Guardian journalist tries to understand “deniers” by interviewing… himself

Who needs interviews when you know all the answers?

Greg Jericho, of The Guardian, can explain why the government is in “denial” and spends 15 odd paragraphs doing psychoanalysis of himself.

Has he met a skeptic? Not likely.

This government is not even pretending to act on climate change any more

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly I have a degree of sympathy for members of the public who are climate change deniers. I have this sympathy because I was once one of them.  …doing my level best to deny it was happening. Because it scared the bejeezus out of me.

… so I understand why people choose to believe those who say climate change is not the issue, that the issue is power prices and thus we need to fire up the coal furnaces.

Denial is a very easy way out of guilt that your lifestyle is leaving your children and grandchildren an awful legacy. Denial is a good way to throw away concerns that you might have to actually wear a cost – either through lifestyle changes or monetary loss.

It is a scary thing to hear talk of the impacts of climate change and the suggestions that it might be too late to do anything.

So deniers are selfish cowards, but Saint Greg has some pity for these poor inadequate sods. He is so magnanimous! One day he may deign to meet one.

It is so much easier to live in denial…

Sure. It’s easy to be sacked, exiled, univited, and treated like a … selfish coward. And it’s so much harder to follow the greased road of groupthink, laid out by unaudited foreign committees, lit by billion dollar LED’s, and endorsed by journalists who don’t bother to do one minute of original research.

Greg Jericho accuses the government of being “bereft of reason” then goes on to be … bereft of reason.

His whole scientific case:

According to NASA, of the 1,663 months since January 1880, the top 100 for temperature anomaly have all occurred since 1990, and every month since December 2014 is in the top 100.

It is real, it is happening, it is getting worse…

So the last 0.1% of human history is hotter than the 0.1% just before it. Therefore coal plants cause floods?

This paragraph is, Ouch:

…this week Taylor gave a speech that made zero mention of wind power – the main renewable energy in Australia – and in which he declared he wasn’t sceptical of climate change, just of subsidies for renewable energy, the Gillard government’s emissions trading scheme and of “excessive renewable energy targets.” This is despite that fact that renewable energy not only reduces our emissions, it also provides cheaper electricity.

So renewables are cheaper, but despite this the dumb Minister wants to reduce subsidies?

Perhaps someone can show him this graph? The more renewables we have the more we pay…

Cost of electricity, countries, graph, renewables capacity.

….

 

PS: Perhaps someone could also mention hydropower to him… the largest and only competitive form of renewables there is?  One minute of research…

9.7 out of 10 based on 84 ratings

125 comments to Guardian journalist tries to understand “deniers” by interviewing… himself

  • #

    “So the last 0.1% of human history is hotter than the 0.1% just before it. Therefore coal plants cause floods?”
    This is the real point. Well said, Jo.

    Few doubt warming from the low point of 1700. Why should I doubt some more recent warming? How is it possible for climate to stay the same?

    When I look at old stations unlikely to cop too much UHI (Yamba Pilot) I see a bit of warming in recent decades – and not nearly as much as I see at Sydney Obs, UHI central. What is the climate supposed to do? Show no trends? Show only cooling trends?

    Oh, and here’s a hint if there is a cooling trend: in most places expect lots of drought, and lots of very hot days and very cold nights from lower humidity. Don’t book a ski holiday in Switzerland because it will be cold but there may not be snow.

    Global cooling doesn’t mean you get conditions like a glorious Sydney autumn. It means you get conditions hard for life. The brutal European winter of 1708/9 is likely the coldest about which we have considerable information. Yet before and after the year of the Great Frost there were storms (England’s worst, 1703, though dry) and a killer heat in 1707. Much of the first half of the eighteenth century was afflicted by drought.

    In the early 1700s a neurotic Guardian journo would really have something to get jittery about.

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  • #
    observa

    According to Nasa, of the 1,663 months since January 1880, the top 100 for temperature anomaly have all occurred since 1990, and every month since December 2014 is in the top 100.

    Well I’d expect that with a long interglacial and the earth warming. It could be like me in my late 60s being a tad over 6’4″ and if you take my height anomalies over my lifetime, morning, noon and night, the most recent years will be among the tallest but I sincerely doubt I’m going to be a giant. In fact I’d venture to suggest I’m going to shrink sometime in future because that’s what’s happened a lot previously when I look at the evidence. Welcome to climate science and the scientific method Greg.

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    • #
      ivan

      Don’t forget the careful ‘massaging’ of the data to get the results to fit the computer models and so start the scam.

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  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    There will not be a logical debate on climate, ant more than there was a logical debate when the idiot measures that are banktupting y’all were adopted in the first place.

    It is not possible for a logical, scientific minded thinker to understand the left.

    Lets try. Social justice means penalizing predominately those who have done no harm to reward those who have predominately suffered none, with a 20% vigorish to government for managing the transaction. Diversity to achieve fairness in something like University admissions means allocating benefits based on race, gender, etc; rewarding groups who under perform and penalizing groups who over perform, because discrimination is evil. Socialism is the whole “free stuff” diatribe, made especially obnoxious by defining as a human right something that is a service, for compensation, delivered by highly trained professionals. Who, no doubt, are all willing to donate their services for the greater good.

    There is little point in going on.

    The essence of the left has always been this: knowing that their solutions make no sense, the describe their policies in words we all use as terms of virtue: then they redefine these terms.

    You may think Freedom of Speech means all are free to speak. Hah!. Not so fast, my friend. It really means people who don’t use hate speech can speak. And I find your speech hateful. Therefore…….

    These are the same minds who think “deniers” should be incarcerated, or terminated.

    What is changing things is the 2X4 up side the head of economic reality, and the fact that even the environmentalists don’t really relish life in cold, dark spaces with their cell phones out of juice to remain that way till the sun rises tomorrow.

