The hysteria continues. Some public servants might get sacked. It’s unthinkable. But after the fuss, there will still be 5200 odd staff at CSIRO. The big evil here, apparently, is that we are choosing between two different sorts of scientists.
The lame arguments flow (especially in The Guardian). Prof Neville Nicolls says we need $90m-dollars-worth-of-climate-scientists to stop us being minnows at the “big table”. Maybe baby-climate-scientists have aspired to eat with the science guru’s, but I don’t think the average Australian has the same dream.
Tony Haymet was the Policy Director at CSIRO — and he thinks it’s like shutting down Australian cricket team (not one for exaggeration eh?). David Karoly — Shane Warne, what’s the difference? He also said, it’s a “kick in the guts” to farmers, fishermen and the navy, which it would be if only the climate models could predict things like rain, currents, and sea ice. Haymet barrells on — “We’ve only seen the beginning of climate change. We don’t know what the heck is waiting for us”.
Try to rationalise the statements “97% of scientists agree” with “we don’t know what the heck…”
If a certain Labor government hadn’t vaporised those scientist’s future salaries on windmills, pink batts, and $800,000-tin-sheds for schools, perhaps we could employ those same scientists now. Did any of these CSIRO geniuses protest at government waste? Did a single one point out that windmills won’t save the Spotted Quoll, or hold back the tide?
Thanks to John Spooner | The Age
To quell the fuss, CSIRO released a statement on the job cuts. Total CSIRO staff levels are 5200 and staying that way. There are 420 staff in Oceans and Atmosphere work, and after the shift there will still be 355.
False Flag at Cape Grimm
One of the pet projects held up as a sacred cow to be sacrificed is the CO2 monitoring station at Cape Grimm. That was the worst thing this apparently anonymous scientist could warn us about in The Guardian:
One example he gave was Cape Grim, in north-west Tasmania, where the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology run an atmospheric monitoring station, one of only three in the world to get “baseline” data from the cleanest possible air.
“We’ve been doing that for 40 years,” he said. “Universities are not doing the carbon budget or the carbon cycle. There are a lot of capabilities that are not in universities that are in CSIRO. Unless they have a new huge injection of funds this capability would be lost. This took us 40 years to build.”
Scaremongering. It was never a target for the chopping block. CSIRO statement:
Cape Grim and RV Investigator are not under threat from these changes. The Cape Grim air pollution monitoring station which is a source of much of our greenhouse gas information will continue to be that source.
If not them, then who? Which other scientists should be sacked…
CSIRO’s Susan Wijffels thinks that when the question is “scientist” the answer is always yes:
“The idea that Australia has to choose between having this information and playing a great role in mitigation [of greenhouse gases emissions] we also strongly disagree with,” Dr Wijffles said.
“We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world. It seems absurd that we have to choose.”
What we do know is that Australia emits 1.6% of the global CO2. Could all those CSIRO “scientists” comment on the statistical ability of Australia to effect ANY change to our beloved earth? If all they want to do is help predict near term weather for the farmers, then that might help someone.
The harping about CAGW and CO2 mitigation helps no one and cannot help anyone.
574
If not them, then who? Which other scientists should be sacked…” ………hmmm
In my opinion it doesn’t matter.
What we do know in Australia is that a scientist with a job is a another scientist that has money and can thus therefore have the ability to buy/afford petrol to run a vehicle which in turn generates more Carbon Dioxide.
CSIRO have discovered that by slashing jobs it also slashes the ability to buy petrol which causes CO2 emissions directly, …….. and thus demonstrates that cutting jobs is a great way to cut CO2 emissions.
CSIRO is cutting jobs which cause CO2 emissions and is thus leading the world by example.
I agree with you DayHay that it is time to stop “harping” and do something about it.
184
I used to work some years ago in a government science organisation (not as a scientist) and while most are very genuine individuals dedicated to their work, the feeling of entitlement is amazing. I don’t know how many times I heard one or the other suggest that they can’t believe that they can do this work and get paid, they’d almost do it for free, except when issues of organisational restructure pay arose.
233
My personal experience as well.Boring work in fact.So boring I left voluntarily to take a position of gravedigger.Nothing to do with morbid things mind you.
113
Nothing morbid or boring at all. Especially if grave digging jobs are mainly part time, a few hours a week. There is a definite trend towards low paying work and part time jobs.
It would not be boring if all the hours for grave digging were distributed amongst 48 people. one hour a week grave digging each. A walk to work in order to save money on petrol/CO2 emissions. Less jobs = less economic activity => less CO2 emissions.
.. one hour a week would never get morbid or especially boring for those working an hour a week. In this case, any job is ‘interesting’, in small doses.
22
A lot of farmers use the successors of Inigo Jones, Walker Weather, for their long term weather forecasts and not the CSIRO/BOM. These people must be predicting reasonably accurately otherwise they would be out of a job too.
265
On Alf Thrift’s garage wall in Merriwa hung a 1965 calendar with Lennox Walker’s forecasts for the year. It forecast six floods. It turned out to be a bad drought year.
60
I accept that, but they must be doing better than Dr. Flannery, never going to rain again and if it does not in the catchments where the dams are.
190
Robert
Many years ago I was at a conference and this question of long range forecasting was posed. A reply was that a comparison of such predictions vs what actually happened gave the same chance as you had with a two bob bit.
I guess the difference was that Flannery “knew”, so he didn’t need a two bob bit.
