Naomi Klein Photo: Mariusz Kubik
Naomi Klein was the wrong person to send to a heavy-weight science conference — in “Capitalism vs Climate” she notices hundreds of details, but they’re all the wrong ones.
Naomi can tell you the colour of the speakers hair, what row they sat in, and the expression on their face — it adds such an authentic flavor to the words, but she’s blind to the details that count. She can explain the atmosphere of the room, but not the atmosphere of the Earth. One of these things matters, and Klein has picked the wrong one.
Her long attack on the Heartland ICCC conference this year is all color and style, and nothing of consequence — the lights are on and no brain is home. Unpack the loquacious pencraft and we wallow in innumerate arguments that confuse cause and effect, peppered with petulant name-calling. She can throw stones, but she can’t count past “one”.
Her aversion to numbers is crippling
Consider how she reduces planetary dynamics to a Yes or No answer. She thinks each skeptical scientist contradicts the next: “Is there no warming, or is there warming but it’s not a problem? And if there is no warming, then what’s all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise?” But oops, Naomi, the numbers matter, numbers like how much warming, and how many years are we talking about.
Is the planet warming? Well, since when, Naomi, since when? You might only be able to answer “Yes”, because that’s the ritual litany you’ve been trained to say, but independent scientists talk about whether it’s cooled in the last 10 years, warmed for the last 300 and changed since William the Conqueror. When it comes to the warming in the last century, is it by 0.7 C or is it really 0.5? This is where the scientists at the Heartland conference were at.
Like a color-blind art critic, it’s as if any number bigger than zero or one went right over her head.
Her thesis sinks quickly to a parody of intellectual wit. Naomi thinks she can understand planetary radiative physics with psychoanalysis. (Essentially she knows she’s right because those who disagree vote the wrong way too).
Those with strong “egalitarian” and “communitarian” worldviews (marked by an inclination toward collective action and social justice, concern about inequality and suspicion of corporate power) overwhelmingly accept the scientific consensus on climate change. On the other hand, those with strong “hierarchical” and “individualistic” worldviews (marked by opposition to government assistance for the poor and minorities, strong support for industry and a belief that we all get what we deserve) overwhelmingly reject the scientific consensus.
Unwittingly she’s admitting that she picks her scientific theories according to her political aims.
She makes the child-like assumption that everyone else “thinks” the same flawed way she does
She believes those who disagree with her on the science do it because they vote differently — completely missing the obvious truth that a slab of the population can do what she can’t: that is, think.
She’s got cause and effect completely back to front. It’s not that skeptics pick their political masters, then “follow” the party line — they pick the theory and then find the right party. Klein apparently can’t imagine doing something as radical as looking at the evidence first, then picking the politicians who don’t seem to be barking mad, gullible patsies, fawning to the latest tax-mongering fallacy. It’s frankly a bland non-event that at the moment independent -thinkers lean heavily Republican. Which Democrat can see through the scam?
Pew Poll: The turning point for Republican voters was in 2008. [Source: http://www.people-press.org/2009/10/22/fewer-americans-see-solid-evidence-of-global-warming/
Klein’s denial of reality
Bad manners always say more about the speaker than the target. Klein deceives herself with her name-calling “denier”. She can’t name anything scientific that the so-called deniers deny. Instead she fell for the Richard Muller blatant fakery, where he pretended to be a skeptic, then was so conveniently converted. She’s the one denying that he was always a fan of the IPCC, and always thought CO2 was pollution.
The myth that Big-Oil drives the skeptics is manna for the confused, who can’t fathom why so many people don’t pander to the same messianic saviours that they do. Klein obediently totes out the “$900 billion” the top five oil corporates make in profits, but completely ignores the $10 Trillion market in carbon credits that a global trade could have produced. Again, the numbers are just too complex for her — Exxon and friends might lose 5 or 10% of their bottom line to the monster carbon market, but the carbon market fans lose 100% of their profits if the big scare is exposed as a fake. There’s ten times the money pushing for a carbon market, and Klein blindly acts as a sock puppet for the big financiers.
The scientists speaking at Heartlands Climate Conference were so far ahead of Klein, they might as well have been speaking Urdu.
The logical vacuum sucks
The entire 9600 word tome depends on one sole point: the evidence that doubling CO2 causes major warming, not just 0.5 degrees, but 3.5 degrees. (There are those problematic numbers again). Klein starts from the assumption that the way to know if the third rock from the sun is artificially warming is to parrot government scientists — hailing “Gods” appointed by the politicians. Thus everything she writes, collapses from the start. Science is not about following government appointed prophets, but about the evidence, the measurements, and the observations. The weather balloons, satellites, ocean buoys and ice cores are unanimous — the modelers-of-doom are exaggerating. Klein never goes there. Her religion doesn’t permit it, and she’d have to deal with … numbers.
When Pat Michaels suggested that airconditioners would save people from heat stroke in France, Klein called it “callous”. Why? Apparently people are dying in Africa, in droughts, and Naomi thinks that airconditioners in France are causing it. Somehow it’s reasonable for the French to die of heat-stroke on the off-chance that by switching off the air-con they might create some rain in Johannesburg. Global dumbness is scary. How could reasonable people believe this?
Her “reasoning” disproves itself
By building her whole argument on un-scientific quicksand, Klein makes mindless statements that unwittingly apply more to her own arguments than anyone elses. She explores “how the right has systematically used crises—real and trumped up—to push through a brutal ideological agenda designed not to solve the problems that created the crises but rather to enrich elites.”
No one uses trumped-up-crises better than the left: Which team is demanding billions to “stop the storms”? And which elites will be enriched? The carbon traders and financiers.
The so-called victims of right-ideologies are theoretical postulates of the future. The victims of the left are here and now. Which brutal ideology fed corn to cars instead of starving Haitian children? Which fantasy-team thinks bat-chopping rotors in Denmark will stop floods in Bangladesh?
Whoopsie where’s the death threat?
Naomi can’t even manage to recognize a real death threat from a statement of someone who won’t cow to her faith. She recites the lines about “death-threats” but can’t even name one example of an actual threat:
Many climate scientists report receiving death threats, as do authors of articles on subjects as seemingly innocuous as energy conservation. (As one letter writer put it to Stan Cox, author of a book critical of air-conditioning, “You can pry my thermostat out of my cold dead hands.”)
The letter writer was not threatening anyone, except with his determination to set the temperature in his own home.
“Accepting the science” means religious devotion to the establishment line
When Klein says people accept the science, she misses the detail that “the” science she refers too, is the permitted science advocated by government scientists, not the science discussed by independent scientists. Once again, it’s not about the evidence, it’s reduced to Government Scientist: Good; Independent Scientist: Bad.
Where’s the evidence that man-made emissions cause global warming? Only religious devotees think the answer starts and ends with “97% of our climate scientists say so”. That’s a logical fallacy, it’s only 75 scientists, and many of them will admit their models are flawed and the uncertainties are large. The consensus was fake from the start.
Klein thinks the answers to feeding the poor lies with “Big Government”, but rational thinkers know that more than anything, the fate of the poor depends on clear thinking, real evidence, and polite debate. None of which is on offer in this article.
Reading Klein is like visiting a parallel universe — her religious devotion to her ideology means nearly every sentence is the exact opposite of the truth. More’s the pity that The Nation has no editors who recognise innumerate drivel and an ideological rant based on a logical black hole.
Bad mannered bluster, blind assumptions, and religious rationalization have always been the tool of witchdoctors and con artists.
Naomi Klein: Nice writing, shame she can’t think.
——————————————————————————————————–
Image: Mariusz Kubik,
A female big mouth.
Normally blokes do that.
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Off topic but worth sharing:
El Hierro Webcam went online today:
http://hierroendirecto.movistar.es/
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Time to switch to decaf Ms. Nova:) But absolutley true. Any chance of a retort from Naomi Klein?
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Decaf for Jo OK, but what is Naomi drinking?
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Or smoking?
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Jo, a couple of typo’s.
Do you mean messianic where you have messiac?
Whoopise should be whoopsie.
My proof reading is better early in the morning 🙂
Good post.
REPLY: Thanks Fijidave. Fixed. 🙂 JN
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I have now read the diatribe, and, my word, she does have it bad doesn’t she?
Even quotes Marx.
And Gaia even comes in.
It is hard to believe that some people have allowed themselves to be so radicalised; it’s almost as if one brain hemisphere is divorced from the other. Common sense in one, and blind obeisance to the party line in the other, and guess which side is in control!
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But … but … but … she must be serious … she wears such serious glasses … and she has a fancy pen … and everything!
Or perhaps she is paid by the word, to write whatever her sponsors want?
If that is true, it would make her a literary prostitute.
Perhaps serious glasses, and a fancy pen, are the literary equivalents of the micro-skirt and six-inch heels?
It could explain a lot.
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“Exxon and friends might lose 5 or 10%”: you are kidding aren’t you? any tax paid by the oil companies will go straight onto the pump price with a little extra for good luck.
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Excellent point, Oldie. A tax on any corporation is essentially a stealth VAT. A tax on the maker of jeans is passed on in wholesale prices to Wal-Mart, which passes the price increase along to the consumer together with its own tax bill.
But this obvious fact is, in comparison to other psychotic delusions of the Left, only a minor glitch. Anyone willing to believe, as Naomi obviously does, that the microchips that make her word-processing computer work can be produced “sustainably” in the village smithy — well, for such a person, believing imbecile fantasies in mere economics is child’s play.
Jo demonstrates in this excellent post that the ideology of the Left is pig-ignorant and idiotic to boot. Well done, Jo, but it amounts to irrefutable proof #2,309 of the same points, and I have to wonder when the general public — and especially the media — will finally recognize these folks for the dung-beetles of history that they are…
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Nice work Jo, though you barely had to swing the sledgehammer very hard as the target seemed to implode from within quite easily. 🙂 You deserve a medal just for having the patience to read that whole 9600 word proletariat puff-piece.
But… Naomi who?
Let’s see how many alarm bells we can set off about this Klein character.
She’s an anti-corporate anti-globalisation activist [klang!] who made a documentary about a south african group called the “red shirts” who try to capture private land from owners and recreate giant communes [klang!] which originally started in the town of … you’d never guess… Durban [klang klang!] I’m shocked.
You see from some of those links that many people have noticed her inability to think. Not what you’d expect from someone who was 11th most influential intellectual in 2005.
The irony is that anti-globalisation girl has ben co-opted by the biggest globalists of all, the investment banks, and she doesn’t even know it.
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Andrew,
Nicely put.
It is interesting to me, that she was on the, “Most influential intellectual” list in 2005, and then had disappeared by 2008. Did she cease being an intellectual?
Or, perhaps, as the compilers of the list say: “As happens with many free Internet polls, this one may have been affected by organized voting campaigns …” Hmm, pay-for-vote, perhaps?
Perhaps she got out-bid by the campaign to promote Al Gore, who wasn’t on the list in 2005, but had purchased an intellect by 2008?
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Rereke, you are now leading me to question the veracity and usefulness of a statement I recycled from a Wikipedia article that was based on an Internet poll.
Have +1 from me.
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Andrew, it wasn’t intended as a criticism. I am always impressed by your research.
I was merely overlaying my own terminal cynicism to try and figure out how people like her might game the system. There are so many ways …
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As as you have mentioned investment banks, you might assume that it was they, who might sponsor “literary prostitutes”? They would certainly get a return on the investment.
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I thought they were called presstitutes — someone who has been bought for 30 pieces of silver to write what their masters want written.
That’s not quite literally true here. She probably didn’t get anything for jumping on board. But she no doubt profits quite well from her “work”.
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Spot on AMac!
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Paradox is the essence of being human: believing one thing should be done and doing something else, instead, or thinking in an honest way one moment and not, the next. Self-deception is an essential tool for self-advancement. It is most developed in the most intellectual.
Klein has a “large” view that sees numbers, details, as minor rough spots on a generally smooth, polished surface. She doesn’t grasp – as the social science based philosophers and liberal thinkers don’t do in general – that the large is generated by a collection of the small. She doesn’t grasp if you want to get that ship to Mars an off-the-cuff equation won’t get you there, and that an off-the-cuff concept of CO2 won’t tell you anything about whether we live or die in 2100. The 4th decimal is the one that rules the end, not the first.
Hers is but a minor example of the thinking problem that gives us almost all of the countries of the world refusing to spend less than what they earn, and megalomaniac-al leaders launching attempts to control the world militarily or politically. If we behave as if it is, it is: didn’t McLuan tell us that the medium, not the message, is what creates the buzz?
Wind, solar, biofuel. Grand schemes that through colour and charm make cost-assessment, availability and need irrelevant. Nuclear has spent-fuel disposal problems, coal makes smoke and dust, and oil spills hurt the environment for time periods of years. Photo-ops and community outrage have big colour and emotion of the other kind. So, again, the fundamental details are not irrelevant. Shakespeare had a character bemoan the loss of a kingdom to the want of a nail. Klein would have us believe that creating a kingdom means that you have no need to count nails. At least one Henry found otherwise.
The Liberal Left is all about feelings, not reasoning or counting. When all is about how one FEELS, what he NEEDS is not just secondary, but morally wrong to be brought into consideration. Love and generosity unbound will carry us through. Five fish will once fed the congregation; it can be done again. And again, and again, in her (and others’) view.
Klein cares. Gore cares. Hansen and Suzuki care. Or, at least, appear to do so: the perception of caring is actually more important than actual caring. The actual caring by deed can be carried out by underlings as long as the overlings have set the parameters for caring right. Which she and the others know how to do. Tough love is for harsh people; martyrdom for one’s cause is better, if unfortunate, when feelings, rather than reason, guide your life. Klein et al want to be remembered for what they stood for; little people want to be remembered for what they do, in comparison.
To Klein, the world is a warm, soft puppy if only “we” – the Republican, white, conservative, western male – would step aside and allow it to actualize. There is no nature “red in tooth and claw”, only self-aggrandizing, interfering, greed- and power-driven sociopathic madmen standing in the way.
