his side look like children throwing tantrums, so thanks Bri for that… Those who are undecided or now questioning the narrative are further pushed to truth by trolls like you. We skeptics are winning despite the very real advantage your side has enjoyed for quite some time and it is all because people like you troll in this fashion. The momentum shifting, and after such a long time, it reminds me of another piece of wisdom that includes elephants – How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time,…

                “A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.” –
Denis Diderot

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        Backslider

        Brian Hother. You are pitifully ignorant if you think that “research” based on climate models (statistical tools) is science. It’s not science, its statistics.

        These reseachers have looked at zero empirical evidence for their conclusions. Zero.

        The call it “climate study”, however they did not study the climate at all, just modelling.

        Not a shred of evidence, just assumptions based juggling and opinion.

        From one of the researchers himself:

        And in particular, we don’t know what you have to put into a climate model, what equations you have to put in, to get it to do the right thing. So I think one of the things that I would like to work on is to try to make that link, which we can’t currently make.

        And you believe this crap is science???

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          • #
            Backslider

            Most people are smart enough to spot a simple WordPress URL error:

            Deny this sonny.

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              AndyG55

              Gees BackS, this is Brian you are talking to..

              lower your expectations…. considerably.

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                Mark Sokacic

                Don’t feed the climate troll. Have to give this exchange to Mr.Hother. He’s achieved his goal of putting a stick into a wasps nest and enraging a select few at the expense of a little effort on his part. No doubt he’s smiling all the way back to SkS with supreme self satisfaction. His laziness in research is self evident. Demanding references and work from his respondents when his questions can be answered by the simplest of google queries or reading the many climate blogs out there if he genuinely curious. He’s not looking to understand but to simply provoke. Deny him the CO2 he craves 🙂

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                AndyG55

                Gees Mark, You’re no fun !! 🙁

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                bobl

                I’m with Andy here, you are a stick in the mud Mark… gotta get in some new years fun, The empty wafflings of the Climate anointed are such fun to put down, and even Margot does better than this one…. Mind you I think we were talking to a bot.

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                Backslider

                Mind you I think we were talking to a bot.

                Yes, it keeps mindlessly repeating “thought bubble”…. perhaps its that SPAM software that the Goracle was working on?

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                Mortis

                Mark Sokacic

                I disagree that the round goes to the troll – if you judge it by the time we spent feeding him, sure, it is a quaint victory. Where he loses is all those who come later (and current lurkers as astutely pointed out upthread) reading this exchange (and similar ones in the months ahead)and realizing how bad Bri Bri’s position is – it is in these little battles coming this year that the AGW crowd will get shut down even more as people who aren’t sure what to think start reading up on what they thought was a “settled” science. And we can thank (reluctantly) the idiotic misadventure down south to cause more sheeple to begin looking into the subject.

                Truth will out.

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                Brian Hother

                Truth will out.

                I hope so, but it will be an ugly truth for the deniers, starting tomorrow when the BOM give their climate update. It wont matter to you though because you will stick your finger in your ears, close your eyes and buzz around shouting “its all a conspiracy, the Commies Greenie aliens want to form a world government and tell me what cloloured undies I must wear”

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                Brian Hother

                I’m with Andy here, you are a stick in the mud Mark… gotta get in some new years fun, The empty wafflings of the Climate anointed are such fun to put down

                So you think you are having more fun than me?? Ive got news for you..

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              AndyG55

              “As you feel that you are academic”

              Nah.. a bot would have AI.. this one lacks the second part. !

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                AndyG55

                darn, getting sleepy, pasted the wrong cut and hit “post” before I realised it..

                post should read …………..

                ——————————————-

                “Mind you I think we were talking to a bot”

                Nah.. a bot would have AI.. this one lacks the second part. !

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                Brian Hother

                “Mind you I think we were talking to a bot”

                Nah.. a bot would have AI.. this one lacks the second part. !

                Andy , you make me laugh. Not only do you think you are a climate scientist but now a comedian as well>

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              • #
                MemoryVault

                you think you are a climate scientist but now a comedian as well

                So that makes you the “straight” fall guy then?
                Eric Morecombe’s Ernie Wise, perhaps?

                Or maybe Manuel from Barcelona in Fawlty Towers?
                Perfect.

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            MemoryVault

            “tell me what cloloured undies I must wear”

            Well, according to Stephen Conroy, Communications Minister at the time in a Greens/Labor Coalition, discussing a forthcoming auction of telecommunications bandwidth, at an international conference, they should be red, and worn on the head.

            Hope that helps.

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        Ian hilliar

        Brian, the self described “center of excellence in climate change ‘ at my old alma mater UNSW no longer has any credibility. if you want to find a science site, try Judith Curry’s Climate etc. Real science by a world recognised climate science , written in plain language you may understand, though i doubt yoy will enjoy it.

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          AndyG55

          “old alma mater UNSW”

          been there. done that.. !

          pity the Uni now actually employs this rabble !!

          They do themselves a grave dis-service.

          Ok.. time to admit. I have actually given a talk or two at an ACCARNSI seminars.

          ( how embarrassment! 🙁 )

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          • #
            AndyG55

            And my last contract was paid for from NCCARF funds.

            I guess that makes me the closest thing to a real “climate scientist” on this forum. 🙁

            There.. done.. new year res… to come clean and admit my follies !!!

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            • #
              Brian Hother

              I guess that makes me the closest thing to a real “climate scientist” on this forum.

              Except for the minor detail that you aren’t, you only dream about being one at night in bed when no-one is looking.

              07

            • #
              Brian Hother

              Have you ever actually let the thought cross you mind that I might be better qualified in this field than you, or has your ego stood in the way of that.

              07

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                MemoryVault

                Have you ever actually let the thought cross you mind that I might be better qualified in this field than you

                Trust me, Heffer, that would be the very last thought that would cross my mind.

                Even if you have some piece of paper from some obscure faculty of some third rate uni attesting otherwise, it is far outweighed by your continuing ability to display your profound ignorance on all things climate.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Even if you have some piece of paper from some obscure faculty of some third rate uni attesting otherwise, it is far outweighed by your continuing ability to display your profound ignorance on all things climate.

                You spend too long previewing your own posts

                07

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                MemoryVault

                You spend too long previewing your own posts

                Oh the wit!
                The ironing!

                Who can but stand in awe of such monumental . . . errh . . . something or other.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                No.

                And its nothing to do with ego.

                It is obvious that you know basically nothing.

                A rabid monkey would have better understanding.

                30

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                john robertson

                Good point given the wilful blindness,rapture with computer models ,snark, anger and ineptitude … Is that you Gavin?

                10

      • #
        ExWarmist

        Hi Brian,

        Just to be clear – Denier is an adhominen attack – and has no place in polite discussion.

        The clearest statement of the science in one place can be found at Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science

        For a through listing of science papers on climate science refuting the hypothesis of Man Made Global Warming you can’t beat http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

        Come back in 6 months – once you have done some reading.

        And as UN IPCC Expert reviewer Kevin Trenberth says

        The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

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        • #
          Tim

          Could it be that Brian is just searching for the truth and looking for answers here? Maybe not quite convinced that his learning is complete from the sources he’s been exploring to date?

          Perhaps he’s realised that scepticism is the process of finding a supported conclusion, not the justification of a preconceived conclusion that he’s probably been exposed to.

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        • #
          Brian Hother

          Just to be clear – Denier is an adhominen attack – and has no place in polite discussion.

          You mean a bit like “warmist” or “alarmist” found throughout this entire website.
          or like these in the heading to the piece “climate madness”, “dishonesty”, “fraud”, “deception”, “lies”
          or maybe you mean like this at the top of the page “the fraudulent wail of an ‘academic’ funding prostitute” when referring to the environment editor of the SMH

          You have got a nerve, talk about the pot calling the kettle black

          07

          • #
            Radical Rodent

            The reason that “denier” is an as hominem is that it is a false label, used to denigrate by association. Few, if any, “deniers” deny anything: temperatures have risen – yeah? So what? CO2 has risen – agreed; is it harmful, let alone dangerous? No – it is actually quite beneficial, so why get so upset? Humans are burning fossil fuels – not denied, but again, so what? Humans have caused some rise in CO2 – cannot be denied: but, by what proportion? Oh, look! By a negligible amount! Why worry?

            However, those referred to as “alarmist” are, erm, alarmist – they are the doomsayers of old, parading the streets, declaring that, “The End is Nigh! Not so long ago, they were dismissed as cranks, and ignored. However, these cranks have found a foothold in the corridors of politics, and are engaged in blatant dishonesty, deception and fraud, promulgating lies such that the long-suffering tax-payer (i.e. me and… others on this site) has to fork out rather a lot of money for absolutely no return. Can you blame us for being a little upset?

            Take a look through history – and I do not mean the past few decades, or even centuries – go back thousands, even millions of years, and you will find that the temperatures and climates on this planet have a record of variability – all without human intervention! What makes this recent slight rise any different, other than it occurring while we are here to monitor it? When you look at the forces involved in the cosmic events surrounding us, and then suggest that humans have caused it, let alone to think that we can in any way affect or alter the pattern has to be the absolute height of vanity.

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            • #
              Mortis

              Vanity and hubris

              10

            • #
              ExWarmist

              Thanks Radical Rodent.

              I have nothing further to add.

              Concluding thus …

              Denier is inappropriate.

              Alarmist or Warmist are apt descriptions without unwarranted negative connotations (such as holocaust denial).

              10

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        bananabender

        In the immortal words of Christine Keeler:

        “They would say that wouldn’t they.”

        Do you really expect climate “scientists” to simply roll over and admit they’re wrong when their careers are at stake?

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      • #

        You still believe the models? That’a not science, that’s a belief system you have hooked into.

        51

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          Brian Hother

          You still believe the models?

          You ignoramus, they helped design the car you drive in, the planes you fly in and the engines that power them, the computer that you are typing on and the drugs that prevent a coronary when you get upset by the reality I’m trying to ring to this thread. There is a lot of nonsense typed here, but yours must almost take the cake

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            Mortis

            There is an ignoramus here, but it isn’t Jeremy… so, your contention is because computers can CAD a car, an engine or any number of other engineering feats, that they can arrcurately model the climate of the Earth? The climate is a chaotic, nonlinear system that is apples and oranges compared to designing a Ford Taurus.

            Do I even need to explain gigo?

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            • #
              Richard S Courtney

              Mortis:

              You ask Brian Hother

              Do I even need to explain gigo?

              I do not know the need, but I will explain it.

              In computer science GIGO is an acronym for Garbage In -> Garbage Out
              and
              In climate science GIGO is an acronym for Garbage In -> Gospel Out

              Richard

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            David A. Evans

            Sure, models helped design aircraft and cars and the results are then tested against reality.
            Despite these models being based upon well established and confirmed engineering principles, it would still have been a mistake to give the Boeing 787 an airworthiness certificate based on the model results.
            GCMs on the other hand are based on a dubious hypothesis that atmospheric feedbacks are in sum nett postive.
            DaveE

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              AndyG55

              The gcm’s have also been tested against reality and been found to be massively lacking.

              If they were real engineering models they would have been tossed out many years ago.

              30

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                David A. Evans

                As I intimated Andy, even in areas where we’re pretty damned sure we know what we’re doing, the models still F**k up. If the model results had been accepted as Gospel, we’d be seeing 787s falling out of the sky left, right & centre. I just can’t understand the mentality of people that try to equate engineering models with GCMs, there’s simply no correlation.
                DaveE.

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                AndyG55

                “I just can’t understand the mentality”

                I assume it mostly comes down to basic ignorance.

                30

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            john robertson

            The very model of a modern major modeller…
            Idiot; computer masturbation does not predate any of the technology you refer to.
            For you the only answer is 42.

            10

      • #

        the denier delusion continues.

        We do not follow the cult. They have prophesied doom for our sins of rising from subsistence yet the signposts have not come about. Now some of the prophets stir again the tea leaves to show that the signs of doom were not necessary.
        It is has become a cult that those who understand do not believe in, but most have lost the ability to perceive beyond the belief system. The signs have failed to materialise. The hot spot is missing. The heatwaves are not more frequent. The Arctic ice has not gone. The ice sheets are not about to collapse. the hurricanes have not become stronger and more frequent. The temperature forecasts are still as wide as they were twenty years ago and are still running hot. Yet too many are on the gravy train to get off, as it challenges their easy living and social standing.
        Maurice Newman has come out against the cult, so must be denigrated and marginalized by being branded an apostate denier, now in the pay of the devil the capitalist class the big oil and coal interests.
        An empirical science is based on connecting with the actual data, not playing with computer games models. It relies on integrity and standards. Highest quality science requires an inhuman thing – potentially undermining a life’s work, social standing and career in acknowledging error. Climatology is shielded from these pressures, and hence has become a belief-system. This is not due to some conspiracy, but because we are social beings operating in structures that encourages conformity, discourages pluralism and allows dissenters to be ostracized.

        I might be wrong. Climatology could be a science. But it fulfils none of the criteria of science from the established philosophers of science.

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          Brian Hother

          I might be wrong. Climatology could be a science. But it fulfils none of the criteria of science from the established philosophers of science.

          You are wrong and seriously deluded. Your entire post seems to hinges on this delusion that climate science is all about models and not about data. You have spent too long reading blogs like this

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          • #
            AndyG55

            No, its about useless models and manipulating data to try to match them, …

            and still failing !!

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          • #

            I will let others judge whether I fail to discuss “actual data”.
            Climate data is highly complex and chaotic, so must be any model that will fit data that is a miniscule part of the reality being studied. There are a myriad of potential ways both to collect and interpret the data and millions of ways to approximately fit a summation of the data – and many ex-poste excuses. The real way to tell those with understanding from the charlatans is by a track record of predictions that come right. The past twenty years of climatologists has been a record of abysmal failure. If I am deluded show the achievements that I miss out. All you have is hearsay and waffle.

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      • #

        Oh! Wait. Isn’t this the same University that has caused the “Ship stuck in the melted ice in the antarctic” fiasco????? Professor “Turkey” as Prof Turney has been affectionately renamed. Total Joke just like the paper that you referred to which interestingly has his name attached. Publicity stunt for his Antarctic adventure which turned out amazingly poorly, tying up icebreakers and resupply ships from four countries. Ignoramus.

        10

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        bobl

        Damn, what you miss in 3 days, everyone has probably moved on but I think for the record I need to respond to mr Shehan’s points.

        Firstly my first calculation takes the 33 degrees and calculates a rate of warming based on energy intercepted assuming all the warming is due to CO2. As Mr Hother points out, most of that warming is NOT due to CO2 – but of course that results in a sensitivity to CO2 that is much, much LESS than my calculation of .39 degrees per percent energy extracted. My calculation shows the maximum warming sensitivity demonstrated due to any cause – including ALL feedbacks and attributes it all to CO2. It is a classic bounds test and at 0.39 per percent energy extraction by CO2 it forcasts an absolute maximum bound of 39 degrees above blackbody equating to no more than 0.43 degrees per CO2 doubling assuming CO2 causes all warming,( that is, you must reduce this Number some amount for every degree of warming that is NOT caused by CO2). I made that very clear.

        Secondly, it is true that you can pick a particular period of warming you can calculate a sensitivity greater than my average since the LIA, perhaps you claiming that only some CO2 rise causes warming – that CO2 can tell the time, and the CO2 rise between 1850 and 1958 doesn’t affect climate but the bit after does?

        Even so, using your own chosen period the calculated warming is barely 1.9 degrees per doubling, a degree and a bit below the IPCC central estimate, and a full 2.5 degrees per doubling below the high end, and some 6 and a bit degrees below the UNSW estimate of 8 degrees per doubling. Of course the scientists that wrote AR5 acknowledge that only about 50 percent of your warming is CO2 induced, cutting your sensitivity estimate to 0.95 based on your own figures.

        I think Mr Shehan and Mr Hother, you have have just proved my case for me, and I thank you for that. Warming sensitivity is low, somewhere between 0.4 and 1. Since the initial bounds test shows that the IPCC estimate for warming VS energy extracted is a factor of 10 too high, the lower end of that range is the most reasonable conclusion, but listen, I’ll not object if you tell your warmist buddies that sensitivity is an unalarming 0.95 degree per doubling, let’s not quibble over a few tenths of one degree

        Jo, pity they will never read this, but someone might one day

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  • #

    Tony Abbott, you’ve got a lot of friends – please, please stay the course. Your economic leadership, and your example of how well the Australian economy can do, free of green shackles, will be the example the world needs to bring everyone back to their senses, to reinvigorate the global economy.

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      Winston

      Tony certainly has the potential to be the most important political leader in a western democracy in the last 50 years, if he has the courage of his convictions and can keep a certain Goldman Sachs wolf from his door. He has that combination of moral backbone, courage and fortitude that the left fear the most. A man who cannot be bought, bullied or belittled by sundry elitist leftards in the media and ensconced in ivory tower academia.

      994

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        Ian

        Unfortunately I doubt Abbott will reach this potential as The Greens and the ALP will stymie him in the Senate until July and I rather think if a re-election for the Senate is held in WA the LNP will lose at least two of their three Senators. If the LNP were to lose all three senators to the ALP or Greens this would lead to a 38 all split in votes on, say, the Carbon tax assuming the independents, PUP and small party senators vote with the LNP. Should as seems highly possible the ALP take four of the places then the government will face a very difficult situation as the voting will be 39 to 37 even with the seven “independents” voting with the government. WA voters may dislike the CO2 tax but there are signs they may dislike Tony Abbott, Colin Barnett and the LNP even more

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        • #

          You’ve got it wrong, WA voters dislike Barnett, but detest Labor far more … The ALP is mud here.

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            VirusP53

            @Tom Harley

            Yet Tom all 4 polling agencies in the last month maybe longer now have had ALP gaining ground due to Abbott’s lies and stuff ups and con artist tricks in his first 100 days …. A poll published about 6 days ago showed about a 10% slump in support for Coalition from 51% to 41% .. others are closer ..

            Yet you say ALP’s name is mud there .. either you don’t follow the polls , don’t know what you are talking about or just making it up all this was favouring ALP before Abbott opens his mouth on Medicare … If you actually know anything on our political history you would know any party who seeks to do what he wants to medicare will lose out .. Watch the senate re-election in WA and Griffith by-election for a Anti Abbott vote

            01

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              Backslider

              Watch the senate re-election in WA and Griffith by-election for a Anti Abbott vote

              Ha ha ha ha….. ja ja ja ja (Spanish version!).

              You rusted on leftards are truly truly hilarious!

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        • #

          In Australia we expect bad government. We vote a government in that ruins our society a little bit more, so we vote them out. No, we do not vote FOR the new guy. Then, it doesn’t take long before we become disillusioned and we in turn vote them out. All the while we never get what we want. I suspect most of us now realise that we will get bad government no matter who we vote for.

          Barnett, Napthine and O’Farrell (especially O’Farrell) are learning that no matter how corrupt and incompetent the last government was, people will return the other lot in short order once they become disillusioned with the current government. As i said, we have been so conditioned to having bad government we no longer expect to get good government. It has become an endless cycle of voting out bad governments.

          Tony Abbott should keep this at the forefront of his thinking. If there is any doubt, you only need look at the opinion polls just TWO MONTHS after we removed one of the most disgraceful and embarrassing governments this country has had – and it is a big field. I note that the Abbott government are not addressing the social policy issues that are ruining our society, such as welfare as a lifestyle choice, and all of the social ills that flow from it, and removing the various apparatuses the Left have created to oppress us. Abolishing the AHRC would have been a perfect demonstration of good faith with the electorate, but they have wimped out on it.

          But i do note that Abbott’s troops are beavering away trying to get resource projects moving. So, it looks like we are in for another Howard government, meaning that their entire focus will be on band-aid patches for the economy to try to keep the punters happy, while all the while avoiding making all of the social policy changes that are necessary for good government and to give us back a decent society.

          The Left win again.

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          GAZ

          Tony Abbott’s main problem re coming clean on AGW is not the ALP or the Greens – it’s his own front bench, in particular Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt. True believers.
          C’mon Tony – have the guts and join Maurice Newman’s stand. AGW is crap.

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            PeterS

            That’s exactly what I tried to say in a previous thread but got so many thumbs down. Good to see I’m not the only realist. At least Howard has aplogised. It’s time for Abbott to apoligise for and on behalf of the whole LNP to the people of Australia and say bluntly that AGW and the global warming scare is nothing but a scam; the biggest scam ever in fact. Even Bernard Madoff’s scam, who is still in jail, was nothing compared to the global warming scam.

            300

            • #
              Farmer Ted.

              Same old names, even bigger lies! And this while they are still stuck in the ice!

              Their heads will explode when the boss gets back!

              50

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          gnome

          The chance of the government losing all three senate elect positions is precisely zero. The chance of losing two is too small to calculate. The chance of the ALP gaining four of the six is about zero.

          Have you any idea at all how senate elections work? To lose all three, the coalition total vote would have to be less than about 14%. To get four, the ALP would need to poll over 56% (2pp).

          50

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            Michael P

            On that I still think the chances of them calling a DD election is slim,as they would see it as risky at this point. Don’t get me wrong I’d love to see it happen,but I suspect that we’ll have to wait until the Senate changes in July,unless the Labor/Green alliance is more stupid than usual and gives them no other choice. I also see that they have scheduled extended sitting time around then,so maybe they’ll present everything they have in legislation and try to pass it all at once?

            10

        • #

          Tom Harley is right and you have it all wrong.
          In the Sept 13 election the Liberals won three seats. The win of the third seat was helped by preferences from the Country party. In the original count the ALP won two seats and the sixth seat was won by the Palmer party (PUP). In the recount the Greens took over the second seat of the ALP and the Sports Party won the final seat.
          If there is a re-election the Liberals are certain to win two seats and the ALP one seat. That leaves three seats to be fought over by the Liberals, Country party, greens, PUP, Sports and maybe some other small party.
          There is a good chance (either with original candidates and original deals or with new deals) that the Greens will miss out on a seat (I hope so anyway).
          There is better than even chance that the ALP and Liberals (or Country party) will get an extra senator. That just leaves one seat to be fought over. If the Libs & country party have any sense they will put the greens last.

          20

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            Michael P

            If I’m not mistaken WA has recently changed it’s laws to make it harder for micro-parties to run for the Senate in the first place. Now they have to get I believe 1% of the electorate or around that to be eligible to be on the ballot papers in the first place. I believe this is a change for the better,and one that is overdue,as it stops the circumstance where for instance 0.5% of the electorate votes for me,but I get into the Senate on preferences,which is plain stupid. May6be if there is a DD election,this could play a big part?

            20

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        bananabender

        You will be gravely disappointed if you expect Tony Abbott to be a major economic reformer. Tony is 100% pure unadulterated Democratic Labour Party material – big spending and socially conservative . His coalition partners in the National Party are outright Agrarian Socialists. The only real economic dry with any power is the long suffering Treasurer Joe Hockey.