I’ve been a follower of WXMaps for about 20 years and it was pretty good for our area up until that “laydown misere el Nino” of about 3 years ago that didn’t happen. Since then it has been all over the map, though it got a bit closer just recently.
But don’t ignore the usefulness of the BOM – just believe about the opposite with rainfall. Eg from the recent “scattered showers” forecast we got about 70 mm.
81
You do realise that there is nothing inconsistent with a forecast of “scattered showers” and receiving 70 mm of precipitation? Showers are often more intense than widespread rain because they come from convective cloud and thus contain larger drop-sizes. Rain is from stratiform cloud and tends to have smaller drop sizes. “Scattered” is more spatially frequent than “isolated” but less than “widespread”. Therefore, once again, there is nothing inconsistent with a forecast of “scattered showers” and receiving 70 mm of precipitation.
50
It is more ‘politically correct’ to say ‘scattered showers’.
“John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAK0KXEpF8U
30
Wow! The bait is taken! The defence is on.
” Showers are often more intense than widespread rain because they come from convective cloud and thus contain larger drop-sizes.”
Widespread very gentle misty rain
” Rain is from stratiform cloud and tends to have smaller drop sizes.”
Over about 36 hours with minimal run-off
““Scattered” is more spatially frequent than “isolated” but less than “widespread” ”
Widespread
And we won’t go into the times it was going to rain piss and pick handles and didn’t will we? Which we’ve had a close watch on over the last about four years.
30
Reminds me of being stuffed because of a prediction of a small chance of showers of a few mm. Once it started pouring, the prediction was changed to rain – 40mm over a few hours over the whole region.
00
Robert, this farmer gets his local weather first up from the Norwegians (yr.no). They go out ten days, and for mine are ahead of anything BOM puts on the table. Do use BOMs radar though, and get wind info from the Elders site.
10
Well let me make a BOLD prediction, if we do absolutely nothing and let CO2 levels increase naturally, then the farmers on the whole will get bigger yields and more/better pasture for farm animals especially in semi arid areas. That’s my prediction
341
bobl @ #1.3
You got that one dead right!
A couple of hundred of us farmers and our women folk sat and listened in the mid 2000’s at a farmer’s expo here in west Vic to two or three CSIRO “climate scientists” who went to great lengths expounding the results of their modeling of the future rainfall and temperature trends in the eastern Australian grain belt’s climate.
According to those CSIRO “climate experts” it was all downhill from there as the entire eastern Australian grain belt dried out into a semi desert type rainfall zone over the next few decades.
And they had lots of maps from their models to show where those former grainbelt, soon to be semi-desert areas with the rapidly developing global warming and its much lower rainfall, would extend into.
The effect of global warming on our grain belt was going to be quite catastrophic was the message they were delivering as derived from the predictions of their highly developed and near infallible, never to be questioned, climate models.
And they were quite patronising when a few of those “ignorant” farmers dared to question and cast some doubt on their claims and the outputs of those same “infallible” climate models.
There were a couple of hundred farmers and their women folk in there who walked out of that presentation with their morale reaching rock bottom as there seemed that there was no longer a future for them or their families in farming or much else in those rural farming dependent areas.
Well it continued to rain, not as much, as usual as everybody always hopes for in these dryland grain growing regions and the farmers continued to sow their crops and the yields per millimeter of rainfall continued to increase because of the plant breeders efforts and the sheer tenacity and inventiveness of farmers in making a virtue out of apparently severe set backs.
This time around it was by modifying and changing their entire planting systems using last seasons stubble to conserve moisture and slow down evaporation and minimising cultivation until in a lot of cases there is only one cultivation pass across the fields and that is when sowing the next crop using highly accurate GPS guidance systems and automatic steering of the tractors and machines to accurately sow those crops between the rows of the last crop’s stubble.
And automatic depth control of the sowing implements to sow the seed and fertilizer at a correct and constant depth over areas of hundreds to thousands of hectares.
The rain continues to fall.
The crop yields continue to increase.
The farmers are still here and still growing a lot more grain than ever to help feed mankind’s growing seven and a half billions.
And those soon to be out of a job, arrogant, patronising CSIRO climate scientists?
Well if they showed up in our local farming area looking to find a job they might be qualified for such as shovelling grain, they are more likely to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a stick.
421
Don’t the extreme Greens claim that Australia is responsible for the emissions from the coal mined and exported and again when that coal is burnt overseas?
110
Yes, they do.
The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons…
20
The squeakiest wheel gets the oil but when it doesn’t the screeching of a failed bearing is even more annoying.
130
Screeching bearings on bird shredders are exempt though……..
92
Unless they cause screeching from Yellow Bellied Parrots……
32
‘The screechiest bird/bat shredder doesn’t always get the oil’.
42
a failed climate science is even more annoying.
43
I think that’s the point though.
The CSIRO lost it’s bearings. 😉
50
Bingo! thankyou. 🙂
20
Chairman Mal doesn’t need them any more. He has what he needs; an excuse to tax the crap out of the economy & engage the dream of the NWO.
The next indication of where our leaders are taking us ( & who they really answer to) will come if the rhetoric moves to things like banning cash ( digital money only paradigm) combined with negative interest rates & bail in legislation.
THE BANKS MUST SURVIVE!!!
181
Removing money from the Anthropogenic economic system is a great way to slash CO2 emissions. The evidence is abundant. Hmmmmmm ……..If the money is locked away safely, preferably in some digital form, then the financial emissions cannot escape out rampantly into the economic atmosphere and thus cause the emission of more CO2.