    The best you can hope is that they will be relatively quite and innocuous while the infrastructure is hardened and made more cost effective; when things get comfortable again they’ll be back with another apocalyptic cause.

    The essence of these people is their old T shirt collection; Save the planet, Save the Polar Bear, Save the trees, Save the Spotted Owl, Save the Prairie Grouse, Preserve rotten old landmarks, All the way back to Earth Day 1 and and fear of Global cooling.

    ANd a T shirt slogan usually reflects the depth of though in their causes.

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    • #
      Allen Ford

      And please don’t forget the apposite quote from H L Mencken:

      The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.(emphasis added)

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  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    “PS: Perhaps someone could also mention hydropower to him… the largest and only competitive form of renewables there is?”

    Ahhh, you do realize that the dammed lake levels can fall, and wither power generation, or water supplies thereby jeopardized?

    Nor all renewable renew equally well. Lake Mead: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/drought-dries-up-lake-mead/

    There is also a pretty significant idiot fringe that thinks hydro in general has issues. Save the smelt, don’t drown our heritage, etc.
    Building major new non-pumped hydro is not without it’s critics.

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    • #
      Analitik

      Lest we forget Tassie, 2016.

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    • #
      glen Michel

      I’m told if yer can have pumped hydro for real mans power yer can have pumped irrigation as well!Yep, it all makes sense.

      40

    • #
      sophocles

      What about the salmon?
      Hydro dams block their rivers and they can’t get upstream for spawning.
      Gotta save the salmon.
      Can’t have all those tins on the supermarket shelves going empty …

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      • #
        sophocles

        And think of the canning companies … ooh! The potential losses …

        57% of NZ electricity is hydro generation.

        Good reliable clean power.

        The dams just require a little more effort from the salmon …
        We don’t often have to worry about lake levels except when the wholesale spot market needs an up-spike to maintain generator profits.

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  • #
    Reed Coray

    Yeah, but can Mr. Jericho spell echo chamber? If he happens to read this blog, I’ll help him out: ECHO CHAMBER.

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    • #
      Allen Ford

      Er, Greg, if you are really interested in curbing CO2 emissions, here’s a way to do just that:

      A pathway to zero emissions from coal begins with deployment of HELE power generation, using technology that is available today. HELE technologies are in existence and available ‘off-the-shelf’; they have proved to provide efficiency gains and are financially viable. HELE coal-fired power stations, with modern emissions control systems, emit by up to 35% less CO2 and significantly reduce or eliminate pollutant emissions, such as oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, and particulates compared to older, less efficient subcritical technology.

      Do try to keep up!

      Paris, here we come!

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    • #
      glen Michel

      “The Guardian” – the lance of left-wing thought;fact being it’s a complete sop of a rag when I read the latest edition on the weekend.So downsized these days it’s dwarfed next to a postage stamp.Free of any substance as such and full of inchoate guff that tells you its days are near.

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      • #
        sophocles

        glen Michel @ #5.2

        Free of any substance as such and full of inchoate guff that tells you its days are near.

        Not likely: the Guardian can’t go bust being the beneficiary of a large trust fund. Dammit. As the The Beneficiary of that trust, all it can do is continue to fade as its editorial policy becomes more and more marginal. With the impending solar minimum, that may be sooner rather than later. (My secret dream is to read the Grauniad’s apology! 🙂 For getting it so wrong for so long!)

        I point to Stuart Agnew’s report to the EU Parliament as featured onhttps://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/03/green-outrage-ukips-hilarious-eu-climate-change-report/ in which he gives practical evidence for his stance and it’s amazing how many missed it and failed to consider it in their derision. He said, that in view of the changing climate he asked the University of East Anglia what he should grow. He planted what was recommended. Thirteen out of fifteen crops failed. That’s only 86% failure. He might have gained more attention if it had been the magical proportion of 14.25 (97%) failures. I guess virtually no one who wasn’t a farmer realized that crops might actually require CO2. Talk about out of touch …

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    • #

      Say – self interviewing, – the ol’ mirror trick
      is what yer get. )

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTT-sy0aLg

      40

  • #
    Dave in the States

    Denial is a very easy way out of guilt that your lifestyle is leaving your children and grandchildren an awful legacy. Denial is a good way to throw away concerns that you might have to actually wear a cost – either through lifestyle changes or monetary loss.

    Or how about leaving our children the awful legacy of trillions of debt, a totalitarian society, or billions unnecessarily in fuel poverty, or the deaths from possible unnecessary famine? How about a corrupt society filled with vice and carbon pricing scams? How about the legacy of the destruction of the scientific method and a world filled with disinformation and lies?

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      Don’t forget the deconstruction of any fair political systems that gifted Greg Jericho’s life with more liberties to him and millions of others before him that would never have occurred under the very ideals he so eagerly and proudly supports with the blind belief in a failed hypothesis backed by a “science” that refuses to be debated or tested.

      Disingenuous would be an apt word if it wasn’t so destructively evil.

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      • #
        Dave in the States

        No doubt about, the skeptical argument is the moral perspective.

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      • #
        Another Ian

        Y

        “a failed hypothesis backed by a “science” that refuses to be debated or tested. ”

        Round 2

        “The Great Climate Change Debate: William Happer v. David Karoly, Part B”

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/02/the-great-climate-change-debate-william-happer-v-david-karoly-part-b/

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        • #
          Serp

          Thanks. A quick skim reveals that all Karoly’s arguments stem from models which is a circumstance so far beyond bizarre to my mind that I can’t credit how anybody can take it seriously.

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          • #
            sophocles

            To Serp @ #6.1.2.1

            but, computers can’t lie, so it must be true!
            As Ben Davidson has said:
            -they draw together their facts, estimates and measurements
            -they do the maths
            -they check their results and they all get the same
            -but it’s wrong.

            That’s why we mostly disbelieve them.