        531

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            bananabender

            Tony Abbott actually asked his mentor BA Santamaria whether he should join the ALP or he Liberal Party.

            Tony Abbott supports Big Government, (non militant) trade unions and middle class welfare. He has never shown the slightest interest in economic restraint in any of his past portfolios. His politics are those of the old DLP where the government provides a benign and socially conservative nanny state.

            02

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          Wally

          Sorry DT, sounds about right. Time will tell. Trouble with Hockey is that he’s also thick.

          315

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            scaper...

            Hey Wally, I take it you have met Hockey. By your so called opinion, I doubt it and hence, you are talking out of your [snip]!

            50

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            Brian Hother

            I think its the other way round. Hockey has some brains but he is surrounded by Ministers with IQs only in double digits

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        Farmer Ted.

        GAZ, Tony Abbot employs Maurice Newman, remember?

        This should be just the first punch. It is wonderful that Chris Turney’s own goal should be the second! It will be hard to justify his funding now.

        Maurice Newman’s piece shows that the guts you call for are right there and being applied to the job.

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          AndyG55

          “Tony Abbot employs Maurice Newman,”

          And what that really means is that there is now a VERY STRONG VOICE which will get published.

          This is the really important point to be drawn from Maurice’s newspaper article.

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      bob parker

      Good work Tony Abbott but still a long way to go. Keep an eye on your back. This whole scam is only part of the plan, “Agenda 21” and the UN and all its long arms is all about One World Government. Kennedy among many have paid the price, you don’t want to visit him yet, there is much to do, No??

      352

    • #
      Fred Furkenburger

      You are absolutely right Eric but I am very much afraid that TA is (like too many conservative leaders Federal and State) too scared to grasp the nettle and do what is required. We need a strong leader who can call bullshit for what bullshit is. Sadly TA, unless there is a game plan we are not party to, isn’t quite doing the necessaries. Perhaps it is early days but we really need more to be done sooner than later to give the luvvies time to get over their hard medicine before the next election.

      110

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      Brett_McS

      I here that Tony Abbott is reading a biography of Margaret Thatcher over the holidays. A good sign!

      261

      • #
        Brett_McS

        Hear! (I think I have been spoiled by Disqus where you can edit your entries)

        40

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        bananabender

        Margaret Thatcher is largely responsible for creating the AGW monster in the first place.

        188

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          • #
            MemoryVault

            Yeah.

            I once saw an interview with Pol Pot recorded about six weeks before he died.
            He “regretted” “some” of the outcomes of “some” of his decisions too.
            But then, what’s a million or so dead peasants here or there.

            Marvelous how erudite these people can become when they no longer have any actual responsibility.
            Take Maurice Newman for example . . . .

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            • #

              Many prominent skeptics used to be alarmists – Anthony Watts admits he was once a believer.

              It’s not a crime to be wrong.

              271

              • #
                Greg Cavanagh

                But many crimes can be commited for the duration that you are wrong. Those crimes still need to be paid.

                100

            • #
              RoHa

              Actually, Pol Pot’s main target was “bourgeois intellectuals”. Anyone with formal technical training, anyone who had ever sat in a office, anyone who knew anything about administration, and, in practice, anyone who wore glasses, was likely to end up as one of those appalling statistics we try to forget. Of course. plenty of peasants did end up on the receiving end as well.

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        • #
          Eddie Sharpe

          No, Lady T. thought up a good wheeze for getting her a leg up on all these scientifically illiterate world leaders. You’re right. She unwittingly created a Monster.

          130

          • #
            Franny by Coal light

            There are more than a few mothers who must look at their offspring in despair thinking just that.

            50

          • #
            Joe V.

            The monster was already in many politicians, bureaucrats & scientists, just waiting to get out. All she did was provide the vehicle.

            20

            • #
              Eddie Sharpe

              And it’s only taken over 20 years for the wheels to start falling off.
              With so many hangers on its going to be an almighty crash.
              Almost a generation lost in the meantime.

              30

            • #
              Richard S Courtney

              Joe V:

              At January 1, 2014 at 9:04 pm you assert of Mrs Thatcher (later Lady Thatcher)

              The monster was already in many politicians, bureaucrats & scientists, just waiting to get out. All she did was provide the vehicle.

              Sorry, but no.

              And Eddie Sharpe is right when (in his post at January 1, 2014 at 2:36 am) he writes

              No, Lady T. thought up a good wheeze for getting her a leg up on all these scientifically illiterate world leaders. You’re right. She unwittingly created a Monster.

              In 1980 I predicted the AGW-scare before it happened and my prediction was then rejected as being not credible. You can read my original analysis which made the prediction together with some updating comment from the 1990s and replies to questions about them at this link
              http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/richard-courtney-the-history-of-the-global-warming-scare/

              Richard

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      john robertson

      Kate McMillan in Saskatchewan has a blog Small Dead Animals, her motto ” Not turning up to riot, is a failed conservative policy.”
      Thought for the new year, political animals “lead” were they think we are going.
      Maybe 2014 would be a good year to turn out and remain angry, cranky and relentless, the parasites currently rule, that is not a civil service your politicians are trying to work with, it is a kleptocracy and its inmates believe they are entitled to take everything you can make.
      Can you negotiate with a tapeworm? What is reasonable compromise, with a bandit?
      Cause politicians all believe they must find middle ground. That is how are society decayed to this point, rioting may become necessary.
      Whats that Americanism? When your govt fears the people you get reasonable govt, when the people fear the govt you have tyranny.

      50

  • #
    Carbon500

    Encouraging news. I find that interesting letters from readers on climate issues make it into newspapers from time to time. Here in the UK we’ve had flooding in the South of England, with some hand-wringing from for example David Cameron who recently pronounced that we’d be seeing more of this in the future. Floods! CO2! Oh no!
    But here’s what reader Derek Bradford has to say on the subject – a refreshing breath of reality:
    The letter’s in the Sunday Telegraph, December 29th 2013 (page 27):
    “Sir: I spent 40 years as a chartered civil engineer with the river authorities, surveying river channels and sea defences and designing and constructing improvements.
    Most of the workers on these projects were villagers who knew every twist and turn of the rivers in their area. The first task in the spring was to cut all new weed growth from banks and watercourses, eliminating anything that could cause obstruction to flows. Patrol and maintenance of banks was constant throughout the year. When flooding was likely, men would be on patrol night and day.
    But in the eighties, the government destroyed the river authorities, handing over their functions largely to the Environment Agency. Since then I have seen vital channels with trees growing in the middle, islands built in water courses, and last year, hundreds of unwanted Christmas trees tipped into channels to encourage wildlife.”

    810

    • #
      Debbie

      Why is it so often “Same S**t Different Day”?
      Much of the management of the southern connected system of the Murray Darling Basin. . .ie ‘bidgee, Murray, Tumut, Goulburn, Campaspe, Lachlan rivers (and several other smaller creeks and tributaries). . . have suffered from exactly the same stupid, illogical mindset that has seen a single minded attempt to centralise water management in the name of “protecting the environment” and ‘for the common good’.
      There are massive areas of banks subsidence, dreadful silting problems and huge dead river red gums blocking flows and further damaging banks and infrastructure.
      The reasons the damages from floods are worse are :
      a) People and their infrastructure congregate around water sources and those populations are increasing and the infrastructure is now more expensive to build and maintain (like duh!)
      b) The ridiculous lack of sensible and local water management as highlighted by Derek Bradford!

      90

  • #
    King Geo

    Good on you Maurice – telling it as it is. To have someone of Maurice Newman’s status put the dagger into the “CAGW myth” is music to the ears of Jo Nova, Anthony Watts & Lord Monckton, and numerous others who have been fighting the CAGW Alarmists ridiculous doctrine since it reared it’s ugly head in the past decade and a half. With US$ trillions squandered during this period reacting to this nonsense, hopefully, at least here in Oz, the Abbott Govt will completely terminate this “Economy destroying” doctrine. It has sent a wrecking ball through the EU Economy, so Oz may well be spared a lot of the pain the EU has endured during the past decade and a half.

    661

    • #
      Winston

      Well said, Maurice. I think that the intellectual vacuum that must have been created at the ABC when Maurice Newman left would have been forceful enough to suck Tony Jones, Virginia Trioli and Richard Glover right out the window. I’m glad to see they survived the ordeal.

      206

      • #
        Winston

        Before I get too many more red thumbs, being a sensitive soul and all, I do realise that the intellectual vacuum left by Maurice’s departure would have sucked them into the building rather than out the window (the visual analogy was hard to resist) . In my defense, what you fail to appreciate, however, is that once you work for the ABC propaganda machine, you suck either way.

        200

    • #
      MemoryVault

      Good on you Maurice – telling it as it is.

      Yeah.

      And to those of us who have had hard skin in the game since 1985, 20 years before Jo, WUWT and Monckton ever even realised there was a problem, Newman is just another adroit band wagon jumper, in the same mold as Judith Curry – just not so clever about it.

      1329

      • #
        Andrew McRae

        MemoryVault can’t get no respect! 😀

        Which is a bit unfortunate since you were very quick off the mark with the cloud negative feedbacks. That’s got to get a tip of the hat.

        170

        • #
          MemoryVault

          .
          It’s okay Andrew, and Mike below, I had my fifteen minutes of fame and I’m quite happy to see the torch passed on to a younger crowd. Truth be told, I spent a decade praying for the cavalry, and I’m pleased as punch they finally showed up.

          No, my ire these days is firmly with two types of people. The first is the politicians who gave up any pretense of leadership decades ago, and now run the country via opinion polls and and focus groups.

          Witness the current Ship of Fools debacle. Where is the press release from the Minister for the Environment defending his departments, the BoM and the CSIRO, which officially advised against the debacle, and The Australian Antarctic Division, which apparently wasn’t even consulted?

          Where is the statement from the Education Minister, promising a full inquiry into how millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money managed to get funneled into this poorly planned and disastrously managed publicity stunt? Perpetrated against the advice of the experts?

          Queue sounds of crickets chirping. And that’s not going to change until and unless the PR suits behind the scenes in the LNP decide there’s a vote in it. Even if and when they do get around to commenting, what they say will be all about where the votes are perceived, with little regard to the actual circumstances. I’m not being anti-LNP. The situation would be the same, regardless of who was in power at the moment. And deep down, everybody here knows it.

          .
          Maurice Newman is a perfect example of my second group of pet peeve people. The consummate bureaucrat – Sir Humphrey Appleby without the humour; Sir Thomas More without principles. Newman occupied the Chair on the board of the ABC through the very years that the organisation degenerated from an annoying but quaint leftist mouthpiece, into a rabid, mad dog, lying disinformation machine.

          Only in the very last days of his tenure, speaking at a PRIVATE meeting with ABC staff, did Newman dare to suggest that “perhaps” “some” ABC journalists were becoming a tad biased in their reporting. If it hadn’t been for the outraged howls of indignation from those very same journalists as they fell over themselves to prove him right, the public would never have known Newman had even mentioned the matter.

          Given that the journalists’ reaction was entirely predictable, and that by that stage even a drover’s dog could have predicted a forthcoming Abbott led LNP government, the more cynical amongst us view Newman’s efforts as simply repositioning himself in the queue at the trough.

          And Lo! He rises from the ashes in his latest incarnation as Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council.

          Who’da thunk it?

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Where is the statement from the Education Minister, promising a full inquiry into how millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money managed to get funneled …

            MV,

            In my experience (which does not include Canberra), such inquiries are done discretely, by external people, with no apparent axe to grind.

            Those complicit in any misuse of funds (assuming that there is not a budget line item for, “making idiots of ourselves”), will get “promoted” into a different role, with no financial authority at all, and there, their career will stagnate.

            It is a very brave Minister, who will announce a witch hunt before they know what is likely to crawl out of the woodwork.

            60

      • #
        Mike Borgelt

        Dunno who the jerks were who gave you a down tick MV but you get an up from me.

        91

      • #
        Kevin Lohse

        “Why Sir, when the facts change I change my mind. What do you do Sir?”

        Sometimes MV, even pollies and former climastrologists deserve the benefit of the doubt.

        60

      • #
      • #
        john robertson

        So his public scepticism is a good thing right?
        As he is a professional, paid shill for his pay masters, he will speak their words with skill and conviction.
        So essentially Tony Abbott says….Which is good news here in Canada, no matter how slimy this professional trougher is personally.

        10

      • #
        Mortis

        Band-wagon jumpers means we are winning and should be applauded at this point

        00

  • #

    Good Afternoon Jo,
    Wishing you a happy and prosperous new year.
    (Certainly it will be much more prosperous after a double dissolution election in March, and a joint sitting of Federal Parliament in May, to squash once and for all this iniquitous, immoral, intellectually-bankrupt carbon dioxide tax!!)
    I don’t know what I’m more happy about? …
    70 caped climate crusaders stuck for a week in three-metre thick pack ice!!! ??? … or …
    The scintillating factoid that our alleged un-biased national broadcaster continues to be better able to see the splinter in most deniers’ eyes, than it can see the log in their own!!! ???
    Maybe you can help me decide!!!
    Anyhow, I look forward to many many more sceptical utterances from our business leaders, who of course seemed to have been missing in action for most of the last six years.
    Still, given the way the second-last PM. Julia Gillard so ascerbically dispensed with the employment and employ-ability of Michael Smith for daring question her historical fiduciary short-comings, maybe one should not be too surprised at the surprisingly large amount of business people with small amounts of, er, balls!!!
    Maintain the rage (yes righties too have a right to believe and enraged about things!!)
    kind regards,
    reformed warmist of logan

    391

  • #
    James (Aus.)

    I’ve had numerous dealings with a wind “farm” company. I’ve also studied the effects of wind farms in travels overseas including Canada, the US, Denmark and the UK.

    Suffice to say, after concluding any talks or communications with its representatives, you feel like taking a long shower. A more disingenuous, dishonest, spivvy and willfully bog-ignorant group of un-Australians and prats would be impossible to find.

    The monumental damage perpetrated by these ugly outfits is the same world-wide. It is quite easy to sit here and write a very lengthy essay on their business practices and deceptions. That may wait for another time, but the scams, the rackets and the corruption continues.

    There is a simple and nation benefiting counter; remove the Renewable Energy Certificate subsidies which rob from all Australians and see our wealth pour out of the country (or into union super funds).

    Never has the need to cut off this shameful and destructive loss been greater than now.

    1180

    • #
      Dave

      James (Aus.)

      “There is a simple and nation benefiting counter; remove the Renewable Energy Certificate subsidies”

      Could not agree more. 10 Thumbs up.

      871

    • #

      In the UK we have something similar to Australia’s “Renewable Energy Certificate subsidies“. They are called “Renewables Obligation Certificates“. It is difficult to find out the value of these subsidies. But it was not impossible. My most recent posting reveals that the UK is issuing ROCs to the value of over £2bn ($3.8bn) per annum, a 140% increase on 2010. Even more staggering is that most of this growth is for offshore wind turbines, which now attract 2 ROCs per MWh worth £84 or $155. As older offshore schemes seemed to have been viable with 1 and 1.5 ROCs per MWh, it would be interesting to see the justification for the raise two years ago. From the period Jan-Dec 2010 to the period Sept 2012-Aug 2013, volume of renewables electricity generated increased by 134%; volume of ROCs by 177%; and value of ROCs by 209%.
      My fuller analysis is at http://manicbeancounter.com/2013/12/31/the-rising-costs-of-the-renewables-obligation-certificate-scheme/

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  • #
    Tim

    When you mention of Newman: “…someone of his sensible insight…” US Senator Inhofe comes to mind.

    He’s been across the subject for years now. You can also check other posts on him via Youtube. Here’s one…

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=inhofe+climate+change&sm=12

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    Phillip Bratby

    Let’s hope the sanity spreads across the world. We need this sanity in the UK urgently, otherwise we are all doomed. Doomed I tell you.

    421

    • #

      In the UK, we have a Coalition Government. The Conservative leaders of the Coalition are slowly coming to realise the soaring costs of electricity are due to the switch to renewables. However, the Coalition Agreement gives the post of Secretary of State for Environment and Climate Change to the avowedly alarmist Liberal-Democrats. Even worse for us is that the opposition Labour Party now have, as its major policy, to freeze rising energy bills. They blame annual rises of 8-10% a year on profiteering by the energy suppliers, when it is actually down to policies put in place when they were in Government. I looked at the figures a couple of weeks ago.

      460

  • #
    Faye Busch

    I hope Australia becomes known worldwide as the first to have the guts to call out “the Emperor has no clothes”. Come on other countries, let’s blow this incestuous money sucking subterfuge to smithereens.

    841

  • #
    handjive

    JUNE 30, 2011
    Treasury reference modelling showed that without a carbon tax, manufacturing was expected to grow more slowly than the rest of the economy, by about half a per cent annually to 2020 in real terms.
    .
    Now I get it.
    The way to get manufacturing businesses going is to tax them more heavily.
    If the carbon tax does that then why not double it?

    390

    • #
      bobl

      Treasury reference modelling showed that without a carbon tax, manufacturing was expected to grow more slowly than the rest of the economy, by about half a per cent annually to 2020 in real terms.

      Now I get it.
      The way to get manufacturing businesses going is to tax them more heavily.
      If the carbon tax does that then why not double it?

      Would it be true, lets put this into normal emglish

      Treasury reference modelling showed that without a carbon tax, manufacturing was expected to grow more slowly than the rest of the economy, by about half a per cent annually to 2020 in real terms. — Unsaid– But by instituting a carbon tax we will slow the whole economy to less than that so manufacturing will no longer be underperforming standout

      50

  • #
    Pat K

    Is it time to sing “Hallelujah”?

    151

  • #
    • #
      Dave

      .

      Where are the trolls?

      Most are on a boat in Antarctica somewhere.

      Brooksie is comatose already.
      MattyB is organising firework CO2 credits.
      Michael the Realist is in Thailand somewhere.
      BA4th is comatose as video stream from The Guardian has been cut.
      The rest are drinking on the GREEN GRAVY TRAIN.

      641

      • #
        Andrew McRae

        “organising firework CO2 credits.”

        I know it’s not a scientific argument, but… just for hilarity factor… the only time I have ever seen Teller from the ‘Penn and Teller’ duo actually say something was in this interview for James Randi’s The Amazing Meeting 6 in July 2008:
        The one thing we’re petty sure of is that carbon credits are bull***t!“.

        270

        • #
          Dave

          Andrew,

          But it isn’t for hilarity factor.

          SYDNEY: In 2010 Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP said the Sydney’s New Years Eve fireworks were 100% CO2 neutral? 2013 – FAIL.

          PERTH City of Vincent, Pretending to contract to CO2 neutral fireworks – FAIL.
          BRISBANE. 2013 FAIL
          MELBOURNE. 2013 FAIL.

          But what really matters is these dickwit GREEN fruitloops collect money for their own use to say their $1 million fireworks are Carbon Neutral.

          This is where Clover, MattyB etc should be brought to court to prove that releasing 10 plus tonnes of exploding fireworks in 5 minutes is Carbon Bloody Neutral.

          Green Gravy Train parasites.

          I promise to be less angry in 2014, maybe.

          320

          • #
            Allen Ford

            What Clover failed to mention is that the CO2 footprint is only half the story. The other half is the SO2 fraction.

            Much, much worse!

            60

    • #
      Fred Furkenburger

      Where are the Trolls? Hopefully cringing in a corner worrying about when they will be asked to apologise for/account for their willfull dis-information over the past 20 or so years. May it cause them much grief!!!

      451

    • #
      bob parker

      Jo, Happy new year and all that stuff.
      I’ve pressed the thumbs up button on a couple of comments and they have registered an increase of 2 ???
      I haven’t pressed the thumbs down button as there hasn’t been any trolls to practice on so I don’t know if it suffers the same desease.
      Cheers, loongbob.

      151

      • #

        Bob — after you load up a page to read, someone else may give a comment a thumbs up or down, and it won’t register on your screen until you click on the same button (or reload the page). So the leap is not suspicious. This plugin will not even let me do two thumbs up…

        100

    • #
      Peter Miller

      Some of the trolls that appear here are as verbose as they are intellectually challenged.

      I have often wondered about the former. Why put up 20 or 30 posts on one subject and then disappear forever or for a month or few weeks?

      Usually the trolls’ opinions get rightly torn to shreds by logic and facts. So why do 30 posts and then disappear?

      Is this some form of initiation rite required to enter the SKS fellowship? Are these trolls being paid by someone? Is trolling just a sad manifestation of frustration by someone knowingly living a pointless and futile life? Maybe, it is a pre-requisite to get a good grade on a Lewandowsky course study.

      As for why there are no trolls here today, I think the answer lies in the fact that it is one thing to argue black is white, but it is totally another to defend something which is both ridiculous and indefensible – or maybe it is just a simple case of most of them being stuck on a ship in Antarctica.

      280

      • #
        llew Jones

        Perhaps some of them were sent here by their psychiatrist in a vain attempt to help them improve their logical thinking. Who knows?

        Just did a check. I think you will find a fair swag of them inhabit the Guardian where they are hysterical over a “Banker” having the temerity to rubbish the “science” of their idols.

        If you really want to see just how many intellectually challenged, climate illiterates play this game a five minute glance at the responses in the Guardian’s comments section on Newman’s article will give you an insight into the incurable nature of the intellectual disability these poor souls are afflicted with.

        221

        • #
          Peter Miller

          Llew

          I have on a couple of occasions read the comments section on a Guardian article on climate, my only comment is: “is it fair to the rest of this world to allow these people to breed, as they will always be a burden on society and those around them?”

          In the UK, if you want to rise through the ranks of the BBC, you will need to be seen to be an avid Guardian reader and speak its language. Outside the BBC in the real world, the few remaining Guardian readers are dwindling fast.

          231

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          It is a rite of passage. It is standing up and saying, “Look at me, I am important, and my opinions count for something.”, and having everybody else say, “Yeah, whatever.”

          30

      • #
        Tim

        Peter; the simple answer might be that they don’t get paid over the holiday period. And the advisers that provide them with the answers are probably off for the break to Aspen or somewhere.

        170

      • #
        Mortis

        I suspect quite a few are paid in some way – there isn’t too many other choices besides young slacker/hipsters living on the govt dole with plenty of time on their hands – kids who want to rebel against Dad and somehow think they have come out on top by simply shouting their yawp across the rooftops. Their horribly inept arguments are now beginning to work for us though – and they don’t know why. The answer is so simple – the truth will out. Hard to win with rhetoric alone.

        10

    • #
      Winston

      Where are the Trolls?

      Should we hum a few bars of “Send in the Clowns” to get them in the mood?

      220

      • #
        AndyG55

        One of them is here. Not a well trained one though.

        They be scraping the bottom of the barrel, methinks.

        30

    • #
      MemoryVault

      .
      Given the subject matter, I’m filling in for them tonight.