100
Watch the new PM as he modifies his public image for political purposes. He is not a fool and he knows that the last global warming period ended 18-years ago and he will change his stand, as he has done on the republic.
51
He was always after higher taxes to delay the inevitable bankruptcy of Australia for as long as possible. However, his plans are now in a mess and so he will have to dream up some other way to fool the public into paying higher taxes. Going cashless is now becoming the preferred option by most other countries, especially in Europe. Get ready to receive your mark if you dare.
10
Yep, the UN is already on the path to Universal Branding ( Mark):-
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-un-plans-to-implement-universal-biometric-identification-for-all-of-humanity-by-2030
& you probably will not even be allowed to have the pleasure of being a global citizen with a bank account, with all the taxes, costs & exposure to bail in legislation,
unless you are BRANDED.
You would be an un person.
20
Celebration aside, what is behind this move at CSIRO ? It seems almost too good to be true, which usually means…
231
IMO C.J.Williams, the move behind CSIRO is to discover a more efficient scientific-staffing-engine which would usually mean it will generate far fewer CO2 emissions.
00
Call me skeptical but it may be just window dressing by the Turnbull govt. While not very much actually happens. The proof remains to be seen.
200
The story goes that the scientists are not being sacked and their talents will be redirected elsewhere within the system, like mitigation.
Tony Abbott forced the cuts at CSIRO and the organisation chose the way to go, Turnbull is a mere bystander in the operation and will keep well away.
100
I’m getting sick and tired of these pseudoscientific creeps. Here are the facts. In 1976, R D Cess claimed the effective Earth’s radiant emissivity is the ratio of OLR (-18 deg C) to surface exitance (+15 deg C). Emissivity is the ratio of the radiant exitance of a real emitter to that of an ideal ‘black body’ at the same temperature. No professional scientist would claim otherwise.
Also in 1976, GISS used a 2-D modelling process to claim Cess’ derivative claims of ~1.2 K ‘Planck sensitivity’ and 3.3 W/(m^2.K) Planck feedback parameter were correct. To get this result, GISS’ paper assumed ‘negative convection’ controls ‘lapse rate’: ‘negative convection’ does not exist.
In 2000, Hansen, part of the 1976 GISS modelling team, admitted that the ‘negative convection’ claim was a ‘fudge’. It was really scientific legerdemain. Bottom Line: IPCC pseudoscience has for 40 years been based on bad science, admitted by Hansen: time to close down these hucksters.
324
“… and $800,000-tin-sheds for schools,…”
I’ve missed this story. Can someone explain and/or give a link.
Thanks.
60
The Rudd-Gillard Labor government spent a large amount of money on various schemes; a roof insulation scheme “pink batts” which became a scam and resulted in many house fires and deaths of installers by electrocution; also building classrooms, libraries and covered areas outside for students (tin sheds), it was poorly administered by state governments and instead of using local contractors it was done from the capital cities with project managers and big firms. The Catholic schools ran the same programme and built what their schools actually wanted for half the cost. From memory it cost $500,000 to build the equivalent of a 4 car carport.
210
The S.A. State Government seem to have used the scheme to get money. A local school was directed to install a large water tank to fight fires along with 2 pumps. Total cost over$100,000 using the designated contractor who were paid by the State bureaucracy out of the funds for the school. Result the school had to accept a shed half the size they wanted, partly because the tank etc. took up some of the playground.
Was the tank needed? No, according to the local firefighters, esp. as the school had just installed one next to where the new one went. Was the cost justified? No, I know someone in the tank business who said that a similar installation would cost a private farmer $8,200 – 8,700 including ground levelling (which wasn’t necessary at the school), which was certainly true because the local papers in the Hills had advertisements giving the same estimates. This affected at least 9 schools in S.A.
100
This was part of the Rudd government’s reaction to supposedly ward off the GFC. However continuing strong demand from China for Australia’s iron ore and coal saved Australia from the effects of the GFC anyway. The Labor Party and Greens in government just went on a wild spending spree. I am sure that their primary purpose was to destroy private capital. No bridges or railways, just dead end spending.
90
The 2007 federal election resulted in the defeat of the Howard Coalition Government and Rudd Labor replaced them and with a substantial number of seats majority. But the analysis of the seats won revealed a significant number to be marginal, likely to be lost at the 2010 election.
Accordingly the northern hemisphere financial crisis was used as an excuse to spend our monies and to borrow more to spend on “economic stimulus”. Part of that spending was of course grants to state public schools referred to as the building education revolution (good Moscow School brand). That programme was wasteful and poorly considered but the objective was achieved, vote winning strategy with signs erected at school grounds (many polling booths) reminding parents that Labor was responsible for the spending spree.
50
“Economic stimulus” indeed. Only socialists think the way to get out of debt is to spend more borrowed money…
10
Money is created out of thin air….. These days money is even created in the vacuum of a negative interest rate, and, is totally renewable on a solid state hard drive or a quantum computer or some other recording device controlled by aliens, ……in space suits.. 🙂
10
Commencing in 2010 Rudd also handed out laptops to all high school students yrs 9 to 12. The scheme was axed in 2013 by which time it had cost $2.1 billion and issued 967,000 laptops.
Trouble was students described them as “paperweights” because they were next to useless for anything beyond simple word processing. They all came bundled with Adobe Creative Suite which required a much faster processor and double the RAM to run. Kids gave up on them except for playing games in class. Some teachers actually banned their use in class because they were a hindrance to teaching. Some educational aid!