If you perceive the world to be so, it can be. Details don’t matter, concepts, do. We’re fouling the environment, we’ll all die. Numbers don’t matter, structures, do. Coal burning causes CO2 to rise, so we will go fall. Poison in a pound is poison in a pinch.
Perfection is the only goal; good is only a four letter word for “bad” when the extreme end is not the target.
You can’t argue with those of the Klein – or Suzuki – persuasion. They are the intellectual sponsors of two hundred get-rich schemes that can’t fail. When you point out an industry profit margin of 6% means that many of the schemes MUST fail for the number to be that small, you are a nay-sayer, a curmudgeon and, most importantly, one to be dismissed AND OSTRACISED as a non-contributor and pee-er-on-the-parade.
What is most disturbing of the Klein and her position is the profile she – and her look-a-likes – have. They matter. They appeal to the surficial, the soft and the simple. They demand nothing of their audience but their belief. And that, it is clear, is easily given.
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Another gem!
Thank you Doug.
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Nice posting Doug; CP Snow in his book, “The Two Cultures – and a Second Look” covers this area (in part) very well. I would however be careful in stereotyping people along the lines you have. Many will mistake that Klein herself (among numerous others) is of a certain type, or has a particular world view, or actually believes what she herself has written. The threat of CAGW is a big game that seeks to push globalisation, establish global governance, etc and is being played within the context of the Hegelian dialectic (“the ends justify the means” is a reasonable summary) where propaganda is the main tool. Just because one writes propaganda does not mean that the writer herself believes it. Klein is no fool. If we start partitioning people in “types” then we risk falling into the trap that Klein has set; we then become easy prey to (or continue to) be labelled as deniers, reactionaries, old white males, etc, especially by the young and naive, the under-educated and the gullible. Her role here (I suspect) is to undermine the effective role that Heartland has played overall in challenging the CAGW orthodoxy, in the lead up to the Durban conference, by reinforcing the established mantras.
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[…] problem with numbers 11/11/2011FeaturedNo comments Naomi Klein Photo: Mariusz KubikJoanneNova.com.au November 12th, 2011 Naomi Klein was the wrong person to send to a heavy-weight science […]
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Like I said, new people with the same old ideas get the same old results. We need new ideas to be installed into the same old people to get a different result. Until then, changing the names on the doors won’t change a thing that matters.
Hope is not a strategy. Wishing is not a tactic. Guessing doesn’t work except by accident. This reality requires us actually to know and then to act accordingly. That is if you care about where you are going and how you are going to get there. If you don’t care, it doesn’t matter. All destinations will look the same.
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wisdom in it’s simple, brilliant clarity.
OMG! thank you Lionell !
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Lionell, that ALL sounds far too logical and true to be admitted into the global warming debate.
Oddly enough, the greens agree with you – but only halfway, as The Junkman explains…
Greens to seniors: Die faster.
Sure the processes and the system need a sustainable basis, but a science-derived reality is the only obvious candidate. People will always come and go and they take their beliefs with them, so it is our institutions that are the keepers of the future. Institutions need to get serious about the scientific method if they want themselves and their slice of the world to be sustained.
It is a fundamental error of the agist leftists to mix culturally subjective issues, such as gay marriage, with objective issues, such as the operation of the climate. Whether a society permits gay marriage is a question whose answer can be whatever the people want it to be. It is no surprise that inter-generational differences occur there. By contrast the climate is what it is, and does not obey election results and does not care who emits CO2 in the privacy of their own home. There is no clear cut intergenerational issue here. The High Priest Warmist, James Hansen, and his arch nemesis, Richard Lindzen, are some of the oldest publishing scientists around and they are both (nearly) the same age of 70.
Any apparent discrepancy in the younger players is due to the funding regime suppressing research that isn’t politically correct, meaning that it’s only the established older players that can afford to risk genuine conclusions.
It’s difficult for old dogs to learn new tricks, but it’s difficult for everybody to learn how to think logically because it is not intuitive. Our brains learn by logical induction, and decide with logical abduction and logical deduction, but only 1 out of those 3 logical forms can create logically valid statements. The rest of the time we are unavoidably guessing. Induction is still needed for learning and science is the way to put limits on it and learn efficiently. The entire CAGW skeptical edifice is essentially derived from the assessment that CAGW is presently a result of both imprudent induction (CO2 has a strong warming effect) and wild abduction (it is warming, therefore we caused it).
What every new generation needs to learn is how to not fool yourself, because that’s what gets everybody into trouble, old or young.
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This is because you are not considering and using the fourth and most important step in concept formation: logical reduction to the facts of reality. Ultimately, if your logic is not connected to reality, it is nothing more than a manipulation of empty symbols. The logical calculation may be technically valid but it is totally without meaning because it does not refer to what is.
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Klein’s wooly thinking is unfortunate. It personifies the puffery of the armchair critic, the very bourgeoisie elite she seems to spurn. I am certain she could do better on the detail and analysis. Her artistic temperament however, is drawn to emotional content, is impassioned, driven by her own existential angst and cognitive dissonance. Her personal revolution from manic consumerism to the parody of a free spirited, bohemian intellect is a personal voyage of self discovery, the usual quest for emotional security. Her present devotional stage will undoubtedly move on. One day she will complete her personal Gestalt journey, possibly turning out to be a staunch supporter for individualism and iconic designer labels once again.
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That is an interesting delusion you are wearing Naomi. Who chose it for you?
“Is there no warming, or is there warming but it’s not a problem? And if there is no warming, then what’s all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise?”
Let us insert some words if numbers will not work for you.
Is there no warming RECENTLY, or is there warming LONG TERM but it’s not a problem? And if there is no RECENT warming, then what’s all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise LAST CENTURY? But now causing temperatures to fall.
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I send you an e-mail about hypothes.is – a system in development for peer-reviewing the Internet sentence-by-sentence without consent of the author needed (it can not be blocked when it becomes ‘inconvenient’)
The main idea is described as:
If wherever we encountered new information, sentence by sentence, frame by frame, we could easily know the best thinking on it.
If we had confidence that this represented the combined wisdom of the most informed people–not as anointed by editors, but as weighed over time by our peers, objectively, statistically and transparently.
If this created a powerful incentive for people to ensure that their works met a higher standard, and made it perceptibly harder to spread information that didn’t meet that standard.
These goals are possible with today’s technologies.
They are the objectives of Hypothes.is
An open-source, community-moderated, distributed platform for sentence-level annotation of the Web.
Maybe you should support projects like that so the next time such a piece comes out you can make your comments known directly in the article getting to people who actually need to hear it as opposed to mainly preching to the choir … stop the uphill battle and level the playing field!
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What is so bad about a warmer climate. BRING IT ON!
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Considering all the people that save their money so they can go vacation (in the summer) someplace like the Spanish Isles, the Caribbean, Florida, California, etc. it would appear warm is quite popular.
We are getting ready for winter here, I’ve been raking leaves for weeks now (it’s a Maple tree so the leaves on it take forever to drop), covering up leaky windows, and doing other cold weather prep. Not my idea of fun.
Snow is great to play in, but once you have to deal with what it does to traffic, or have to actually work outside when the windchill has taken things below 0 it’s not so great.
I have said before and will say again, a shift towards longer, colder seasons is far more of a concern than any warming would be. The potential problems are much, much greater.
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Only $10 trillion? my back of the envelope calculation for Australia using Treasury projections gives $1.44 trillion for the total cumulative transfers in the system over the period 2020 to 2050. According to Bloomberg, 60% of these transfers will go overseas – think Nigeria!
Now if I could just get .1% of that my problems would be solved!
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Jo,
Do you really think it is fair to expose all of these logical fallacies? After all, If these people can’t lie or use logical fallacies they wouldn’t’ be able to say anything at all…and besides….their ilk has never been too awfully concerned with truth or consistancy of thought. Except for possible this lady. There will always be style to criticize. She will always have something to say and since there is no accounting for taste she will always be right.
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Another heavyweight bashing by Joanne – I love it!
Nobody does this sort of thing better than Jo, she picks her ‘victims’ apart with unrelenting logic.
A featherweight like Naomi Klein really shouldn’t be leaving herself wide open to be roughed-up by Jo.
Did I say ‘roughed-up’, sorry, I meant eviscerated.
I do hope that Klein responds – but I’m not holding my breath!
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Klein won’t respond, she’ll be too busy being interviews by the MSM who fawn over her every word.
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Have thought for some time that even the alarmist scientists are activists, much in the Klein mould, before they are scientists and that that affliction, not science, is the cause of their alarmism.
On the other hand I’ve noticed that at least some skeptical scientists like John Christy have a concern for the adverse effects the implementation of anti fossil fuel Greenism, as advocated by the alarmist brigade, will have on people and weighing most heavily on the poor nations. My guess is that consideration, like the alarmists Green activism but in a humane direction is part of the reason they reject alarmism. i.e. the “cure” is worse than the disease.
I suggest the former attitude is the result of a selfish, uncaring, inward looking attitude toward humans to satisfy their quasi religious drive. I subscribe to the latter caring attitude which is one likely driver, apart from the science, of much anti alarmist skepticism.
In other words Klein is the metaphor for alarmist climate science.
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[…] JO NOVA BLOG Naomi Klein’s crippling problem with numbers November 12th, 2011 | http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/naomi-kleins-crippling-problem-with-numbers/ […]
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A Top Student of the “Self Deception School of Dis-information for the masses” also known as Fashion for Science. 😉
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This is one of the fun things about the Republican primaries. And which proves Jo’s argument perfectly. Mitt Romney is being tied in knots right now by the powerful expectation of the rank and file requiring him to be sceptical on CAGW. But that is against his previous positions and appears to be against his own instincts. Its like watching someone in a straightjacket struggle – but the Republican electorate isn’t letting him get away, they’re dead set on anti-CAGW and won’t accept any wishy-washy compromises.
Its fortunate that he’s not rebelled against this because he’s looking more and more likely to be the candidate. Mr Huntsman is a good object lesson here: he’s a CAGW fan – and his support not surprisingly is lower than the snail slime on your driveway.
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It’s disappointing to see you drink the corporate media kool aid. I’m one sad panda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_polls_for_the_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2012
The real story for 2012 is Ron Paul leaving the Republican Party after he gets the shaft then, joining the Libertarian Party with Jesse Ventura as his running mate. They could be the third party that John McCain has been lamenting about. I’m pretty sure he can see what most other libertarians can.
Sorry for the OT but, yet another example of people failing to check the data…
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I said “the candidate” not “the President”. If Mr Paul wants to do a Ross Perot that is his affair. I’m an Aussie, we mainly watch the USA so we can avoid being sat on by accident.
As to Mitt Romney being the candidate, that is only because he raises money faster than GISS raises temperatures and Mr Perry has crashed and burned. Mr Cain is OK until he gets a foreign policy question whereupon he struggles. Which means he’s going to get LOTS of foreign policy questions. And dirt digging questions. And tax questions. He may improve, but he’s having trouble getting the money rolling in. Its starting to but not in gushes.
Mr Gingrich is a dark horse, but that CAGW ad with Ms Pelosi is an anchor around his neck, and his political backstory is full of awkward stuff, so I don’t see him getting up.
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Bruce, these observations of yours are surprisingly acute. I especially like the reference to Perot.
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I’m aussie too, but I’m watching this race closely because of the rapid descent into fascism that the US is experiencing.
Mitt Romney as the candidate for the Republican Party has consistently tracked third in the straw polls behind the other two candidates Paul and Cain, in the last quarter. If you want to talk about the fund raising then you may take the advice of Jo in this post and actually look at the data and not regurgitate the MSM stories. Of the top three, Perry has raised the most in the last quarter at $17m. But, the amount raised in small contributions, less than $200, he has only raised $700 000(6%). Romney raised $14m with only $1.9m(13%) from small contributions. Most of these two candidates campaign contributions come from Wall St banskters.
Ron Paul raised $8m with roughly half coming in the form of small contributions! That data actually means something.
If you want to look at the amount of time each candidate is getting in the debates then, Romney and Perry are both getting double the time Ron Paul is getting yet he is the one building a solid base. I’m even going to go into the media blackout situation, maybe get Jon Stewart’s perspective. NB: These clips get taken down as fast as they go up so search “Jon Stewart Ron Paul” in Youtube. 🙂
You think climate change is the only subject the corporate media puts through their rinse and spin cycle?
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The last debate went for an hour and Paul got 90 seconds, he is the only one worth voting for as the rest will maintain spending money, wars, being Israels Bitch etc etc.
The US media tell you who to vote for by not talking about the ones you should vote for and if all else fails they will simply rig this election like the last ones.
Is the occupy movement a sign that US public are finally waking up?
On another note of fascism/dictatorships i noticed the new leaders of Italy and Greece are neither MP’s nor have they been elected by the people.
Everybody now
Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil
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Who will be the Republican nominee? Be careful about predictions. Things change fast. The straw polls are all over the map. There has not been a single primary or caucus. So we know nothing yet.
I don’t know how far he’ll go but you should watch Newt Gingrich. Right now I would vote for him over all the others. And frankly I think in a one-on-one debate with Newt, Romney would crash and burn.
Nothing’s decided until it’s decided. 🙂
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A short time ago this popped into my inbox: Newt now second to Romney, Cain in third place.
It ain’t over till it’s over.
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A bit here on the GOP candidates and AGW:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/28/mitt-romney-embraces-climate-change-denial_n_1063905.html
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Speaking of Naomi Klein, here is what she said in an article just Wednesday:
My emphasis. So she agrees that the whole CAGW thing is a progressive-green trojan horse. Hmmm.
Foot…meet mouth.
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You’re not much os a reader, I gather.
[make your point!]ED
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I couldn’t help thinking on reading this piece that Jo should be picking on someone her own size rather than this intellectual pigmy, whoever she is.
But it must be hard to find anyone worth debating these days. It’s only the left wing zealots and the numerically challenged who still believe in AGW.