      100

      • #
        Bones

        MV,I saw that you became a token troll yesterday,Ithink you went a little too early.Sorry about taking so long to get back,I was looking for a post from Pat( I think)from UK paper about being time to move on to the next phase,the global warming science being settled and the discussion over.I think you’re correct to be cautious of this story,because if the warmer ****** have moved on and we are cheering about this good news,then we’re still behind the game.

        20

    • #

      On The SS MinnowMS Akademik Shokalskiy.

      Maybe Polynia¹ Albert Gore will drop by for a cameo.

      ¹Polynia is a Russian term for a natural ice hole. WUWT is always educational.

      120

      • #
        handjive

        Improvements encouraged:

        Gaia’s Bile

        Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
        A tale of a fateful trip
        That started from this Kiwi port
        aboard this tiny ship

        The mate was a mighty sailing man
        The science settled and sure
        55 passengers set sail that day
        On a three week tour
        A three week tour
        .
        The weather started getting cold
        The tiny ship was tossed
        If not for the courage of rescuers
        The useful idiots were lost,
        The ice-breaker was lost
        .
        The ship aground on the ice that’s there
        That was not in Mawson’s time
        With Gilligan
        The Skipper too
        The Millionaire and his wife
        The movie star
        The professor and Mary-anne
        Here in Antarctica..
        .
        So this is the tale of our cast-a-ways
        They’re here for a short short time
        They’ll have to make the best of things
        It’s an up-hill climb
        The first mate and the skipper too
        Will do their very best
        To make the others comfortable
        In their global warming nest
        .
        More phones, more lights
        Yes, motorcars
        Every single luxury
        Enjoyed by our society
        Since carbon has been freed
        .
        So join us here each tweet my friends
        You’re sure to get a smile
        From 77 cast-aways
        Here on Gaia’s bile.

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        • #
          PhilJourdan

          People remember that show? Excellent Adaptation! Wish I could give you more thumbs up! Outstanding!

          10

    • #
      Lorne50

      Jo, the TROLLS are in hiding just like at WUWT on the posts about the ship of fools stuck in the ice. ;>)

      151

    • #
      bobl

      I miss them…. so entertaining.

      30

      • #
        AndyG55

        plus they help the blog count lots. 🙂

        There does seem to be a couple of substandard blow-ins at the moment though.

        41

    • #
      Catamon

      Here! I still pop in and read the hysterics and drivel occasionally. Basically have decided its a waste of time frequenting an essentially religious site for the Grumpy True Disbelievers to circle jerk and reinforce their group-think.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        That’s ok.. you had learnt all you were ever capable of learning, anyway.

        40

        • #
          Catamon

          AngryG, apart from the occasional reference to papers of interest that are sometimes listed here, what i learned mostly is where the the conspiracy obsessed and perpetually grumpy nut-baggers hang out to stroke each other and seek confirmation of their faith. When they aren’t over at Menzies House dribbling and gibbering of course. 🙂

          09

          • #
            Backslider

            what i learned mostly is where the the conspiracy obsessed and perpetually grumpy nut-baggers hang out to stroke each other and seek confirmation of their faith.

            Yes Catamon, its true that the warmist trolls do exactly that over here. I see you brought your whole little following with you today…..

            40

            • #
              Catamon

              Slider, you really typify the quality of the schoolyard level discussion so common here. Still, when the denizens have both hands occupied keeping their place in the circle i suppose i should be amazed they let go for long enough to type? Night all. Sweet Dreams of each other and the pleasure you pass around.

              010

              • #
                Backslider

                Slider, you really typify the quality of the schoolyard level discussion so common here.

                You are the one who brought it here you f*cking dork! Now p*ss off back to your yurt!

                00

              • #
                AndyG55

                “schoolyard level discussion’

                So.. waaaay beyond your comprehension. !

                back to your trash can, alley cat !

                00

          • #
            Richard S Courtney

            Catamon:

            At January 1, 2014 at 10:50 pm you claim this blog contains

            the conspiracy obsessed and perpetually grumpy nut-baggers

            Well, I am a grumpy old man, but so what?
            And nobody I know bags nuts but I eat them; e.g. see my responses to Brian Hoffer in this thread.

            But I write to ask about your claim of “the conspiracy obsessed”.
            Only members of the Cult of AGW think there is a “conspiracy” and it consists of the false idea that Big Oil funds climate realists (in reality oil companies fund AGW alarmists e.g. at CRU).

            Climate realists know that AGW is a coincidence of interests which forms a bandwagon.
            A coincidence of interests usually has greater effect than a conspiracy and nobody needs to conspire to keep people on a bandwagon which is going where they want to go (e.g. to obtain funds).

            And we climate realists are pleased that the bandwagon stalled at Copenhagen in December 2009 so people – including Maurice Newman – are climbing off it as it grinds to a halt.

            But you make the deluded claim that people here are “conspiracy obsessed”. I suggest you Google ‘psychological projection’ to gain an understanding of why you and other AGW-Cultists have this delusion.

            Richard

            30

      • #
        Kevin Lohse

        Nonsense. You’ve just popped in for a bit to collect a few reds to keep you in the race for Troll of the Year by posting a classical bit of projection.

        50

        • #
          AndyG55

          Mostly , I don’t bother with hitting the ‘red thumb’

          They already KNOW that are idiots, .. personal reinforcement not needed.

          30

    • #
      Jimmy Haigh

      Send in the trolls…

      30

    • #
      Peter Miller

      Jo

      You got your wish for a troll and a real classic one to boot.

      I assume the name Brian Hotair is a pseudonym and he has been here before?

      10

  • #
    Peter Hume

    Huge credit to Jo Nova, big thanks, and an example to us all. The moral of the story is, one person can make all the difference, and by merely speaking out against the crowd, you do make a difference.

    521

    • #
      redress

      Yes Peter,

      BUT the trick is to get that “speaking out” into the MSM……something that has been willfully blocked until now.
      Until the MSM have a REGULAR column contributed by someone [JO?] who can put forward a knowledgeable rebuttal to CAGW,
      then this piece will be forgotten in a couple of days, along with the message, unfortunately.

      there is a complete mindset in the MSM which has to be changed…….that will take some considerable time.

      80

    • #
      Farmer Ted.

      Well done Jo, and thanks.

      But don’t forget that it was David who tipped the bucket across the world. Without his timely intervention the push would have succeeded.

      30

  • #
    Peter Miller

    Jo

    Recently you used the expression ‘road to reality’ in terms of public attitudes towards so called man made ‘climate change’.

    Maurice Newman’s article represents one big step along that road, but those clowns in the Antarctic represent several giant leaps. People who are not normally interested in the topic of climate are talking about that ship stuck in the ice and why it is there – and they are laughing.

    It is good to see increasing numbers of people beginning to recognise the pretentious pseudo-science of man made climate change for what it is: the modern day equivalent of eugenics, the Phlogiston Theory, homeopathy, or the Sun revolving around the Earth.

    The road to reality is a long one and it is full of potholes, the latter being counter-attacks of manipulated dats and distorted interpretations by the Climate Establishment. After all, they have so much to lose. What would be more unemployable than an important figure in a totally discredited field of science?

    410

  • #
    William Astley

    Australia is ahead of curve in terms of determining the actual problems that need to be addressed.

    The planet has started to cool. The CO2 mechanism if it worked as modeled, which it does not, cannot be turned off, the fact that the planet is starting to cool (and a half dozen other observational paradoxes such as the latitudinal temperature paradox, the lack of a tropical tropospheric hot spot, past cyclic warming and cooling both poles, correlation of cyclic warming and cooling with cosmogenic isotope changes, and so on.) supports the assertion that the majority of the warming in the last 150 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes, rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2. We do not have trillions of dollars to spend on green scams that even if there was a CAGW problem which there is not, would make no difference.

    The AGW mania must end as the developed countries have run out deficit funds to spend and the developed countries economies are shrinking, due in no small part to the idiotic green scams and green policies.

    http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300190526
    When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence by Steven King
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/books/review/time-to-start-thinking-by-edward-luce.html?_r=0
    Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Focus is shifting away from Europe, towards the Pacific. But whereas the U.S. had a major influence on Europe, through the NATO alliance, it is China that is the major influence in the Pacific.

      The U.S. passed the ball to Australia, and Australia (in the form of Rudd) dropped it, giving a free kick to the Chinese. We are now waiting to see what they do with it.

      40

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Some commentators have been very critical of Tony Abbott for not changing everything in 3 months.

    They forget that the general population after 30 years of non-stop propaganda still thinks that there might be a problem with carbon dioxide. By and large they are sceptical but the hysteria from the left leaves them thinking that some caution is necessary. Changing minds is not an overnight possibility, it is necessary to chip, chip away at the crumbling edifice.

    But in 3 months the carbon tax has gone from “wonderful” to disposable a.s.ap., the REC is now ‘negotiable’ and the idea of “renewable” energy has gone from clean and green to expensive and costing jobs. The average voter may not know, or care, about Global Warming, but he and she sure as hell care about high electricity bills. Once the cost of “renewable” energy is slotted home then the public will reject it.

    The next 6 months in the run up to the new Senate will see more bad news for the Greens, not just from Australia but from overseas. Don’t forget that China, Canada, Sth. Korea, Japan, Russia, India, Sth. Africa, Poland and Brazil are all against any extension of the Kyoto agreement. Denmark, Holland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Germany have cut, in some cases drastically cut, subsidies to “renewable” energy companies. It is being stated over and over again that jobs in Australia depend on China, and to a lesser extent Japan, Korea and India. Both remaining Labor States are facing elections early in 2014, with neither looking likely to retain office, further damaging the prospects of more “renewable” energy.

    The Greens will scream and scream, but will become a small minority refuge for ecoloons. Their parliamentary representation will start to fade away. As that becomes obvious the harder heads in the ALP will abandon them very quickly. In a few years even the ABC may think differently.

    482

  • #
    PeterS

    So are we going to hear Rudd and Gillard apologise to the electorate? I bet not.

    181

    • #
      DT

      Never ever, apologise?

      30

      • #
        bobl

        Well, except to minorities you want to vote for you. Middle aged white men, don’t seem to fall into that demographic. /sarc

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        • #
          MemoryVault

          Middle aged white men, don’t seem to fall into that demographic

          Yes. The pollies seem to have the point that, along with our ladies, we are the fastest growing demographic.

          And we are not happy.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Retired and Extremely Dangerous.

            30

            • #
              scaper...

              Got a Bear Grylls ‘Ultimate’ survival knife for Xmas.

              A decade and a bit before retirement…just dangerous.

              20

            • #
              ROM

              When i was young I would have loved to be rated as”dangerous” when the ladies were around but i was busy building an empire and didn’t have the time.

              Now I am old and have got the time and no empire I can almost remember how it was to be “dangerous” but damned if I can rake up the enthusiasm, the ladies or any of that other essential to being “dangerous”

              Sighhhhh!

              40

  • #
    mmxx

    Press Release:

    The CAGW eco-socialist collective has momentarily suspended its online public alarmist services as it implores diesel-motorised rescue of its torch bearing activists from this AGW-caused rogue sea ice outbreak in Antarctica.

    CAGW proletariat on board remain true to their mantra and are furiously downloading their hard drives from heavy laptops in advance of their minimum weight dangerous rescue extraction by a fluky fossil-fuelled helicopter from a Chinese ship.

    If only abundant renewable emergy and no-cost carbon-free transport access was available 24/7 to every location on earth, these tiresome embarrassments about the eco-intelligentsia having to repeatedly fall back on fossil fuels for their very survival wouldn’t keep popping up.

    This emergency shows that the carbon tax rate must be upped by 5000% immediately to protect the globe from feral icebergs, said a verdant spokesperson, speaking from a study tour to St Moritz, France.

    Remain true all CAGW believers, hot air power will rule when enough new comrades are forced to join us.

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  • #
    Lawrie Ayres

    No better New Year news than warmists stuck in ice and Maurice Newman on the front page. Christine is the first cyclone of the season which the BoM predicts will spawn a further 11 to 14.(The Australian 9 October 2013). I will keep score this year to see how well they guess. I’m sure Abbott could find savings at the BoM and CSIRO if he scrapped all the climate related crap. Speaking of climate crap I haven’t heard much from Steffen or Karoly lately.

    Happy New Year to the Jo Nova stable of erudite and pleasant people. 2014 will be the year of the skeptic.

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      Dave

      Lawrie,

      There will be between 5 and 10 for the 2013 -2014 cyclone season.

      1. In mid January 2014 there will be a tropical low in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
      2. This will be followed by a couple more by the 18th to 25th January in the same area.
      3. One of these will come down the QLD coast.
      4. More will come between 21st-30th February 2014 with possibility of cyclones.
      5. Maybe 2 more in the NT or WA, but otherwise a normal year.

      BOM is wrong, they have always ignored the sun.

      Total maximum is 10 only for Australia.

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    • #
      bobl

      Don’t forget recalcitrant….

      21

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Lawrie, this gives hope of good things to come. We must do what we can to make sure they don’t hold back.

      I can’t get over what a wonderful, timely contribution Chris Turney has made to the campaign.

      However I still fear that the Abbott government does not understand the insanity of Unilateral Trade Reform, which has wiped out so much rural business, and presumabley city business also, in Australia.

      11

  • #
    DT

    Happy New Year climate change freaks, alarmists, easily lead fools. Enjoy the sea ice. Tom Foolery loses again, new year stunt exposed as a fraud.

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    DT

    New Years Eve, be kind to losers, send them some carbon tax.

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  • #

    Well what a year to forget- drought ,low prices- worst in my 35 years on land here in sw Qld.
    Good to see Tony and his team off to a good start- just got to get Hunts feelgood follies reduced and the company tax to breed brats- watered down to nothing!
    Thanks to the huge efforts of Jo and David here and some world patriots – the truth has exposed the charletons that can retire rich beyond their dreams. We will all have to pick up the pieces and get no thanks for our efforts … so let’s hear it for the “nut jobs” . Could be a few of our dearly departed friends eating porridge in the New Year too with a bit of luck. Here’s to a much better year for everyone in a few minutes!

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      scaper...

      Hey, people…Mr Rob Moore banned me from the so called ‘Just Grounds’ blog because I wanted to post under ‘scaper…’ to protect my identity.

      Thera are right wing fascists as well. Looking at you, ROB!

      21

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    Happy New Year already to our Fiji and New Zealand readers who are fortuitously always on the cutting edge of the calendar.
    How’s 2014 looking so far? 🙂

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      A man fell out of a thirtieth floor window of a New York skyscraper.

      As he passed the fifteenth floor he was heard to say, “So far, so good”.

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  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    I have 4 “MUST WATCH” videos that will have you understand why the economic experiment is failing and has NO options but collapse.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jO60a9oD2w&list=UUxOQ_BQWMLnw6qMsNJlTflQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQwOSZVMBXs&list=UUxOQ_BQWMLnw6qMsNJlTflQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_3Q8K-5Ag0&list=UUxOQ_BQWMLnw6qMsNJlTflQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRwBSUo7p5s

    No matter how you try to correct the current problems of economics, it has to change into something NEVER tried before or the whole world economy will collapse together and be REALLY nasty and ugly.
    The current politicians will ONLY listen to economists no matter the proof.

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  • #
    Schrodinger's Cat

    Absolutely superb!

    There is no sign of common sense breaking out in the UK any time soon.

    Keep up the good work, Jo, and best wishes for 2014.

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    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      To be fair, Aus. has got a head start, being so near the Antarctic an’ all. If the World is going to Freeze from the bottom up how long will the numpties in N. Europe take to see beyond their warmist narrative ?

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      • #
        Eddie Sharpe

        Happy New Year to everybody in Kiwi Land , in Aus. and around the World as a new year dawns. Out with the old novelties & distractions and let’s welcome a new era of progress a prosperity.

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  • #
    Will J. Browne

    “If the IPCC were your financial adviser, you would have sacked it long ago….”
    If Maurice Newman were your risk assessment adviser he’d have been sacked long ago. Global warming is a risk and the rational approach to assessing a risk is to analyse its impact and probability. Global warming has a global and potentially catastrophic impact. It’s probability, based on the available evidence, is somewhere in the region of 95-98%. On that basis anyone addressing the risk rationally and honestly would advocate urgent action. To advocate doing nothing based on a false and deliberately simplistic claim (see link) that the underlying warming trend due to human activity has, miraculously and for no discernible reason, stopped for a short term is irrational, dishonest and highly irresponsible.
    Attributing a rational response to the “madness of the crowds” is akin to saying “Everyone is out of step except me.”

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    • #

      Will, what evidence, exactly?

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        Will J. Browne

        Seriously? Just as a matter of interest, what level of probability would you ascribe to it? Given the potential impact, at what level of probability would you consider it prudent to start taking preventative action?

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          Rod Stuart

          In May of 2013, the UK Met Office reported to the UK senate that the probability that the Earth’s climate is due to anything other than natural processes is one in one thousand. Does that answer your question?

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            Will J.Browne

            Thanks Rob. Care to share a source with us?

            17

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              If Rod is using the word, “senate”, I presume he means the House of Lords. You could look at the UK Hansard Record of The House of Lords for the month of May 2013.

              By the way, material presented to the House of Lords must be absolutely accurate. It is a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment, to present erroneous information to the Lords, even if it is done by accident, or with the very purest of motivations.

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              • #
                Rod Stuart

                Thanks, Rereke. Of course I meant to say the House of Lords.
                I know I should have linked to that specific passage. It just didn’t seem to be worth the trouble to point it out to the snoozer. He wouldn’t pay it any heed anyhow.

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          • #
            Andrew McRae

            That’s not the whole truth and seems an example of “Chinese whispers”.
            What the Met Office statistician reported was…

            The results show that the linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise is less likely to emulate the global surface temperature timeseries than the driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model. The relative likelihood values range from 0.001 to 0.32 for the time periods and datasets studied, where a value of 1 equates to equal likelihoods.

            This is not, however, evidence for the efficacy of the driftless autoregressive integrated model. Similar comparisons between the driftless (trendless) model and two autoregressive integrated models that allow for drift (trend) give likelihood values ranging from 0.45 to 2.58 for the HadCRUT4 dataset. The comparison is therefore inconclusive in terms of selecting the notionally best model.

            The guy who originally triggered the House of Lords question (Doug Keenan) by highlighting the precariousness of the Met’s model selection specifically said:

            Demonstrating that the Met Office claim is ill-founded is something that is obviously valuable. To demonstrate that, I showed that another model was about 1000 times more likely to be the better model (where “better” is defined in a certain technical sense). Thus the Met Office model is failing to explain substantial variation in the data, and so it should not be used.

            Note that I did not advocate using the other model, or indeed any model. Because I have not chosen a model, I am unable to draw any statistical inferences. My conclusion is merely that the basis for their inferences is untenable.

            So neither the skeptic blogger nor the warmist authority ever implied “the probability that the Earth’s climate is due to anything other than natural processes is one in one thousand.” That never happened, it is unsubstantiated folklore. The argument was about the confidence intervals for the existence of trends in the data, not about what caused that trend (if it exists).

            What basically happened was… Mr Keenan showed the notion of statistical significance that underlies their attribution claim is biased by a choice which is not robust under a likelihood comparison between trended and trendless models. The Met Office responded that comparing likelihoods of models can point to some other trended models as being either more or less likely than their chosen trended model, therefore his method of choosing a better model is not robust either.
            The argument looks like a stalemate.

            McIntyre’s response is that the whole line of argument over how a trend counts as “statistically significant” in the temperature record is a distraction from more substantive issues with the Met’s attribution of global warming.

            50

        • #
          AndyG55

          So, you have your house heavily insured against elephants dropping from the sky, do you !! ?

          That’s about the same probability that CAGW is even remotely possible.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          There REALITY is that the impact of any tiny amount of warming is MOST PROBABLY beneficial.

          The impacted of raised CO2 levels is MOST CERTAINLY highly beneficial.

          If a “risk” analysis or “cost/benefit” analysis were properly applied to the AGW meme, there would be no wind turbines, no solar power.

          The world would NEVER have wasted the trillions of dollars that it has done, and would be in a much more viable economic position.

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    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      “… on the ‘available’ evidence …” meaning, such as it is, we have to believe in the models in the absence of anything else.

      About the only thing we know with any certainty is how certain we are and that that certainty will keep improving, for the next IPCC report ;-?

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      john robertson

      Cite your “available evidence”, please do.
      I am getting old waiting for some empirical evidence.
      As for Catastrophic warming.. tell it to the vikings.

      200

      • #
        Will J. Browne

        Cite your “available evidence”, please do.

        The evidence is the stuff this whole blog spends its time nit-picking at. Do you want me to come up with something brand new? If you want me to explain the evidence to you, where do you want me to start? Maybe I could begin with Joseph Fourier or John Tyndall in the 19th century and work forward from there.

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        • #
          Rod Stuart

          The translation is: “I have heard that there is a lot of evidence, but I have never ever asked what it is, and therefore when I am pressed to reveal it, I find it impossible to do so.”

          251

          • #
            AndyG55

            ie WJB says .. “I got nuffin !”

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          • #
            AndyG55

            And the REALLY MORONIC thing is that everything the AGW believers try, does WAY, WAY, WAY more damage to the environment than any tiny amount of beneficial supposed warming due to highly beneficial CO2 plant food could ever possibly do.

            This “risk” approach is really one of THE DUMBEST ideas they have ever come up with !!!

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        • #
          john robertson

          Pathetic response.
          So you have not bothered to look for yourself.
          The IPCC FAR would be an eye opener, if you could spare your valuable time.

          60

        • #
          Richard S Courtney

          Will J. Browne:

          At January 1, 2014 at 3:57 am you say of AGW

          The evidence is the stuff this whole blog spends its time nit-picking at. Do you want me to come up with something brand new? If you want me to explain the evidence to you, where do you want me to start? Maybe I could begin with Joseph Fourier or John Tyndall in the 19th century and work forward from there.

          Well, no.

          A datum which refutes a conjecture is not “nit-picking”: it is a refutation.

          There is no evidence that AGW exists as a discernible effect: none, zilch, nada.
          Please note the stark nature of my statement which you would refute with a single piece of empirical evidence for discernible AGW. That evidence would surely gain you at least one Nobel Prize because no item of such evidence has been discovered by three decades of research conducted world-wide at a cost of over $5 billion per year. (In the 1990s Ben Santer claimed to have found such evidence but that was almost immediately shown to be an artifact of his cheery-picking a small subset of the available data).

          Fourier and Tyndall presented conjectures concerning AGW. The ability to provide a conjecture is not evidence that the conjecture is true. For example, if I suggest there are fairies at the bottom of my garden then my having made the suggestion is not evidence that the fairies exist.

          The projections of AGW are flawed and are political; n.b. NOT scientific. Please read my above posts at
          http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/skeptical-view-makes-australian-front-page-climate-madness-dishonesty-fraud-deception-lies-and-exploition-says-maurice-newman/#comment-1363616
          and
          http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/skeptical-view-makes-australian-front-page-climate-madness-dishonesty-fraud-deception-lies-and-exploition-says-maurice-newman/#comment-1363624

          Richard

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    • #
      PeterB in Indianapolis

      The warming cycle of 1980-1999 was 99.995% natural, the other 0.005% was caused by man, primarily by land-use changes and urbanization.