The government IT gurus had installed state of the art anti-virus and parental control software. At one school it took the lads less than half an hour to bypass all the controls so they could access games and porn sites. These government experts were actually under the delusion that they could out-smart teenagers at using electronic technology. Hilarious.
The icing on the cake was that the computers were supplied by one company, but the hard plastic cases they were meant to be carried in were supplied by another. So guess what? The cases were slightly too small for the computers and could only be held somewhat ‘closed’ with rubber bands. Within a week there were smashed laptops around the school.
$2.1 billion well spent I say.
100
That’s what yer get with top-down Great Leaps Forward.
60
John there was an over reaction by the Australian government to the global financial crisis of 2008-09.
If Peter Costello had been Treasurer at the time (and not Wayne Swan) then it would be a different world.
121
Malcolm Turnbull was shadow treasurer at the time, and proposed a much more realistic plan.
40
So did Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner (Labor) and many others.
40
‘For all their complaints of waste and incompetence, the Coalition never seriously challenged the wisdom of activist fiscal policy.
‘Malcolm Turnbull supported the initial stimulus packages. He only baulked at how much was eventually spent.’
ABC
40
Like Tanner, many recommended that the Rudd Labor Government spend no more than about half of the $22 billion budget surplus they had inherited from the Coalition in the 2007/08 financial year budget. Against advice from Treasury and the Minister For Finance PM Rudd and Treasurer Swan decided to blow the lot on stimulus including $900 each to taxpayers including many tourists who had worked as casuals and then left the country.
And then Labor started borrowing more to continue spending, from zero debt to over $400 billion by the time they left office in September 2013, not including NBNCo debt hidden off budget in that government owned private company, but including what the Abbott Coalition Government was forced to borrow to plug unfunded commitments (Gonski Grants one example) in Labor’s 2013/14 Budget and related under estimate of budget deficit by over $25 billion.
No fiscally responsible, astute politician would have approved of the Rudd Labor squandering of monies.
71
I missed out on the $900 stimulus for some technical reason and I was surprised to see so many people squander the money on base pleasures.
Still, Julia did say go out and spend.
10
I vaguely remember a news item say that something like 80% of that money went straight into paying off credit card balances, otherwise into a savings account. Very little of it was re-spent. It did nothing for the economy but did a lot for the Australian deficit. PS: I didn’t get mine either, also for technical reasons.
10
Noting that astute observers including in the Coalition recommended economic stimulus not exceeding about half of the 2007/08 Coalition Budget estimated surplus (as achieved) of $22 billion but Labor spent all of the $22 billion and then started borrowing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more.
10
‘Building the Education Revolution’.
A grand sounding plan that both managed to display a complete misunderstanding of what the word ‘revolution’ actually means while simultaneously playing the ‘for the Children! Will no one think of the Children!’ card to silence discussion.
Schools were told to spend money on things regardless of if they actually needed, wanted or were earmarked to be closed in two years time. From memory the choice of contractor was selected for them and most builders, knowing public service stupidity when they saw it, threw an extra zero on the end of their quote and laughed all the way to a new fishing boat.
All of this might have been worth the pain if anything of use was actually constructed, but most of the items built seemed to things like ‘Outdoor Education Areas’ which is a fancy public service way of describing a carport in the playground to keep the sun off.
There was also a lot of speculation that the ALP had intended most of the spending to be on new gyms that could then be used as polling booths come the next election. Mr and Mrs voter would come to the school, see the big ‘Building the Education Revolution’ sign on the wall and be reminded at what a forward thinking and pro-active group the ALP was. At least that was the speculation. I don’t think many schools actually managed to get anything as useful as a full gym constructed, proving once again that the Rudd/Gillard era ALP were so bad they couldn’t even scam the system properly.
70
I know of two public schools in country New South Wales that received Building Education Revolution grant money and not long after the 2010 federal election were auctioned off by the State Government. The Director Of Education was the husband of a Federal Labor Government Cabinet Minister.
50
These school halls.
20
Thanks all.
I really like the corrugated sheet metal building for school playgrounds. On stilts too.
I wonder if they are used or if the kids play in the shade on the grass.
30
It was known locally as the ‘Builders’ retirement scheme’.
40
It does not matter which government is in power at the moment as they are running out of funds. With the slide of the Chinese economy and its effects on the mining industry cut backs and grants will be inevitable.I’m sure most sensible people will understand that cut backs in this area will not affect 97% of the Australian population. Maybe the government can now concentrate on getting 97% of big business to pay a fair rate of tax to solve their shortfall and then 97% of us will be better off.
53
Maybe the government can work at getting 97% of the population off the dole and massively reducing the welfare budget.
Those big businesses already pay a large proportion of Australia’s taxes as well as providing a large slice of the employment. Tax them more, they employ less.
152
Most ‘western’ democracies are now balanced equally between those who pay money to the government and those who are net recipients of government handouts. The latter group are quite happy with that arrangement, but they grumble because they don’t get more. It is the first group whom the government is trying to placate, as they prepare to raise the tax take (under the guise of adjustment).
At some stage, as predicted by C. Northcote Parkinson in 1959, countries find that there is no more taxes available – see Greece (who ran on other people’s taxes), Portugal, Spain, Ireland etc.
80
Andy
And the Laffer curve cuts in too
20
And we aren’t far from that point now
https://danieljmitchell.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/laffer-curve.jpg
30
I suspect Australia Post might be setting up a demonstration for us
10
The Commonwealth Government welfare spending amounts to about 37 per cent of total budget spending.