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At first I thought “she’s had her hair done”. What a difference.
Then it donned, this isn’t that other Naomi that incites Jo’s ire, the self styled polemicist Naomi Oreske.
The whole thing is just so long & tedious & without merit, that I just cann’t muster the courage to read through it. I’m just so glad Jo has done it for me.
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But her hair looks nicely styled with the blonde streaks & she is fashionably dressed in that ‘power’ woman kind of way. The glasses make her look smart & the makeup seems subtle.
I’d say a good show all round from Naomi.
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Big Oil includes the biggest supporters of ‘carbon pricing’. Their competitor is coal, which will be the only victim of carbon taxes. How can Big Oil lose?
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Off topic, but again, this is numbers related.
I received a phone call yesterday from a man asking questions for a survey.
The survey was related to people’s impressions about the Stanwell Power Plant, and he asked if if I knew where it was.
I told him yes, that it was the major power plant supplying power for the Central Queensland area and that it was around 30 K west of Rockhampton.
He mentioned that I was the first person who actually knew where it was.
He then mentioned that the survey was for people in my household aged between 18 and 50. I replied that I was over 60, but would still be willing to take part.
He said sorry, but you are outside the ‘target range’ for the survey.
Oh well, no worries.
Before he rang off, I asked if I might in turn ask him a question, and he said OK.
I asked him how much coal Stanwell burned to produce the electricity it does generate. He replied that he had no idea, and I then replied, go on have a guess. How much coal they burn in a year, say in tonnes.
He then replied oh 100, 150 tonnes.
I told him that the figure was 4 MILLION tonnes.
Naturally he was astonished, and in fact said that he didn’t believe me.
I told him it was true and even gave him a web site address to visit to confirm it.
He said he would check it out, thanked me and we rang off.
His actual reply was, “Are you serious?”
I wonder if he did check.
When it comes to numbers with respect to this matter, people have no idea, no concept, and even when told the truth, they just don’t believe it.
The problem here is that while some numbers are so minutely small, as in ‘perceived’ and ‘modelled’ temperature rises, which are so close to zero as to be inconsequential, other numbers are so astronomically huge, that people just cannot correlate one with the other.
Here’s the link, and that figure of 4 Million Tonnes is on page 1 of 2 pages only, and under the heading there of ‘Fuel Supply’.
Stanwell Power Station (pdf document of 2 pages only)
There’s a nice image explanation of the plant operation on Page 2.
During the major flood in the Fitzroy River Basin in January, I was on top of Mount Archer taking some photographs with my small digital. When I checked the images on the computer later, I noticed that during a break in the cloud, you could see the stacks at Stanwell in the distance spewing out their
pollutionsorry, steam. That image can be seen at the following link to that image.Rockhampton Flood With Stanwell In The Distance
Tony.
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Incidentally, his reply of that 100 to 150 tons is being burned every 15 to 20 minutes.
Tony.
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Okay then, while we are talking about how numbers matter.
Stanwell burns 4 Million tones of coal each year.
Each Tonne of coal produces (on average) 2086 Tonnes of CO2.
Each Tonne of CO2 is costed by this Government at $23 per tonne.
Extrapolating that out, this new Tax will net the Government, and wait for this, $500 a minute, every minute of every day, and for the next 35 odd years of their contract, at today’s price.
That’s just for Stanwell alone, one plant.
$500 a minute.
Tony.
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Forgot to proof read in ‘Preview’.
That number for CO2 emitted per tonne of coal should read 2.86, and not 2086.
Tony.
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$500 a minute.
hmmmmm,
what price PM Juliar for a minute?
I’d pay 5c. Approximately the price per tonne of Carbon at the now defunct Chicago Carbon Stock Xchange.
What a deal, what a scam, what a f@#$%^g joke Tony, God help us!!
We need some common sense badly!!
PS. I have just got a book from my uncle on the 2nd/43rd.
I will let you know about it afer i read it.
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And unfortunately and to our great embarrassment, she is of the Great White North clan.
But she is from Toronto so that explains a lot – Torontonians believe they are the centre of the universe while the rest of us know they are just a bunch or self confessed progressive do-gooder eco greenie whackjob whiners.
Please don’t judge the rest of us Great White Northerners by the actions of one skanky, self absorbed nutter.
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Gday Fred,
Just wondering if Canuckistan is in the Socceroos World Cup Qualifying Group????
Have a nice somethingstan!!!
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G’day to you too, eh!
What is this soccer you speak of? We know it not here in the land of frozen ponds crowded with children playing hockey.
Will Oz field a hockey team for the 2014 Winter Games?
Gawd knows there are enough junior Aussies living here now – they own Whistler, for them to have lost their taste for games played on grass 🙂
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Interestingly, their football team is called the canucks. They’re even worse than NZ but there’s a decent Canadian player in the Brisbane Roar squad.
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Fred,
Does it have Melbourne (Australia) as a sister city?
Leads to the saying “You can tell a Victorian, but youy can’t tell one very much”
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That they had done great job convincing the right of the threat of global warming, that once they realized it was a fraud, they went back to the right vowing never to trust the left ever again. Still, it’s much better than the lesson our forebears learnt of the horrors of communism. Now if only a true centrist force would appear, to avoid the excesses of the current mob and avoid the perils of excessive government intervention, then we could get away from the nasty polarization of politics in Australia and even worse in the US.
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Amen!
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One of the more withering “handing her backside to herself on a platter” assessments I have read for many a long day. And I could only get maybe 4000 words in before I started feeling faint at Klein’s complete lack of nous.
My congratulations are proffered to those who got through all 9000.I’d already wasted enough time that I’ll never get back……
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I think you have misinterpreted the purpose of Naomi Klein’s essay.
It is not that she “has a problem with the numbers”, but that she is blinkered by an ideological obsession.
She opens her essay by repeating both the assertion by Richard Rothschild, a participant at a Heartland Institute conference, that policies to combat global warming were actually “an attack on middle-class American capitalism”, and his question: “To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?”
Her essay proceeds to justify Rothschild’s conclusion.
The main argument is that the only reasonable responses to climate change are strong government actions that devolve power and control to community level soviets- a globalised communism.
She premises that by asserting:
—Humans have pushed Nature beyond its sustainable limits;
—Inerrant scientific research demands a new paradigm for civilisation;
—Climate change is a message that Enlightenment ideals of progress are no longer viable; and finally
—There is a “mountain of evidence” proving that the worldview of free market capitalists is is a threat to life on earth.
The essay has no genuine regard for the scientific status of the IPCC’s theory of climate change.
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The reference of Pew poll graph is Rep-Dems-Ind from 2006 to 2009 is
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http://www.people-press.org/2009/10/22/fewer-americans-see-solid-evidence-of-global-warming/
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Error, read
reference is here
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She is nothing but a perverse person playing perverse games…. People like Klein will become more strident and ridiculous as their inability to understand become apparent to all…. Showing them to be the dupes that they always have been.
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An interesting take on the meme that the big bad evil greenie’s are running the show if anyone’s interested in reading outside the bubble.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/extreme-green-victory-pales-on-close-scrutiny-20111111-1nb9b.html
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Dumbass Catamon! you can’t distinguish between good legislating and good politics. So sorry for your dumbass….
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Steady on, Mark.
Around here when we trash-talk catamon we usually expect a standard of trash-talking much higher than that.
The Green-Left is big, it is evil, and their equality in power with the ALP in spite of getting only 1/3rd as many votes is a result of our curious electoral system. They are running the show as much as Labor, and they haven’t taken over as the Greens could not pass legislation on their own either.
If you have some objection to the SMH article, then explain your argument against Lenore Taylor’s spin on the facts or catamon’s interpretation of the article.
For example, I mostly agree with Taylor’s conclusion:
Well everything except “pragmatic”. The problem is not the politics per se, it’s that the politics is unconstrained by science. These two fields are supposed to meet inside the heads of those in charge, but they currently don’t. The greens are just the more idiotic of two big idiots. The idiots are running the show.
This is why Lenore’s view (mindlessly regurgitated by catamon) is mostly correct and – in my opinion – is also irrelevent to diagnosing the outcome we have seen so far.
Or as you so succinctly and brusquely put it, “distinguish between good legislation and good politics”.
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I accept your admonition however, that does not relieve Catamon from being a dumbass.
And it isn’t a small difference that I wrote: good legislating not legislation.
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I am sorry for misquoting you, I made that alteration deliberately because I thought you had just made a spelling error in “legislation”. I was assuming you meant a difference in delivering fair resolution of competing interests in regulated activities (product, legislation) versus the acquisition and maintenance of power (activity, politics).
You think there is some signficant and meaningful difference between the two activities “good legislating” and “good politics” but I don’t know what that might be. Are you talking about the diplomacy angle of politics as distinct from drafting legislation?
Sorry but I don’t get it. Can you explain the subtlety please?
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Andrew, sorry about the slow reply. The difference is that politics is more the dirty trading of favors and votes that has little to do with the virtue of any particular end product (legislation). Good legislating is separate from politics and has more to do with intelligent application of principles, with an understanding of history and morals to name a few.
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Exactly what was:
Curious, as i merely expressed an opinion that it was interesting, and alluded to the fact that it may have a premise different from the views that are “mainstream” on this blog, rather than offering any value judgement about the piece or even quoting it?
I’d agree with Lenore’s view that the meme being put about that the Greens are in charge of Govt is not supportable after more that cursory analysis.
Andrew, your problem with it seems to be that she isn’t using her column to bad mouth the legislation. Whatever her opinion on that why should she in this article? That obviously wasn’t what she set out to write about.
But since the peanuts are out to play.
Mark D. You are obviously a mindless twit to be offended enough to abuse someone because of the questioning of a cherished MSM meme based on analysis. I’d suggest you apply locally for the Village Idiot position as i believe, from the evidence you provided, you may be well suited.
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Oh yes that was “brilliant” analysis. A whole bunch of political wrangling to accomplish a piece of shit legislation.
I’ll proudly take the title of village “idiot” but where does that leave you?
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The article is by Lenore Taylor. If you read her stuff regularly and watch Insiders you will see her views on CAGW are to the left of the Labor Party.
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Cat, mistake number one is to read anything written by Lenore Taylor without a big, red asterisk: she’s a political fashion reporter and CAGW theory is big in Canberra. I think you’ll find she’s a captive of the meme with little native intellect. On the ABC’s Insiders, Andrew Bolt about a year ago boxed her into such a corner, she told him to “piss off”. Even SMH Labor apologists like Peter Harcher and Phil Coorey have more going on upstairs than our Lenore. Condescending, I know, but intentionally so. She’s a journalistic dud benefiting from the SMH’s positive discrimination and current preference for inner-Sydney Green Left types. I live in hope the paper will outlive its zombie phase.
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Lenore Taylor moved from The Australian (News Limited) to the SMH (Fairfax) a year or two ago (I guess Fairfax was a better fit for her left of centre political views). While at The Australian she was enlisted as the paper’s ‘climate’ reporter. I recall on one occasion when she was reporting about a sceptics’ conference she actually wrote it was noteworthy that the majority of attendees to that gathering were “old” (Astonishingly I also recall Malcolm Turnbull said something similar about sceptics). As Tom said read anything written by Lenore Taylor with a big, red asterisk.
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Comfort of the common man is the left’s lament
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Next on Channel Ten, NUMB3RS, starring Naomi Klein.
Director: Action!
David: Agent, I’ve been making a model of the locations of the crime scenes and found the perp is moving at 3.8 kilometres per day heading towards Neptune World.
Naomi: What’s that?
David: Neptune World? It’s a zoo for sea life near the bay.
Naomi: No, before that.
David: What, modelling?
Naomi: No, after that.
David: Kilometres? It’s an SI unit of distance….
Naomi: No just before that.
David: Three point eight?
Naomi: Yes, what is that?
David: It’s… a number.
Naomi: And what are they?
Director: CUT! Cut! Dammit! I knew I should have picked Natalie Portman! At least she was a straight ‘A’ student and a published scientist.
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What a HOT scientist! What was this topic about again?
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Good post Jo. How much wider can this advice be spread. I will link to it from my little site at http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/climatescientific
(John Nicol jonicol18 AT bigpond.com)
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Almost completely OT. I’ve seen a few Australian Stories lately, on ABC (the one you guys want axed). They have featured several murder convictions where they question the guilty verdict. The bloke who murdered his brother and parents, the bloke who drowned his kids in a car in a lake, and the bloke who threw his girlfriend off the gap.
Now just in case you misunderstand where I’m going, I think all three are guilty as sin. That they, or anyone else, thinks they aren’t guilty, is a mystery.
But here’s the bit thats funny. When I watch the supporters of these murderers, they invoke the same tactics that you guys do. They try and create doubt. And they do it by focussing on details, as if somehow by winning the argument on enough rather trivial details, they can then beat the overwhelming weight of evidence that sent these men to jail.
Anyway, I’ve been a bit busy, and haven’t had time to do a good trolling job lately, but I hope this makes up for it (I trust the usual cheque is in the mail Jo).
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That ‘tactic’ you observe John is what the greatest defense lawyers do.
That’s how they win the seemingly unwinnable.
The likes ofMichael mansfield‘s QC.
They understand what matters is proof, and when there isn’t proof but only ‘weight of evidence’, however overwhelming, all they have to do is destabilise that overwhelming weight and the shaky foundatations it rests on will crumble.
Weight of evidence is a poor substitute for proof, because what is evident is rarely quite as it seems. But while it’s convenient to believe, well why go to the trouble of questioning it ?
When one of these ‘guilty as sin’ cases crumbles, like the IRA bombings for instance, declaring them ‘unsafe’ is the just Justice system’s way of admitting it’s been caught with its trousers down, having convicted without Proof.
So where is it ?
🙂
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Joe V, I tend to think of action on climate change as being more akin to a civil case, which does not require proof, but merely the weight of the evidence.