            We’re all familiar with GIGO. They can never get it right while they exclude 99.9% of the other variations in the other solar properties and the effects of them. It was the IPCC which created the Solar Constant. I wonder how many astronomers winced at that …

            TSI is the only solar property with its 0.1% variation, admitted to their models. That’s true for all visible wavelengths and down into the Infra Red. UV? With variation of over 15% measured by satellites across across an 11 year cycle? Que? Oh, it only affects the Stratospheric ozone …. nothing to see there, and so it goes on. Anyone who has watched the sun over recent active cycles can see from its spots that it sure isn’t constant. And when any one spot could swallow several dozen Earths without so much as a burp, then there is surely a lot of power there. Ever felt how cold it goes during a full eclipse? If those magnetic fields were any closer, they could pull the iron filings out of a satellite….

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          It’s a bit disappointing to see that Will Happer acknowledges that most of the extra CO2 is of human origin.

          It suggests that his obvious qualifications in the area of atomic level behaviour of atoms doesn’t extend to the big picture.

          KK

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        • #
          Dave in the States

          Karoly bailed soon after the debate started and the actual alarmist debater representing Koroly is an alarmist blogger named Tablyn. What does that tell?

          20

    • #
      Rosco

      “Denial is a very easy way out of guilt that your lifestyle is leaving your children and grandchildren an awful legacy.”

      Instead of talking crap about hypothetical consequences of an unproven hypothesis why don’t people talk about the obvious benefits this “coddled deluded generation of group think acolytes of climate alarm” enjoy courtesy of cheap energy and the “despised” industrial revolution – a cleaner environment, dramatic increases in life expectancy, reduction in the number of famines due to increasing agricultural efficiency, increased sanitation better food storage and clean drinking water, the reduction of incidence of disease etc etc….. ???

      None of these would have been possible without the use of fossil fuels and the future for these would be bleak if these people have their way.

      Besides all of that the contribution Australia can make to this ludicrous global crusade is trivial anyway.

      These people telling us that deniers are evil are just too stupid to even see the absurdity of having a Minister for Climate !

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      • #
        Mal

        Minister for climate change. Straight out of Monty python, or was it the Goodies? Used to be called the minister for funny walks.

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    • #
      Dave in the States

      Another thing, he claims that denialism is driven by guilt. Huh? Skeptics don’t have guilt because they are not believers. I feel no guilt whatsoever about my lifestyle or my position on the science.

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    • #
      Mary E

      Every modern generation has hoped for better – in their later life, and for their kids. Each has managed to “totally mess things up” in some way or another according the following generations. Those in each generation who say wait a minute, you are not looking at the whole picture or no, that isn’t right, you forgot… get mocked and ridiculed and shamed. An “evil” is latched onto and beat into submission, and the case is closed – until someone realizes that no, That wasn’t causing the problem, This Thing is. Our parents lied to us again! And so it goes.

      Horses fouled the streets, jump on trolleys and into cars. Coal heat and oil lamps burn houses down, use coal for electricity and solve both problems at once; warm toasty houses and bright lights and fewer homes burning down. Lots fewer. Rivers and lakes are polluted from run-off, drinking water is making people sick, build sewers and treatment plants. Chemicals and soot are making the water not-so-healthy and creating smog, make industries clean and filter what goes out into the air and water.

      Every modern generation has a cause. Used to be a simple cause – find land, build a farm, raise kids, get more land. Fight for freedom from kings. Fight a war, or against it. Get manure off the streets, invent new sources of power, engineer our way into the future. Press for more freedoms, use social experimentation, try out drugs or new lifestyles to see what works, as things aren’t working as they are. And so on.

      So one of this generation’s causes is CO2. It’s a made-up cause, but so were several other causes fought. But it isn’t just This Generation’s, it ties in with prior generations who fought for clean streets, clean water, clean air. Some of the older generations are opposed to the idea of something necessary to life being an Evil to fight, but others are just extending their protest days into old age, and who knows what the kids really think. The Move to Save The Planet has so many different groups fighting amongst themselves for prominence for their little piece and only the one that can be fought with money, by money, for money, is on top – and is using bits and pieces of the others’ more photogenic and frightening posters. The IPCC doesn’t care about Polar Bears, but they make great visual slogans.

      Fight CO2! Save the (name it) and build our windmills, solar farms and bio-fuel plants. Send us more money so we can build more and make them better, bigger, faster. You don’t produce CO2? Fine, we’ll give the means to and make those evil built-up industrialized modern and wealthy nations pay for it, reduce their emissions, bring them down a few notches.

      And hope the sun shines and the wind blows and no one really needs to eat that corn.

      20

  • #
    TdeF

    It’s interesting. The runaway tipping point accelerating Global Warming has stopped for twenty years. That in itself means the CO2 theory is wrong.

    So the only straw left to grasp is that

    “top 100 for temperature anomaly have all occurred since 1990”

    which means only that an almost constant world temperature climbed an insignificant amount and stopped.

    Steady CO2 growth in the same period has not stopped so the theory is proven wrong.

    Even worse, CO2 growth has not been affected in the slightest by the trillions wasted trying to stop CO2 growth. So mankind has no effect on CO2. Those societies spending big on windmills are so obviously wasting every cent.

    Every aspect of the wild theory of man made CO2 driven Global Warming has been conclusively disproven by reality but still he believes.

    The only question then is not whether he truly believes in something which is transparently not true but whether he is driven by the extreme left political beliefs of his Guardian employer. Whether he believes that destroying Western democracies is a necessary first step in creating a world communist nirvana in which all people are happy, equal and free.

    It’s hard to know which belief is more seriously wrong, Global Warming or the joys of socialism? We know from the many brutal experiments of the 20th century, WW1, WW2, Russia, China and the Cultural Revolution, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela which is the greater danger to life and the pursuit of happiness. The demands to spend vastly more on nothing are the only constant truth.