30
There is a slide in the oil economy also…….it is governed by its ability to access funding.
Maybe the 97% of smaller oil companies are paying for the big oil and…. maybe the financial governance might fund the 97% of smaller oil companies? instead of the To Big to Foil. 🙂
From the comment section of this ZeroHedge article:
“WTI Slides Despite Plunge In US Oil Rig Count”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-08/wti-unimpressed-despite-plunge-us-oil-rig-count
“madbraz Fri, 01/08/2016 – 14:08
“i thought “rig count” referred to the number of times these guys rig the market in a day…”
50
Don’t believe the leftists propaganda about company tax.
Right now Australia’s economic growth is below average and not enough to drive economic prosperity forward. Blame the Labor Government 2007-2013. Accordingly company before tax profits are in most examples down and for many not enough to make a profit. Note how many business closures there have been too, and how many have moved offshore or are planning to do so.
If you refer to profit shifting, multinational companies, unless local branches are profit centres there can be no company tax liability. In other words companies that do warehousing, distribution and sales here via branch operations, operating costs paid by the overseas head office, they are not breaking any law. However since the first G20 Meeting attended by the Coalition Government member nations have been working towards changing tax laws to eliminate profit shifting. Another issue that needs to be addressed is company tax rate. Until nations have company tax rate at a competitive level then businesses will choose the lowest tax nation as their profit centre. But changing twenty different nation’s sovereign laws takes some time to achieve.
I trust that you are not one of the many Australians who have no understanding of how the taxation system works, who believe that tax deductions are a present to “big business” and are unaware that even PAYE income taxpayers can have tax deductions. For example, the fee for a simple tax return done by an accountant.
41
The problem has been known for years, and was identified clearly in the Henry Review, also knownas “Australia’s Future Tax System Review”. This review was commissioned by the Labor Government in 2009, and the final report was released in 2010.
It noted that Australia had one of the OECD’s highest tax rate for company tax – 30%. It also recommended that Australia’s company tax rate be reduced to 25%. The economic modelling behind this assumes that if company tax rates are the same between countries, companies will stop profit shifting. So decreasing Australia’s company tax rate would have increased Australia’s company tax revenues.
The Henry Review provides an explanation of the many forms of taxation that are imposed on Australian citizens. However, it is also instructive for another reason. It made 138 recommendations for changes to Australia’s taxation system, but not one recommendation was ever implemented. That indicates the difficulty a government faces in selling tax system changes to the electorate.
30
Some of the “expert” commentary is beyond belief.
By Neville Nicholls, Professor Emeritus, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University
So our CSIRO climate scientists have been providing different advice to that from the IPCC?
Plus cutting the Oceans and Atmosphere department from 420 to 355 doesn’t lead to the loss of 110 positions. Where’s the mass media statement on this?
100
Climate Science can be modelled with basic maths.
Provable scientific output value of IPCC ( and organizations that fawn giddily upon its every utterence ) = 0
Halving the budget of climate scientists who place stock in the IPCC
means 0.5 x 0 = 0
Simple, really….
11
Where were the climate scientists supporting me when my 2 retrenchments occurred?
All industries have downturns. What makes them so special (other than they are saving the Earth) that they feel they should have guaranteed employment for life?
131
Yep . . and these scientists™ are going to learn about ‘adaption’ first hand.
11
Nerilie Abram, Associate Professor, Australian National University:
“The notion that somehow the question of global climate change has been answered is ludicrous.”
. . .
Nerilie needs to contact Obama:
Obama: “The debate [over climate change] is settled”
“The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way,” said President Obama last night in his State of the Union Address.”But the debate is settled,” he added emphatically. “Climate change is a fact.”
90
Climate change is a known fact and I have it on good authority that global warming has failed to materialize, but there is good reason to anticipate imminent global cooling.
192
(man made) Climate change is a known fact? I am intrigued. That is a huge concession. If you are serious, please explain what is (man made) climate change, how is it man made and where has it happened? If it is not man made, what can we do?
Personally I have never read of a single example of man made climate change or any proof that it was connected to CO2 or that there was any significant temperature change anywhere. Quite the reverse.
131
All I see is an abundance of negative feedback, but the big problem for us is in trying to explain this to the general public who have been brainwashed.
40
Thanks, but do you believe (man made) Climate Change is a known fact? A yes or no would suffice.
30
No.
AGW is the biggest hoax evah.
41
Do you believe CO2 causes a little bit of warming?
10
No. There is no evidence to support the theory, especially in a hothouse which is turbulent, huge, without roof, walls or floor and in which 98% of the CO2 is in the ocean already. Who has a laboratory the size of a planet, so this is all extrapolation and guesses. The impact of evaporation, storms, monsoons and the amazing characteristics of water around 0C from snow to ice and even the freezing of CO2 at -78C all have to be understood before we can start to talk about such an insignificant warming possibility.
So like all science, show me the proof of even a little CO2 warming or even a correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration and some credibility will be given. I have never seen a correlation which is significant or above the level of noise.
21
Thanks TdeF, I have no confidence in the lukewarmer argument either.
10
An example of man-made climate change? Easy, it’s called the Urban Heat island effect where local climate is made warmer due to an ever-increasing aggregation of humans and industry [cities].
There are lots of cities all over the globe bar Antarctica [it obviously needs developing]. The word missing in all of this is “significan” or perhaps “catastrophic”.