There have been a couple of high profile wrongful convictions for murder in WA overturned in recent years. In both cases the person was obviously not guilty, and its a great shame no one went in to bat for them earlier. Where the justice system makes a mistake, it is incredibly slow to fix it.
In one of those cases, a young man (John Button) was accused of running his girlfriend down and killing her. A convicted murderer confessed to this crime. He already had run down a couple of other women. This evidence was not presented at John Button’s trial. Now that evidence casts real doubt on Button’s guilt. It is very unlikely he would ever have been convicted with that evidence. He spent a long time in prison.
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So, John, where is your evidence? Did you lose it? Is it hiding under your bed? Where is that much touted evidence for AGW?
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Evident is synonymous with apparent. Appearances can be deceptive and are generally limited by the point of view of the observer(s).
It is quite amazing what can be constructed with evidence, in the absence of proof.
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The man wants to operate on the weight of evidence. So does he have some evidence or not? It’s a simple and appropriate question.
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Hey JB i was watching a current affair or some such infotainment program and they were talking about the turtles and dugongs dying due to the last QLD floods, some twerp said they 9the floods) were caused by AGW and we should act now.
The fact that there is no proof nor evidence to support his claims means he is a liar can you lie in court JB?
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Can it be a lie ( for the purposes of ‘contempt of court’ ) if it cann’t be proven wrong ?
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Using the Precautionary Principle, every accused murderer is always guilty, and even if not actually guilty we must lock them away anyhow, just to be on the safe side.
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How many have gone to the gallows on the weight of evidence?
Has Australia just built her owngallows?
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Using the precautionary principle (to be on the safe side), we can lock up the innocent too that way we can be certain.
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Righto John, the problem with using “motives” or “tactics” as a logic tool is that for any Stupid Idea on Planet Earth, and for some of the Smart Ones, there will be someone trying to cast doubt on it. Ergo, once you get down to saying “your tactics look just like theirs, therefore … ” you are wallowing in the muddy dungeon of rationalizing whatever you have already decided is “true” and pretending that it is a reason.
Modelers cast doubt on the future “health” of the planet.
We cast doubt on their ability to predict anything beyond next week.
Naomi Oreskes tries to cast doubt on us. (She does things just like those defense lawyers do.)
By your own logic, we are innocent and guilty at the same time.
You are using a fork to chop down a tree. It’s the wrong tool.
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Wrong John. The skeptics focus on science and analyse real data. You give a prefect example of how the opposite group is trying to change the subject, make diversions, do not answer to the facts but introduce collective sin and accusations.
At first in the CAGW debate we need to clarify if there is a murder as there seem to be none, but you already want us to accept your sentence. There is no murder, so chill up. There are other cases on the plate that we need to focus on like real polution, famine, warlords and many others, but you take resources from the work to combat these crimes to use it to punish us.
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This is some of your best work JB, jo should give you a bonus this month :-))))
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Is this her in her younger days?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq1cSMsf8FA&feature=related
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Striking resemblance. I didn’t get the impression she was TransNational though.
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“The entire 9600 word tome …”
That would put her well on the way to one of those UWA PhDs to which so many of the numerately & logically challenged aspire, wouldn’t it ?
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Having now read the whole of the “9600 word tome” i can now confidently state an informed opinion on the OP’s post.
Pretty crappy, and maybe some kind of fear induced defense of the bubble??
Been a bit of that around the internet lately since the Carbon Price styff passed.
The criticisms largely seem to come down to the fact that she isn’t arguing or writing in the way the OP thinks she should and about what the OP thinks she should.
And who is the OP to tell people how they should write and about what??
Yup, she has put her position on climate change and skeptics without going into detail on the argument. Well,, wake up and smell the roses people. You may not like it but people are not going to rehash the same arguments time after time after time in every discussion. She has her perspective, others have theirs. Those perspectives inform their positions on various topics. To ALWAYS attack peoples basic perspective (as is soooooo common here) is just a way of dismissing them without having to think about ANYTHING they actually write.
I think we are seeing it a lot as more American thought seems to permeate the political discourse in Oz. Too many idiot Teabaggers ranting about Communism every time someone even hints at some kind of need for collective action on anything and to many “we wus wobbed” right wing staffers looking to their political playbooks.
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She clearly has an audience, who likes reading this kind of stuff , or at least a periodical that likes publishing it.
I must admit I’d no idea who Naomi Klein was before reading this post (& consequently confused her with someone else).
Perhaps it’s just my ignorance but I cann’t help feeling it really doesn’t matter . Her piece speaks to a likeminded audience, and to anyone else it speaks for itself.
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I read most of it. The general message seemed reasonable. As you point out, Joanne is angry because of the explicit assumption of Klein’s that Klein is right.
Speaking of crippling problems with numbers, let’s examine Joanne’s own:
Only religious devotees think the answer starts and ends with “97% of our climate scientists say so”. That’s a logical fallacy, it’s only 75 scientists
It isn’t 97% and it isn’t 75 scientists.
It is 75 scientists out of the 77 who answered.
Bayesian shortest confidence interval with no prior (95%): [92,99.5]
Now, that isn’t the full story, because we do have some information from which to build a prior, but it’s a much better claim than 97% or 75 scientists.
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Nice work Jo! “Unwittingly she’s admitting that she picks her scientific theories according to her political aims.” Yes, how true,
And Tristan, we know very well 97% story, you seem not to know it.
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Tristan,
If you can ignore that it’s an obviously biased presentation made at the maturity level of the village idiot and go ahead and swallow it, be my guest. I’m used to a higher standard of argument myself — one that doesn’t start off with the not even thinly veiled assumption that everyone at that conference was a fool, a tool of some evil organization or worse.
I am not only unmoved by such crap, I see right through it. It’s too bad you don’t.
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And Tristan, we know very well 97% story, you seem not to know it.
Tell me the story, Lars.
If you can ignore that it’s an obviously biased presentation…
And I suppose, Roy, that you think Jo Nova is the epitome of unbiased presentation?
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Tristan, sorry, go search for it, do your homework, if I correctly remember Jo has also a post on it, find and read it.
In addition you have to clarify for yourself what do even those 75 of 77 subselection from 2000+ say: do humans influence climate in a way, or does the human influence lead to “a catastrophal warming that threatens all life on earth”?
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I think you have missed the point. Klein’s big enemy is not so much the AGW skeptics but Capitalism aka big business. In her world AGW is just another manifestation of the sins of “Capitalism”.
You will note that this article was published in the left wing Nation (http://www.thenation.com/) where Klein has been one of its star performers over many years. I was a right wing troll on its blog there a few years ago and am very familiar with her writing and the many other contributors that share her constricted view of the world.
Despite this sort of “American thought” (which was popular here amongst our working class in the 1950s and still popular amongst our “intellectuals” as well as the American variety, except of course at the Nation, until the fall of the Soviet Union) it obviously hasn’t permeated even American discourse, let alone that of “OZ”, where in both places AGW skepticism has grown apace despite, as you suggest, this sort of “American thought permeating the political discourse of Oz”.
Perhaps the naive Klein is not aware that capitalism/big business is more even insidious than she imagines and is already getting into the “clean energy” business aided by government grants and carbon taxes and perhaps unwittingly her efforts on its behalf.
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Catamon:
Fascinating comment, catamon.
First, your complaint is wrong, as Jo explicitly addresses what Klein actually wrote.
Second, your parenthetical comment is a perfect example of what you are complaining about.
Heard of psychological projection?
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Elk I had a go at reading Naomi’s article but had to stop for fear of overloading my absolute BS filters… You could use it as torture device…
One of these days I’ll write an online agw bs detector…
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Klein was a Communist before she was an enviromentalist. She is a typical Watermelon; she doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the science, global warming is an excuse for her champaigne socialist elite to rule over humanity.
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Ah yes, self styled, darling of the Global Occupy movement.
Naomi Klein on Occupy Wall Street & Rebuilding a Greener Economy (Video)
That confirms what that’s all about then.
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OWS has been infiltrated by the VERY bankers that they are trying to fight (but with NO ideas how to).
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She is probably a John P (NAZI eugenicist) Holdrem supporter and a follower of that other NAZI wakko, Maurice Strong, who started this very scam (AGW).
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Well it’s game over anyway, so we may as well find a cold country to live in … we are all going to fry according to the IEA (International Energy Agency):
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-climate-deadline-is-closer-than-we-think-20111111-1nbhp.html
Yes, we have 5 (count em, 5) years to change our wicked ways sinners! After that we shall literally fry in a hell-like environment where temperatures are going to rise at least 6C.
The IEA released the WEO (World Energy Outlook) a couple days ago, which is where a lot of this originated. The WEO is useufl as a reference for energy stats, but the commentary regarding climate change is straight out of the IPCC playbook.
Hey and this came out just in time for Durban… go figure.
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Bulldust
Read and enjoy!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/11/finally-some-good-news/
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Yeah I had read that one as well. I forgot to link it to my post. Cheers.
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I didn’t have to read Klein’s diatribe because, after a short anecdote, the third paragraph begins: “Here at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet …” No need to read on. Use of the “denier” idea right up front. No facts to see here. An hour of my life saved. I’ll trust Joanne’s version of Klein’s rant. I already know what the Left thinks of climate and capitalism and note that Klein also supports the Occupy protests. I’m more interested in the science, which Klein obviously isn’t, because “her” people are in charge of the IPCC information monopoly – and the funding.
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Joanne — While I wholly agree with your analysis as to the major flaws in Naomi Klein’s article in The Nation, the sad fact is that an entire generation of American youth will tend to believe her simply because they have totally lost faith in capitalism — thanks in large part to 12-17 years of total indoctrination by our public schools and colleges/universities and the media (not talking heads but Jon Stewart and such like).
Moreover, the Obama Administration is likewise wholly anti-capitalist, and is already at work dismantling the structures of capitalism so as to make the “communitarian” takeover easier — EXCEPT that the reality is that many of Obama’s “supporters” are in fact mercenaries who are USING the anti-capitalist fervor to enrich themselves at the public’s expense (Solyndra is a prime example). OUR job in large part is to figure out ways to penetrate the thick-headedness of those legions of youth who blindly believe as Naomi Klein does that destroying the capitalist system is going to open the door NOT to a return to Stalinist-style authoritarianism but rather to a new paradise where LOVE rules. I saw this very same pattern in the Sixties — and then peace and love (Marshal Bloom, Ray Mungo and Liberation News Service) got beaten to a bloody pulp by the New Left. But of course THIS part of Sixties history is never reported by the press.
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Duggan,
You are very perceptive and accurate about Obama. Now we need a solution to the problem. I worry that it may already be too late.
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Roy,
You will appreciate this campaign bumper sticker:
“Obama 2012: Because our enemies need more time”
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There is a simple way to tell the difference between scientists and propagandists. If scientists have a theory they search diligently for data that might actually contradict the theory so that they can test it further or refine it. If propagandists have a theory, they carefully select only that data that might agree with their theory and dutifully ignore any data that disagrees with it.
In Naomi Klein’s case, she doesn’t even bother with any data at all. She merely regurgitates the anecdotal nonsense she is being fed by environmental lobbyists. She claims that the last 10 years have been warmer than any in the past: absurd nonsense that is contradicted by the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Holocene Warming and all the Interglacial Warmings of the last half-million years.
In order to be an editor or writer for the Nation, it really isn’t necessary for one to be scientifically illiterate, but it seems to help. There is, however one notable exception, and that is Alexander Cockburn. He was the only one associated with the Nation that exercised the due diligence and did his homework. The result was his series of articles in their May 14 – June 25, 2007 issues. When the “Climategate” scandal broke, he wrote another article that appeared in the issue of Jan. 4, 2010. The editors however were so intimidated by the “consensus” of environmental lobbyists that they felt compelled to add a disclaimer to Cockburn’s articles: thus demonstrating a totally unprecedented degree of cowardice for a “Journal of Opinion”. Clearly, the opinions they prefer are those as misinformed as Naomi Klein’s is on this subject.
It is tragic that what should have been a respectful dialogue between scientists on the merits of the theory that human emission of so-called greenhouse gases such as CO2 was causing global warming/climate change, has instead degenerated into a political harangue. Part of the fault lies with the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, and the Koch brohter’s front groups (Reactionaries pretending to be Conservatives). But a major share of the blame belongs to the IPCC-Gore_Hansen cabal, Environmental lobbyists, and Lberal Democrats.
But have faith, in due time that theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming will be exposed as one of the greatest frauds in the history of science. For details see “Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory” coauthored by myself and several other scientists and published earlier this year by Stairway Press.
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Thank you Martin, great summary.
I need more than faith! From where I view things; AGWers become more powerful, entrenched in govt. and richer every day.
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Naomi is another dipstick that either 1. doesnt believe in the globalist banker IMF UN conspiracy that started this crap (proved) 2. is a sockpuppet stooge FOR them posting disinformation.
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Duggan Flanakin –
it’s not only Solyndra:
13 Nov: LA Times: David Willman: Cost, need questioned in $433-million smallpox drug deal
A company controlled by a longtime political donor gets a no-bid contract to supply an experimental remedy for a threat that may not exist
Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world’s richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.
When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company’s financial demands, senior officials replaced the government’s lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.
When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.
Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a “sole-source” procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation’s biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government’s specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews…
If there were an attack, the government could draw on $1 billion worth of smallpox vaccine it already owns to inoculate the entire U.S. population and quickly treat people exposed to the virus. The vaccine, which costs the government $3 per dose, can reliably prevent death when given within four days of exposure.
Siga’s drug, an antiviral pill called ST-246, would be used to treat people who were diagnosed with smallpox too late for the vaccine to help. Yet the new drug cannot be tested for effectiveness in people because of ethical constraints — and no one knows whether animal testing could prove it would work in humans…
Investors such as Perelman saw opportunity. In 2003, Perelman, through his holding company MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., invested heavily in Siga and installed a team of executives to run it.