      As such, to do ANYTHING to mitigate the risk of CO2 related warming would be complete folly, because (in very close approximation) 0% of the warming from 1980-1999 had anything whatsoever to do with CO2 (human produced or naturally produced).

      The sensible amount of money to spend on a non-existent problem is $0.00. Seeing as how the world has already spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $Trillions on this non-existent problem, we have already dug ourselves a tremendous economic hole, which we now must strive mightily to get out of. The longer it takes for the world to abandon the non-existent problem and begin digging out of the very real economic hole we have created, the worse the situation will be, so I would say we had better get started, like NOW!

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      • #
        Will J.Browne

        a non-existent problem

        So you’re happy that, in face of all the available evidence, the impact of global warming is zero at worst, and that the possibility of it happening is also zero. It sounds like you’ve put a lot of rational thought into this .

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      Greg Cavanagh

      Quote “…based on the available evidence, is somewhere in the region of 95-98%”.

      This is what’s called, an appeal to authority. It assumes the advice you have been given is correct without any attempt to verify it, or use your own intuition or understanding.

      There have been many examples, like the Dot com crash, where advice from authority was plainly wrong. Unless you look into the matter some more, you will simply be used as a fool by those who would profit from you being a fool. As they say, a fool and his money are easily parted.

      This blog looks deeper into the matters at hand and ask questions. We are not happy with the answeres we get back. There is some shady characters behind the environmental movement, and many behind the wind industry. The whole thing is very suspicious.

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      • #
        Will J.Browne

        Hi Greg, thanks for the lecture. When assessing the probability of a risk I am actually inclined to take into account the advise I am given by experts. In other words, as you said, I am guilty of appealing to authority. I didn’t realise that it is an incorrect approach to seek advice from experts when assessing a risk. Thanks for putting me right. The next time I have a problem with my car brakes, I’ll have a go at fixing it myself rather than seeing a mechanic. In my defence, I do then attempt to verify the information I’m given, and use my intuition and understanding to see if there are any factors that might mitigate the risk. I have to say that, with regard to global warming, I haven’t seen anything that might reduce the possibility to a percentage level low enough, i.e., close to zero, where I would think it unnecessary to take precautionary action.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Your mistake is in mistaking paid catastrophists as experts.

          You would probably take your car to the advertising agency to get it fixed.

          151

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          Will J. Browne
          Of course any global warming will have impacts, some bad, some good, but on the whole a small amount of warming would be beneficial for mankind. Even the IPCC admits that.
          Of course the possibility of it happening is not zero, which is why people buy lottery tickets. The chance is remote, but it may help their life style and they think they can adapt to any drawbacks.
          You cannot demonstrate any global warming has happened outside of any natural variation. The claims are that the Earth’s temperature has risen in the last 100 years isn’t disputed (within an accuracy of ± 0.7℃), only the amount recently. We are told that a rapid rise in CO2 has caused a rise in temperature, yet predictions based on that assumption have proved embarrassingly wrong.

          Even the IPCC has had to admit (yet again) that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today, while the CO2 level was 280ppm. So are you are claiming that a rise of 120ppm. in CO2 didn’t have any effect but a further rise will bring disaster? Why? And how?

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          Another Graeme

          Will, as a mechanic I might be able to help you out here. If your car is stopping in the usual time/distance that is in spec for your vehicle, and it is not pulling left or right or making grinding sounds while breaking and is not losing brake fluid, your own observations and intellect should be able to deduct that your car is not suffering from catastrophic brake failure. Or, despite real world observations, you can pay some shonky bastard to to work that was not needed. Never underestimate the power of observation and reason to see through charlatans.

          260

        • #
          Winston

          No, Will,

          You see the CAGW approach to fixing your car brakes is not to use conventional proven technology to replace your brake pads, but to search for unproven environmentally “friendly” alternatives, like say compacted banana skins, and then provide billions in subsidies for banana plantations, but only those that supply banana peel for brakes. Those that produce bananas for food are exempt from such government largesse.

          Then, along comes all those darned annoying skeptics who have the temerity to suggest that banana peel brakes seem to be very ineffective and largely inefficient, and that traffic accidents are increasing where faulty brakes are an issue due to the “banana peel brake revolution”.

          I think then that such “nit-picking” would I believe be warranted, but people like you, Willie, would suggest that we keep our traps shut and not point out the obvious?

          I have to say that, with regard to global warming, I haven’t seen anything that might reduce the possibility to a percentage level low enough, i.e., close to zero, where I would think it unnecessary to take precautionary action.

          By the way, I think that should read that we haven’t seen anything with regard to global warming that would warrant invoking precautionary action, since theoretically catastrophic changes can only occur with positive water vapour feedbacks which have not occurred (observations suggest quite the contrary), severe weather events have not been increasing, observations suggest a greening of the biosphere, food production in grains are increasing dramatically in a higher CO2 environment not decreasing, and any putative warming if it were to occur would produce an environment in which mankind has thrived in contrast to the 1600’s to the 1800’s which were the coldest since the last glacial period.

          Will, you are a bit like the fellow who rushes out of the local council swimming pool because he is afraid of being eaten by sharks, only to run across the road without looking in a blind panic to be run over by a bus. You desperately need a sense of proportion.

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          • #
            Another Graeme

            Banana peel brakes is an is a remarkably apt metaphor for green power generation.

            180

            • #
              scaper...

              Speaking of banana, Mark Steyn calls the green movement BANANAs.

              Build Anything Nowhere Anywhere Near Anything!

              120

          • #
            Richard S Courtney

            Winston:

            You say to Will J.Browne

            By the way, I think that should read that we haven’t seen anything with regard to global warming that would warrant invoking precautionary action, …

            I respectfully suggest that the Precautionary Principle does apply but not as either you or Will J.Browne suggest. I explain this as follows.

            Constraining CO2 emissions would require constraining fossil fuel usage. The constraint would be greater than that of the 1970s Oil Crisis because the required constraint would be greater, fossil fuel use has increased since then, and the constraint would need to be permanent.

            All economic activity requires energy supply. People need energy to grow crops, to make goods, to provide services, and to transport goods and services from where they are produced to where they are needed. At present the ONLY viable sources of large energy supply are fossil fuels and nuclear power. And nuclear has limited uses because it only provides electricity and not everything can be operated from the end of a cable.

            Biomass is solar energy collected by photosynthesis over short time. Fossil fuels are solar energy collected by photosynthesis over geological ages and concentrated in small dried volumes. Windpower is solar energy collected over short time. And windpower varies with the cube of the wind speed so wind turbines that operate in normal winds cannot provide much energy while wind turbines which could operate in tropical storms (which do provide much power) would rarely operate. Similar problems exist for all forms of so-called ‘renewables’; see
            http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/courtney_2006_lecture.pdf

            Hence, there are NO viable alternatives to use of fossil fuels at present except as a trivial and marginal contribution.

            The economic effects of constraining fossil fuel usage would be greatest in the developed world because it has the largest economies. But the economic effects would be most severe in the developing world: people near to starvation are starved by economic disruption. Indeed, the population in the developed world is expected to increase by ~3 billion until it peaks near the middle of this century. Those additional people need additional energy supply for them to survive. And that additional energy supply requires additional use of fossil fuels because there are no viable alternatives.

            Thus, constraining CO2 emissions at present levels would kill billions of people – mostly children – in the next few decades.

            But unvalidated computer models suggest that not constraining CO2 emissions at present levels may raise global temperature with possibly harmful effects.

            The Precautionary Principle states that we should NOT take action to constrain CO2 emissions and thus certainly kill billions of people – mostly children – merely because computer games suggest there may be harm if we don’t take the action.

            Richard

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            • #
              AndyG55

              Thanks Richard,

              This is a really nice put down of the precautionary principle as the climate nutters would have it applied.

              Your last statement is BULL’S EYE on the REALITY TARGET !!!

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        • #
          bobl

          Actually, your analogy is false, climate scientists are not Metorologists, Climate scientists are Analogous to the Scientists for Universities paid by the manufacturers of the brakes.

          As a consequence the Scientists of University of East Anglia – Detroit has run a computer model that based, on your political opinion, bank balance and gullibility index has determined that there is a 97% probability that you need new brakes, and that you should head to the nearest Manufacturer facility to have your brakes replaced, with the new, environmentally responsible, high wear, genuine, renewable model, that will cost you 500% extra over the life of your car.

          Of course you would also take out the offered insurance policy, from the University of East Anglia – Detroit, Insurance associates charging you $5000 per annum to insure you against the damage caused by increase in the disk thickness their $100 disk brake might suffer from thermal expansion due to 12 degrees of climate change. After all – gotta watch those risks dontcha know….

          Of course you could become a sceptic and take them to a real Mechanic who instead measures the wear on your brake pads, and decides A. whether you need to replace them and B. the model that provides the best price/performance so your overall cost is reduced.

          This lay practitioner ( a mere mechanic ) might then advise you that the $5000 insurance for the increase in thickness of a component costing only $100, and that is subject to thinning due to wear is probably a con…

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        • #
          MemoryVault

          with regard to global warming, I haven’t seen anything that might reduce the possibility to a percentage level low enough, i.e., close to zero, where I would think it unnecessary to take precautionary action.

          Tell you what Willy.

          You go find some “global warming”** in the past decade and a half, that isn’t already “close to zero”, THEN we can assess the risk and discuss the ways and means of mitigating against it and/or planning to adapt to it. At the moment you are demanding we respond to a non-existent threat.

          ** That’s REAL global warming mind you. Not the magical stuff allegedly hiding in the ocean deeps.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Define “expert”.

          40

          • #
            ROM

            Expert ; An ordinary man more than forty miles from home; ie Everybody at home knows he is a dickwit!

            Consultant; An Expert with a brief case under his arm.

            Climatologist; A consultant with his grant funding submissions, all of them, in his brief case

            50

          • #
            PeterB in Indianapolis

            X is the unknown quantity, and spurt is a drip under pressure.

            10

        • #
          john robertson

          What you are telling us here, is you are too thick to understand a very simple mechanical system, that of hydraulic brakes on an automobile, yet you feel competent to lecture others on a chaotic system, that of earths climate?
          There are no unknowns in an automobiles braking system, our understanding of weather and climate cycles consists of mostly unknowns, perhaps you should print out a copy of IPCC AR’s 4 &5, take a highlighter and mark every, might,could,may and unknown..in these texts..
          Of course you could read them while you are at it, but that might be too hard for you, from your comments to date.

          50

        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          Reply to Will J.Browne:

          You said “I didn’t realise that it is an incorrect approach to seek advice from experts when assessing a risk.”

          I said “It assumes the advice you have been given is correct without any attempt to verify it, or use your own intuition or understanding.”

          Do you recognise the difference?

          I have fixed the brakes on my own cars. They aren’t hard, they are designed to be replaced. But you won’t even look at them, you run off to your trusted mechanic. If he’s like most mechanics, he’ll be replacing things that don’t need replacing. But I’m sure he’s a nie guy with a great retail manner. Unless you look at the brakes yourself, you won’t know that you just got suckered. This is what I’m saying.

          20

    • #
      Neville

      Will please tell us how to mitigate your CAGW and how much would the temp fall by 2050 or 2100?

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    • #
      tom0mason

      Temperatures rose nearly in step with CO2 during 1975-1988, from then onward they have parted company with no correlation between the two.

      For risk to be assessed it must be defined, there is no observed risk as temperature and CO2 levels are within normal natural limits. No risk, no problem.

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    • #
      Backslider

      Global warming is a risk and the rational approach to assessing a risk is to analyse its impact and probability. Global warming has a global and potentially catastrophic impact. It’s probability, based on the available evidence, is somewhere in the region of 95-98%.

      Then I would expect you to immediately disconnect yourself from the durdy coal electricity grid and to immediately cease using anything whatsoever the production of which is dependent upon fossil fuels.

      Do it now….

      30

      • #
        AndyG55

        Oh come on BackS.. you KNOW that not one of these dweebs will ever do that.

        They are WAAAAAY too addicted to the pleasantries of life under coal powered electricity.

        30

        • #
          AndyG55

          … computers, refrigerators, light……….. etc etc.

          That IS their life. TOTALLY dependant on coal and CO2 (for food production)

          30

          • #
            AndyG55

            “TOTALLY dependant on coal and CO2 ”

            Just like most of the developed world.

            The rest, well……

            according to the AGW cult… ‘tough luck.. you ain’t getting any’ !!

            40

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              Mortis

              I love how all the progs, in their immense humanitarianism (just ask them), continue to hobble African nations by not letting them have “evil” first-world power – “Don’t worry about the green boot heel on your neck, we are saving you. Here is some more dung for the fire.”

              It seems the older I get the less time I have for willful ignorance. What the UN (and France) have done to Africa since WW2 is criminal.

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        Mortis

        They are WAAAAAY too addicted to the pleasantries of life under coal powered electricity.

        That’s the ugly truth these useful idiots will never talk about – they love modern life and all it’s toys, just like the snake oil salesman Al Gore – no different.

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      Andrew

      Global warming has a global and potentially catastrophic impact. It’s probability, based on the available evidence, is somewhere in the region of 95-98%.

      The probability of AGW is, I agree, 95%+. And all the AGW in history (by burning biomass, BTW – fossil fuels are simply ancient carbon-based lifeforms previously sequestered) totals much less than 1C. This has been concentrated in colder areas where it’s most desirable, had precisely zero negative consequences, and so the cost of AGW has been zero. Negative trend for wind events, slightly more rain, net fewer temp-related deaths. And this CO2 has made the planet greener, with faster-growing, better yielding food.

      There is a non-zero probability that CO2 will eventually lead to adverse consequences. It may, however, never be anything but a positive. So if my broker, playing “risk manager” said “there’s a 95-98% probability that the stockmarket will fall at some point” that’s true he would be entirely useless. There’s a greater probability that it will rise.

      So basically you’ve told us that there’s a high probability that something trivial and slightly positive is occurring and that “risk management” should somehow address this. Address it how? Let’s look at the other side of “precautionary principle.”

      1) There’s a 100% probability that attempting to be a “world clean energy leader” results in economic collapse. Spain did it – they went from effectively debt free to a failed state worse than anything we saw in the 1930’s.
      2) Economic performance is 100% inversely correlated to carbon pricing. After Lehman, the US experienced a massive 12 month contraction followed by recovery. The carbon-taxing EU has been in Great Depression for 6 years. AUS and China had no carbon price, and no GFC contraction. AUS introduced a carbon price, and has been in the bottom 5% of the world for employment performance ever since. (Basically risen every month ever since – worse even than half the EU)
      3) The world is flushing $1tr every 3 years down the toilet. Unless you believe that money can do no good to people’s lives, there is a 100% probability that this is hurting people that it could make a real difference to.
      4) There’s a 100% probability that it is at least an order of magnitude cheaper to adapt than mitigate CO2. Bloomberg was shown a proposal for a Manhattan seawall, doubling as a ring-road expressway. It would have been immune to TS Sandy, AND had a freeway for 100 years. Only $6bn, and it would have been good for the next 20 major storm / flood events. No, not warmist enough for the warmie mayor. And they lost more than that in flood damages the next time they had a decent sized storm (sub Cat 1 wind speed, BTW – not even a hurricane). The proposed warmie solutions achieve nothing – they don’t even generate electricity in most cases.

      If my broker said I could buy put options against the possibility that the market will fall, but these puts cost -50% p.a. from my return, again he would be worse than useless.

      So let’s come back to Newman. He said people are acting under a dangerous delusion. How may do you want to list?
      – Overestimate (4-8x) of climate feedbacks / sensitivity
      – Delusion that China is a “world leader” in renewable energy and dramatically cutting emissions (it’s actually a world leader in construction of coal power, and dramatically INCREASING them albeit slightly lower than GDP so they talk about their “intensity”)
      – Delusion that other countries are pricing, or about to price, carbon
      – Delusion that falling emissions domestically have an impact on GLOBAL climate, when in fact emitting activities like smelting have simply moved to non-Kyoto countries
      – Delusion that renewable electricity is comparable in cost to coal (see for example the Buffett investment in Iowa wind, which was actually propped up by massive public subsidies)
      – “Green jobs” delusion
      – Delusion that renewable electricity can generate stable grid power in volume
      – Delusion that global carbon credits represent genuine abatement activity (as opposed to rampant fraud)
      – Delusion about “subsidies” of fossil fuels (eg the much hyped “subsidy” of miners’ diesel which is simply the failure to levy road taxes on offroad diesel)

      Stop me any time, I could go on.

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      Radical Rodent

      Risk assessment adviser? Are they real? I will listen to a risk assessment adviser if and when proof is given of a full risk assessment of the riskiest activity likely to engage in, for most people.

      Do you sit down and do a full risk assessment before you got for a drive?

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    CEH

    Thanks Jo for the good work, and best wishes for 2014 to everyone.

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    John Chapman

    A few facts. 1) The world has not cooled over the past 17 years. The data sets of NOAA, UAH and RSS each show a positive trend. Show me an authorative data set that shows cooling?
    2) The IPCC is not a money making machine and have no agenda or motivation for one other than to distill peer-reviewed articles on the subject. From ‘wikipaedia’ … “Thousands of scientists and other experts contribute (on a voluntary basis, without payment from the IPCC) to writing and reviewing reports, which are reviewed by representatives from all the governments, with a Summary for Policymakers being subject to line-by-line approval by all participating governments. Typically this involves the governments of more than 120 countries.” Despite their participation, the governments have been slow to act.
    3) Where is the correlation between industry and the cost of power? Germany has the most expensive power in Europe and France the cheapest. Which has more industry? Maurice Newmann’s comments are a disgrace from someone who ought to be a more objective thinker, rather than a blog follower.
    We are just finishing the hottest year on record for Australia. I wish 2014 will be cooler, but I doubt it.

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      PeterB in Indianapolis

      RSS and UAH show NO TREND for 17 years. No trend does not equal “positive trend”. The other “data” including GISS, NOAA/NCDC and the others have all had the past (pre-1980) temperatures “adjusted” downwards by anywhere from 1.2 to 1.8 degrees C without any real justification for the “adjustments” which have cooled the past. Even with these “adjustments” it is increasingly difficult for those “data” sets to show any warming trend either in the past 17 years.

      Yes, the IPCC IS a money-making machine, if you don’t believe that it is, you don’t understand it at all. Do some research please.

      Also, Industry and the cost of power do not necessarily correlate. However, INDUSTRIAL PROFIT and the cost of power DO CORRELATE.

      If you are going to start a post using the phrase “a few facts” please make sure you actually are putting some facts into your post, because yours seemed to be sorely lacking in that department.

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      Graeme No.3

      German industry has been shielded from the cost of wind and solar because it doesn’t pay the environmental levy for the direct subsidy. For all that the rising cost of electricity (from the disruptive effects of “renewables”) is causing german manufacturing companies to move elsewhere, principally China and the USA.

      French electricity comes largely from nuclear, and that is unacceptable to the Greens everywhere. They have little “renewables” apart from a few token wind farms. Their other CO2 emission free sources are tidal and hydroelectric (also unacceptable to the Greens).

      Germany, Denmark and Spain all have lots of wind farms and very high electricity costs. So much so that the subsidies have been reduced or cut completely. Holland, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Sweden have noticed and eliminated subsidies for wind. Poland is making money supplying coal fired power to Germany, as is the Czech Rep. with nuclear. Neither of these wants the disruptive effects of surges in wind power from Denmark or Germany and are installing equipment to prevent them.

      So the effects of Green policies in Europe has been expensive electricity and the loss of jobs, just as Newman noted. Ironically they will result in MORE CO2 emissions not less.

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      Winston

      Just show me where, John, the exponential CAGW we were warned about is hiding in those data sets.

      Let me spell it out for you- faint warming trends (being generous) FAIL, no trend (probably) FAIL, cooling trend (possibly) FAIL. Any way you slice it – FAIL.

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      1/ He didn’t say it cooled.
      2/ The IPCC? You said “…(the reports) are reviewed by representatives from all the governments, with a Summary for Policymakers being subject to line-by-line approval by all participating governments.” Exactly. It’s a political committee, it isn’t science, and if the governments wanted a different answer they would arrange it. If the IPCC announced CO2 was not a problem, the IPCC would be closed down tomorrow — jobs and junkets would end.
      3/ Where is the correlation between industry and the cost of power? Everywhere. The more industrialized a nation is the more energy it uses.

      http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/this-quote-cannot-be-accurate.html

      And obviously (See “Supply and Demand” or “Economics”) the higher the cost of power, the more industry will move to a country where it costs less.
      This graph shows how closely tied production and energy are.

      http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/01/24/how-high-oil-prices-lead-to-recession/

      German power wasn’t always the most expensive and it follows that German Industry may not always be industrious… Google BASF

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        Mortis

        2/ This is a good inter view from which to start

        http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11/18/un-ipcc-official-we-redistribute-worlds-wealth-climate-policy

        Excerpt, bold mine…

        (NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.

        (EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

        For the record, Edenhofer was co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III, and was a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007 which controversially concluded, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

        As such, this man is a huge player in advancing this theory, and he has now made it quite clear – as folks on the realist side of this debate have been saying for years – that this is actually an international economic scheme designed to redistribute wealth.

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      Andrew McRae

      1. Cooling? Only 12 years, but nonetheless Hadley SST3 shows the last 12 years as cooling.
      Do not bother to counter with the suggestion that warming is still occurring in the deep ocean because the definition of global warming is the globally averaged *surface* temperature. If you want to change the definition of “global warming” to be ocean heat content then you will have to immediately abandon all climate change mitigation activities and wait until the year 2033 when 30 years (the bare minimum) of ocean heat content data has been gathered, or else admit the entire exercise is about forcing a change on civilisation independent of any scientific evidence.

      3. The unit cost of electricity is not the only factor relevant to industry. The entire market and regulatory environment affects investment decisions. Are you sure the more socialist approach in France has nothing to do with the relative lack of industry when it leads to outcomes like this:
      France approves 75 per cent tax on high income earners
      I believe labour is still a rather important factor of production. What high-valued worker, or manager, would relocate to work in France under such conditions, especially when lower taxes are found elsewhere in the EU. Such businesses would not attract the best management talent under such a system, thus any nascent industry will be poorly managed relative to competitors in other countries.
      All attempts by government to confiscate wealth and redistribute it to people that didn’t earn it will end in disaster when taken to its logical conclusion.