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    • #
      TdeF

      If you study what he said, there is real intent to mislead in Jerico’s argument. In his opinion, it’s all over.

      Consider, if he believed the evidence meant the world was warming, he would have said so. He didn’t.

      If he knew warming had stopped, the only way to imply that it hadn’t is to infer it
      by stating that most of the highest temperatures were recent. While this also means static temperatures,
      the very use of this ploy to imply warming means he is outed as a sceptic.

      So you can say two things.
      Firstly that he has no belief Global Warming is true, let alone man made Global Warming, the only real contention.
      Secondly, that he used sophistry to support his long established opinions, or admit total defeat.

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      • #
        TdeF

        So the real question in this rhetorical piece is whether Mr Jerico managed to convince himself? I doubt it. He’s now a sceptic.

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    • #
      Mal

      We have reached the tipping point for Human stupidity. We are now on the downward cycle.

      30

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      “top 100 for temperature anomaly have all occurred since 1990″
      – They never mention the record cold that has occurred in the NH of recent. Extreme cold is the real danger. As happend in the LIA.

      ‘which means only that an almost constant world temperature climbed an insignificant amount and stopped.’ TRUE.

      ‘Steady CO2 growth in the same period has not stopped so the theory is proven wrong.’ TRUE.

      it might pay to look toward that yellow orb in the (daytime) sky sometime for having an influence on things..

      40

  • #
    James Poulos

    Don’t sell our Aussie Coal Plants short, Jo, they cause much more than floods, there’s sea level rise, there’s droughts, there’s polar vortexes, there’s hurricanes and typhoons, there’s snow and no snow, full dams and empty ones, wars world wide, the spread of disease, the second coming, and I now suspect those little pieces of corn in vomitous when ever some ignorant lefty tries to tell me that a network of coal fired power generators that are almost, but not quite enough to keep electricity flowing across the largest island on the planet with the smallest population in the world…

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  • #
    PeterS

    Yet another deranged, unhinged, etc. alarmist.

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    • #
      Another Ian

      Potential referral?

      “Eco-psychology: NEW Free helpline, handbook, for climate change mental illness”

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  • #
    Mark M

    I, for one, hate it when ~400 ppm CO2 literally makes the world go up in flames.

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    • #
      PeterS

      Especially when only a tiny % of that is due to mankind. Calling alarmists deranged is not enough. They are also anarchists.

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      Not only “~400 ppm CO2 literally makes the world go up in flames”, it also causes so-called spring to jump BACK in time to mid-winter:

      https://www.metservice.com/skifields/mt-hutt

      Mt Hutt CLOSED today due to BLIZZARD conditions with 25 cm new snow overnight, -20˚C wind chill (midday), max temp -6˚C with more of the same for tomorrow and ALL WEEK for the North Island ski areas. That ‘carbon pollution’ can do anyfink™ any self-chosen high priest / journalist / sci-fi writer says it can, because! All together now – Let’s do the time warp again…

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    • #
      beowulf

      It’s only the last 50ppm of that polluting gas that causes all the problems.

      Remember children 350ppm CO2 is perfect for the world and non-toxic. Don’t dare go to 351ppm or all hell will break loose.

      When I was a lad back in the year when CO2 was exactly 350ppm there were no droughts, floods, fires, cyclones, polar vortices, insect plagues or diseases — just smiling children romping in fields of daisies as far as the eye could see, and tons of ice at the poles. In those days the snow knew where it belonged and it stayed there; rain was a gentle mist that only fell when you didn’t have a barbie or a beach trip planned. Fire hadn’t been invented; wind was something you got from eating too many daisies, not a destructive force.

      Now look what you’ve done with your reliable fossil-fueled power generation and transport, your modern technology, your communication, your conveniences, your abundant nutrition, your medicine, your long life expectancy, your leisure time, your end to slavery and drudgery. It’s all the fault of that nasty coal and oil — the fifth and sixth horsemen.

      What have the Romans ever done for us? Wink.

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    • #
      Allen Ford

      I thought they used CO2 in fire extinguishers!

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  • #

    …doing my level best to deny it was happening. Because it scared the bejeezus out of me.

    Sceptics do not feel this way, they logically consider the evidence and are not scared by all the hoopla. Additionally, sceptics are confident that humanity, as it always has, will be able to adjust and manage any changes that may occur. It’s no different to adjusting and managing the effects of cyclones, bushfires, earthquakes, volcanoes and any other act of nature that we cannot control.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      “Denial is a very easy way out of guilt that your lifestyle is leaving your children and grandchildren an awful legacy. Denial is a good way to throw away concerns that you might have to actually wear a cost – either through lifestyle changes or monetary loss.”

      Um…we aren’t the ones who invented the loopy myth of climate change, but the greenists get all bent out of shape when we wont offer to sacrifice of our economy to their false green “god”….

      I know who has a firm grip on reality, and it isn’t the greenists….

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  • #
    Drapetomania

    Yes, but the tricks are in the language.
    When asked

    “do you believe in climate change”

    I admit I have no idea what that question even means…the last time I was politely asked this question I ask

    “Do you know what geological epic we are in.

    And how long we have been warming for

    .
    They had no idea to either question.
    None do..thats one of the brilliant ways many “debate” the whole thing.
    They will use a slogan..I ask a question..they admit they know nothing on the subject.
    Then why %$#@v try and lecture me ?
    The Orwellian language based on nothing is cleverly couched in semantic games.
    See Alex Turnbull..the great leaders son use it at the end of this post .
    “Clean energy”(hydro aside) is energy created at a loss..we will forget the amount of Co2 debt incurred in creating the solar/windmill material itself because thats unpleasant reality.
    “Sane energy policy” is to give bankers/investment firms profits for moving bits of paper around representing certificates for co2 and for charging punters more for energy to make the weather “better” in 200 years by an amount that is never talked about or even measurable.
    I note that the “journalist” at that CO2 propaganda rag the Herald forgot to mention that junior Turnbull makes $$ from trading the CO2 certificates.
    And If you quizzed young Turnbull on the science..he would get that scared deer in The headlights look and admit he knows nothing..but climate words will fall out of his head anyway..