The only catastrophic global changes are Mann[and friends]-made climate changes.
01
Cheers to the 97% who correctly concur that humanity is causing warming of the planet. The science is “settled” on that issue.
What we don’t need is this apparent mismanagement of CSIRO resources, thus preventing the necessary research into the ongoing implications of AGW for the Earth’s climate on global and other spatial levels.
212
97% of what?
97% of morons?
97% of recipients of grants for “tackling climate change?
97% of ABC journalists?
97% of the 77 cherry picked (out of 3,200) climate ‘scientists’ who claimed in 2009 to believe that the world had warmed since 1800AD (who hasn’t) and that humans were predominantly responsible.
Or the 97% figure found Cook in an analysis of 12,000 abstracts, he found “a 97% consensus among papers taking a position on the cause of global warming in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are responsible.” “Among papers taking a position” is a significant qualifier:
When David Legates, a University of Delaware professor who formerly headed the university’s Center for Climatic Research, recreated Cook’s study, he found that “only 41 papers — 0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent,” endorsed what Cook claimed.
But I know the answer to what 100% of gullibles called sillyfilly believe.
112
MOD: I have 2 e-mail addresses.
00
Graeme No.3,
I know it’s back a way, and has been succeeded by two new Threads, but might I draw your attention to a comment you made (at this link) on the Weekend Untreaded regarding rooftop solar, and my reply. My guess is that there would be nothing firm as regards what you mentioned, because it would be severely embarrassing, but might yo expand a little on it please.
Tony.
10
Tony:
No, if I have made a mistake I will put up with any embarrassment.
I have tried to reply twice, but am having computer problems. Would you e-mail me please?
Thanks
Graeme
10
Graeme: There’s also this – my calculation on an earlier ‘97%’ paper. My apologies to the ‘regulars’ on this site, but it seems the message still needs to be repeated.
‘Sillyfilly’ please take note….and do read the original paper and check for yourself…..
Here’s how the time-worn statement that ‘97% of scientists agree that mankind is responsible for global warming’ was derived in 2009 by Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
They published a research paper entitled ‘Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change’.
This can be easily accessed via the internet.
Comments in quotation marks are verbatim from the paper.
Survey questionnaires were sent to ‘10,257 Earth scientists’.
The paper explains that ‘This brief report addresses the two primary questions of the survey’.
These were:
1) ‘When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained generally constant?’
2) ‘Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?’
The survey was ‘designed to take less than 2mins to complete’ and was administered online.
Firstly, note that of the 10,257 to whom the questionnaire was sent, only 3,146 individuals bothered to complete and return the survey – i.e. just short of 31%.
‘Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists’ – as opposed to for example oceanographers and palaeontologists. That’s 157 individuals out of the 3,146.
Of these 157, 79 scientists had published more than 50% of their recent research papers on the subject, and so were deemed by the authors to be ‘the most specialised and knowledgeable respondents’.
In other words, of the total of 10,257 considered knowledgeable enough to have their opinion sought at the outset of the study, only 79 individuals were by now considered to the most knowledgeable.
Of these 79, 76 (96.2%) answered ‘risen’ to question 1, and – wait for it – 75 out of 77 (97.4%) answered ‘yes’ to question 2.
So there we are – job done – 97.4% of scientists agree that humans are warming the planet significantly – or do they?
Let’s see now: 75 out of the 10,257 polled. I make that 0.73%.
51
“1) ‘When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained generally constant?’
2) ‘Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?’
I would have to answer YES to both of those questions.
1. is a given… thank goodness. The LIA would not have been able to support our current level of human population.
2. Yes, urban growth has definitely affected the calculated value of the global surface temperature, and YES, the “adjustments” etc have most definitely contributed to the warming trend in the calculated value of the global surface temperature.
See.. I’m one of those 97% !!!
21
Always a pleasure to meet an old comrade, but its my melancholy duty to inform you that you have been brainwashed.
There is a need to separate the CSIRO from BoM because its been infected with a warm bias. When things return to what they were before hysteria took over, cooler heads should prevail.
Pointless retaining these scientists at the present, nothing unnatural appears to be happening, but when global cooling takes hold in a few years they may want to rehire them.
30
Tell me SF..
Do you still use grid electricity in any form?
Do you still buy stuff in stores?
Do you still own a car on bitumen roads?
Do you still walk on concrete footpaths?
Do you use any plastics implements?
Do you still eat hay harvested by diesel powered machinery?
I could go on forever……
And if you answer YES to any of these questions…
then YOU are part of YOUR mythical CO2 problem.
62
“Do you still own a car and drive on bitumen roads?
30
It is not just the 350 scientists at the CSIRO.
Starting in 2007 under the Rudd government, you have the public servants in the department of the Environment/BOM administering the Australian Climate Change Program collaboration with the CSIRO, a very large climate trough. “The Centre was established in 2007 to ensure Australia remains a world leader in climate, weather and oceans research so it can meet the severe weather and climatic challenges that continue to confront the nation. Many of the scientists working on the ACCSP are based within the centre.”
Then add the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the National Climate Change Adaption Research Facility and all the councils environmental activists on salaries and those at Universities.
You have to ask in the decade since inception, exactly what these severe weather and climatic challenges were and how we met them, because this is now past tense.
“Our scientists work with other research agencies and universities across Australia and internationally. We also work closely with regional climate change programmes and convene regular conferences to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and development of networks.”