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    Yonniestone

    Promising news to ring in the new year and by chance I just saw American Hustle at the cinema, it’s a great film and has rekindled my faith in capitalism. 🙂
    I would like to make an observation if I may on recent comments on this blog regarding the idea of a “Groupthink” or “Like minds” type of mentality that has formed and this in itself is viewed in a negative way.
    From what I have observed here over 5 years nothing could be further from the truth, would anyone consider people from many walks of life having mature, passionate, humorous and scientific debate be in any way associated with the sycophantic mantras from the AGW crowd?, believe it or not this higher level reasoning is the first thing that really impressed me here above anything, starting with our host.
    This is coming from a non scientist, trade qualified, sometimes short fused but dry humored average person who believes that eventually people will turn to the more adult or capable people when things get tough, I’ve seen it happen before but I also never take people’s stupidity for granted also.
    So when it looks like everyone is in agreement on something don’t be too worried as you never know where or what those like minds may lead to.
    A skeptical new year to all.

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    The IPCC model outputs are diverging sharply from reality. They are wrongly structured and the modeling method is inherently useless for forecasting the future paths of complex systems of multiple variables because of the difficulty of specifying the initial conditions with sufficient precision. The whole output of the IPCC impacts and amelioration sections is a complete waste of time and money based as they are on failed models. A new forecasting method is required . For forecasts of the timing and amount of the coming cooling based on the recognition of quasi periodic and quasi repetitive patterns see the series of posts at
    http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
    Here is a summary of the conclusions.
    “In earlier posts on this site http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com at 4/02/13 and 1/22/13
    I have combined the PDO, ,Millennial cycle and neutron trends to estimate the timing and extent of the coming cooling in both the Northern Hemisphere and Globally.

    Here are the conclusions of those posts.

    1/22/13 (NH)

    1) The millennial peak is sharp – perhaps 18 years +/-. We have now had 16 years since 1997 with no net warming – and so might expect a sharp drop in a year or two – 2014/16 -with a net cooling by 2035 of about 0.35.Within that time frame however there could well be some exceptional years with NH temperatures +/- 0.25 degrees colder than that.
    2) The cooling gradient might be fairly steep down to the Oort minimum equivalent which would occur about 2100. (about 1100 on Fig 5) ( Fig 3 here) with a total cooling in 2100 from the present estimated at about 1.2 +/-
    3) From 2100 on through the Wolf and Sporer minima equivalents with intervening highs to the Maunder Minimum equivalent which could occur from about 2600 – 2700 a further net cooling of about 0.7 degrees could occur for a total drop of 1.9 +/- degrees
    4)The time frame for the significant cooling in 2014 – 16 is strengthened by recent developments already seen in solar activity. With a time lag of about 12 years between the solar driver proxy and climate we should see the effects of the sharp drop in the Ap Index which took place in 2004/5 in 2016-17.

    4/02/13 ( Global)

    1 Significant temperature drop at about 2016-17
    2 Possible unusual cold snap 2021-22
    3 Built in cooling trend until at least 2024
    4 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2035 – 0.15
    5 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2100 – 0.5
    6 General Conclusion – by 2100 all the 20th century temperature rise will have been reversed,
    7 By 2650 earth could possibly be back to the depths of the little ice age.
    8 The effect of increasing CO2 emissions will be minor but beneficial – they may slightly ameliorate the forecast cooling and help maintain crop yields .
    9 Warning !! There are some signs in the Livingston and Penn Solar data that a sudden drop to the Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age temperatures could be imminent – with a much more rapid and economically disruptive cooling than that forecast above which may turn out to be a best case scenario.”

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    philjourdan

    Sorry I am late, but I just wanted to wish all those in Australia a Happy New Year! I was delivering a “clandestine” brief case when it rang for you (just some papers to a lawyer – I guess they had to file here before the end of the year).

    Happy new Year!

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    Les Johnson

    I saw as a key moment, when a sports writer this week, describing an American football team, used a line about global warming, and it was not supportive.

    This team is like Global Warming. It’s possible that Chud was doing some good things with wind power or something. Who can even tell?

    Seems small, but it is moving out of the esoteric and speciallized realm, and into the public arena. Its done this before, but as a subject of concern. Now its gone to public ridicule.

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    Les Johnson

    And a happy Aussie New Year, BTW! Have a beer on me.

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    PeterB in Indianapolis

    Happy New Year to all of you – although it is still only 1:15 PM Eastern Standard Time on 12/31/13 where I am.

    Let’s all have a New Year’s resolution to complete the destruction of the Beast that is CAGW Theory. We have already made a great beginning!

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    PeterB in Indianapolis

    If you have not read the above post by Dr. Norman Page, I would recommend that you do. He seems to have a far more sensible approach to climate forecasting than any “IPCC climate models” which I have seen, and his projections will be pretty easy for us to verify or to refute over the next 5 to 30 years, meaning many of us should still be around to see just how valid his model actually is. His website is worth a look.

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    john robertson

    Politicians are sheep.
    Maurice Newman coming out with a more honest assessment of the green scam,will embolden the others,
    most commenters here are familiar with the behaviour of a mob of sheep, once one or two run off, the rest soon stampede after them.
    Smart politicians (I hope) try to time their moves to coincide with the mob moving.
    There is no avoiding the swing, human nature is.
    The scam has sucked up all the loose money, sunk its fangs into all taxpayers finally getting their attention.
    Poverty has a way of sharpening the mind.
    And the cycles of mob madness are our history.
    I hear Memory Vaults, rancour but someone has to fight for sanity until the rest of us come around, thanks for pointing the way.

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    DT

    News this morning is that the red faced climate change alarmists could be waiting months to be rescued, maybe they can fill in time producing segments for the television show funniest home videos?

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    Well, they can certainly talk the talk. Let’s see some action, Mr Abbott!

    Let’s see the renewable energy targets legislation repealed. And, especially, let’s see the taxpayer funded grants rorts brought to an end.

    If you take a close look through all of the ‘green’ grants handed out by the former government, you will begin to appreciate that they handed over our money more as a statement of their belief in green energy rather than as a statement of their confidence in the project for which the money was granted. Without being too specific (for obvious reasons) I recall reading of a six-figure grant to develop a wind-powered pump. Correct me if I am wrong, but is the government spending our money on developing a windmill?! In the same article I read of all these fancy proposals to develop monitoring devices for energy consumption for this and that. It occurred to me that all you need to do is tell a good tale and then get on the web and buy a $15 microprocessor that already does what you are claiming.

    The problem with these grants is that they are handed out without proposals being vetted by people with appropriate knowledge, and, more significantly, there is no follow-up to see if the project was completed and if the money was well spent. The government is just splashing our cash around to anyone with a good story, all in the name of making a statement of their belief in climate change and green energy. Some of these projects are probably genuine. More – I suspect many, many more – are being put up by people who target government grants as a way of making easy money. Some, I suspect, merely involve politicians looking after their mates.

    Well, your move, Tony Abbott.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Barry,

      The problem with these grants is that they are handed out without proposals being vetted by people with appropriate knowledge, and, more significantly, there is no follow-up to see if the project was completed and if the money was well spent.

      I totally agree with you.

      The problem is though, that the decisions are made, and Grants are issued, by Public Servants who are paid to interpret and administer the legislation. Now, they are supposed to be impartial in the way they administer the legislation, and I am sure that most of them try their best to do so. But everybody has a personal view, and a feeling for, “What is right”, and this can introduce bias into the way that applications are processed.

      Previous “green grants” were issued by the same people who process them today. So they do so with a precedent of what has gone before, under a different Government. To change the system, the legislation itself has to be changed, and that takes time — lots of time.

      New policy has to defined by the incoming Government. That policy has to be encapsulated in a brief to the legal drafters, who then draft a new bill, or draft amendments to the existing law.
      This then has to await a slot in the legislative process, before it can be put before the Parliamentary process of multiple readings, consultation, debate, and vote. And that process is just within the lower house. After that, it has to go the Senate, that has its own bureaucracy, and processes, that must be adhered to.

      All of this takes time, and it can be held up by higher priority business, at any stage.

      I know it is frustrating, but it is infinitely preferable to a system where Government is by decree — think Poll-Pot or Gaddalfi.

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    Liz

    The Maurice Newman article in The Australian was a sight for sore eyes and wonderful to see. Not to be out-done, the SMH ran this article today http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-planet-to-warm-by-4-degrees-by-2100-20131231-304nw.html

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      MemoryVault

      The same article was in today’s UK Daily Mail.

      You’ve got to admire the chutzpah.

      The paper referred to in the articles is by Professor Steven Sherwood, of the University of NSW’s Climate Change Research Centre – the same clowns currently making idiots of themselves down on the ice in Antarctica.

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    Jo, thank you for a great 2013 … keep the frauds and charlatans on the run for another year, Bill Capron

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    Roy Hogue

    I notice the relevance of cost in your intro to this subject. I think the cost, at least once people are aware of it, will probably be a big factor in bringing down the, “Great Global Warming Swindle,” as it’s been so aptly called.

    On a different not — I’ve been wondering as the shoes begin to drop one by one, just how much of it will turn out to be follow the leader, just as we see with so many having jumped on the warming bandwagon to get in on the action in the first place. I don’t want to point a finger too soon but this possibility does bother me.

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    Neville

    Whooppee doooo a new study shows that the models are wrong. Trouble is the models are not extreme enough and should show a lot more warming by 2100.
    Particularly this new clouds study by UNSW says the lower temp range in the current modelling is wrong and should be higher as well.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/31/climate-craziness-of-the-week-only-the-cooler-models-are-wrong-the-rest-say-4oc-of-warming-by-2100/#more-100159

    Just have a look at the current WAY TOO HIGH modelling of temp compared to REAL OBSERVATIONS. At the link.
    Anyone remember silly Hansen’s A B and C scenarios in 1988 that have all failed miserably

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      Allen Ford

      Gosh! Does this mean that the 97% certatinty they bragged about, with great fanfare, is also on the skids?

      I can’t cope!

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    John F. Hultquist

    I’m not from OZ, so did not recognize this Maurice Newman fellow. Thanks for the short bio in the opening of the post.

    Also, Jo and all, Happy New Year.
    ~~~~~

    More commonly seen in the USA MSM is the name Cate Blanchett, also of OZ and also reported to be a climate clown, but I really know nothing of her either – done some acting I guess.
    In the US, there is this famous quote:
    “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” – Lyndon Johnson, February 27, 1968

    Maybe in 2014 we can get a quote like this:
    If I’ve lost Blanchett, I’ve lost OZ. – Rajendra Pachauri, chair, IPCC

    Can someone send her a message?

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    PeterS

    Glad to see a lot of posts here supporting my view that the Abbott government is not doing enough to expose the AGW scam, and in effect is still supporting it whether he cares to admit it or not, although I realize things move slowly in politics. Perhaps he will spill the beans so to speak and admit he and others (eg, Turnbull) made mistakes in the past, just as Howard has already apologised not long ago. I’ve sent a message to Abbott pointing out this and other matters in relation to the scam. I’ve begged him to take the shackles of the AGW myth completely off this nation to reduce our electricity costs and stimulate our economy.

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      john robertson

      For what its worth, politicians do need some time to change the bureaucratic direction, at the politician level it has to be hammered in, CAGW and the “alternative” non energy is a simple scheme to steal from the many(taxpayers&homeowners) to enrich the well connected few.
      At the taxpayer level it is simpler, our democracy has devolved into Kleptocracy, they are not here to help any, but themselves, so negotiation is over.
      How do you negotiate with a tapeworm?

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        Winston

        Imagine 100 Sir Humphrey Applebys to have to deal with- I don’t envy them. Cynicism is understandable and a good default position (especially someone like MV, who has been bashing his head against a brick wall for nigh on 30 years), but you have to give an apparent ally at least some opportunity to soften up the electorate and to dismantle the structural legacy they have inherited. I’m not suggesting they will succeed, but any of the alternative paths lead straight to doom.

        It is people power that will embolden politicians, voices like ours do impact more than many appreciate. It is a tactic that has served the left of politics exclusively for 30-40 years, but conservatives are finally awakening to the power of speaking out, loud and often.

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        PeterS

        I understand that completely. Another way of seeing it is we get the government we deserve, unfortunately.

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      bobl

      You’re not getting it are you , Maurice Newmann IS Sir Humphrey Applebys, and he has come out boldly and said, in his capacity as the Advisor for Business to the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia (ALA the Prime Minister), that Global warming is the biggest drag on out competitiveness that we have EVER seen.

      This IS the government pulling back from CAGW.

      And we just heard it loud and clear from Sir Humphrey himself.

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    scaper...

    Well, it is a new year which will be big for us sceptics. Reading through the comments, one would suspect that this government is weak and full of warmists.

    So, do you people believe that Newman coming out yesterday was out of the blue? The commencement of the discussion we never had, as a nation? Finesse comes to mind.

    Been at the forefront of this battle, put all else aside, cost me my modest wealth and looking forward to getting on with life when it is all over…this year!

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    Meanwhile, the scare continues. This from the University of New South Wales.

    Er, how’s your mate getting on down in Antarctica?

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      AndyG55

      If I produced a computer program that, when I fixed a known problem it failed against reality to an even greater degree than it was previously doing, ….

      I would probably not announce it to the world ……. 🙂

      All I can say to Sherwood is…….. DUH !!!!

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        AndyG55

        ps.. I have met Sherwood.. and he is so rabidly “green” that the only thing he is ever likely to understand is “DUH!”

        BUT….

        he “believes” !!!!!!

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    Robber

    Hopefully more industry leaders and even some politicians will now be prepared to stand up and question the value versus costs of the RET. The RET is an insidious hidden tax that rewards RET investors at the expense of the rest of us. And politicians don’t care because removing it doesn’t impact on the budget bottom line, while they no doubt accept some support from RET investors as they “save the world”.

    Can anyone throw any light on the Newman report that investors are being given their RET certificates before projects are even approved? The government employees approving these projects are likely to be mostly greenies intent on supporting anything green, whatever the cost.

    I can’t wait for Greg Hunt and Malcolm Turnbull to stand up and admit that they were wrong! Or rather to say that they were misled by the IPCC consensus. Only another five years until the next IPCC report.

    But this IPCC report is not yet done. The Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report was approved, and the full report accepted, by the IPCC on 27 September 2013. The finalized version of the Summary for Policymakers was published on 11 November 2013 and is available for download.
    However, the Working Group II (WGII) contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability will be considered in Yokohama, Japan, on 25-29 March 2014. The Working Group III (WGIII) contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report on mitigation of climate change) will be considered in Berlin, Germany, on 7-11 April 2014. The Synthesis Report (SYR) of the Fifth Assessment Report will be considered in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 27-31 October, 2014. So still lots of enjoyable travel and parties for all of the delegates as they reduce their own carbon footprint. And then, in December 2015 they get to travel to Paris with all the world’s leaders to sign off on a globally binding agreement to curb CO2 emissions – but wasn’t that supposed to happen in Copenhagen in 2009 when it was really, really urgent?

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    Neville

    Just posted this great post of Jo’s at Jen Marohasy’s blog. Here’s my comment there—–

    Comment from: Neville January 1st, 2014 at 8:01 am

    Jo Nova has one of her best posts ever, highlighting Maurice Newman’s unprecedented hard hitting article on the front page of the OZ.

    http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/skeptical-view-makes-australian-front-page-climate-madness-dishonesty-fraud-deception-lies-and-exploition-says-maurice-newman/#comment-1362874
    Newman pulls no punches and gets stuck into all the fraud ,corruption, exploitation and lies employed by the CAGW industry.
    Jo is correct , there has never been such an exposure of this taxpayer funded fraud on the front page of a major daily in our history.
    He is currently Abbott’s link to the business world so we can only hope that some of this honesty rubs off.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Check and Mate.

    30

  • #
    J.H.

    ….. and to cap it all off. The Warmist Ship Of Fools is stuck firmly in the Antarctic ice.

    A damn good start to 2014 I say. 🙂

    100

  • #
    muddy

    Business adviser says ‘climate change is crap, and the followers sing in praise with a warm fussy feeling. As if any of the 97% or so scientists are going to change their mind because of a mindless remark from a delusional non-science mad-man. You’re funny.

    —-

    muddy: any scientist who argues that 97% of scientists say something “so it must be true” is not a scientist. Who cares about whether those who make repeated logical errors recognize the real empirical evidence? What matters are the measurements and observations, not the polls, and whether b-grade poseur scientists are squandering our tax dollars. – Jo

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    • #
      bobl

      Um, muddy
      What do you think might happen if the Government stops funding cAGW fantasy and instead throws 60 or 70 Billion into funding research into let’s say Thorium Nuclear technology with a clear hint that anti Thorium research will not be funded?

      …. That’s a hint Mr Abbott, now hop to it…

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Well said Jo. 🙂

      muddy one doesn’t realise the significance of this event, because … well.. I guess he’s just … DOH !!!

      ————————————-

      and bobl.. why the heck waste money on Thorium research in Australia ? We have some of the best and largest deposits of coal in the world. !!

      Let those who aren’t in such an enviable situation do the research, then we can benefit by supplying Thorium as well as coal.

      60

      • #
        bobl

        Because AndyG, Australia also has the biggest known deposits worldwide of Thorium, they call it pump priming…. I reckon sell Asia Coal, and Europe (and if the EPA has its way) America, Thorium. It’s even better if we build the reactors too, design-em so they only work on Australian Thorium. We could sell them for two or three flannerys each.

        60

        • #
          AndyG55

          Yeah, but let’s not use OUR money to do that research, is what I’m saying.

          Maybe Flannery can raise some money to do the research, there are enough gullible green fools out there. 😉

          50

          • #
            bobl

            Sorry Gullible Green Fools only have other peoples money, to make a success of this you need productive money.

            00

    • #
      Carbon500

      Muddy: This is an oft-told story, but it bears posting again. If you don’t believe it, get hold of a copy of the paper concerned and see for yourself. I did.
      ‘97% of scientists agree that mankind is responsible for global warming’ – or do they?
      This oft bandied-about statement springs from a research paper entitled ‘Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change’ published in January 2009 by Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
      Here’s what happened. Comments in quotation marks are verbatim from the paper.
      Survey questionnaires were sent to 10,257 ‘Earth scientists’.
      The paper explains that ‘This brief report addresses the two primary questions of the survey’.
      These were:
      1)‘When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained generally constant?’
      2)‘Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?’
      The survey was ‘designed to take less than 2mins to complete’ and was administered online.
      The first thing to note is that of the 10,257 to whom the questionnaire was sent, only 3,146 individuals bothered to complete and return the survey – i.e. just short of 31%.
      ‘Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists’ – as opposed to for example oceanographers and palaeontologists. That’s 157 individuals out of the 3,146.
      Of these 157, 79 scientists had published more than 50% of their recent research papers on the subject, and so were deemed by the authors to be ‘the most specialised and knowledgeable respondents’.
      Think about that – only 79 individuals out the total of 10,257 were now considered knowledgeable enough to have their opinion sought at the outset of the study!
      Of these 79, 76 (96.2%) answered ‘yes’ to question 1, and – wait for it – 75 out of 77 (97.4%) answered ‘yes’ to question 2.
      Job done – 97.4% of scientists agree that humans are warming the planet significantly!

      30

      • #
        Carbon500

        Typo apologies – the line 4th up from the end should say:
        “Think about that – only 79 individuals out the total of 10,257 initially polled were now considered suitably ‘specialised and knowledgeable enough!”

        10

        • #
          Joe V.

          It was actually 75 out of the 79 ‘qualifying ‘ respondents who answered Yes to Question 2., two of them simply not answering yes or No .
          So even that carefully self selected result is not presented honestly and the already highly contrived result of 97% is a phoney.

          Why would they do that, strive so duplicitously to make 95% appear as 97% ?
          Is there something magic about that number, in the minds of Climate Researchers anyway ?

          30

  • #
    Rod Stuart

    I have been trying to convince people that this UN sponsored scam is a hoax since Maurice Strong got control of the UN EP (Environmental Programme). Anything in which the Strongs have been involved WWI is a Communist plot of some sort.

    You can imagine my surprise this morning when I looked in Google News that in Pakistan global warming is real. Sea levels are rising. Ice is melting. Apparently I have been misled all these years, because some Busy Ditch in Pakistan says so.

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    • #

      You don’t have to convince me Rod, I totally agree.

      Get rid of the UN because we (humans) aren’t ready to be governed by a one world entity. There is no one on this planet remotely intelligent enough to run it effectively and efficiently.

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      • #
        Joe V.

        Indeed Bob, that’s why we aspire to Democracy, a least worst form of Government, with its inherent contradictions and its mechanism for changing our minds, from the bottom up.

        Not the Strong forms of mind changing, which are invariably trying to impose mind change from a small typically unaccountable elite on everyone.

        Most politicians don’t seem capable of appreciating the distinction. That’s why the Leaders cannot be trusted or left to their own devices.

        The UN are all about devicing.

        20

  • #
    pat

    very good news indeed, however:

    how can Daily Mail be publishing this BS from the UNSW at this moment, without even mentioning their current Expedition? i am beyond bewildered, tho the readers look like they’re filling in the cracks:

    31 Dec: UK Daily Mail: Sarah Griffiths: Earth’s temperature could rise by more than 4°C by 2100, claim scientists
    Research by the University of New South Wales found that the global climate is more affected by carbon dioxide than previously thought
    The scientists believe temperatures could rise by more than 8°C by 2200 if C02 emissions are not reduced
    The research, published in the journal Nature, found that the global climate is more affected by carbon dioxide than previously thought…
    It could also solve one of the mysteries of climate sensitivity – the role of cloud formation and whether it has positive or negative effect on global warming.
    Researchers now believe that existing climate models significantly overestimate the number of clouds protecting our atmosphere from overheating…
    Professor Sherwood told The Guardian that a rise of 4°C would likely be ‘catastrophic’ rather than just dangerous.
    ‘For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics, and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet’ he said…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2531706/Earths-temperature-rise-4-C-2100-claim-scientists.html

    20

    • #
      Frankly Skeptical

      All that can be concluded is that if Nature Journal did published this rubbish then its credibility in science is well on the road to what one would elicit from the pages of Noddy’s Adventures in Toyland. More annoying is what these UNSW wa..kers are doing to this fine University’s reputation. Appalling!

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    • #
      Joe V.

      I think it is just to provide a good holiday belly laugh for Daily Mail readers Pat, while watching any remsining bedwetters among them taking it seriously.

      I mean, doesn’t this bit say it all ?

      Professor Sherwood told The Guardian that a rise of 4°C would likely be ‘catastrophic’ rather than just dangerous.

      While she actually links to the Guardian . This is the Daily Mail remember.

      30

      • #
        Richard S Courtney

        Joe V.:

        You report

        Professor Sherwood told The Guardian that a rise of 4°C would likely be ‘catastrophic’ rather than just dangerous.

        Really!? How can that be?

        Locally, most places on Earth experience more than 4°C on most days.

        Globally, the average temperature of the Earth’s surface rises by 3.8°C from January to June and falls by 3.8°C from June to January each and every year, and nobody notices it.

        (This annual variation of nearly 4°C in global temperature occurs because the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have different proportions of their areas covered by land.)