    Herald Co3 rag below

    Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex is soliciting donations for Labor ahead of a by-election in his father’s former seat of Wentworth..
    “impossible” to vote for the Coalition “in good conscience” because of its climate change stance, and accused the Liberal Party of being hijacked by the coal industry….”My motivations are clean government and sane energy policy and that’s it,” he told Fairfax Media.

    source

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    • #
      Allen Ford

      My motivations are clean government and sane energy policy and that’s it

      I’ll buy that one, Alex, but what you are proposing gives the exact opposite result.

      Do try, again!

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  • #
    Mark M

    CO2-induced farm apocalypse update from Australia for Greg Jericho: “Record harvest in sight for WA grain farmers after winter rains.

    We’ve got the rare combination of good crops and good prices, with some farmers saying they’ve never seen it this good before.”

    https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/regional/record-harvest-in-sight-for-wa-grain-farmers-after-winter-rains-ng-b88945882z

    2014, IPCC – CSIRO – BoM:

    Worst-case scenario could see 40 per cent drop in production

    The report said the worst-case scenario for the Murray-Darling Basin, south-east and south-west Australia would mean a significant drop in agricultural production.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-23/ipcc-working-group-ii-report-climate-change-australia/5339654

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    • #
      Mark M

      The 2018 wildflower season is shaping up to be the best and biggest blooming display the Coral Coast region has seen in the past decade.

      Botanical experts from Perth’s Kings Park, in addition to wildflower enthusiasts residing in Western Australia’s Coral Coast region, have forecast the season will commence in early August with thousands of species on display.

      https://www.australiascoralcoast.com/article/mon-07232018-1236/our-best-wildflower-season-decade

      Greg Jericho needs to get out more.

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    • #
      ivan

      Do any of the doomsayers ever get any of their predictions correct? They should be asking themselves what are they missing that makes their pronouncements so wrong – but that is too hard for them because it requires logical thought, something they can’t do without their heads exploding.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Relevant reading for Guardian journalists and local politicians IMO

    “An Open Letter to U.S. Politicians Running for Office in 2018 About Climate”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/02/an-open-letter-to-u-s-politicians-running-for-office-in-2018-about-climate/

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  • #
    Gbees

    So Greg has gone from being a sceptical ‘denier’ to useful idiot? Well done.

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    • #
      Hat Rack

      After reading the full article in the Guardian, one gets the feeling that the author changed sides because of a feeling of being left out and propaganda induced panic. Logic and science were not involved.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    Too many journalists buy,
    And accept but do not verify,
    All that warmists allege,
    Like some cult driven pledge,
    While the real climate truths they deny.

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  • #
    PeterS

    Just heard Morrison talking on Alan Jones’ show on 2GB and he sounded confused at the start but eventually admitted existing coal fired power stations have to remain open as long as possible, and if necessary will force any company planning to close down one will have it take off their hands and sold to another that will keep it open. No commitment to withdraw from Paris but made hints that he will not take much notice of the emissions targets and instead focus on getting prices down by creating a level playing field. So far so good. Now we need to see actions not just words. He sounded firm and confident such action will be forthcoming from Taylor. We now have to be a little more patient.

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      el gordo

      He has six months to bring down energy prices or the Coalition will be hung, drawn and quartered.

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      Graeme No.3

      Perhaps Morrison, unlike the Guardian Glunk, knows that the vast majority of countries aren’t trying to meet any CO2 targets.
      No need to dump the Paris Accord, to paraphrase John Wayne “a countries not gonna do what other counties are not gonna do”.

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      RickWill

      Apparently new PM Morrison provided his new cabinet with lapel pins displaying the Australian flag:
      https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/scott-morrison-pins-his-hopes-on-the-flag/news-story/9d7e80261954c0d22bb43157d9044300

      Every day Scott Morrison pins an Australian flag to his suit jacket to remind himself of who he’s serving.

      Has a touch of Trump. And is a good start for a new PM. Thriving nations beget a stable global economy.

      Turnbull was there to serve his family interests. Look at how his brats Alex is behaving now that the gravy train is on unstable tracks.

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        PeterS

        Turnbull has been proven to be a Labor mole or something to that effect given what his son said recently urging people to donate to Labor’s campaign in Wentworth. Yes Morrison has a touch of Trump. He should go a little further but I do understand how he might feel it would be risky given Australia is no where as supportive of conservatives as a significant slab of Americans are.

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        el gordo

        Chauvinistic behaviour is typically American and won’t wash here. Morrison has probably been influenced by his spiritual leanings.

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    […] was that about unreliables being cheaper? Trigger warning, this may make you laugh. And this from the Australian Psychological Society for the ‘you could not […]

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    Roy Hogue

    Guardian journalist tries to understand “deniers” by interviewing… himself

    I suppose that somewhere even the Guardian has published something that made sense and was relevant to a real problem faced by the UK. After all, history records that even Benito Mussolini got something right by making the trains run on time.

    But if this “journalist” interviews himself he should find that he agrees with himself 100%. So in the present his interview should be viewed as absolutely correct. He agrees with himself.

    And agreeing with yourself 100% and having at least $7 in your pocket will get you a cup of coffee in any decent restaurant but maybe not Starbucks. In other words, that’s Americanese for, his interview is worthless.

    The real tragedy is that it can take $7 to buy a cup of coffee. When I went to work right out of high school in the local bowling alley in 1957, coffee in the bowling alley coffee shop cost $0.10 and employees got it for half price. You wouldn’t bother to stop and pick up a nickle or a dime now if you saw it on the ground because its value is essentially zero.