The move seemed prescient when Bush, in June 2004, signed Project BioShield, a 10-year, $5.6-billion initiative to fund the development and stockpiling of medications to counter bioterrorism…
From the outset, there was only one potential customer: the U.S. government…
Perelman and others at Siga’s affiliate, MacAndrews & Forbes, have long been major political donors. They gave a total of $607,550 to federal campaigns for the 2008 and 2010 elections, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. About 65% of that money went to Democrats. Perelman donated an additional $50,000 to President Obama’s inauguration…
From December 2007 to January of this year, Rose, Siga’s chief executive, served on the U.S. National Biodefense Science Board, which has advised Lurie on how to respond to biological terrorism and other potential health emergencies. (Rose was appointed during the Bush administration.)…
On Oct. 13, 2010, Siga announced that the government intended to award it a contract for ST-246 worth as much as $2.8 billion. Within days, Siga’s stock price soared…
The Obama administration could have awarded the contract to Chimerix as the only eligible small-business applicant. Or it could have reopened the competition to companies of any size.
Instead, the administration moved to block all companies — except Siga — from bidding on a second offering of the contract…
On May 13, HHS announced what amounted to the second awarding of the contract, worth between $433 million and $2.8 billion, depending on whether the government exercised options to buy more of the drug in future years. Siga hailed it as a “historic event for the biodefense industry.”…
Unlike the smallpox vaccine, which remains potent for decades, Siga’s drug is guaranteed for only 38 months…
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-smallpox-20111113,0,4293298.story
the OWS protesters who don’t get into the MSM, as opposed to the CAGW OWS crowd who do – talk about how it’s “socialism for the 1%, capitalism for the 99%. how any adult at this point can’t seen through the false paradigm of left/right, i don’t know.
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Klein is right; this is political; the Green sensibility of a regimented society with suppression of individuality is well documented [who can ever forget the human microphone at the 99% get-togethers?]; AGW has nothing to do with reality or rather scientific based reality; the use of modelling to sustain it and the concurrent manipulation of real data is sufficient evidence of that.
So Klein is true to herself; the ritualised authority of the consensus is all she needs to sustain her conviction. Increasingly the interest for me is the psychology of pro-AGW people like Klein and their inability to see the vast contradictions inherent in their philosophy.
For instance Klein cannot see that big business is now running AGW and that a large part of that business is criminal.
She cannot see that the main objective standard of humanity, science, is being perverted by the modelling which underpins AGW. In this respect I wonder whether she or any warmist can point to a scientist who is not on the government payroll or making a buck from AGW, who supports AGW?
No doubt she means well but there is an incredible arrogance behind her perspective; that arrogance is that humans can destroy the planet; others share this view, such as professor Sandiford, who compares the effect of humans on the planet to the Hiroshima bomb:
http://theconversation.edu.au/our-effect-on-the-earth-is-real-how-were-geo-engineering-the-planet-1544
Why do alarmists view human activity as bad and natural process good; it can only be a form of misanthropy; it is a small psychological step from hating one group of people, “deniers’, to hating all people; the step must be much easier when you subscribe to a political and philosophical view which denigrates individual rights as Klein does. When the ‘step’ has the additional impetus of hubris it not only gets smaller but unavoidable.
In short people like Klein are vain misanthropes; that most like her are also useless just rubs salt into the wound.
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There is an old expression viz – empty vessels (or bottles) make the most noise. I find it intriguing that so much empty noise emanates from someone with the name of “Klein”.
I doubt however that Mizz Klein would understand the reference.
🙂
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Interesting observation Richard — especially as a Klein Bottle is such a twisted thing, and many of them have their necks up their bottoms.
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That’s a good one! I think you both conspired to crack that funny…….
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here too bad about the topic…from
http://www.thegwpf.org/energy-news/4320-renewable-energy-bubble-scam-or-both.html
= (read) globalist bankers and like criminals ….THEY are the ENEMY!!! get it!!
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I wouldn’t worry about the differences between communitarians and individuals Naomi, because we’re all gunna die together anyway. What more coming together could a lefty ask for luv?
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Community spirit & a sense of community come from the individual , empathising and wanting to get involved & help personally.
This government directed thing being called ‘communitiarianism’, sounds quite alien, to any sense of community or human spirit.
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Reporters are innumerate. I am not really sure why people cannot understand that. They are not intelligent or smart. They write fast. That is all that they do. They can decribe concrete subjects. They cannot decribe abstract concepts accurately, precisely, plainly, completely, and thoroughly. In short, they are the people who ran the high school newspaper. They enjoy gossip. They enjoy the access that they have to celebrities and politicians. They are constantly looking for their next job. They are waiting for their ship to come in. They are looking for that position as communiucatuions director of some governmenttal agency. They have no heavy lifting to do. That is for the interns and the low lifes. They are arrogant, stuck-up, elitists, and very very liberal. They do not have a brain. No thinking person would ever conclude that climate is solely caused by man made CO2, given the complexity of the atmosphere, the extraterrestrial forces that affect the earth, the terrestrial forces that are only understood at a very basic level, and the complicated aspects of chemistry, physics, geology, and biology that affect temperature and climate.
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Read the whole thing…almost. Couldn’t go on through about the last fourth of it. What a bunch of drivel.
For as long as I’ve been following politics the left has always committed one very serious mistake — they always try to deny what human nature is. Some people will go along but mostly people will not cooperate with anything that works against their own good interest. This is why socialism, communism, central planning and every other idea to control people’s behavior have ultimately failed. No matter the price of gas the American people vote against Klein’s high speed rail and mass transit with their money at the gas pump and their tires on the freeway every day, 24/7/365, year after year.
Anyone who fails to understand this point ultimately goes nowhere, at least not with persuasion. So failing to get everyone on the bandwagon voluntarily they resort to force. We’re seeing it now.
Australia: A crippling tax is now in force. Does any straight thinker believe this will be the last of it? It’s not even the first of it. Your environmental regulations are worse than ours.
USA: A world-be dictator is working as hard as he can to rule by force — and he’s almost made it. He is in total disregard of the Constitution, federal law and direct federal court rulings. Judicial Watch
Naomi Klein isn’t the problem. She’s just a symptom. Heartland (bless them for trying) is not the solution. A public in touch with reality and aware of what’s going on is the only thing that’s going to stop Obama. And I daresay it’s the only thing that will save Australia.
I don’t see that here. Do you see it in Australia?
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Roy, well said. Unfortunately I don’t see in Australia a public in touch with reality and aware of what’s going on YET. With the Greens still polling 11 to 15% of voter support and the Labor / Greens coalition government with 47% of two party preferred support there is much work to do. But the left always seem in control of the political narrative and 24 hour media cycle through their allies in the MSM. The hope here lies in the fact the conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott has clearly stolen support from labor’s traditional working class due to issues such as the Carbon Tax. The Carbon Tax is increasingly (and correctly) seen by the working class as a trendy inner city issue that will only shift Australian jobs into developing countries with less efficient energy production.
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Such actions are the stuff of politics. Politicians don’t like facts because a politician can be proved wrong. The vaguer an answer the more they are right. This is why politicians so often flatly refuse to give a straight answer.
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New cold period coming?
http://iceagenow.info/2011/11/russian-scientists-predict-100-years-cooling/
(Link to original paper embedded in this story)
Now before the warmologists decry this as just another nutter please consider this. The claims of no more snow and continuing droughts that you swallowed without question came from much less, flimsy evidence.
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was briefly listening to 2UE last nite when Tim Shaw interviewed Greg Hunt about how the Coalition would repeal the carbon “dioxide” tax. Hunt clearly said one reason there’d be no need for compensation was because a Coalition Govt would not be taking any Permits away from the Companies who received them from the present Govt. a Coalition Govt would simply be telling the companies they no longer had to pay the tax.
Shaw followed up immediately with an interview with some guy whose name i forget, who i think was an economist, who was fairly even-handed and said it would be possible for the Coalition to repeal, after a double dissolution, but it might take longer – 1-2 years instead of 11 months max as Hunt had suggested. however, the economist (hope i have his profession right) spoke of a Coalition Govt taking back the Permits, which Hunt had said they wouldn’t do and Tim Shaw did not bring up Greg Hunt’s own statement that they wouldn’t be doing that, or what the implications were if they weren’t taking back the Permits.
no-one in the media seems to be able or willing to pin down the real story. if a Coalition Govt does not intend to cancel/take back the Emissions Permits, surely that means trading in carbon dioxide emissions will go on, which i think we all agree is what the Coalition plans. yet i am sure the public in general does not understand this. Coalition supporters i talk to think the Coalition’s promise to repeal the tax – which would at least provide some assistance to the most vulnerable – is actually a promise to kill off carbon dioxide trading as well.
it is CO2 trading that underpins the entire CAGW scam, so someone explain to me why the media and/or the Coalition won’t clarify this matter so the public fully understands the implications of an ETS without the CO2 tax/compensation.
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I listened to that interview. The second guy (don’t remember the name either) was a constitutional lawyer and was giving a view on legalities surrounding the coalitions plans to revoke the CO2 tax.
As I recall Hunt’s explanation, “polluters” will be being given permits – or at least heavily subsidised ones – that will not be transferable. After the Coalition’s repeal, they will not be required to pay a tax any more, so will not have to pay to buy new permits. The original permits, not being transferable plus heavily subsidised would not constitute a property right. The lawyer largely supported Hunt’s opinion regarding possible compensation as well as the practicality of being able to repeal the bills within a year or two. The main difference was that Hunt felt that the election will be a referendum on the CO2 tax and, assuming the Coalition wins, Labor would not go against the will of the people – though current form suggests otherwise – and would not block repeal of the bills in the senate. A parallel was drawn to the Coalition not blocking the IR law changes that were largely the subject of Kevin 07’s election win. The lawyer said there’s no consititional concept of a mandate and Labor would not necessarily allow the repeal bills to go through.
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Anyone posted De;ingpoles version of Naomi?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100117165/only-a-totalitarian-new-world-order-can-save-us-now-says-naomi-klein/
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Pat so far as I recall the property in the permits as DavidH says will remain the property of the permit holder so that is the reason why just compensation will not need to be paid
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-plan/coalition-could-repeal-carbon-tax-could-be-repealed-within-year-of-election/story-fn99tjf2-1226175670577
Greg Hunt’s explanation
Mr Hunt also argues that there is no need to risk compensation by abolishing the tax.
“We do not have to cancel or abolish any permits they remain the property of the business in question. All that happens is that businesses stop having to pay any further tax going forwards,” he said.
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http://wakeup2thelies.com/2011/10/24/greg-hunt-mp-how-the-coalition-will-repeal-the-carbon-dioxide-tax-in-three-stages/
Greg Hunt again
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There is a podcast of Greg Hunt talking to Tim Shaw of Sydney 2UE yesterday discussing this. Hunt made the point that it is ridiculous for the Labor Party to imagine that it can bind future governments to its beliefs. It is nothing more than a futile attempt to browbeat any opposition.
Constitutional expert George Williams states that the bills would not be impossible to repeal and that the “property rights” might not be as iron-clad as the government wants to think.
Podcast here:
http://media.mytalk.com.au/2ue/audio/141111legalmatters.mp3
There’s a few minutes of introductory material before the “meat”.
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[…] Jo Nova. When Klein says people accept the science, she misses the detail that “the” science she refers […]
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/naomi-kleins-crippling-problem-with-numbers/#more-18829 […]
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thanx to everyone for further comment on the Tim Shaw interviews.
val majkus –
special thanx for the article which i read in full from the Liberal’s website.
at the risk of sounding stupid, i still do not understand the Direct Action plan, and still do not understand why we are fighting carbon dioxide in the first place.
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Yup, just a different version of stupid; its only advantage is that it can be quickly and unceremoniously jettisoned at the appropriate time.
And I don’t understand it either. Probably just a sop to keep Malcolm onside with the doctor’s wives in his division of Wentworth. He doesn’t hold it by much, you know.
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The Direct Action Plan is designed to appease the (fully sceptical) National Party members.
The DAP resources will be used in rural areas helping farmers with tree plantings, better farming practices, putting nappies on cattle and sheep, ‘green’ jobs in towns (for farmers wives for instance) etc.
Helping farmers is always a good thing.
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Ahh! So more pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
Ta muchly for that BH.
Oh, do you happen to have the supply contract for the livestock nappies?
Just askin’.
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nappie contracts and green jobs in town for the wives……something ain’t right here.
just sayin…
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Hey, Mark D., nice to know that something’s gonna save the economy. Where do we sign up for training?
Errr….on second thoughts!
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A brilliant and thorough take-down Jo. I tip my hat to you. Just one tiny quibble: right at the end you accuse Klein of “Nice writing”. Having slogged through the 9,500 plus words Klein takes to say, badly, what could probably have been said better in a paragraph, I have to ask you: “Evidence?”
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Yeah, Jo is not too good at accusations. I think she should retract that (obviously) erroneous one.
Speaking of “Nice Writing”, I’m a bit of a fan of your writings Jimmy D. I visit as often as I can. Keep up the good work.
p.s. A special thankyou for attracting 97% of the worlds trolls to your blog, keeps ’em off of ours.
(Kinda like illegal immigrants aren’t they? You wanna help a few of ’em but all of a sudden the bloody flood gates open.)
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James, look, fair point, aside from the vacuous content, poor reasoning, innumeracy, and unconcise nature, you do have to admit she can string the words together, has a good vocabulary, and got the punctuation right. And remember I only said it was “nice “.
🙂
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James, weren’t you coming out to Oz in November to promote “Watermelons”? I’ve been looking out for any publicity, but haven’t seen any yet.
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In the words of Jackie Gleeson, How Sweet it Is! I must remind myself to spend much more time on this site for my edification. I find this site very uplifting, thank you Jo and friends.
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Would you be less upset if we just said you’re “in denial” than being a denier? That you’re in denial is just a fact, but if it upsets you to be told, we can try and use slightly softer words.
—————————
REPLY: Thanks Rob for being so touchy feely considerate with your baseless namecalling. We’d be more impressed if you can post a logical argument in a complete sentence with substantiation and no names. You are free of course to call us “Deniers” if you can name the scientific paper we deny. Apologies will be accepted.