You could add Gillard’s Climate Change Authority established in 2012 under accountant Bernie Fraser with its $6.2Million budget, stuffed with professional Climate Change promoters like Clive Hamilton and David Karoly.
Just how many Australian public servants are solving the “greatest moral challenge of a generation” and what is it again? What coastline is at threat? How much has the temperature risen? How have windmills saved us? How is that mitigation working out then? Or the sheep shearing machine?
Maybe Malcolm could bring back the carbon tax/ETS and use the money to pay them, creating a huge permanent climate industry. What it would actually do is irrelevant but doing nothing is not an option. They are furiously doing nothing now.
Expect a lot of climate dependants go on strike, putting our climate at dire risk. Their fear is that no one would notice for a hundred years.
192
“How much has the temperature risen?”
This century, the satellite data shows a warming trend in Australia of -0.06ºC/decade
91
January 2016 in Australia was the 34th warmest in the 37 years of the satellite record.
101
So?
20
TdeF,
AndyG55 was pointing out that the 34th warmest of 37 years is nothing to get excited about.
Yet the Warmistas and MSM have gone bananas about it.
30
“So?”
Precisely 🙂
20
Trend lines. They depend on where you start and it is absolutely amazing that the BOM has steadfastly refused to include the data prior to 1909. That is scandalous, as the Federation drought was the worst period in Australian history and is as fully recorded as any, but by the states.
Then I have also not read any estimation of the effects of joining the thermometer technologies of the 19th and 20th centuries to the electronic technologies of the late 20th century, after 1980. No matter how you do it, a huge move from reading accuracies alone of +/-0.5C must leave a great uncertainty in the temperatures of the 19th and 20th centuries. It would only take a small bias to create a jump of +0.5C and now a cooling of -0.6C per century. In a continent the size of Australia, from Darwin with 32 every day to Hobart, the very idea of a continental temperature is meaningless for any purpose. As for a world temperature, day and night, pole to pole, winter to winter, that is also popular fantasy. Only a satellite can measure the total reflection and land temperature with any certainty.
100
Hottest January in the UAH global satellite record: January 2016.
28
Great isn’t it.
Hopefully we’re on track to get back to the Holocene Optimum in a couple of centuries.
The CSIRO have already confirmed the planet is greening up nicely, too . . bless their cotton socks.
Is it too early for a Toga party?
51
All that “warm” anomaly is coming from the high latitude northern areas in WINTER and the dissipating El Nino
In Australia, January was the 34th warmest in the 38 year of satellite data.
The WARMEST January over Australia in the satellite era was 1979 !!!
32
The very RED section in UAH temperatures is an area to the northern part of Russia/Siberia.
The anomaly is large.. but its still FREEZING !!
The UAH NoPol chart is quite bizarre !!!
http://s19.postimg.org/7pxtbknjn/UAH_No_Pol_Jan2016.png
But over the USA.. the anomaly compared to 1981-2000 is basically ZERO after the spike in December.
http://s19.postimg.org/8lgilst2r/USA_January.png
12
What people need to realise, is that the manic spike in the NoPol UAH data means that a whole lot of energy will have been released into space.
We can see how quickly the US dropped back down…
….look for UAH NoPol February for a major cooling correction.
12
And let me guess..
You have never bothered to actually look at the data yourself, have you, SF !!
Just that little propaganda tit-bit passed onto you from your alarmist mates.
22
Good.
Warm is great. Cold is awful.
Stand someone naked in the Sahara and stand someone else naked in Antarctica. See who dies first.
20
Sillyfilly: There have always been ‘hottest days’. We’re talking about fractions of a degree – so what?. Does anyone ever talk about the coldest day anywhere? Vostok (a Russian Antarctic station) experienced the lowest temperature ever recorded on August 24th 1960. It was -88.3C. The average annual temperature there is -57C. I don’t think that the Antarctic will thaw out somehow!
‘Highest recorded’ looks like this using figures from the Central England Temperature record. The temperatures are in Celsius, and are averages for the years shown.
1659: first reading ever: 8.83⁰C
1660: highest ever recorded 9.08
1686: highest ever recorded 10.13
1733: highest ever recorded 10.47
1959: highest ever recorded 10.48
1989: highest ever recorded 10.50
1990: highest ever recorded 10.63
2006: highest ever recorded 10.82
2014: highest ever recorded 10.93
There always have been ‘highest recorded’ temperatures and always will, somewhere on the planet. Despite this, life on Earth continues!
21
As you say TdeF not really much to show for it, a few idle desalination plants, no studies on the origin of El nina/La nina which would be useful to know, and heaps of bureaucracy.
60
El Niño, La Niña
Pronounced:
El Neen yo (o as in “off”)
La Neen ya (a as in “are”)
10
To be clear about $100Bn worth of unused desalination plants for which we will be paying for another 25 years, with interest. Why?
Not a single (cheap) new major dam in fifty years! Think of all the things which could be done to drought proof our land with far less than $100Bn. Plus increase agricultural output and who knows, even change the climate to what we want by putting back the trees and networks of irrigation systems and even reengineering the rivers, as has been done in other countries, say with the Volga and the Mississippi and the Nile? Last year I sailed down the Volga
There are 26 locks, dams and barrages on the Murray. It did not go dry in the millenium drought. Luckily they were built by forward thinking people before the Greens stopped everything and want the Murray emptied.