    What have we done to ourselves that a self interview by a journalist gets serious attention by anyone and everything is inflated like the journalist’s ego?

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      Kinky Keith

      Roy, don’t knock inflation.

      It’s the only way to minimise the effects of government debt borrowed in your name.

      It also helps politicians who would otherwise be traumatized if they had to restructure our lives so that we could pay off the debt.

      KK

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        Roy Hogue

        A certain amount of inflation is normal and as you say, necessary. But I’ll say no to government borrowing. They do it without our consent and without limit. They pass the buck for it to our grandchildren and great grandchildren and somewhere the system will break. And the pieces of it will fall right on my grandson’s head someday.

        NO !!!

        I’ll settle for earning something before I buy it instead of relying on paying for it with inflated dollars by refinancing my house and taking on a new mortgage. It can work out nicely for you if you’re lucky but it can also work out to be forcing someone else to pay for your profligacy. I’m getting old and the reality of how things have been run so dishonestly has begun to sink in. It’s not even a legal matter, KK. It’s immoral.

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          Roy Hogue

          By the way, KK, then I could afford to buy a lot more cups of coffee at full price than I can now.

          Then: 10 cups at 0.10 = $1

          Now: 10 cups at 7.00 = $70.00

          I make that out (and so does my computer) to be 70 X inflation, which is obscene. Other things need to be considered but I know of no way to say 70 times inflation over one person’s lifetime in any one thing with no visible perturbations in the market is anything but obscene. But I’m sure some statistics whizz kid will show me what I’ve missed. And I don’t mean whizz kid to be derogatory in any way, just an indicator of capability with statistics.

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        Analitik

        don’t knock inflation.

        It’s the only way to minimise the effects of government debt borrowed in your name.

        This is the tale that you have been told and you seem to have bought into. Inflation does nothing but kick the can down the road as it erodes the value of your savings and investments (except that some invests will CPI increase in value so they tread water). It masks the effects of the debt by making it seem less valuable but so are all your liquid assets.

        So don’t buy into the fable that inflation is a necessary tool for financial management.

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          Kinky Keith

          I think that the context of my comment suggests that I don’t believe in “kicking the can down the road”.

          KK

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            I never said you did. But government sure does. It’s the most used tool in their bag of tricks to keep their worthless behinds in office, lest they have to do an honest day’s work so they can eat.

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            • #
              Kinky Keith

              That was to Analitik.

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                And he was replying to me. So my mistake in looking at the indentation and the numbering.

                I’m good if you are. And any way you stack it, slice it bend or fold it I think I’m correct.

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                Roy Hogue

                And KK, I apologize for the final sentence. Nothing ever changes and lately my anger has been boiling over with a roaring fire under it.

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                Bobl

                Watch your blood pressure Roy, They are not worth your health or your quality of life – being constantly any isn’t good for you. Just keep the pressure on and educate as many people as possible then congratulate yourself for a job well done.

                Mind you, living in la-la land central, Californiastan must be odd. The government there seem strangely disconnected from reality, perhaps it’s because you have an entire industry dedicated to play acting, IE a whole industry dedicated to getting people to believe wild tales unrelated to reality.

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      Fred Streeter

      You wouldn’t bother to stop and pick up a nickle or a dime now if you saw it on the ground because its value is essentially zero.

      We do – Oooh look! A penny!

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      Roy Hogue

      No one called me on saying that Mussolini made the trains run on time. Where ar all you history buffs?

      He didn’t but like many politicians, managed to pull the wool over post WWII Italy and much of the world apparently, post mortem and it was widely said that

      Mussolini may have done many brutal and tyrannical things; he may have destroyed human freedom in Italy; he may have murdered and tortured citizens whose only crime was to oppose Mussolini; but ‘one had to admit’ one thing about the Dictator: he ‘made the trains run on time.’

      as this quote from Snopes.com says it.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Now isn’t that more interesting than some nobody journalist sticking his head up trying to get in on denier bashing and thereby get his 15 minutes of fame?

        How soon will he be forgotten? I’ll say it’s measured in weeks with a very small number. Mussolini is in the history books forever.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Which is not to say that Mussolini is worthy of being in the history books. But he certainly beats this self-interviewing journalist. for world impact. He ruled an entire nation for a while. What will our friend about whom Jo writes such an eloquent expose rule over?

          I tell you, we’re paying attention to the wrong nitwits.

          And now Jo may send me email saying… Or a moderator will tell me to do the same thing.

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    Graham Richards

    After interviewing himself he’s going to be pretty disgusted with himself, all Lefty journalists and all the Guardian stands for?? No, he’s a Guardian group think journo!

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    Kinky Keith

    Great, hard hitting post Jo.

    When it comes to describing the self satisfied, mutual admirers of the EcoPress, there’s a word that comes to mind.

    Though I don’t really know what it means it’s still appropriate because they don’t know what they mean either.

    Is Greg, Smarmy?

    KK

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      smarmy: definition

      smarmy
      adjective informal
      ingratiating and wheedling in a way that is perceived as insincere or excessive.
      “a smarmy, unctuous reply”
      synonyms: unctuous, ingratiating, slick, oily, greasy, obsequious, sycophantic, fawning

      And now we know Mr. Smarmy.

      If there’s anything more to it than that I’ll have to leave it in your capable hands. But I would think these people are admitting that their net value to humanity is zero or negative. Pathetic to say the least.

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    el gordo

    ‘I don’t mean I was a climate change denier in the sense of believing it all was some gigantic hoax perpetrated by the deep state and the UN.’ Jericho

    He was a wishy washy denier, the evidence suggests its a gigantic hoax.

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  • #
    Peter

    “This is despite that fact that renewable energy not only reduces our emissions, it also provides cheaper electricity.”

    Fantastic news! Lets immediately dispose of all regulation enforcing the use of renewables and immediately cut all subsidies for renewables. If renewables are truly THAT good we need neither.