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Calling a spade a spade is not name-calling – when you’re psychologically in denial (in the face of difficult facts), there’s no point in pretending otherwise. Which peer-reviewed paper do you deny? There are so many thousands, summarised by the IPCC. But if you want one to go by, how about Rosenzweig et al., “Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change”, Nature 453, 353-357 (15 May 2008). It’s even free.
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Righto Robert, good effort. That is indeed a peer reviewed paper, AND it mentions climate change. Congratulations. Now, explain which part of this study shows that CO2 caused the warming. Remember any cause of warming will melt ice, raise sea levels, and change wombat migration patterns. We need evidence that CO2 caused the warming. — Jo
—————————————-
Publication Abstracts
Rosenzweig et al. 2008
Rosenzweig, C., D. Karoly, M. Vicarelli, P. Neofotis, Q. Wu, G. Casassa, A. Menzel, T.L. Root, N. Estrella, B. Seguin, P. Tryjanowski, C. Liu, S. Rawlins, and A. Imeson, 2008: Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change. Nature, 453, 353-357, doi:10.1038/nature06937.
Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents.
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Hang on, Joanne, aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? Are you saying you accept the findings of this meta-analysis then?
—-
REPLY: I’ll make this as easy as I can for you… You are mixing up cause and effect. Every correlation in the study may be true, but it’s a collection of correlations, there is no causation, no evidence that CO2 caused that warming, or any of the effects of warming. I repeat, “explain which part of this study shows that CO2 caused the warming.” Waving at the IPCC is not good enough. The evidence is “overwhelming” right? So it should be a snap for you to name THAT paper that we deny. –JN
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You’re dodging the question, Joanne. This paper clearly concludes that human-caused emissions are by a long margin the most likely cause of the recent out-of-course rise in global temperatures. Do you agree with the paper or not? You’re getting ahead of yourself by going on to further questions. It’s nothing to do with me “mixing up cause and effect” – you asked if there was a peer-reviewed paper you deny, and I provided one. Are you saying you don’t deny the conclusion of this paper now?
—————————–
Robert, I’m not dodging the question. You are. I said I agree the correlations reported exist (do you deny I said that?). Explain how this paper shows that CO2 causes the warming. Their only “evidence” is a government committee report (which I’ve read). Just because a paper “concludes” something doesn’t make it real. I repeat: Explain how this paper shows that CO2 causes the warming.. Where is the evidence? –JN
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I’m not dodging the question – I’ve answered it some time ago. The question you asked was whether I could supply a peer-reviewed paper you deny. I did that. You are adding other questions, and have now answered that yes, you deny the conclusions of the paper. Case closed – it’s fine to say you’re in denial. It’s not up to me to say what the science says (I’ll leave that to the experts, who have made their case abundantly clear. Why you reject the IPCC is another point). I have substantiated my claim that you deny the science, which includes conclusions – they are peer reviewed too. See you – I have more important things to do (like actually work towards addressing this crisis, not shirk reponsibilities with denial).
————————————
REPLY:
So the man who calls people “deniers” won’t discuss the evidence, denies that there ought to be a cause and effect link between evidence and the “conclusions” and with blind faith accepts conclusions issued by government committees. His religious faith in papers which don’t offer any evidence, but just parrot the committee opinions, is beyond discussion. Now my question is, just how many people have this pathological need to have “Faith” in authority? –=JN
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Well, I need to reply to that. Sorry, Joanne, but I really think this is an unfair misrepresentation. I said you deny the published evidence, and demonstrated that you do indeed deny the findings of a peer-reviewed paper, in Nature no less. It’s not my role to discuss the evidence – that is for those who really know what they’re talking about. That’s the problem here – people thinking they know better than the experts. It’s not faith – it’s normal rational behaviour to defer knowledge to those who are expert in the field. You do that in every other area of life, why not with the important area of climate science? Why do you call this pathological?
———————————
REPLY: Thank you. That is a genuine answer. (Maybe “pathological” does not apply.)
That deserves a real reply.
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Robert Davidson, You seem to have a problem with the meaning of “denial” versus simply disagreeing with the conclusions (opinions) of the authors of a paper.
As a reality check let me ask you:
Do you deny the possibility of defects in the peer process?
Do you deny the possibility that all other climate variables are not well enough understood?
Do you deny the fact that some climate researchers withheld information that should have been available through FOI requests?
Do you deny that the effects of water vapor dwarf the effects of co2?
Do you deny that climate scientists like Hansen have a political agenda?
Do you deny the abilities and views of credentialed scientists like Spencer, Christy, Lindzen (to name just a few)?
Do you deny that the AU carbon tax will have almost no effect on global co2, or global temperature?
Do you deny that wind or solar power can never meet the needs of modern society?
I could go on but why? I predict it’ll be clear that you have the denial problem.
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Robert,
Can you see that “evidence” is not the same as “conclusions”? I accepted the evidence, but wanted to discuss their conclusions.
I’m not denying what the paper claims. I am asking where the cause and effect link is. All forms of warming will cause the effects they document. Yes, the world is warming, but No, I haven’t seen evidence that CO2 has caused most of it. I agree CO2 is a greenhouse gas, I agree it causes some warming, I want evidence that supports the size of 3.3 degree claim.
You are most welcome to suggest some. (But repeating that the “IPCC says so”, is strongly suggestive but it is not an observation of the planet.)
Why do I not accept the experts? I do — I just prefer different experts to you. I find Lindzen, Spencer, Singer, Soon, Douglass, Knox, Carter, Idso, Michaels, Christie, Svensmark, Shaviv, Koutsouanis, are more convincing, even if I do not always agree 100%. They have empirical evidence. They share their methods and data. When they are found to be wrong on occasion, they admit it, and thank people, and issue corrections. I find them to be upstanding people of principle and integrity.
Some key IPCC favoured scientists lose their data, hide their methods, extrapolate conclusions far beyond what the evidence suggests, they don’t validate models, and resort to bullying and name-calling, they hide declines, refuse FOI’s, truncate graphs when it suits them. Even those who don’t make these egregious mistakes rarely if ever criticize those who do, hence they silently approve of breaking key tenets of science. However, even all these flaws don’t prove they are wrong. What does, are the results of 28 million weather balloons, 6000 boreholes, 3000 ocean buoys, 30 years of satellite data, and hundreds of proxies of midieval temperatures.
You are very welcome to comment here if you disagree with us, and we will thank you if you provide us with a new insight. No one is welcome to insult us with baseless names that cannot be substantiated.
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Hi Joanne, sure – I was really just trying to stick the main point, which was the request for a substantiation of my assertion that there is some denial of the science going on. I agree that there is nuance between conclusions and evidence, though not sure they are always very separable, and I do think the conclusions of those who deal most closely with the data, and test it through the most rigorous peer reviewing, should be taken more seriously than conclusions by non-experts. This is faith, perhaps, but no different in essence from my decision to trust the pilot and engineers when I step on a plane. So to me, it’s fine to say “the IPCC says so” unless it can be demonstrated that their conclusions have been overturned by experts with credibility. Those who dispute their findings have not convinced me at all, since their rarely-peer-reviewed findings are so roundly disputed by the most reliable experts in the field (I’m afraid it seems very clear to me that your list of experts are seen as mavericks in the field (and you’ll find naysayers in any area of science) or compromised by being too close to the propaganda of corporate interests (just like those Fred Singer et. al. hired to spruik tobacco against the evidence – yes, I’m afraid I find Oreskes’ evidence convincing, and she has put it to the test of peer review)).
If you have problems with the human error in the IPCC (and I agree with you, they do make errors), perhaps you should turn your attention to what goes on in medical research. Talk about some shoddy goings-on there. They are human. But the science over-all works out, because correction is built in to the process.
I stand by my claim that those who disagree with the most reliable experts are in denial. I don’t want to be insulting, truly, and I’m glad you want to have civil discussion. I can’t think how to say this in a non-patronising-sounding way, but I don’t think it’s a shameful thing to be in denial. However, it’s a dangerous place to remain long, as it obstructs the action which the best experts inform us is so urgent and critical. Even if there were only 30% certainty, but there’s 95%.
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You are disagreeing with someone who has far more expertise than you. (There are thousands more). According to your definition you are in denial with professors of astrophysics, atmospheric chemistry, radiative physics, 2 nobel prize winners, 4 NASA astronauts… (I could go on).
PS: Singer was never hired by a tobacco firm. He didn’t say anything against any evidence. Oreskes is THE Merchant of Doubt, seeding doubts about upstanding eminent senior scientists. You have read one side, and fallen for it without checking out what the accused said.
You may not want to be insulting but that’s exactly what the word denier is designed to be. There is no neutral polite side to the word.
Try this on – I don’t want to insult you, but you are a denier, you deny the tenets of science, that evidence by observation and measurement is always more important than the opinion of committees. You are in denial that the human process of “peer review” with unpaid anonymous reviewers can not be corrupted. You think Exxons $23 million dollars to skeptics is “convincing”, but are a denier of the influence of the $79bn US govt funding, $140 bn carbon trading turnover annually, $243 bn renewable energy investments annually, or that large financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, HSBC have been lobbying for years to get a carbon trading scheme through congress.
The worst deniers of all are the ones who can’t discuss evidence, and throw rude names.
BTW: Skeptics can cite over 900 peer reviewed papers that support out case. Believers — with all the funds, institutions and organisations behind them have yet to cite ONE paper with empirical evidence that CO2 causes more than 1.2 degrees C of warming in the long term, per doubling.
Robert, this is mind-bending for you, but hardly anyone was or is paid to find that CO2 causes minimal warming, therefore IF the “experts” were wrong, the only people who would find those errors have to be mavericks. Instead of supporting the volunteers who work for you against the establishment, you declare that the mavericks are “Deniers” — they who have read the peer reviewed papers that you won’t read, and who have asked the questions you are too lazy to ask, are double checking and auditing the richly rewarded, lauded “experts” who behave abysmally. You are defending the sloppy work, attacking the volunteers. You don’t have to agree with us, it’s a fair shortcut to “assume” the committees are right. But you could say “thanks” to the people doing the hard work.
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[snip] a week went by and apparently you “didn’t understood”
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Robert, thanks, please let me refine a few. I would not say some of them like that.
1. You have more expertise in climate science than me, and so do thousands of others (working in various areas of science and with various prizes etc), who similarly disagree with mainstream climate science.
My point was that you disagree with Professors of climate science. Therefore you are a “denier” by your definition. That’s not the way to sort out the planetary atmosphere. Appeals to authority are a poor method for deciding anything about the climate. As for my “expertise”, that only counts inasmuch as it’s a bit inane being called a denier, by someone who hasn’t looked at the evidence himself. Compris?
5. Peer review is unreliable, and peer reviewers are (possibly) likely to be corrupted by bribes, especially as they are unpaid
I’ve never said anything about bribes. If they ask people with similar views to “review” their paper and they aren’t going to look too hard to find errors. Some peer reviewed papers are good, some are sloppy. Look at the evidence. See this and this for more information.
6. Exxon has spent $23 million funding sceptics, and that is an insignificant amount in comparison to the many billions of dollars available through US government funding, carbon trading, and renewable energy technology investment and spending on government lobbying (in the US I assume, because of the word “congress”?). Is the implication that climate scientists and science organisations are likely to distort their research, or deliberately overlook conflicting evidence, as a result of pressure from those with access to the funds, or through direct incentives for funding for their projects?
Find me adverts for government funded positions where skeptical scientists can apply? Hardly anyone was or is paid to look for “CO2’s minimal influence compared to natural events”; why solar magnetic influences are much greater than GHG forcing”; Designing climate models with solar magnetic factors etc etc etc The paid climate scientists are just doing their job. They were paid to find a connection between CO2 and climate.
7. Only those who can discuss evidence should conclude that sceptics are wrong
You are welcome to conclude we are wrong, give us reasons, you might convince us. You won’t get much respect if you know little, yet call us names.
8. There are 900 peer-reviewed papers that support the case that anthropogenic global warming (since the Industrial Revolution and into the future), caused by emissions of greenhouse gases, is not a dangerous problem that will cause at least 2 degrees of global warming in the next 100 years.
900 papers show that the current climate models exaggerate the warming threat which is likely to be less than 1 degree.
9. Sceptics of mainstream climate science are not motivated by money, and mostly work voluntarily.
Some skeptics might earn money from books, and a few have jobs. Most don’t. Most became skeptics before they got paid anything. The payments are minimal. As always, ad hom attacks are unscientific. Just cause we are mostly volunteers doesn’t make us right.
10. Therefore the only ones who can find problems with mainstream climate science are mavericks
Apart from the few skeptics who didn’t get sacked from government jobs (ie Lindzen/ Spencer / Christie / Salby / Curry.)
11. I have not read the peer-reviewed papers (supporting scepticism of mainstream climate science) and am too lazy to ask
You didn’t ask before you decided we denied the evidence.
12. Mainstream climate scientists are richly rewarded and lauded
Compared to skeptics. But I would never say that that this money tells us anything about the climate.
13. Mainstream climate scientists behave abysmally
Most are passive, their work is ok, the fault lies only in their failure to hold a few colleagues to higher standards. Some key climate scientists have behaved abysmally. The rest let them get away with it.
14. Mainstream climate scientists produce sloppy work
Some do. I assume most are reasonable. You seem very quick to want to take my comments and mistakenly apply them to everyone. There has been an error cascade. Most climate scientists do honest, if bland and repetitive work. A few made key assumptions about water vapor and cloud cover that were wrong, many others just assumed the models were working. Their job was to analyze, say, Hadley cell development in equatorial guinea from 1900 – 1950, or something like that. They just never looked into Hansens estimates of water vapor feedback.
15. It’s reasonable (though lazy) to assume mainstream climate science is accurate
It is. But it’s not reasonable to spend billions based on that without looking rigourously at the evidence.