        Richard

        20

  • #
    pat

    reality:

    30 Dec: NetNewsLedger: Cold Weather Advisories for Far North
    THUNDER BAY – News – Extreme wind chills of minus 45 to minus 50 this morning for much of Northern Ontario. Across the far North in Ontario Environment Canada has issued Weather Advisories for Sandy Lake, Pikangikum, Poplar Hill, MacDowell, Fort Severn, Big Trout Lake, Kasabonika, Sachigo Lake, Bearskin Lake, Summer Beaver, Wunnummin Lake, Kingfisher Lake, Peawanuck, Attawapiskat, Kapuskasing, Hearst, and Smooth Rock Falls.
    Bitterly cold Arctic air combined with moderate west winds have resulted in extreme wind chills of minus 45 to minus 50 across much of Far Northern Ontario. A few locales may experience wind chills in the minus 50 to minus 55 range.The extreme cold is likely to persist well into the week…
    For Thunder Bay, the day is starting with temperatures below minus 30c.
    http://www.netnewsledger.com/2013/12/30/northern-ontario-drops-into-deep-freeze/

    10

  • #
    Ross

    Happy New Year to everyone. I hope it brings good health and prosperity to you all.

    Is this part of the panic response ?

    http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/20559307/global-temperatures-to-increase/

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    • #

      From your link:

      Global temperatures are set to increase by up to five degrees centigrade by 2100, according to an Australian-led study.

      It suggests climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than was previously thought.

      By 2200, the world could be more than 8C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced, say the researchers.

      Don’t they ever get embarrassed?

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    • #

      Good grief! They also have this!

      2014 is set to be the biggest year yet for the Green Party.

      Last year, they landed hits on the Government on issues from asset sales to SkyCity to the environment.

      After a summer break, it’ll be straight into election planning for co-leader Russel Norman.

      Yeah, right!

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  • #
    Neville

    Pig ignorant Flannery gets stuck into Maurice Newman.This fool has had so many dud predictions over the years you’d think he’d wake up?

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/nasty_climate_were_having/

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Poor guy is still striving for some sort of relevance.

      Sorry Tim, but your record precludes ANY possibility of that !!!

      82

    • #
      VirusP53

      The only one being PIG IGNORANT would be you and BOLT both using blatant lies repetiviely about what Flannery supposedly said It is repeated al through NOVA’s site .. In fact he never made a single prediction like you say he was merely answering questions asked in the interview… Now since Jan 1 is here sites like this need to be very clear about FACT versus made up lies..

      Only those who want to debase his views or the debate have to make up lies about what he said and say he predicted this and it never happened …

      The Fact is the ? he was asked was what would be WORST CASE SCENARIO …. He answered with “IF” the same conditions continue for the next two years as the previous 5 or 7 were then you would expect to see severe water shoratages and in some cases dams run dry …

      His point was highlight how important water is in a country like ours but those like yourself , bolt twist the words into your lies to try and help you because you have no data or use faux science for your debates …

      18

      • #
        Streetcred

        Said like a true virus … more koolaid ?

        31

        • #
          Mortis

          I am stunned at the lack oftalent had by the swarm of trolls here – funny how hit and run tactics are all they can do – sounds like marching orders to me – they all have the same MO

          11

          • #
            VirusP53

            Yet none can tell the truth even though full transcripts from the interview exist .. Neville has been force fed the Murdoch , Bolt rubbish so just believes it and uses any opportunity to degrade science like his above post …

            But don’t let important things like facts hold you back from trash talking because you cant make a point otherwise.. But isn’t what this entire site is about faux science …

            After all every single climate related scientist who works for NASA , NOAA , CSIRO , BOM , MET , HADCrut , NAS , AAS and many other top scientific agencies across the world are all wrong.. But we have to believe this one person who has no relevant degrees in this field saying everyone else is wrong ..

            Spare me the utter BS but if Evans was even remotely right he would be working for one of those agencies actually trying to prove fact from faux science .. Science is about proving something wrong yet no one has ….

            Yet Evans refuses to fix he bogus findings , graphs , charts when he has been told they are wrong ..

            15

            • #
              Mortis

              Tell you what buddy, go answer some of my posts and we will talk

              Science is about proving something wrong yet no one has ….

              The burden of proof is on those who believe in AGW, not the other way around since natural variability EASILY explains the changes you so worry about – it is up to those proposing the theory of AGW that their assumptions better explain what is happening. It hasn’t. CO2 has shown to have little impact on temperatures and the slimy, political reason for the theory in the first place has been outed. Way to flip the null hypothesis. BTW, what is the null hypothesis of your position? How can the CAGW theory be disproven? No null hypothesis, no hypothesis. Your side is getting dangerously close to Lysenko-istic belief.

              After all every single climate related scientist who works for NASA , NOAA , CSIRO , BOM , MET , HADCrut , NAS , AAS and many other top scientific agencies across the world are all wrong

              Since not all believe that significant AGW/CAGW is settled, I wouldn’t say all are wrong; however, if you have proof that every single climate related scientist believes this, I would love to see it.

              Your serve.

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              • #
                VirusP53

                @Mortis

                There is no burden of proof , climate science is not a legal proceeding so why go ahead and make up more rubbish , red herrings , furphys , blatant lies because that is not how it works.. They are publishing data that they have backed up with facts.. It is then up for others to try and prove differnt and have that view confirmed..

                Science is about falsifiability .. All conjecture , theories , data & hypothesis what ever you want to call it are tested and retested 100’s and 1000’s of times but different groups and constantly peer reviewed over time.. The exact same theory used in 1920’s , 1950’s is used now and yet no one has proven over and over again any different ..

                Yes please tell us according to whom has CO2 shown to have little impact on temps … Every temp record since records have been kept are getting smashed year after year .. Ice Core Data going back 800,000 years shows a direct correlation with CO2 level and temps ..

                With regards to the people working for the agencies like NASA , NOAA , CSIRO etc.. i said climate related scientist not the likes of the debunked fraudulent Exxon backed Oregon Petition sort… And it is not about all either … Every publishing climate scientist agrees on GW some aka about 1 – 2 % might dispute the how but clear majority agree it is humans who are the cause as the science shows…

                If any of those 1 – 2 % who showed a alternative view were even remotely correct then why haven’t their theories been confirmed & published & supported by all the science institutes after all is that because they have been tested and peer reviewed yet have been found to be wrong in some way… Yet you and this site claim all the top science agencies in the world are wrong .

                Amazing how disingenuous it is to trash organisations like NASA , NOAA , CSIRO , BOM , MET , HADCrut , NAS , AAS etc.. yet those who do it wont publish and allow their views to be tested and peer reviewed are they afraid of being found out or found out who is behind them like the Fossil Fuel industry who have a agenda …

                —————————-

                Virus, mortis has really provided you with great help below, correcting many of your errant ideas. You really ought to thank him. Indeed, the silence from you looks like you are not here for an honest conversation. – Jo

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Science is about falsifiability”

                Which is why the AGW meme is dying.

                The models they have built from their hypothesis have failed, and failed and failed.

                The AGW/CO2 warming hypothesis has been very solidly FALSIFIED, by REALITY !!!

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              • #
                Mortis

                Wow – and I thought you were wrong before…

                You didn’t go to any of my other posts to argue the points laid out there. You would rather not do that I am sure (since you didn’t) and therefore force me to repeat myself. Your actions come straight from Rules for Radicals which is a rather pi$$ poor debate tactic aimed at winning rather than arriving convincingly at a truth, whatever that truth may be.

                There is no burden of proof , climate science is not a legal proceeding

                There is a burden of proof in science when proposing a theory, linked to the null hypothesis – let me help you out. What the CAGW crowd has proposed is the theory that co2 from man-made sources (an important distinction) is the driver in current climate change. So, the Null Hypothesis to this is obvious – man is not responsible and the warming is naturally occurring. (I am curious – Since about 97% (96.775 I believe) of CO2 increase is naturally occurring, leaving 3.225% being attributed to us, it begs the question – how is the co2 we produce different that naturally occurring co2?)

                Since CAGW hinges on the A and the C, the burden of proof is on the CAGW proponents to show something out of the ordinary is going on AND we are causing it or the theory becomes threatened by the null hypothesis,ie, the OBSERVED temp increase is natural. See if today’s temps look “unprecedented”

                http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/Loehle/Fig2color.gif

                http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/de/temps-ar1.jpg

                http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Climate%20Change/Subatlantic_Had.png

                http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/bilder_presse/09_geo_tree_ring_northern_europe_climate.jpg

                Nothing happening now is “unprecedented” – the null hypothesis wins.

                CO2, by mere nature of it’s presence, has an affect; however, it’s connection to temperatures is a lag, not a lead, especially when warming begins…

                http://www.nature.com/news/1998/030310/full/030310.html

                http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/lansner-image2.png

                In fact, CO2 helps REGULATE the temperature of the planet (since you are so fond of NASA scientists)

                http://iceagenow.info/2013/04/nasa-study-shows-co2-cools-atmosphere/

                If co2 increase causes a run away doomsday scenario, explain the Ordovician period, an ice age with 4,400 PPM – about 12x what it is now. In short, co2 does heat the atmosphere some as part of it’s regulation effect but reflects heat into space as well. Increasing CO2 is good for a greening world btw.

                So, basically your pre-canned rhetoric is a social/political push for wealth redistribution, not hard science. Your argument has hyperbole and more than a few logical fallacies. You assume skeptics don’t believe the world changes and the climate fluctuates, when, in fact it is the skeptic that believes this, not the CAGW proponents who think the world would be more static without us here. We acknowledge, in fact, that the climate is never static and that our contribution is insignificant (3%), while your side says that our 3% contribution is the part that has doomed us but the other 97% have no effect. If this is not true, please explain the ongoing demonization of CO2, Cap and Trade bills and carbon credits. While you are at it, clue us in how that naturally occurring 97% in so impotent.

                In closing, you had to go to the ecoloon point of big oil when in fact it is your side receiving that funding

                Massive climate funding exposed: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/massive-climate-funding-exposed/

                Shell was WWF first Corporate sponsor: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/04/11/the-wwfs-vast-pool-of-oil-money/

                BP, Greenpeace & the Big Oil Jackpot http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2010/06/04/bp-greenpeace-the-big-oil-jackpot/

                The Wealthy Corporations Behind Earth Hour http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/03/26/the-wealthy-corporations-behind-earth-hour

                Upthread I have links for the Met Office and the head of the IPCC admitting to no statistically significant warming in 17 years and stating that the IPCC’s efforts have almost nothing to do with the environment, just social justice. Since you did not want to address them there…

                http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/ipcc-head-admits-17-years-of-no-warming/

                http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/13212-global-climate-warming-stopped-15-years-ago-uk-met-office-admits

                http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11/18/un-ipcc-official-we-redistribute-worlds-wealth-climate-policy

                “But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…

                If you want social change, be honest. Using science as a proxy isn’t working for you.

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              • #
                ExWarmist

                just adding…

                Lysenkoism is used metaphorically to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives. …

                From 1934 to 1940, under Lysenko’s admonitions and with Stalin’s approval, many geneticists were executed (including Isaak Agol, Solomon Levit, Grigorii Levitskii, Georgii Karpechenko and Georgii Nadson) or sent to labor camps. The famous Soviet geneticist Nikolai Vavilov was arrested in 1940 and died in prison in 1943.[9]

                In 1948, genetics was officially declared “a bourgeois pseudoscience”;[10] all geneticists were fired from their jobs (some were also arrested), and all genetic research was discontinued. Nikita Khrushchev, who claimed to be an expert in agricultural science, also valued Lysenko as a great scientist, and the taboo on genetics continued (but all geneticists were released or rehabilitated posthumously). The ban was only waived in the mid-1960s.

                Thus, Lysenkoism caused serious, long-term harm to Soviet knowledge of biology. It represented a serious failure of the early Soviet leadership to find real solutions to agricultural problems, throwing their support behind a charlatan at the expense of many human lives.

                Pseudo-science labeled as Science – Ran for 30 years due to political leverage.

                20

              • #
                ExWarmist

                VirusP53 says…

                .. Ice Core Data going back 800,000 years shows a direct correlation with CO2 level and temps ..

                I don’t think that this is the correlation (reversed causality) that you are looking for … CO2 lags temperature movements by 800 years in the Vostock Ice Cores.

                And that’s just for starters.

                So many assumptions you have… where does one start???

                Oh the unwinding that will need to be done.

                10

              • #
                Mortis

                So many assumptions you have… where does one start???

                I know the feeling

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              • #
                Radical Rodent

                Wow.

                Mortis, NEVER offer to take me out, as I would not want to argue with you as to who pays the bill.

                10

              • #
                Mortis

                Well, I hadn’t planned on going the whole 9 yards, but he asked for it. I love the troll silence afterwards too, it sounds like … victory 🙂

                I

                20

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Well, I tip my hat to you. That was impressively done.

                10

              • #
                Backslider

                Yes please tell us according to whom has CO2 shown to have little impact on temps … Every temp record since records have been kept are getting smashed year after year .. Ice Core Data going back 800,000 years shows a direct correlation with CO2 level and temps ..

                Where is your own proof that CO2 has been the cause? The planet has been coming out of The Little Ice Age… it should be expected that temperature records are “smashed” all of the time. This proves NOTHING.

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            • #
              Backslider

              Science is about proving something wrong yet no one has

              You have no idea whatsoever what science is…. clearly.

              Yes, its about proving something wrong, however that something wrong would be the NULL hypothesis, not your AGW.

              00

          • #
            ExWarmist

            Hey Mortis,

            Cool handle and image… you don’t happen to own a pale horse do you?

            00

            • #
              Mortis

              Thx… Always wanted one 🙂

              The image is a common type of photo amongst German aviators in WW1 – you got and extra 20 Deutschmarks for Air Service (that is what is in his teeth). The picture was kept in the cockpit as a reminder of the high cost for that extra money.

              Rough war.

              10

      • #
        AndyG55

        Fact, bozo.

        Even the guys re-doing ARR have discarded all the climate models as having “ZERO SKILL” when it comes to rainfall.

        Flannery was talking through his a*se, with ZERO knowledge about the subject. That is what he does.. always.

        His thesis was about kangaroo dropping, FFS !! How does than in ANY WAY make him worth even listening to when it comes to anything to do with climate.

        The dope is a pretentious wannabee. !!

        How the heck he ever got into any position where anyone would ever pay him the least credence, is beyond me !!

        21

        • #
          VirusP53

          Andy seems you are the one speaking through your a*se when saying Flannery has zero knowledge …

          Flannery has held a Masters of Earth Sciences degree since 1981 so he is more qualified then many to speak on this subject … Yet what degree / experience do you or any on this site actually have to back up your point of view..

          Earth sciences is the the study of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, oceans and biosphere, as well as the solid earth. Earth scientists will use tools from physics, chemistry, biology, chronology, and mathematics to build a quantitative understanding of how the Earth system works, and how it evolved to its current state.

          Again Andy you seem to be making up stuff or just have no idea as one of his thesis was on Kangaroo Dropping’s but he hold 2 degrees one for Palaeontology and one for Earth Science..

          Maybe if you actually did you research instead of believing what others just sprout then you would know why he was selected …Actually when he was they stated his qualifications but you seem to not know .. why is this .. did you even listen ? , did you understand war was being said ? , did you research his qualifications before even making you above post … His information is freely available on the internet yet you keep saying he has no relevant qualifications ..

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          • #
            john robertson

            Just so you know, the green thumb was an accident.
            You warble on about science and falsifiable theory.
            So please state the theory of CAGW, that’s catastrophic manmade global warming, in case you really are as ignorant and pretentious as you sound.
            And how might your theory be tested?
            Arguing from authority of institutions as you do above, is belief.
            Science requires you to use a simple tool called, strangely, the scientific method.
            So please do, state your theory, layout your data,assumptions and methods, explain how your speculation might be tested, detail how you tested it, what errors you exposed.

            Go ahead, there is a desperate need for this work, a nobel prize and the gratitude of the IPCC awaits you.

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            • #
              VirusP53

              @John

              We are plainly talking about posts like yours and this site purposely discrediting others without any facts , using faux science like the cooling trend which has been de-bunked time after time because it does not exist, then to top it off trying to make out people are not qualified to be selected by saying one of their degrees is not related to climate science whilst completely over looking his original degree…

              As said earlier the many scientific agencies like NASA , CSIRO , BOM , NOAA , HADCrut , MET , NAS , AAS have already done what you have asked … In fact BOM have published one only today called the BoM Annual Climate Report 2013 so are you saying every publishing scientist working for each of these organisations plus many more scientific organisations in the world are all wrong..

              Are you saying the recent BoM Annual Climate Report 2013 is wrong ?
              Are you saying the Critical Decade Report is wrong ?

              13

          • #
            AndyG55

            Kangaroos and Possum Fossils..

            Really great for understanding climate science … NOT !!! 🙂

            01

            • #
              VirusP53

              Palaeontology RE: Fossils would be very much related to climate sciences .. knowing what was around , how long for .. being able to cross reference this with other data from same time period … Seems you have NFI really what you are talking about just degrade the people or the field because Andrew Bolt told you to do it …

              Feel free to answer any of the questions you keep avoiding lie Flannerys actual climate science degree , are all these scientific bodies all wrong .. love to hear what you think about all these bodies being wrong

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Flannery degrades himself.. no need for help from anyone.

                00

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                VirusP53

                Really please tell us how Flannery degrades himself .. once again you don’t supply any facts but just degrade people .. Seems you don’t have any facts just cheap shots or snide comments but surely you can find some fact to back up your point of view.

                02

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                Rod Stuart

                Here is the Flim Flam man at his scientific level best.
                Please explain your idolatry.

                00

              • #
                AndyG55

                Rod’s link says it all.

                The guy is a veritable fruitloop !!

                And then his stupid comments on “dams never filling” DOH !!!!! (Pity some people actually listened to him !)

                And there are many more .. I don’t bother keeping a list of them.

                As you are his ‘mate’, you should have them all bookmarked 😉

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              • #
                VirusP53

                Explain what Rod .. the POS dribble of a video that was put together in a way to make him seem weird aka a fruit loop … Same as media did with his interview on water situation for Sydney .. FFS you don’t even know what ? he was being asked the video was so bad , so it is not even in any form of context to understand …

                And once again Andy blatantly lies … He has never said “dams never filling” that is what Bolt reported he said ..

                Actual Transcript you can read on the internet says

                Q.
                MAXINE McKEW: Well, I’m not asking you to be alarmist, but in fact, what would you say is a

                plausible worst-case scenario

                that you and, say, other scientists in the Wentworth Group have come to agree on?

                A.
                TIM FLANNERY: Well, the worst-case scenario for Sydney is that the climate that’s existed for the last seven years continues for another two years. In that case,

                Sydney will be facing extreme difficulties with water

                , and of course, large cities are the most vulnerable of all structures to water deficit because you’ve got 4 million people there who need water just for everyday survival, and in the case of Sydney, there’s very few back-up reserves. Sydney’s ground water supplies are only about 13 gigalitres, which is about 10 days’ worth of supply. So there are not many options for Sydney and, of course, without water you can’t make power, you can’t wash, you can’t clean your food, you can’t have industry. So there could be quite severe problems

                if the current trend continues

                . I really do hope that that doesn’t happen, but as I say, something will have to change in order for Sydney to get out of that future.

                So Andy where does he mention dams , dam levels , dams not filling or are you just lying about this or you actually believe MSM reporting … As said i have the full transcript here and nothing mentioned on this …

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “”so even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and river systems … “.

                END QUOTE !!!

                10

              • #
                Rod Stuart

                From “The Australian”

                In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney’s dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains, leaving the city “facing extreme difficulties with water”.

                Check Sydney’s dam levels today: 73 per cent. Hmm. Not a good start.

                In 2008, Flannery said: “The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.”

                Check Adelaide’s water storage levels today: 77 per cent.

                In 2007, Flannery predicted cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains, as global warming had caused “a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas” and made the soil too hot, “so even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and river systems … “.

                Check the Murray-Darling system today: in flood. Check Brisbane’s dam levels: 100 per cent full.

                All this may seem funny, but some politicians, voters and investors have taken this kind of warming alarmism very seriously and made expensive decisions in the belief it was sound.

                So let’s check on them, too.

                In 2007, Flannery predicted global warming would so dry our continent that desalination plants were needed to save three of our biggest cities from disaster.

                As he put it: “Over the past 50 years, southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming …

                “In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.”

                One premier, Queensland’s Peter Beattie, took such predictions – made by other warming alarmists, too – so seriously that he spent more than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money on a desalination plant, saying “it is only prudent to assume at this stage that lower-than-usual rainfalls could eventuate”.

                But check that desalination plant today: mothballed indefinitely, now that the rains have returned.

                (Incidentally, notice how many of Flannery’s big predictions date from 2007? That was the year warming alarmism reached its most hysterical pitch and Flannery was named Australian of the Year.)

                Back to another tip Flannery gave in that year of warming terror. In 2007, he warned that “the social licence of coal to operate is rapidly being withdrawn globally” by governments worried by the warming allegedly caused by burning the stuff.

                We should switch to “green” power instead, said Flannery, who recommended geothermal – pumping water on to hot rocks deep underground to create steam.

                “There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia’s economy for the best part of a century,” he said.

                “The technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward.”

                Flannery repeatedly promoted this “straightforward” technology, and in 2009, the Rudd government awarded $90 million to Geodynamics to build a geothermal power plant in the Cooper Basin, the very area Flannery recommended. Coincidentally, Flannery has for years been a Geodynamics shareholder, a vested interest he sometimes declares.

                Time to check on how that business tip went. Answer: erk.

                The technology Flannery said was “relatively straighforward” wasn’t.

                One of Geodynamics’ five wells at Innamincka collapsed in an explosion that damaged two others. All had to be plugged with cement.

                The project has now been hit by the kind of floods Flannery didn’t predict in a warming world, with Geodynamics announcing work had been further “delayed following extensive local rainfall in the Cooper Basin region”.

                The technological and financing difficulties mean there is no certainty now that a commercial-scale plant will ever get built, let alone prove viable, so it’s no surprise the company’s share price has almost halved in four months.

                Never mind, here comes Flannery with his latest scares and you-beaut fix.

                His job as Climate Commission chief, says Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, is to “provide an authoritative, independent source of information on climate change to the Australian community” and “build the consensus about reducing Australia’s carbon pollution”.

                That, translated, means selling us whatever scheme the Government cooks up to tax carbon dioxide, doing to the economy what the floods have done to Flannery’s hot-rocks investment.

                See why I say Flannery is the right man for this job? Who better to teach us how little we really know about global warming and how much it may cost to panic?

                00

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                Rod Stuart

                Flannery is a flake. He is not a stupid flake. He has managed to turn this con into millions. But a flake nontheless.

                http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/03/28/tim-flannery-and-the-precautionary-principle/

                00

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                Mortis

                Funny how the trolls evaporate when shown evidence for which they have no answer… I left enough loose threads for him to attack, but even that bait wasn’t enough

                00

          • #
            Backslider

            Flannery has held a Masters of Earth Sciences degree since 1981

            That sir is an outright lie. Tim Flannery’s MSc is in geology.