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    • #
      PeterS

      Listening to Morrison on 2GB today has given me the impression that’s his plan. I just wished he was unambiguous about it rather than packaging it with platitudes. We can only be patient for a little while longer to see what Taylor announces as their official policy on energy. Waiting….

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    el gordo

    Jericho is living on a different planet, back here on earth the system appears to be operating normally, disaster averted.

    https://www.thegwpf.com/global-temperatures-fall-back-to-2002-levels/

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      PeterS

      Tell that to Shorten. Let’s hope that Morrison campaigns very strongly on that theme about global temperatures plus the fact it’s all irrelevant anyway as the rest of the world is madly on love with coal fired power stations going by the numbers being built. In fact they are in love with them so much renewables are really a non-event; except for some reason here in Australia.

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    Rick

    As I now settle into my twilight years, I reflect on my own past experience regarding the whining plea to “do it for your children and grandchildren…”
    I don’t recall ever hearing my parents or grandparents mewing about the world they left for me. They worked hard, exploited what needed to be exploited, and tried not to leave too much mess around the place, as any sensible person would. My generation managed to survive all this, and what’s more, we thrived!
    So my attitude is; dig it up, cut it down, tear it up or burn it. If it advances things and provides jobs and wealth, go for it, but try not to leave too much mess about the place.
    I don’t complain about the problems (if any) that previous generations left for me, just as I anticipate that the next generation won’t worry about what we leave for them – they’ll be too busy trying to work out what gender they are or working out which toilet to use.

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      PeterS

      The choice of which toilet to use will not be a problem for much longer. Given the gradual adoption of dozens of gender types they will have to make all toilets unisex.

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      • #
        Curious George

        They did it already in San Francisco. No men’s restrooms. No urinals. Big surprise: Long lines for everybody.

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  • #
    Sean McHugh

    He has a “degree of sympathy

    So? Even Gillard (now) has a doctorate of something.

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  • #
    Dave

    What a moron

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  • #
    pat

    just listening to it now. congrats jo. you should be featured on 2GB weekly.

    AUDIO: 15mins43secs: 3 Sept: 2GB Overnight: How many solar panels in Brisbane will slow a cyclone heading to the Phillipines?
    by Luke Grant
    Climate blogger Jo Nova talks to Luke Grant about Psychologist Susie Burke who tells the story of a woman who came to her for counselling after having her first child. Not because she was suffering from post-natal depression, but because she was “struggling with the enormity of what she had done.” She felt she had brought her child into a “world she knew was going to be a lot harsher and a lot less safe.”

    Jo says “Burke is an Australian psychologist and academic who specializes in eco-psychology. She treats people suffering mental illness as a result of climate change, and also recently set up a free hotline called the “Climate Change Psychological Support Network,” where Australians can call a qualified psychologist to talk through their feelings about environmental change”.

    As well as talking about the climate policies of the government and whether Minister Taylor should remove Australia from the Paris Agreement, Jo asks the question, how many solar panels in Brisbane will slow a cyclone heading to the Phillipines?
    https://www.2gb.com/how-many-solar-panels-in-brisbane-will-slow-a-cyclone-heading-to-the-phillipines/

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      PeterS

      Well done Jo. Now we need to hear Morrison agree with everything you said and therefore scrap the renewables subsidies to create a level play field as he apparently has promised today on the very same radio station.

      As for how many solar panels and wind farms we need to slow down the cyclone heading for the Phillipines I suspect someone could calculate using physics based on the friction they can offer to slow it down but I would suspect it would be so much it would take decades to build and trillions of dollars 🙂 One thing is for sure, no matter how many be build it to reduce our emissions it would make no difference at all.

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      • #
        Bobl

        I would think so, I did the math once because math is what I do and calculated that a 990 hPa storm could be at worst intensified to 989.9 hPa by the energy available from global warming.

        You just can’t get around the fact that the 0.6 watt per square meter change in nett energy represents 0.6/340 or just 0.17% increase in energy. IE the change is so small it’s irrelevant, just a fifth of one percent.

        The idea that the earth can deal with dissipating 342 watts per square meter but can’t dissipate 342.6 watts is just preposterous.

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    pat

    fabulous jo, as always.

    got a little worried when Luke Grant kept referring to jonova.com.au as I’ve always used joannenova.com.au, but my fears were allayed when I put the short version into the address box and still came up with your website.

    good time to mention just how good your website design is…on every level. never change a good thing.

    best wishes jo.

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    Antoine D'Arche

    So let me understand this… a journalist is trying to tell scientists why they’re wrong to disagree with AGW.
    Riiight.

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    Phil R

    That was so intellectually painful (and there is no one I know that would call me an intellectual), that I couldn’t even finish reading the quoted parts. My sister had a birthday today, I think I’ll have some cake and ice cream instead. (Yes, we’re full-grown adults, but I still like cake and ice cream.)

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    PeterPetrum

    OK. I know I should not have done it, but I did! I clicked the link in Jo’s article and read the whole Guardian article AND some of the comments! Well, in my defence it is said that one needs to get into the minds of the ‘enemy’ but I have to admit to being quite astounded at some of the belligerently ignorant comments. Clearly we ‘free thinkers’ are the enemy. We are totally ignorant of the devastation waiting us in 10, 100, 1000 year’s time. We understand nothing about how wonderful and cheap “renewable” energy is and how it will benefit all (wo)mankind, instead of the devils incarnate who profit from coal and oil. How depressing.

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      PeterS

      It started a long time ago. I recall the alarmists producing an ad depicting the heads of school children exploding with blood everywhere for refusing to accept CAGW. Many of the comments are symptomatic of that hatred to life, freedom of thought, and truth. There is no doubt about it – they are deranged and a menace to society, and should seek help from the medical profession.

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    • #
      Ian George

      And don’t bother posting comments on the Guardian site.
      I just posted data from NASA to show how temps are being adjusted and was removed because I breached ‘community standards’.