16. Sceptics of mainstream climate science, as volunteers, deserve gratitude
Even if you disagree with their conclusions, thousands of people are using their expertise and time to audit the IPCC and NOAA and NASA. Isn’t the world a better place with free speech and an indepth inquiry of the climate from all angles? Isn’t more research better? Many skeptics (myself included) would switch again — back to promoting awareness of a threat, if someone could provide us with reasonable evidence that the models had some predictive ability and took all the known variables into account.
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Thanks Joanne, I appreciate your pains in clarifying these, allowing a more effective response. There are a lot of arguments there to interact with. I would welcome the opportunity to make responses, but if they don’t come for a week, it’s only because I’m working in India for a few days (with little internet time likely). Not sure if the thread will be dead by then (?)
BTW just curious why you use the American spelling “skeptic”? International site I’m assuming.
—————-
REPLY: Robert, any genuine questions are welcome, and most commenters here will be happy to help. Though a genuine enquiry is rare and unfortunately some commenters will assume all non-skeptics are only in this to bait, insult and sneer, as trolls do. I value a real set of questions, because so many newer readers or borderline undecided people would much prefer to see their questions answered without the hyper bluster and bravado that this debate usually descends into. It is after all, a science theory, not a football match, but tribal behaviour is the norm. I will free up your comments so they will appear immediately, whenever you have the time. (Yes, for the first two years my US readers outnumbered the English and Australian, hence “skeptic”.) — Thanks for taking the time to try to understand where we are coming from.
It may surprise you to know that less than 5 years ago I thought CO2 was a serious threat, and earlier I was a member of the Greens. Now I worry we are hurting the poor, and ignoring real environmental problems. Jo
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It is now middle December and Robert Davidson has not replied to simple questions.
Perhaps they aren’t so simple after all and that is why he has gone AWOL?
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Yes, I have taken a long time to reply – you should see what I’ve been doing in the last couple of months. Still, I did want to reply so here goes.
1. I disagree with Richard Lindzen, who has more expertise than me (I’ve rephrased this in response to Joanne’s clarification)
It’s not so much that I disagree with experts, but that the mainstream view finds many problems with their work. Without expertise in a field, I can’t see how one can be confident to choose a fringe view, which Lindzen’s definitely appears to be, over that which is well supported by the mainstream of science. If you are consistent with such an approach, you will have little basis to decide anything, as you may run to creationists, purveyors of fringe medicine etc. To accept the findings of the mainstream in science against the (inevitable) mavericks, when one is not an expert, is not to be a denier surely.
2. oh, I see my other summaries have been “snipped” because one whole week went by. Apparently there is not much appreciation of how busy one can be. I can go on with responses if I can actually see what I’m responding to. I didn’t realise there was such a stringent cutoff period.
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Robert Davidson writes this howler:
There are many that do not belong with the phrase peer reviewed paper.
Climate Bible Gets 21 ‘F’s on Report Card
The IPCC report is a good example of a Meta-Analysis.They are very selective in what they want to publish.Since a large chunk of the 2007 report are NOT peer reviewed at all.You have to wonder why they cite so many sources that are not given a critical examination before hand.
Their own moron chairman keeps touting the report is 100% backed by peer reviewed science.You should wonder why the lies and deceptions.If they really had the science on the AGW hypothesis nailed down well.Why lie at all?
How the IPCC Report Has Been Advertised
I have trouble taking the IPCC report with full confidence when there are many problems with it.
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“Only a totalitarian New World Order can save us now says Naomi Klein”
Could see this posted here yet:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100117165/only-a-totalitarian-new-world-order-can-save-u
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[…] Nova has a really fine essay on Naomi Klein. This is great writing, easily as fluent as Klein herself, only rational. An […]
—
REPLY: Thanks to Matt Ridley. What high praise 🙂
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CAPITALISM vs. CLIMATE
The assessment of the state of the world by Naomi Klein is a colorful manifesto of totalitarian alternatives to a market economy and the rule of law. Fascism soon went down in military defeat while Communism sank into bankruptcy after seventy years of misrule. The manifesto has the support of Hugo Chavez, who blames capitalism for the death of an advanced civilization that once flourished on Mars. Such opinions show that if a cat has nine lives, then totalitarian doctrines have the sum of the lives of nine cats. They will be around for a long time.
The doctrine of Green activists rests on three tenets they accept with an act of faith:
We are running out of space. World population is already excessive on a limited planet and grows at exponential rates, with dire effects.
We are running out of means. The planet’s non-renewable resources are being depleted by consumption at a rate that renders further economic expansion unsustainable.
We are running out of time before tipping points are reached. Carbon dioxide emitted by economic activity causes global warming that will soon render the planet uninhabitable.
When such tenets are quantified, the contrast between true and false stands out sharply.
Is overpopulation a grave problem? The sum of urban areas of the United States is equivalent to 2% of the area of the country, and to 6% in densely inhabited countries such as England and Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas. If comparison is limited to land covered by buildings and pavements the occupied land in the whole world amounts to 0,04% of the terrestrial area of the planet. It has been held that 7 billion inhabitants could live a comfortable urban life on 100 000 square miles, the area of Wyoming. With more that 99.9% of unoccupied space the idea of an overcrowded planet is an exaggeration.
Population forecasts are uncertain but the most accepted ones foresee stability of world population to be reached in the 21st century. According to some, world population may begin to decline at the end of this century. Ageing populations is the real current problem. With so much elbowroom it is untenable that world population is excessive or shall ever become so.
The Green shibboleth is that ultimately a finite planet cannot support infinite growth, but ultimately no natural resource is non-renewable in a universe ruled by the Law of Conservation of Mass. In popular form it holds that “Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed.” Human usage is not subtracted from the mass of the planet, and in theory all material used may be recycled. The possibility of doing so depends on availability and low cost of energy. When fusion energy becomes operative it will be available in practically unlimited quantities. The source is deuterium, a hydrogen isotope found in water, in a proportion of 0.03%. One cubic kilometer of seawater contains more energy than can be obtained from combustion of all known petroleum reserves of the world. Since oceans hold 3 billion cubic kilometers of water, energy will last longer than the human species. Potable water need not be a limitation; nano tube membranes may yet cut energy costs of desalination to one tenth of current costs and conceivably cheap enough for irrigation purposes. Why assume that technology will stagnate at current levels?
There is no growing shortfall of resources signaled by rising prices. Since the middle of the 19th century The Economist publishes consistent indices of values of commodities and they have all declined, over 150 years, due to technological advances. The decline has been benign. The cost of feeding a human being was 8 times greater in 1850 than it is today. In 1950, less than half of a world population of 2 billion had an adequate diet, above 2000 calories per day. Today, 80% have the adequate diet, and world population is three times greater.
There is a problem with the alleged global warming. It stopped in 1998, having risen in the 23 previous years, and unleashing a scare over its effects. Since 1998 it has been followed by 13 years of declining temperatures, in a portent of a cold 21st century. This shows that there are natural forces shaping climate, more powerful than manmade carbon dioxide and anything mankind can do for or against world climate. The natural forces include cyclical oscillation of ocean temperatures, sunspot activity and the effect of magnetic activity of the sun on cosmic rays. All such cycles are foreseeable, but there is no general theory of climate with predictive capacity. What knowledge exists comes from one hundred fields, such as meteorology, oceanography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, paleontology, biology, etc. with partial contributions to understanding climate.
Devoid of support of solid theory and empirical evidence, the mathematical models that underpin alarmist forecasts amount to speculative thought that reflects the assumptions fed into the models, in response to the political agendas of the sponsors. Such computer simulations offer no rational basis for public policies that inhibit economic activity “to save the planet”. And carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is plant nutrient for the photosynthesis that supports the food chain of all living beings of the planet.
Stories of doom circulate daily. Anything that happens on earth has been blamed on global warming: a Himalayan earthquake, the Iceland volcanic eruption, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, tribal wars in Africa, heat wave in Paris, recent severe winters in North America, the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, known for five centuries, the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota. Evo Morales blames Americans for the summer floods in Bolivia.
Global warming is not a physical phenomenon; it is a political and journalistic phenomenon that finds parallel in the totalitarian doctrines that inebriated masses deceived by demagogues. As Chris Patten put it: “Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off”. In the view of Professor Aaron Wildavsky global warming is the mother of all environmental scares. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.”
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You almost can’t blame these young people for believing the double speak diatribe coming out of the far left groups,afterall they’ve been indoctrinated with it all through their school lives as well,but now we the older thinkers have a huge problem with these young ones believing all the collectivist garbage and the massive effort it will take to deprogram these kids.One issue is that they hide the fake science and BS AGW agenda in with the true environmental problems,so we have a case of having to firstly let these brainwashed kids know that we do believe in REAL environmental issues that need immediate attention but need to seperate the false agendas out of the environmental movement and put it where it belongs back in far left politics.You see what they have setup is a system where if you love the environment you almost have to be on the left,it’s crazy.Personally I hate the whole fake left/right paradigm created by Elite think tanks to divide and conquer the people,they give us the illussion of choice and democracy,while both parties disagree on little issues they full steam ahead with the BS AGW agenda on both sides of politics.Those that do not believe the farsical science have no political choice left! A quote – “If we torture the data long enough, it will confess”. (Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, 1991)Now we have to decide if we are going to teach our kids some truths about political involement in the enviromental issues and how to seperate jargin from true science and we also need to think whether we are going to let these kids steer the future of mankind toward a scientific collectivist Nightmare.Remember these kids have good hearts and love the planet as I do but more and more they are being taught to hate us as DENIERS.These collectivists have literally put an arm around your child and are guiding them down the path of world government and a socialist dictatorship that will be like nothing we’ve ever seen.If the USSR was scary then you had better worry about the people behind the Green movement leading and teaching your kids that YOU are the enemy.If you look up the fabian society and have a look at their logo it is a sheep in wolves clothing,I’m not kidding these people are dangerous and care not about the environment but only about POWER!!! and with the help of our kids and by using our kids they will achieve this power grab.It’s time to take an interest in what your child is learning in school.I would’nt want my kids sitting through an Al Gore movie followed by a class on the Darwinist view of evolution.Think about it!
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I always thought that Klein woman was overrated intellectually. Alexander Cockburn (a left-wing sceptic) demolished her ‘disaster capitalism’ theory in about one paragraph. This article by Jo knocks her for six.
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Robert Davidson, To what “peer review” was Oreskes myths subjected exactly? Such material as hers can hardly be subject to any objective test, since it is only ever framed as an opinion to which she is welcome. However, her calims are indefensible and represent the same sort of ravings which we see from Naomi Klein, so capably dismembered here by Joanne.
You mentioned the “thousands of peer reviewed papers” supporting global warming. That is not true. Even less is it true of support for the claims that CO2 is to blame. If you care to go through the publications by the IPCC you will that only a small fraction have anything to do with measurements and distributions of warming or of its processes. By far the majority are concentrating on the perceived disatrous effects which might flow from increased warming of the planet. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the possible cause. Another large, but smaller number, are devoted to justifying the measurements, correlations with CO2 (not cause, just correlation, which we accept from 1979 to 1998). Only a very minute fraction, represent attempts to justify acceptance of the Arrhenius’ hypothesis (1896) that increases in CO2 will cause an increase in global warming – the enhanced green house effect. Everyone accepts that green house gases cause global warming and always have. The increase in warming with increases in these gases is what is challenged by careful scientific analysis. This science is not settled and it is extremely unlikely that CO2 will prove to be a problem now of in the future.
John Nicol [email protected]
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Hi John, thanks for your questions and arguments. I think I’m going to have my hands full answering Joanne’s arguments before I can respond to yours, unfortunately. I don’t agree that the science isn’t settled, but I will see if I can explain why when I get a chance.
[not likely]ED
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In response to Robert Davidson at post 69.1.1.1.1
bolding is mine
I have a problem with your bolded statement.
You claim that this,”recent out of course rise in Global Temperatures”: is most likely caused by us.A warming trend you say is unusual.It is not and what is more it is false.
First of all it is not GLOBAL and has not been since the later 1970’s.Almost all the warming has been confined to the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.It is a regional warming.
LINK
The poles are not warming together either.
There is a nice post in this LINK.That convincingly shows that the recent warming is NOT global.That is where I originally got the chart from in the above link.
Secondly.There have two very similar warming trend before the one you are so worried about.Two in just the last 110 years previously.The chart in the link came from an older blog post from Jo:
LINK
The paper you are so fond of has failed to show that the most recent warming trend is unusual or dangerous.
The bottom line is that you have swallowed the idea that the last observed warming trend is Global.It never was and that is because you never took the time to study the temperature data.
The real question should be asked by you and anyone who really care about the topic.
Why is the warming almost completely confined to the Northern Hemisphere.When AGW believers are continually stating that CO2 in the atmosphere is a well mixed gas?
Why has the Tropical and Southern Hemisphere regions failed to warm up since the later 1970’s?
CO2 on vacation in the deep south?
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For those that still are claiming we are cherry picking the temp data you should go to youtube and watch this video.The whole 1500yr timeline is shown and it explains why temps look like they’re rising.Just search for:-
Why ‘man-made global warming’ is anti-scientific nonsense 1of3.Please watch it all before commenting.And don’t blame me for the outcome.
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This article has certainly generated some nice link-backs — and here’s another: http://www.alanadamson.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=707:today-just-keeps-happening-joanne-nova-strikes&catid=20:november-2011&Itemid=51
It’s good to know it’s appreciated. 🙂
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Uggh. Corn ethanol only uses the starch portion. The remaining distiller’s grain replaces other protein
and energy concentrates. Ditto for soybean biodiesel. The useful portion is the protein meal. The oil
needs to be removed for management reasons and thus increases the value of the soybean meal.
There is no Fuel vs Food crisis. On this point skeptics seem just as nutty and willfully ignorant as the
leftist eco-nutters.
Here’s a good overview from real farmers and not the interweb keyboard jockeys that know a few buzzwords.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWKw09BY4tE Farm Basics-Food vs Fuel #706 (Air Date 10/19/11)
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The illusion that the two guys talking in the video are experts in any kind of farming information is greatly diminshed by their constantly referring to cows as “he”.