            “All my strongest memories are really of the sort of people I met when I came into the geology department of Monash University. Before that, I’d done a humanities degree and I was desperate to study science.” – Tim Flannery

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        Backslider

        Ur really funny Virus P38. Here is you prophet of doom at his best:

        I wake up in the morning thinking there are lots of times when people have woken up feeling like this, like the Old Testament prophets.

        This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, as a living organism, at some sort of level.

        The guy is a certifiable nutcase.

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    pat

    just realised there are two previous comments about the UNSW/4 degree “study”, tho the one by a “Brian Hother” uses “denier” & doesn’t note the ironic connections to the current UNSW/Antarctic fiasco!

    this may have been posted already, but just want to single out Turney’s concern for his precious “samples”:

    30 Dec: Fox News: Paul Tisley: ‘Stuck in our own experiment’: Leader of trapped team insists polar ice is melting
    Paul Tilsley is a South Africa-based freelance journalist)
    ***Turney says that the captain of the Aurora has already offered specialized storage space for samples collected during the expedition…
    http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/12/30/stuck-in-our-own-experiment-leader-trapped-team-insists-polar-ice-is-melting/

    31 Dec: UK Daily Mail: Nick Enoch: Passengers on stranded Antarctic research ship could be rescued by helicopter tomorrow… but won’t see dry land for weeks
    The passengers will be flown back to the Snow Dragon in groups of 12, and then transferred by barge to the Aurora.
    John Young, AMSA emergency response division general manager, said the Aurora Australis will then take several days to make its way to the Casey Base in Antarctica to refuel before returning to Hobart in Tasmania.
    ‘It will be a couple of weeks before they are landed,’ he told Ninemsn…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531589/Antarctic-ship-passengers-rescued-tomorrow.html

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    • #

      Well, I’ll be confounded, Turney has discovered melted Ice in solid form. Its a miracle /sarc off

      40

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      ‘Stuck in our own experiment’: Leader of trapped team insists polar ice is melting

      I guess the ice is melting them in then, not freezing them in. Who’d a thunk it? 😉

      10

      • #
        VirusP53

        Tonnes of ice melt from the Arctic and Antarctic each year and is not replaced .. Antarctic just happens to be so huge it is not noticed as much as the Arctic .. Satellite measurement taken each year confirm they are BOTH melting

        02

        • #
          Backslider

          Antarctic just happens to be so huge it is not noticed as much

          Yes, that’s why those idiots got their boat stuck… all that frikken ice melting caught them by surprise!!!!

          You know, it’s reaaly funny that you warmists like to call us skeptics “deniers”, yet you fail to see your own desperation and denial when you deny the fact that Antarctica has more ice than ever previously recorded. You all just keep bleating “It’s melting, It’s melting!!!” when clearly it’s GROWING.

          00

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          VirusP53,

          Interesting name, VirusP53. I sometimes wonder why people choose such “cute” names when they want to remain anonymous. Personally I’ve always used my real name when commenting on something, even in letters to the editor that I know will be read by my neighbors. I follow that practice even when I have something to say that I know may not be received well by my neighbors or by the other readers of this blog. I figure that if it’s worth saying then it’s worth attaching my name to it.

          The benefit of identifying myself is that it keeps me honest. I don’t like embarrassing myself as you just did with an off the wall statement that good unambiguous empirical data can prove is false.

          Have a nice day, VirusP53. And consider what I just said. 🙂

          Now with regard to Antarctica: The ice overlaying the Antarctic land mass is not only not melting, it’s getting deeper and deeper. Only the ice that floats on the adjoining water has ever been measured to be melting. Floating ice has a serious problem that the water under it will be above freezing and can transfer heat to the ice with the inevitable result that the ice undergoes a state change from solid to liquid — it melts. If snowfall doesn’t keep up with the melt the ice diminishes and when it exceeds the melt the ice increases.

          I’m sure you can apply the same physics lesson to the Arctic.

          None of this means anything except that the weather is both variable and quite unpredictable.

          00

  • #
    Scotty

    I have long said that by 2020, it will be nigh impossible to find a single person amongst my social circle of friends who will admit to having been a Global Warming/Climate Change/Man-bear-pig believer. In arguing over why Australia shouldn’t sign Kyoto in the 90’s with my naive brother in law, I foretold the fact we would cost ourselves out of business and not succeed in lowering Co2 by one iota: thankyou, Maurice Newman, for backing me up ( even if it has taken 15 years for an Australian newspaper to print such an opinion piece….)

    Like the oil crisis of the 70’s and the millennium bug, SARS, Swine Flu, the hype has been extreme and the ripples that have been caused have turned into tsunamis. I look forward to a future where my 12 year old will no longer face an annual propaganda barrage of climate change-centric focus in all geography/science and sociology subjects.

    May 2014 go down in history as the year the globe woke up to the truth about “man-made” climate change.

    Hear Hear! – Jo

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    • #
      mareeS

      Well, Scotty, I have been a Sceptic with a capital “S” from Day 1, as I was born and raised a Catholic. How can you believe in the Virgin Birth when you have 10 brothers and sisters, 7 of whom are younger than me, and having two children of my own when I know full well they weren’t made by God or the Archangel Gabriel, but by me and my lovely husband Mike. How can anyone have belief in what CO2 does to damage the atmosphere when it helps to grow my tomatoes?

      Plus, having died once, I can say there’s no white tunnel or bright light, and summer tomatoes are better back here.

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      • #
        Andrew McRae

        Being a returned dearly departed you’re in a unique position to answer two very important climate science questions.
        Did you see Stephen Schneider in heaven or in hell?
        Did you see John Daly in heaven or in hell?
        The PR potential here is huge.

        10

  • #
    pat

    31 Dec: Accuweather: Snowstorm Targets 70 Million in Northeast, Midwest
    Two storms will merge quickly enough to produce a major snowstorm from the upper part of the mid-Atlantic to southern New England Thursday into Friday.
    The storm will affect more than 70 million people in the Midwest and the Northeast combined and could have a major negative impact on travel for people returning from holiday destinations, heading back to school or resuming business activities…
    http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/northeast-snowstorm-alert-thursday/21493316

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  • #
    pat

    Happy New Year Jo, David, mods & all.

    am off to the tennis, & continuing with Bob Carter/John Spooner et al’s “Taxing Air”, for a while. what a good book. saved it for christmas & am enjoying it so much. Spooner (& Josh) – give thanx for their good humour.

    p.s. hope bbc’s Paul Hudson (a big fave of mine from Climategate days) gets his mame corrected from “Holmes” on page 53 in future editions!

    20

  • #
    Neville

    Just looked at a video by Ross McKitrick’s mate prof Chris Essex. Chris is a mathemetician and was a climate modeler.
    He blows the whistle on the fake physics used in the models and also the Alice in Wonderland nature of the whole hocus pocus charade.

    http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/30/leading-expert-modeler-tells-why-climate-models-hardly-better-than-hocus-pocus-welcome-to-wonderland/

    But don’t worry the IPCC have admitted that it’s all BS as well. I hope everyone has the time to look and understand the bottomless pit we’ve been throwing our billions $ down over the last few decades.
    His short Q&A at the end is where he makes a number of remarks about what a con game they’ve all been playing with us. But don’t worry they’ll dream up some more BS after this hoax has been knocked over. My moneys on ocean acidification.
    But at least we know now that’s it’s all been a con game and BS from start to finish.

    10

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      The next scam will be NO2; “laughing gas”. The ship of fools tried to corner the market on the stuff.

      40

  • #

    Jo, David, family, bloggers and trolls. I wish you all a very Happy New Year may all this climate madness end in the fitful and painful end it deserves.

    I have an inkling to agree with MV on this one Newman from what I was to understand said nothing when it suited him and has now decided to retract his previous views for something that now currently suits him. A fence sitter of grand proportions indeed. Why should we trust this guy now ?

    Any way Ladies and Gentlemen all the very best for the New Year !!!!

    30

  • #
    NoFixedAddress

    Jo,

    I totally agree with you that it is a major breath of fresh air and politically it is huge.

    To think that the LNP, who were peering into the abyss in 2009, now have their chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council making such statements is just incredible.

    Thank you for all your work and all the best to you and David for 2014.

    PS. It might be time for me to revisit the Perth Mint for some bitgold!

    70

  • #
    Mark F

    Andy, yeah, what DID you teach in Jr. High? Wasn’t English, was it? “get PASSED high school…”.
    semilierate troll.

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  • #
    Mark F

    that would be “semiliterate troll”

    09

    • #
      AndyG55

      chuckle.. well.. that worked well for you, didn’t it.. 🙂

      60

    • #
      Backslider

      that would be “semiliterate troll”

      Well, you f*cked that one up big time, didn’t you….. you’re not The Taco Boy by any chance are you?

      70

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Mark F thanks for capping off what has been an enjoyable read this thread watching warmist trolls being taken apart by people who actually know what they’re talking about.

      And then you just walk in and slam the ice cream into your forehead!

      I almost wet myself. 🙂

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    • #
      AndyG55

      even now you have it wrong !!

      roflmao 🙂

      FYI.. the word you have goofed up on twice has a double ‘l’

      I even gave you several hours to correct it !!!

      30

      • #
        Radical Rodent

        Eerm, no. “Semiliterate” is correct; the word you might be thinking of is “semi-illiterate”. Same meaning, if a different direction.

        10

    • #
      PhilJourdan

      Guess that makes you one.

      00

  • #
    pat

    quick laugh –

    sky news channel has a news item on the menu called “antarctic celebration” about those “lively” people on “a research vessell” and their cute new year videos, singing auld lang syne & so on.

    it goes on:

    – in the video filmed in the tent, a male member of the group introduces them as the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE), adding that they are ‘just about to enter 2014’ –

    so funny sky includes the acronym for these unknown expeditioners!

    as i typed this, some “star” i neither looked at nor recognised by voice, was on sky’s showbiz segment, ending with (serious voice) how vital it is we have action on climate change. news headlines followed – we could have CATASTROPHIC BUSH FIRES, etc.

    all breaks in the tennis have news promo – raging bush fires & mention of a meteorologist who will be on the news tonite to warn of more heatwaves.

    funny, not a mention anywhere of a CAGW sceptical voice on the Australian front page. shhh.

    50

  • #
    LevelGaze

    Predictably, Karoly has weighed in (The Age). Usual lies, platitudes and obfuscations. But that’s to be expected.

    When the hell are we ever going to get rid of these blood sucking squids? At least this one’s home grown, we can’t blame the North American exports (Go to Australia and never come back) this time.

    70

  • #
    LevelGaze

    Yet another alternative energy company meets hard reality and bites the dust.

    Wasabi Energy in administration.

    Google it for grissly details.

    Hope no one here had any shares.

    20

    • #
      LevelGaze

      Except the trolls, that is.

      My first New Year’s Resolution, ever – DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.

      They’re like the ravens who come knocking greedily at my front window. Good for bugger all except distracting you from the task at hand. I regret the first crumb I threw to them.

      I much prefer magpies, an interesting mix of black and white, and with a much sweeter song to boot…

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Hey.. I’ve just finished a major multi-year task.

        I’m now free until next semester

        And I like playing with trolls (except they make me laugh too much) 🙂

        I have a pack of young magpies that “hang-out” in the back yard, waiting for very irregular scraps.

        Cute little fellas, one even took some meat from my fingers today. (ag counts to 10. Check !) 🙂

        10

        • #
          LevelGaze

          Yep, magpies are more sociable to humans than ravens, and just as smart too.

          But ravens can be really impressive. I once watched one frustratedly trying to open a discarded pizza box, and when he couldn’t, drag it onto the street and wait for a car to run over it. Then he dragged it back to the safety of the footpath, opened it with ease, and ate the pizza remnants inside.

          After that I never called anyone a “birdbrain” again.

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    pat

    this went up 30 minutes ago:

    31 Dec: AFP: Madeleine Coorey: Winds, rain halt Antarctic ship rescue
    He (Turney)said those onboard were keeping busy — either continuing to pack up the scientific equipment on the boat or taking part in seminars ranging from sewing to salsa dancing and reflecting the skills of those trapped on the vessel…
    The group said while sea ice was disappearing in many places due to climate change, where they were now stranded ice was building up — a change which they said would impact the deep ocean circulation around the world.
    “Underwater, forests of algae are dying as sea ice blocks the light reaching the seabed,” they said, adding that the expanded sea ice had also affected penguin colonies.
    “There are many unanswered questions. Who can say what effects the regional circulation changes may have on the ice sheet of the Antarctic plateau?” they said…
    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i5ZZJ7tiXcGFUHzHFyluxfHZlgqQ?docId=14c16fbc-19ce-4ab3-863d-92f624baa3a5

    don’t imagine for a minute that Turney & co are giving up the game yet.

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    • #
      mareeS

      What, 3 or 4 boats down there? What are they studying? Sharks? Leopard Seals? Adelie penguins? Thickness of penguin baby shells and the variations in hatching periods and calcium content of their bones? Calcium content of the bones of deep-sea fish only caught in fresh water under the ice-cap? Finding mangrove remnants? Mmmmm…
      I’d rather feed cats in Cadiz.

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  • #
    incoherent rambler

    What is thickest, the ice or the navigator?

    30

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Hopefully they get rescued by a Japanese whaling ship, and are Processed in the usual manner…..

      60

  • #
    pat

    1 Jan: Irish Independent: How the spirit of Antarctica changed me
    Irish woman Liz McCollum-Ryan recalls her amazing experience on the now-stricken vessel
    I boarded the Akademik Shokalskiy in Ushuaia on February 7, 2008…
    The crew were composed of workers and cooks and a geologist, marine biologist, ornithologist, and Antarctica historian. They were there to educate and inform — and for the craic, we quickly realised.
    One memorable day, a family of humpbacks honoured us with a short, close-up meeting while we sat in our boats…
    That evening we returned to the Akademik Shokalskiy without a word spoken by anyone, and spent a while sitting silently in our cabin.
    We learned later that most people on board had done the same. The geologist said later he had never been so emotionally affected by anything he had witnessed at sea, and heads nodded…
    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/how-the-spirit-of-antarctica-changed-me-29879383.html

    31 Dec: Toronto Sun: Anthony Furey: Taxing meat for climate change
    Seven scientists have authored an analysis for Nature Climate Change magazine that argues for regulation against livestock.
    They’re concerned by ruminant farts. Grazing livestock fart and create emissions. Watch out sheep, cattle and goats – there is waning tolerance for your flatulent ways…
    From the report: “Implementing a tax or emission trading scheme on livestock’s greenhouse gas emissions could be an economically sound policy that would modify consumer prices and affect consumption patterns.”
    Economically sound? By whose reckoning? There are some who believe there is nothing more economically sound than observing the invisible hand of supply and demand in a free market society. But let’s not bicker with those in the ivory tower.
    Don’t you just love the wording of “modify consumer prices and affect consumption patterns”?
    It all seems so benign. So sanitized. But what this actually implies is they aim to convince governments around the world to jack up the prices so much that people stop eating meat…
    Now is not the occasion to wade into the scientific minutiae the paper alleges. Perhaps some readers will think they present a compelling case to reduce GHG emissions. Fine.
    No, the relevant question is, did humans form governments so the people at the top could pick and choose which reports they like and force a certain lifestyle upon the masses that corresponds with these reports?…
    If ruminant farts are the single largest source of human-related GHG emissions, then it’s reasonable to assume the recommendations in Nature Climate Change caught the eye of the Agenda 21 crowd.
    But the sentiment is actually already in Canada. As the David Suzuki Foundation notes on its website, “[b]ecause of their sheer numbers, livestock produce a considerable volume of greenhouse gases (such as methane and nitrous oxide) that contribute to climate change.”
    In other words, it might be time to stock up on meat.
    http://www.torontosun.com/2013/12/31/taxing-meat-for-climate-change

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    • #
      Radical Rodent

      There is a slight flaw in Suzuki’s argument in that, before their near-eradication by humans, weren’t the plains and prairies of North America (and Africa) black with herds of ruminants (i.e. buffalo, deer and antelopes)? Or are these ruminants less flatulent than their considerably smaller number of domesticated replacements?

      20

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    pat

    LevelGaze –

    here is a link for the Karoly piece – there’s a video at the beginning about the 4 degrees, not the singing group unfortunately!

    1 Jan: SMH: David Karoly: Maurice Newman’s flat-earth thinking ignores climate change facts
    Mr Newman writes that “global temperatures have gone nowhere for 17 years”, but the global average surface temperature has warmed over the period 1997 to 2013, ocean heat content has increased significantly, and Arctic sea ice extent has declined, all showing clearly the continued warming of the climate system…
    Indeed, Mr Abbott, Mr Hunt and the Australian government have accepted that action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia is needed because it is in Australia’s national interest as part of global action to minimise dangerous climate change.
    ***I would not choose a person who believes that the Earth is flat to advise Australian shipping or airline businesses on how to plan routes to travel around the world…
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/maurice-newmans-flatearth-thinking-ignores-climate-change-facts-20140101-305h6.html

    ***who cares what you would choose. no-one has elected you to do anything.

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    • #
      Cookster

      Pat, thanks for posting Koraly’s reply in SMH to Maurice Newman. I note at the beginning of this post a lot of back and forth banter between Brian Hother and a number of regulars here. Might I respectfully suggest the regulars spend at least as much effort contributing to warmist MSM blog posts like Koraly’s story as wasting their breath responding to Brian. This blog will have a much smaller audience than SMH (no disrespect to Jo). I didn’t see Koraly’s story until the comments were closed. There were 338 comments to that story. I don’t intend to read them now as the SMH is generally a Left wing echo chamber. But at least by taking some time to make well articulated intelligent comment on these stories when given the opportunity you may just get some less well informed people who take Brian’s view as gospel to think more deeply about the sceptics case. Just a thought?

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    • #

      I note that in the video, the existentialist Sherwood rabbits on about some of the alarmist models not being “quite right”. Seriously?

      And then says that the water feedback is under-estimated; ignoring what the real world is doing. His “Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity” is nothing but a charade. All his “research” is based on computer models; substantially and obviously detached from reality. Temperatures have not increased while CO2 levels increased. The planet is more likely cooling than warming.

      Karoly argues

      the global average surface temperature has warmed over the period 1997 to 2013, ocean heat content has increased significantly, and Arctic sea ice extent has declined, all showing clearly the continued warming of the climate system.

      Stuff that he’s pulled out of thin air. There is no physical basis to support that statement as a whole or even substantially in part. Perhaps his pulling back the start year to 1997, whereas the realists point to no warming since 1998, is an indication of Karoly trying to find a rock under which to crawl.

      Karoly

      “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

      DNN responds.

      Is there any reason at all why “Climate Research” at UNSW should continue to be funded by Australian taxpayers? I thought we were already putting plenty of money into other dramatic developments through the ABC and the various film/culture councils in the various States.

      10

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    pat

    31 Dec: WUWT: Anythony Watts: WUWT and WeatherBell help KUSI-TV with a weather forecasting request from ice-trapped ship in Antarctica Akademik Shokalskiy
    Today, while shopping at lunchtime for some last minute year end supplies, I got one of the strangest cell-phone calls ever. It was from my friend John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel and Chief meteorologist at KUSI-TV in San Diego. He was calling via cell phone from his car, and he was on his way into the TV station early.
    He started off by saying, “Anthony, we have a really strange situation here”.
    Then to my surprise, he relayed a conversation he had just had; a person on the Akademik Shokalskiy had reached out, because they didn’t have adequate weather data on-board. At first, I thought John was pulling my leg, but then as he gave more details, I realized he was serious.
    What had happened was that the US Coast Guard had received a message from the ship, requesting weather and wind information for Antarctica. That got relayed to someone at the Scripps oceanographic Institute in San Diego, and it went to John’s weekend KUSI meteorologist Dave Scott…
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/31/wuwt-and-weatherbell-help-kusi-tv-with-a-weather-forecasting-request-from-ice-trapped-ship-in-antarctica-akademik-shokalskiy/#more-100200

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    pat

    the media is a joke:

    30 Dec: Times Higher Education: Holly Else: Shokalskiy scientists remain trapped in Antarctic
    The trip hoped to follow in the footsteps of explorer Douglas Mawson, who undertook the first complete study of the region 100 years ago…
    Media reports and blogs from those trapped on board suggest that research is continuing despite the hiatus…
    http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/shokalskiy-scientists-remain-trapped-in-antarctic/2010107.article

    31 Dec: NYT The Lede Blog: Christine Hauser: When Stranded in the Antarctic, Get Ready and Wait
    Erik Van Sebille, the oceanographer with the expedition, said on Tuesday in a video diary message that they had all been instructed to be ready for a possible evacuation but that in the meantime he was continuing to work on a joint project with the ornithologist, studying what effect the ocean temperature has on the number of birds they encounter…
    But a National Geographic editor, Christine Dell’Amore, wrote that an Australian photographer on board the ship, Andrew Peacock, said in an email to the magazine that “the mood is getting more frustrated by the day.”
    “There are so many variables—every briefing is different—and people are getting a little worried now while the weather stays poor. Lack of control and missing loved ones are starting to put some emotion into our conversations!”…
    http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/when-stranded-in-the-antarctic-get-ready-and-wait/?hpw&rref=science&_r=0

    too much to expect those frustrated passengers would be allowed to speak for themselves.

    30

  • #
    Neville

    Anthony Watts, Johnathon Coleman, Joe Basdardi, Joe D’aleo and Ryan Maue respond to a request for up to date weather forecasting from the ship trapped in the ice.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/31/wuwt-and-weatherbell-help-kusi-tv-with-a-weather-forecasting-request-from-ice-trapped-ship-in-antarctica-akademik-shokalskiy/#more-100200

    Just shows what competent work these knowledgable people are capable of and in such a very short time.

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  • #
    pat

    *****BBC’S ANDREW LUCK-BAKER: BEGINS WITH DEGREE OF UNCERTAINTY – NOT SURE WE’LL BE HELICOPTER EVACUATED TOMORROW OR POSSIBLY AT ALL!!! WE WERE EXPECTING THE CHINESE ICE-BREAKER TO BE ALONGSIDE THE AUSTRALIAN ICE-BREAKING VESSEL & THEN THE HELICOPTER WOULD FLY TO GET US, BUT IT NOW TRANSPIRES THE CHINESE VESSELL HASN’T MOVED FOR A DAY, FAIRLY DEEP IN THE ICE, 10 MILES FROM THE ICE EDGE, & THERE’S CONCERN IT IS STUCK. FOR THE RESCUE TO GO AHEAD, THE TWO ICE-BREAKERS BOTH HAVE TO BE SIDE BY SIDE IN CLEAR WATER, SO THAT IS NOW UNCERTAIN IF THE CHINESE ICE-BREAKER IS STUCK AND THE AUSTRALIAN ICE-BREAKER IS UNABLE TO FREE IT:

    1:43: AUDIO: BBC: Uncertainty over Antarctic helicopter rescue plan
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25558853

    He doesn’t sound happy.