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    pat

    ***more proof they will say anything to keep the scam going:

    2 Sept: Reuters: Governments ‘not on track’ to cap temperatures at below 2 degrees: U.N.
    by Amy Sawitta Lefevre
    Governments are not on track to meet a goal of the 2015 Paris agreement of capping temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) before the end of the century, a United Nations official said on Sunday ahead of climate-change talks in Bangkok this week.

    Patricia Espinosa, head of the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which steers the climate talks, said both the public and private sector need to act with urgency to avoid “catastrophic effects”…

    ***A Europe-wide heat wave this summer and bush fires in Australia, among other things, should give new impetus to the talks, said Espinosa.
    “It really does make the evidence clear that climate change is having an impact on the daily lives of people,” Espinosa said.
    “I do believe that this will create a bigger sense of urgency.”…

    A promise by rich nations to provide developing nations with $100 billion a year to tackle climate change is only one part of the huge transformation needed, she added.
    “There is a clear view that the $100 billion is only one part of the broad transformation of our societies that we are talking about… There is also a need to mobilize private financing,” said Espinosa.
    https://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN1LI03S-OCATP

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    pat

    it’s always good to laugh:

    2 Sept: ThinkProgress: Climate Scientist Michael Mann Congratulates Identity Thief Peter Gleick for Receiving his Carl Sagan Award
    by Eric Worrall
    h/t Dr. Willie Soon – Identity thief Peter Gleick, who impersonated a Heartland Director while serving as AGU Ethics Chairman, and whose swag of rather boring stolen Heartland emails somehow got spiced up with a a nasty forgery, has just been congratulated by Michael Mann for receiving his Carl Sagan Science Popularization Award…
    ETC
    My question – what level of dishonesty and public humiliation do you have to achieve before the establishment climate science community decides your conduct is unacceptable?
    https://thinkprogress.org/scientists-mock-trumps-comedically-ill-informed-wildfires-tweet-df7798d526d3/

    6 Aug: ThinkProgress: Scientists mock Trump’s tweet on wildfires as ‘comedically ill-informed’ and ‘unmitigated crap’
    Trump’s climate denial is “a crime against the planet” warns climatologist.
    by Joe Romm
    California climate and water expert Peter Gleick tweeted that Trump’s explanation was “gobbledygook bullshit” and “unmitigated crap.”
    In a tweet directed at the President, he explained that “California’s forests are burning because of past severe drought and current extreme temperatures and weather, worsened by human-caused climate change, which you think, in your fantasy world, doesn’t exist.”…

    And climatologist Michael Mann tweeted in reply, “Hey Mr. Trump: These wildfires are being magnified by human-caused climate change. You are attempting to sabotage international efforts to ACT on climate change. That’s a crime against the planet. Add it to the list…”
    Mann told ThinkProgress in an email that if denial of climate science continues to drive Trump’s policies then the “legacy of his administration will be, among other things, a charred planet.”…
    https://thinkprogress.org/scientists-mock-trumps-comedically-ill-informed-wildfires-tweet-df7798d526d3/

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    el gordo

    ‘A royal commission into the power industry should assess if privatisation pushed up prices, Bill Shorten says.’ Oz

    Yes, the poles and wires should never have been privatised.

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    TdeF

    ” I have a degree of sympathy for members of the public who are climate change deniers. I have this sympathy because I was once one of them”

    Such desperate faux bonding but that was before you realised you could not work for the Guardian without believing in Global Warming, regardless of the facts.

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    • #
      el gordo

      He was never a member of the Denialati, more likely he was a little sceptical of the theory that a harmless trace gas could have any effect.

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    • #
      el gordo

      Because I live in the bush I had a chance to watch Ross Cameron and Rowan Dean on WIN/Sky.

      Very impressive, it could pass for satire, they are going to tear down the AGW facade with insightfulness.

      From a political perspective its a brilliant move by Murdoch and Bruce Gordon, but how do you think it will play out?

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        I think you’re right El gordo it is lighthearted and quirky but it’s nonetheless something that’s missing on free to air TV and that’s an opposing view to most other MSM and their leftist agenda.
        As an OT I was listening to the weather on ABC radio this arvo and heard a warning I’ve never heard before .
        It was basically about a “severe” frost warning and even though the temp was expected to be -1 the air temps are taken much higher of the ground so temps at ground level would be much colder .

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          el gordo

          ‘… something that’s missing on free to air TV …’

          Ah yes but the bush people are now getting a different perspective, this is political dynamite.

          ‘The channel is broadcast on WIN’s regional free-to-air television network across 30 markets in six states including regional areas of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, and state-wide across Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.’

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    Greg in NZ

    “Snow and ice closed the Desert Road early Tuesday as an early spring storm [a winter blizzard] made its way up the country”.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/106796603/snow-and-ice-close-desert-road-gusts-to-120kmh-for-wellington

    Sub-zero temperatures, wind chill down to -18˚C on Mt Ruapehu – closed again today due to blizzard conditions – so much snow that other ski areas are also closed until they dig themselves out… happens every September just as lambing season kicks in yet ‘consensus media communicators’ are shocked! at how climate has changed extreme weather can be… d’uh!

    As snowboarders/skiers and surfers live for these kinds of storms, we be hootin’ for joy – while landlubber / city / believer / UN-cult types are gnashing their teeth, fingering their carbon-credit rosaries, phoning their nearest psychotherapist for some soothing, reassuring, climate science-fiction voodoo mumbo-jumbo. Movie on at eleven…

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    Amber

    The Guardian’s latest attempt at manipulation . Climate changes , thankfully it’s warming currently .

    A denier is a person or government that has convinced themselves Mother Nature has given up her day job
    and puny little humans are setting the earths thermostat .

    The Guardian excels at one thing … burning through owners cash .

    40