The video was made by people who are ignorant about farms, for people also so ignorant. How trustworthy is that?
It would be better to get information from more trustworthy sources, such as Ohio State University, where we learn that livestock feed can be, at most, 20% distiller grains. Since 33% of corn is currently used to produce ethanol, the production of distiller grains will (if not already) outstrip any possible demand by the livestock industry.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a study in 2008 that concluded
thus agreeing with Mark D’s comment (and Wikipedia). The fact that there still remains food value after the ethanol is produced doesn’t mean that it can all be used, or that ethanol production won’t affect the cost for other uses. For example, much of the human food use of corn is the fructose, which is completely used up by ethanol production.
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LOL. They’re Ag PhDs and actually run their own farms. Amazing how low quality the thinking around these parts is.
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I have to agree that an amazingly low quality of thinking is indicated — but I’m not the one who thinks cows are male. (Or the one who thinks that that’s a trivial mistake for an experienced farmer to make.)
Nowhere in the video do they indicate that distiller grain can only be a minority part of livestock feed — indeed, they strongly imply that it can be substituted for regular grain at will.
They are either deceptively pushing an agenda (perhaps they raise corn and are receiving ethanol subsidies), or they should have done more research before picking their Ag school. I would take a large bet that no one who gets an Ag degree at say, Colorado State University, would refer to a cow as “he”.
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Oh, and 20% feed value represents 40% of the total value of cattle feed value. 50% cattle feed will always be hay or silage. What percentage of the total feed value do you think would be a protein concentrate like soybeans?
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What I think about it is hardly relevant. Empirical data exists (CNES: the California Net Energy System, for example) to allow one to calculate the expected weight gain of cattle given a dietary mix (with, of course, sufficient necessary trace ingredients for health). This is standard fare for those getting agriculture degrees, such as this course at Cornell on beef cattle.
There is also a lot of data in the cattle business that is not easily available: My father-in-law has (as a sideline to his cattle trading business) a small feedlot on his property that can feed ~20 cattle at a time. He uses a proprietary feed mix (made on site) and sells the beef to high end restaurants in Montanna.
I have never heard my father-in-law refer to a cow as “he”.
Despite your theoretical belief that raising corn for ethanol shouldn’t effect food prices in the developing world, actual studies (as I have pointed out) show that it indeed does.
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Mr. Galt: Oh and you can’t eat carbohydrates?
I hate to quote wiki but:
So at least someone disagrees with you
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Mark D., you are confused about the value of starch.
[snip] try harder John, make your point with references or links to good data.
PS.. try living without consuming carbohydrates.
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John,you must be kidding or a troll. How do you say “corn produces more starch than necessary for animal nutrition”? So corn is the magical answer to starvation?
Naw you are a troll.
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Mark D. Calling someone a “Troll” does not seem to me to be a nice thing to say and certainly does nothing to enhance your status in the eyes of other contributors to this site. Why can you not just take part in the discussion without name calling? John Nicol
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Hi John Nicol, Sorry that yo might be bothered by my pointing out troll behavior. I’ve been posting here for several years and I tend to stay subscribed to older threads longer than many people. I’ve noticed over the years that trolls (a legitimate name for troublesome posters) tend to post their wacky stuff in places that perhaps the blog owner will miss. In other words a thread that is no longer being watched or monitored as much as the new threads. I tend to “scream” this out so that maybe the moderators will take note. It may not be nice and sometimes I go over the top.
I don’t worry too much about “enhancing my status”, my comments are a piece of my mind. My mind may not be as refined as some others (maybe many others) but I think I have a keen sense for trolls.
In the case of John Q. Galt, I think he has an agenda. The idea that you can make ethanol out of corn and still have all the food value left when you’re done is flat wrong. The video he linked to is essentially a propaganda piece.
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Wow, censorship. What a surprise. And a snarky postscript to boot. Try living on a diet of 70% starch.
Here’s my reference: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?parentnav=AGRICULTURE&navid=CROP_PRODUCTION&navtype=RT
An average acre of corn produces 3x more than soybeans. The difference is starch. This is why soybeans, which only produces 1/3 of what corn produces, is grown. It produces high-quality protein without the starch, which is not needed.
When corn is grown instead of soybeans, the starch can be removed, leaving behind the protein fraction, so we get both the ethanol and protein concentrate.
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John,
What foodstuff is the principal diet of starving or near starving populations?
Is that foodstuff mostly starch?
Why is that?
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It looks to me like Mr. Galt has a real problem with this issue:
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/03/19/ethanol-and-corrosion-follow-up/
As a matter of fact JQG does an awful lot of posting in the blogosphere. Google pops many many links if you search his name and ethanol:
And if anyone wants to know more about John Q. Galt you can follow him on twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/johngaltq
Or his facebook persona:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Galt-School-of-Conservatism/138865366180757
A brief look is enough evidence to suggest he’s some kind of activist/astroturfer/blogbot.
So John, you might want to come clean here. What is your agenda?
Some of what you say might even be popular with a few of us. If you want to go on and say that we in the US don’t have to bother with the rest of the worlds starving then go ahead. If you really think the solution to low cost domestic fuel is ethanol then justify it. The evidence to me is that we don’t need bio-ethanol to replace gasoline. It will be impossible for you to convince me that cropland should be used for fuel production but go ahead and try.
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John Q. Galt is a literary reference. John Galt + John Q. Public.
I do not have a twitter or facebook account. I am not a “blogbot.”
I have an interest in small-scale agriculture for personal lifestyle reasons.
I have a developmental condition which affords me technical abilities but not
so much executive management abilities. This means my interests tend to
problems which I can take care of by myself and under my own conditions. Simply
put, I wish to “Gulch,” hence the John Galt reference. I need to be self-reliant.
I have no interest in Too Big To Fail economic policy. I think subsidies should
be ended and the proper amount of biofuels to be produced and consumed locally
in agricultural regions, based on natural market forces.
My personal research into how small-scale, localized biofuel production cycles
work causes me to call out what I consider to be alarmist and, yes, bigoted
statements which are not backed up by facts. I have already described what I
see as the justification for growing corn instead of soybeans, so as to capture
the value of both the ethanol and high-protein feed. 100% of the biofuel value
can be consumed by the farms which produce it or the local communities. In this
way the value of the biofuel as a replacement for petroleum fuel imports is
embodied into the value of a farm’s main product, food.
There is no need for high-tech intervention into the marketplace by government or
special interest rent-seekers. There is also no reason for referring to people with an
interest in replacing petroleum imports to the farm with readily made biofuels
as baby starvers.
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All right John that is a pretty reasonable reply. I appreciate you explaining that you aren’t the same Galt I found on twitter or facebook. I apologize for coming at you a little “hot” and I have to say if you’d have started out with the post above I wouldn’t have been as rude.
First let me say that in my opinion the decision about what any individual farmer does with his/her land is ENTIRELY up to them.
Second I also agree with you here:
Now look at the earlier discussions and comments please realize that this site is frequently dealing in a global scope. I still stand by my comments and there is ample evidence that cropland devoted to fuel production does impact the global price of food. Most farmers I know would still concern themselves with the economics of their individual farm not global shortages. Believe me, I’d stand firm defending their right to do so. Market forces will (should) settle the issue. Governments or aide organizations can take care of the hungry. I could spend some time on different scenarios (like for example what if the hungry people were just down the road) but I trust if you are a real person you’d answer that humanely.
That said, ethanol is a poor replacement for gasoline. Other than smog reduction in big cities, there is no good reason to use it. There are untold costs at the consumer level no one has researched. The average family owning a home with all the engine powered devices probably spends $100 to $200 annually on ethanol caused damage. (this being my own estimate) Businesses much more than that, not to mention added manufacturing costs for the automobile industry which we all bear. Government meddling is why there is an ethanol market at all.
The general hatred for ethanol here is because the Green influence, under the guise of “global climate salvation” has been a major force behind the aforementioned government meddling.
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Green is, and always has been to me, simply the color of those natural nanotechnology devices called plants.
The “Greens” have always hated ethanol, and real-world agriculture in general.
The people that promote ethanol have been the self-reliance types and the politicians
that don’t think a problem can be solved without BILLIONS (said like Carl Sagan)
being thrown at it to make it all official. Too Big To Fail equals To Big To Be Free.
Please use your Google skills to research the particulars of ethanol production and
grain production. Maybe you’ll eventually see the opportunity which I see when I look
at the mix of crops grown and why they are grown.
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I’ve thrown a large olive branch John, pick on my generic use of “Green” if you want but it won’t be well received here. I’ve already used my skills to plumb the subject. Grow what you want, don’t try to influence what the rest of the world grows.
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How was I picking on your use of “Green”? I was simply pointing out that the
“Greens” should reexamine what it actually means to “be green.”
And what gives you the right to tell someone they can not try to influence
what other people, even the rest of the world, grows?
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Exactly the same right as you have to try to exert influence. It’s called “Freedom of Speech”. The right to that ends when one advocates and implements the initiation of force on others to bring about the desired end.
I think it a travesty to advocate turning food into fuel when we have hundreds of years of reserves of gas, coal, and oil available for recovery. Said fuel has a much smaller land use that produces a much higher energy density fuel more economically than the so called biofuels – ethanol et.al. Agricultural crops should be used for food, fiber, and by products of producing food and fiber but not fuel. Especially not for government subsidized fuels.
Full disclosure: roughly one third of my annual income comes from farming: the production and sale at market price of corn, soybeans, and wheat. Even though I benefit from the necessary increase in the price of corn, I am against it being used to make fuel.
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I don’t agree that Greens have always hated ethanol. It would be typical for them to hate anything that permits man to thrive however, that would fit with Malthuse.
I have no rights except those granted by the Constitution. Likewise you are free to tell me where to go.
Thank you Lionell.
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Ah yes, the free speech for me but not for thee version of free speech.
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John, I would invite you to expand on “thee” version.
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Huh? Your question isn’t clear to me.
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John, the
was not a “command” it was intended as a statement of principle. You have the right to influence others but isn’t that what we are arguing is wrong with government meddling in the economics? At what point is your “influencing” exactly the same thing as government influence? After all isn’t government just more people?
My invitation to “thee” version is for you expand on why your influencing is different than government influencing.
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Come on man, brush up on your natural rights theory.
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@ 90.1 the question should be clear.
Natural rights? Do you know something I don’t?
Nature is a bitch, her laws suck.
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The constitution does not grant us our rights nor does the government or the so called social contact. Our rights are ours as individuals by or nature as rational beings and by our necessary relationship to reality. They can be understood, defended, protected, violated, misconstrued, distorted, ignored, trampled upon, and evaded but they can neither be granted nor abolished.
The constitution specifically defines the limitations to be placed upon the federal government. This limitation is accomplished by the separation of enumerated powers in to three different branches. Even the bill of rights state what the government shall not do. Not one part of the constitution is about limiting or defining the rights of We the People.
However, despots and wannabe despots will do whatever they think they can get away with. As long as We the People are vigilant and insist on the free exercise of our natural rights, they can’t get away with much. Once we start depending upon the government to provide for us, all is lost or soon will be. See current events for far too many cases in point.
[fixed typo] ED
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Yes “granted” was a poor choice of words. Typing faster than the brain working. (as slow as I type it was a more brain distracted).
Legalistically though while the Constitution limits government, government continually molds new laws around constitutionality tests. In effect causing the rights to appear as “grants”. You are wise to correctly frame the statement.
It is important enough a principle that I should have been more careful.
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No one here would argue against that.
If that came to pass, then ethanol from grain would be economically unable to compete with petroleum fuels and would be reduced to the same niche market as other “natural” and “organic” products: The (relative to the rest of the world) well-to-do who are willing to pay the extra cost for perceived value such as your desire for self-reliance.
Your desire to make your own ethanol (or buy it from your neighbor) does not contribute to malnutrition in the developing world. The government subsidies to ethanol production that make it into a big business (1/3 of corn production, according to you) do contribute to such malnutrition. Your arguments that this shouldn’t happen are irrelevant given the fact that it is happening.
What I and Mark D (I think) are objecting to is your argument that ethanol production on a massive scale (due to government subsidy) has no moral cost. This argument is factually wrong, however much you would like to think it correct.
I would like to opt out of using this subsidized ethanol, but it is difficult. Here is a web site that lists gas stations that sell ethanol-free gas (farm gas, I’m guessing, on which the highway tax has been paid).
If you’re in Alaska or Alberta you’re in luck — all stations dispense ethanol-free gasoline. Unfortunately, the two stations nearest me are both an hour’s drive away, but I can get to them occasionally when my work takes me in those directions. When I’m in Montana, I just fill up from my Father-in-law’s 500 gallon farm tank.
BTY: The extra cost of ethanol-free gasoline is compensated for by the higher mileage you get on it (due to higher energy content per gallon).
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Hi BobC
In NSW the ethanol subsidy is really the only driving force.
There is no consideration of “helping the environment” or any such pandering to the AGW mantra.
The franchise found its way into the hands of one of the party faithful who would, no doubt, remember where the favour came from.
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[snip unsubstantiated insults from anonymous coward]
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Staggering Costs of CO2 Permits Revealed –
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/staggering-cost-of-co2-permits-revealed/story-fn7j19iv-1226122430767
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Anybody else notice that John Q. Galt disappeared?
I really didn’t think he’d stick around. I think the word is astroturf…….
R.I.P. John Q. Galt
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Here’s another example of mixing hysteria with science:
http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=658:a-death-sentence-for-africa-&catid=24:alerts-2011&Itemid=68
According to Media Lens, the Guardian just about ‘managed to find space’ to air the ‘clearly-proven fact’ that global warming is about to wipe out the population of Africa.
Friends of the Earth got a token quote, but apart from that, the entire corporate media conspired in covering up the ‘relentless corporate lobbying’ of governments toward the ‘annihilation’ of humanity.
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