    30

    • #
      AndyG55

      They should send a load of coal down there.

      Pile it onto the ice, and set fire to it..

      Easy.. no more ice.. lots of CO2.. everybody happy !! 🙂

      31

    • #
      Yonniestone

      They may get the true Mawson experience yet.

      20

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      It makes a refreshing change from Greenpeace Pirates of the Arctic facing Russian Justice these past months.
      A Boatload of Climate Scientists IceBound in Pursuit of Warming, in the Antarctic.

      Future generations will look back in wonder.

      30

    • #
      Joe V.

      What happens if this helicopter they’re now putting all their hopes in catches a cold ?
      Will they be stuck there through the Polar Night, until October ?

      30

  • #
    Thon Brocket

    Prof David Karoly huffs and snorts in today’s SMH:

    Two quotes:

    As Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

    and in today’s irony-free juxtaposition:

    David Karoly is Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Melbourne and a member of the Climate Change Authority, which provides independent advice to the government on Australia’s emissions reduction targets, and other climate change initiatives.

    Best joke of 2014 so far.

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    • #
      janama

      I can’t believe the gall of Karoly – he just lies and lies to cover his arse. There is no evidence for his claim the planet continued to warm from 1997 – 2013 and the oceans are not warming rapidly but cooling according to the Argo Buoys. Who cares if it was a hot year in Australia, Australia is not the planet and the satellites don’t support the BoM’s hottest year claim anyway.

      Time for a Royal commission into the climate change movement and all the University departments feeding off it and a thorough investigation into the BoM and it’s cherry picked ACORN data base.

      30

  • #
    William Astley

    In reply to:
    Skeptical view makes Australian front page: climate madness, dishonesty, fraud, deception, lies and exploitation says Maurice Newman
    William:
    There is no catastrophic AGW problem to address (see my comments below that provide an abbreviated scientific justification for that assertion). The majority of the warming in the last 150 years (roughly 75%) has caused by solar magnetic cycle changes not CO2. That fact is a good thing not a bad thing, particularly if we stop spending money on scams and address real problems such as the fact that every developed country has run out of money to spend on basic services.
    Trillions of dollars has been spent on green scams (wind farms, solar farms, conversion of food to biofuel, cutting forests down to burn in coal fired generators, carbon taxes, and so on) has resulted in almost no significant reduction in CO2 emission in the developed countries and most certainly had no affect on the world CO2 emissions.
    CO2 is not a poison. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 into their greenhouse to reduce growing time and increase yield. A doubling of atmospheric CO2 increases cereal crop yield by roughly 40%.

    http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300190526
    When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence

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    pat

    didn’t see a minute of it, but judging from the comments, there was plenty of the usual political bias on display! still it’s rare for Fairfax to criticise Aunty:

    1 Jan: SMH: Neil McMahon: Cringe time: nothing went right in ABC’s New Year’s Eve coverage
    With the 2013 best and worst lists safely out of the way, the national broadcaster cleverly waited until December 31 to slip in one of the great televised train wrecks of this or any other year, taking the tired but tested formula honed over many years by Channel Nine and setting fire to it with a suicidal enthusiasm not seen since the first time they asked someone other than Bert to host the Logies.
    It is hard to tell exactly what went wrong; suffice to say that almost nothing went right as the nation tuned in to watch Lawrence Mooney and Stephanie Brantz attempt to wrangle the annual harbourside celebration into something new, fresh and interesting. It was – in case you missed it and have only your own embarrassments to contemplate today – like watching a Quentin Tarantino remake of The Sound of Music…
    COMMENT by Hamish:
    The ABC does many great things but this was the worst I have ever seen. NYE is the one night we don’t want political commentary and want light entertainment. Why make it political? We ended up recording the fireworks so we could fast forward through the banter…
    http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/cringe-time-nothing-went-right-in-abcs-new-years-eve-coverage-20140101-305lt.html?google_editors_picks=true

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  • #
    Andrew

    As a new reader to this blog I have found it very helpful in me understanding the global warming scam.
    Thank you all for your well informed arguments and numerous links to the data showing the true story.
    Did not have the time to read the entire comments section tonight but can I just say that Brian got OWNED!! lol.
    Keep up the good work Joanne and all contributors to the comments section.

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  • #
    John Chapman

    Jo re #37 …

    “Where is the correlation between industry and the cost of power? Everywhere. The more industrialized a nation is the more energy it uses.”

    Cost of power and amount of power used are not the same thing.

    “And obviously (See “Supply and Demand” or “Economics”) the higher the cost of power, the more industry will move to a country where it costs less.”

    It is no good saying “obviously”. Where is the plot of cost of power and level of industry. I site my Germany-French example. As one of the comment above points out there are more important factors that relate to level of industry. That is why Newman is so wrong. Wages, exchange rates, unions, etc are the problems for Australian industry not the cost of power.

    06

    • #

      John, if energy becomes expensive it is self-evident that sooner or later a country will produce less. (See the second graph there?)

      Where is your evidence that expensive energy = more production? The German powerhouse was built over decades and it wasn’t made with windpower.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I assume you refer to your comment at No.28

      German industry was built with cheap brown coal fired electricity, and from the 1970’s nuclear power. In the last few years there has been a huge increase in the nominal capacity of wind farms and solar PV installed. The cost of electricity to the ordinary consumer has jumped and in 2012 600,000 users were cut off because they couldn’t pay their electricity bills. I note that sales of wood/coal burning stoves jumped by over 500,000 that year, and there is much concern about theft of wood from the forests.

      German industry has been largely insulated from that price rise because they were exempt from the environmental levy (supposedly large factories but even large users such as supermarkets got exemption), and by switching some production to China or India. Now the rising costs in Germany are going to be spread a bit wider, to reduce public anger, while in the USA the cost of electricity has remained low (partly due to coal seam gas). A lot of USA (not California) gets electricity at one third of current german retail rates. Several large german companies have (or are) building factories in the USA and far more are looking at doing so.

      BASF has suggested that they may move all production away from Ludwigshafen. In case you aren’t aware of it, the site runs for 9 km. and is one of the few factory complexes with its own tram system (and several train stations). It may be a bluff because it would be a mammoth undertaking, but if they are serious then it would be a huge blow to Germany, and there is a lot of ancillary businesses that would follow.

      You will note that none of the companies are thinking of moving to France, because while the power there might be the cheapest in Europe, it is considerably higher than the bulk rate in the USA. Also there are administration reasons for avoiding France.

      30

    • #
      Mortis

      ummm, mostly wrong – if not, why is Germany citing lower coal prices as the reason for firing 10 new coal PPs?

      http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2013/11/germany-initiates-new-generation-of-coal-fired-new-builds.html

      so much for that green energy in Germany adding to industry btw…

      10

  • #
    Bones

    G’day Jo,did you think business has been a little slow.You’re latest thread certainly has poked the nest with a big stick.

    20

  • #
    jim2

    Happy New Year Jo and Denizens here! I hope you all have a great 2014!!

    30

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    Radical Rodent

    Nice firework displays all around the world. Rather odd that there were no protests at the huge amount of toxins pumped into the atmosphere, though.

    I wonder who paid for all that money to go up in smoke. What are the odds that it was the tax-payers?

    On that bright note, Happy New Year to all and sundry, and may your future realise all your hopes and promises.

    20

  • #

    Yes, as is typical among skeptics. A person who has no qualifications, no research and no experience in actual climate science is regarded as an expert in climate science. In fact all he is an expert off is money and in reading skeptic blogs instead of getting his science from, well actual real scientists and science sites. Shame.

    Happy New Year all, and I hope you use the new year to look at the science with truly skeptical opened eyes and start putting you children and future generations before ideology and greed and an unwillingness to accept the consequences of your actions.

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    • #
      Radical Rodent

      To whom do you refer? The author of this article, or one of the many commenters on it?

      If the former, then I suggest you seriously rethink your own observational ability; if the latter, then please specify to whom you refer. You might also re-evaluate your own understanding of English as she is written.

      With regard to your final sentiments, not being gifted with foresight, none of us has any idea what the future holds – not even tomorrow, let alone generations hence. We can make educated guesses, and plan accordingly but, as I am sure even you may have experienced, the further into the future the plan, the more likely it is to be wrong.

      40

    • #
      Cookster

      Michael says….

      I hope you use the new year to look at the science with truly skeptical opened eyes and start putting you children and future generations before ideology and greed and an unwillingness to accept the consequences of your actions

      I think most who visit and contribute to Jo’s site actually share these sentiments Michael. Future generations stand to be much poorer if they allow themselves to be led by thoe who believe a trace gas essential to life is somehow responsible for a looming catastrophy. My research of the science suggests measured warming is falling far short of the projections of climate models and the IPCC that are still being used to set government policy. This is what Maurice Newman is saying and the likes of David Koroly deny.

      Still despite mounting evidence, the accelerated warming projected by models, not to mention Ocean temperatures, rising Sea levels, increasing tropical storm frequency and intensity is failing to materialise as projected and yet the likes of Koroly choose to deny this.

      Like so many Koroly is is no position to comment as his whole career depends on the continuation of the scam. Further if it was not for blind ideology and greed the global warming gravy train would be dead already. There are too many vested interests in its continuation. Even Big Oil is in on the act as it wants to hedge its bets.

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      That’s just sour grapes.
      Michael is still upset that his Secret Santa gave him FOIA requests.

      😀

      Happy New Year to you too MiTRe, not that you may notice much difference since your next 12 months of comments will likely be a carbon copy of the last 12 months.
      Let’s face it, when you want to argue with any of us, you could just hyperlink back to one of your old comments, we can link back to one of our old rebuttals, and everyone saves some time.

      50

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      No actual experience in ‘climate science’ eh, which isn’t really science at all, just a cobbling together of parts from different disciplines in order to elicit funding from that huge tax payer funded money pot in the sky, administered by bureaucrats without discerning scientific judgement.

      How anyone can claim certainties in the order of 95-97% for anything as inherently chaotic climate with a straight face is either culpable or stupid.

      The real tragedy is how few of them realise it .

      60

    • #
      AndyG55

      HNY to you too..
      and I hope you have the courage to retrace your science schooling back to junior high and try again.
      These 10 week propaganda courses really aren’t going to help you overcome your abject, brain-washed ignorance.

      50

    • #
      AndyG55

      “you children and future generations before ideology and greed and an unwillingness to accept the consequences of your actions”

      Yes, I hope that you do decide to do this.

      Let’s have a world with cheap plentiful reliable energy for all.

      Let’s have a world where trillions aren’t wasted on an ideal based on a random unproven hypothesis.

      Let’s have a world that is not littered with defunct wind turbines that the now-scarpered green developers won’t remove.

      One where avian wild life is not subject to random decapitation and solar reflection blindness.

      One where plant life has a plentiful supply of the gas of life, CO2, so the world can be fed.

      Let’s concentrate on real development to the betterment of the all future generations.

      And yes, I do sincerely hope that those who have flourished from the green greed are held fully accountable for the economic and environmental damage they have inflicted on the world.

      70

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Michael,

      Academics make much, of specialist qualifications. It is in their vested interest to do so. Educationalists, likewise.

      Recruiters also rely on qualifications as a search term when building lists of possible candidates for a job. But they also use terms that are more related to the application of knowledge and experience in whatever field a candidate is required.

      If you look at all the development laboratories in the greater San Francisco / San Jose area, you will find that only about 10-15% of researchers are working in the field for which they hold an academic qualification. And over 40% of researchers hold no formal qualifications at all; they just happen to be very good at what they do, in a practical sense.

      How many of the iPhone Apps were written by people with higher degrees in Computer Science? I don’t know the answer to that, and probably nobody does, because nobody has tried to find out, because it is not relevant. What is relevant, is the fact that the App does something useful for enough people to make it worthwhile, and profitable.

      Your constant appeal to Qualification is a logical fallacy, that is divorced from the real world. You need to resort to that because, although you understand what is being discussed, you have no real understanding of why it is being discussed, how important it really is, and what its ramifications might be.

      You sir, are what was once quaintly referred to as a “blow-hard”. Look it up.

      70

    • #
      AndyG55

      “A person who has no qualifications, no research and no experience in actual climate science is regarded as an expert in climate science”

      Oh.. I thought you were referring to your own opinion of yourself. !!!!

      30

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      How do you define “climate science”, Mick the master baiter?
      Do you make reference to meteorologists as “weather scientists”? Astrophysicists as “star scientists”? When does one proclaim that they have achieved the necessary knowledge to be called a “climate scientist”? Is a “climate science” an applied science, or is it a theoretical science? What is the range of disciplines with which an individual must have master in order to be capable of understanding a chaotic system such as climate?
      Contrary to popular opinion, there is no such thing as “rocket science” and “rocket scientists” either. The Church of Climatology simply invented terms in the vernacular that would strike a bell with the ignorant and gullible (that’s you).

      30

    • #
      Mortis

      just another hit and run troll

      Michael the Realist Ideologue – fixed.

      00

    • #
      Richard S Courtney

      Michael the Realist

      In your post at January 2, 2014 at 2:36 am you say to “all”

      I hope you use the new year to look at the science with truly skeptical opened eyes and start putting you children and future generations before ideology and greed and an unwillingness to accept the consequences of your actions.

      Yes! Absolutely! We do, and that is why we are derisive of the AGW-scare.

      Please read my above post which explains why everyone should oppose actions to constrain CO2 emissions. This link jumps to it
      http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/skeptical-view-makes-australian-front-page-climate-madness-dishonesty-fraud-deception-lies-and-exploition-says-maurice-newman/#comment-1363890

      Richard

      10

  • #
    Bernal

    “The group said while sea ice was disappearing in many places due to climate change, where they were now stranded ice was building up — a change which they said would impact the deep ocean circulation around the world.”

    ARRRGGGHHHHHHH…it’s too much sea ice!
    ARRRGGGHHHHHHH…not enough sea ice!
    Why can’t we have sea ice that’s JUST RIGHT?
    -Goldilocks

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  • #
    george

    I just love this site.I learn something every time I visit.It has its share of brilliant people and also mindless morons(sorry Brian),Thank you Jo for making it possible.Co2 is Life and Climate Change is Natural,Cheers<:o)

    80

  • #
    michael hammer

    I note a number of people asking for evidence not opinion. Well here is some. The cornerstone of the thoery of AGW is that rising CO2 acts like a blanket reducing energy loss (ie: outgoing longwave radiation or OLR) to space, which in turn causes the Earth to warm. Well, NOAA one of the most respected sites for climate change data publishes a month by month record of average global OLR from 1980 to 2010. The site is http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.interp_OLR.html and the file name is olr.mon.mean.nc

    I have downloaded this data and analysed it as have others. It shows that between 1980 and 2010 the 30 years of supposedly strongest rise in global temperatures the OLR did not fall but instead rose by 2.5 watts/sqM. To put this in context, the 1/2 doubling in CO2 we have had since 1900 in theory would have reduced OLR by 1.5 watts/sqM so a 2.5 watts/sqM increase is a pretty big change in the opposite direction.

    If AGW is the dominant impact on our climate as claimed by warmists how come OLR has risen not fallen? At the very least it means there is something with larger impact going on and that something acts in the opposite direction. That means AGW even if it exists is hardly the claimed dominant impact on our climate. This piece of data all by itself is enough to cast serious doubt on the thoery of AGW.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Thank you for that link.

      I was aware that they were also measuring ‘back radiation’ from the sky, but after 15 years had found it was increasing only in early spring and falling in the other 3 seasons. Unfortunately I failed to record that link.

      Doesn’t leave you with any faith in the radiation theory does it?

      10

  • #
    Popeye

    Boy – go away for a couple of days and miss all the fun with Brian.

    But, seriously, the guy DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE.

    I note how he repeats part of each comment that he responds to – easy to do that (control C) but what is harder is to provide links to peer reviewed papers that PROVE AGW which he hasn’t yet been able to do. (Basically because NONE EXIST Brian!!).

    Not meaning to feed the troll BUT Brian, please follow this link (not a peer reviewed paper) BUT a statement to the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee by Professor Pierre Darriulat on the current problems with IPCC etc etc etc.

    IF you read it and understand it he is basically saying EVERYTHING that Maurice Newman has said PLUS more. AGW IS A SCAM.

    I would also conjecture that the good Professor IS A WHOLE LOT SMARTER THAN YOU (and many of us blogging here as well).

    LOVE to hear your comments about what he has to say and why we would listen to you or bother with any of your links to MSM statements in preference to Professor Darriulat?

    Waiting/waiting/waiting.

    Compliments of the season to Jo (and thanks) and to all the other questioning skeptics here as well – where would we be without questioning authoritarianism?

    Cheers

    40

  • #
    AndyG55

    Yep, it is totally obvious that this twerp has NEVER done even the most basic research into the climate change hypothesis.

    He is IGNORANCE PERSONIFIED !!!

    10

    • #
      Chris.

      Andy,
      You have been suckered by what we call in my business (70+ and retired) a psychopath, it is one of the mental disorders in a cluster which includes BPD, NPD, sociopaths, etc.. (You can Google these disorders and see for yourself if the cap fits.)

      I know nothing of this subject (AGW), yet I don’t accept the AGW theory. But I do look at what these people say, and how they say it. A great recent example of this personality disorder is J.E. Gillard. (lie and do, whatever it takes).

      If you engage these people, do so at your peril. They are only interested in attention. Winning and losing is not in their agenda. You will never nail them down as they never take responsibility for what they say and do. Their lives are completely compartmentalised, meaning, they can not connect the last 5 minutes with the next, or one day to the next. We see them as totally erratic and unstable. They will have an idea for a minute and in the next do a 180.

      Don’t engage them, you only feed the disorder and push your own blood pressure up and leave the debate with no resolution and frustrated.

      I read through the thread, and that is what has happened.

      00

      • #
        Mortis

        Hello Chris

        I understand your position and in years past I would whole-heartily agree, but ignoring them is partly to blame for our plight today. MANY more people than normal will be looking into this subject this year and next so hitting them head on now is a good thing. Believe me, we aren’t trying to win over the trolls and the trolls are now helping without realizing it.

        10

      • #
        john robertson

        Not when you view them thro the lens Pointman provides.
        They are our Bi7ches now.

        00

  • #
    MervS

    The Guardian’s on board journalist Alok Jha says this:

    Ornithologist Kerry-Jayne Wilson counted the populations of Adélie penguins. She found what she had feared – numbers in decline – and something worse: bodies of dead chicks littering the rookeries and many eggs not being properly incubated. These birds feed on the seashore, which has moved some 70km thanks to ice around Cape Denison. Every extra kilometre the penguins have to walk reduces the energy available for rearing young. Until iceberg B09B melts and the fast ice dissipates and returns open water to Cape Denison, penguin numbers will continue to drop.

    The growing ice is killing the Penguins. But if it warms then Pemguins are cactus. The poor buggers can’t win.

    30

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      And penguins don’t get the satellite weather report, that warns them of impending expansion of sea ice, so they build their nests (such as they are), and lay their eggs, in the wrong place. And it is all your fault for driving SUV’s. /sarc

      00

    • #
      Backslider

      and something worse: bodies of dead chicks littering the rookeries and many eggs not being properly incubated.

      This is normal. It is always like that, every year.

      That the penguins have a bad year is of little consequence. You cannot extrapolate from that that they are in danger.

      00

  • #
    archaeopteryx

    have a happy (and sane) New Year

    00

  • #
    Adrian O

    Congratulations, JoAnn!

    As they say in the photography business, the man leaves little to the imagination.

    Admit it: more than once you thought ‘What if I wake up one morning and find this on the front page!”

    It finally happened!

    PS Be careful!
    If that’s what the government says, what’s left for skeptical bloggers?

    00

  • #
  • #
    Joe

    Hmm, I don’t think I would agree with Newman’s assessment:

    “It’s a pity Mackay did not live long enough to include anthropogenic global warming in his list of popular delusions. There has been none bigger.”

    I would think that this climate bogey man is a relatively small and short lived campaign compared to past and ongoing scams that man is subjected to.

    00

  • #
    Jacob

    Could not believe my eyes but looks like Fairfax just published an article in the Age critical of the IPCC on their front page, with a funny cartoon of the good ship IPCC stranded on ice. Comments are running hot with outrage.

    30

    • #
      ExWarmist

      Astonishing.

      Critical comment on the UN IPCC at the Age newspaper.

      Will this be a career limiting move by John McLean, or a turning point in the media matrix?

      10

      • #
        ExWarmist

        Wow…

        Written in the Age.

        Foremost among those who imply that the IPCC has a wider remit than it does is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At its inaugural meeting in 1992 the UNFCCC declared that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 were causing significant and dangerous climate change. This statement had no factual basis. It was the IPCC’s role to determine if this was correct. It certainly hadn’t done so by 1992 and despite its assertions it still hasn’t produced credible evidence to support that claim.

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        • #
          Rod Stuart

          Experiment:
          Google “John McLean”.
          There are crap blogs that come up I certainly never heard of before. Like “Roy Mustard” that makes SKS seem reasonable. Or the AIMN (with more nuts and fruits than the Christmas pudding).
          The Age has successfully jammed a red hot poker into an anthill infested with RED ants.
          They are absolutely livid. How dare anyone challenge the sacred Church of Climatology!

          21

        • #
          AndyG55

          SWEEEEET !! 🙂

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      • #
        AndyG55

        I was actually talking to a certain well-known person who has published in anti-AGW publications.

        Asked if he intended to publish again… his reply was… “that would be a career ending move”.

        For someone of his status to say that.. has truly scary connotations.

        Its these totalitarian aspects of the AGW meme are the one I find MOST DISGUSTING.

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    leenie

    Without getting, all scientific about it all.

    This global warming is a cover for world agenda’s what arrogance does man think because he was born in the 20th century that he could possibly know weather patterns and climate over the last 6000 years. What if there is a thousand year cycle? what if in summer months what we think are higher temps are normal and cold temps are normal

    I don’t have a problem with the industrial revolution and all the results from that having effect on different things on or around earth. But for that to bring on a “whole climate change” is ridiculous.

    ……climate change would mean winter suddenly becoming summer or summer becoming winter or tropicals areas being cold, sure temps are all over the place for summer and winter and winters dragging on and no rain here and more rain there but the basic world climate cycle of summer,spring,winter, autumn, dry season, wet season remain. It is amazing what propaganda can be filtered into society…all propaganda has a hidden agenda…… Since everything comes back to money has anyone done a study on the financial waste and what the money is being used for???
    I came out from England in Feb 1979 where the weather was snow and cold and to country NSW where the temps where in the 40’s lol, it is no different now. I bet if you could get an aboriginal history over thousand years the weather would not be much different from today, with cycles of weather and temps.

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    Bebben

    My fellow countryman Henrik Ibsen once wrote something like

    A truth rarely lasts more than thirty years.

    We are approaching that limit now I think ….

    Happy new years to Jo and all from Norway.

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