We even spent $100Million on an unused North South pipeline in Victoria, which was only used during the Goulburn flood at the end of the drought, just to make it worse. We emptied the earthworks Wivenhoe dam when 192% full and threatening to wash away and dump three Sydney harbours into the Brisbane valley, drowning a million people. The papers never explained the imminent disaster, just the exoneration of those involved. Australia needs to get its climate policies right but all we have a quangoes going on about man made climate change instead of climate proofing the country and that means dams and pipelines and low loss distribution, not more scientists wringing their hands about fossil fuels.
If we can change the climate, we should, for the better. Who is discussing that? Or is everything just peachy now, before the next big drought?
100
The lower Volga was full of locks. They have connected the huge Volga and Don rivers. The Russians harvest and control their rivers. The Nile has the old now obsolete 1890s British dam at Aswan which stored one year of water, stopping the devastating annual floods. The Nasser dam stores ten years, as the Egyptians have tracked their water levels for 1600 years and know they need ten years, just like Australia. What are our scientists doing? Working with the economists and bankers to get more money out of the public? Why did we buy desalination plants when we only needed dams and pumps and distribution?
101
TdeF,
(1) The Adelaide desal plant is expensive, but necessary, insurance against the next multi-year drought. We can’t depend on the water from the Murray or from our small reservoirs in the Adelaide Hills.
(2) Dams on large, flat rivers are a mixed blessing. The Aswan High dam is silting up and the Aral Sea has all but dried up.
20
The Aral sea has been drying up for 2500 years. The desalination plant is silly. It will be obsolete and unserviceable before it is used. What about spending the money on real geoengineering like flooding Lake Eyre or pumping water from the NT? Everyone thinks on a very simple level.
01
Actually, I think the Adelaide desal is running at 10% capacity, and they intend to keep doing that.
Eases the drawdown from their small dams and from the Murray River and makes sure the plant stays on line.
In 2007 they did have pretty serious issues with water down there, even the Murray was becoming quite saline and close to unusable.
The Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane ones were a massive waste of money, and will probably never be used.
They have 3, or is it 4 now, in Perth, working basically full time.
10
The debt was created for us. There was no money to be spent in the first place.
00
Brumby admitted the N/S pipeline cost about $790 million so it probably cost a mere one billion. Just another nought though.
00
The thing I dislike most about supposed climate “science” communication is the stupefying simplistic lies presented as support of the hypothesis.
Lies such as this – http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Nimbus/nimbus2.php:-
“When it comes to climate and climate change, the Earth’s radiation budget is what makes it all happen.
Swathed in its protective blanket of atmospheric gases against the boiling Sun and frigid space, the Earth maintains its life-friendly temperature by reflecting, absorbing, and re-emitting just the right amount of solar radiation.
To maintain a certain average global temperature, the Earth must emit as much radiation as it absorbs. If, for example, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide cause Earth to absorb more than it re-radiates, the planet will warm up.”
Firstly – “frigid space” ? NASA lists that even as far as Mars the solar radiation is 589 Watts/sqm.
The reality is there is no “frigid space” within hundreds of millions of kilometres of Earth ! The volume of the huge sphere with Mars’ orbit as its radius is continuously irradiated by the Sun. The only way to avoid it is to reflect it away or hide in the shadow of a planet and even this volume of “shadow” is tiny in comparison.
Funnily enough, after the text telling the reader “radiation trapping” is causing global warming, they produce a graph which has a positive anomaly for radiation measured in space by the satellites and they apparently don’t see the contradiction that “radiation trapping” leads to more radiation to space. The anomaly is significantly larger than any claimed radiation forcing for CO2 in our atmosphere.
Then there are the stupid comparisons of our airless Moon with Earth.
Firstly the Moon takes more than a week to cool from the highs of over a hundred degrees C to the lows of minus 170 C – they never remind anyone that a lunar hour corresponds to more than an Earth day. Average cooling rates for the Moon’s surface – especially the rocky surfaces – are less than a degree per Earth hour.
Of course Earth with its 24 hour period is never going to cool to the extreme lows recorded on the Moon.
Besides that nonsensical distortion of facts we do not even measure the same temperature variables.
We measure air temperatures – not ground surface temperatures – and the oceans surfaces don’t count !
There are plenty of localities on Earth where the maximum to minimum variation in a 12 hour night exceeds the lunar radiation only cooling rate.
And if we did measure the actual ground surface the changes would be even greater on Earth.
For some reason people have been hoodwinked into believing that our atmosphere slows down ground surface cooling when the exact opposite is plainly obvious.
Without convective cooling all of our machinery simply could not function – relying on radiation alone would cause destructive overheating in no time at all.
If the “science” is indeed so robust why do the acolytes continually lie to us with nonsensical comparisons ?
202
“The total sum number of farmers in the ABC dataset is two”
and the only reason they asked the second one was so that they could use the plural. “a farmer said” doesn’t quite work, even for the ABC.
111
Much amusement…
‘Huge sea-level rises caused by climate change will last far longer than the entire history of human civilisation to date, according to new research, unless the brief window of opportunity of the next few decades is used to cut carbon emissions drastically.
‘Even if global warming is capped at governments’ target of 2C – which is already seen as difficult – 20% of the world’s population will eventually have to migrate away from coasts swamped by rising oceans. Cities including New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Calcutta, Jakarta and Shanghai would all be submerged.’
Carrington / Guardian
90
Cairo? The others make sense but Cairo is 150 km from the mouth of the Nile and 25 metres above sea level. The Nile is the only river and source of water and 90% of all Egyptians live along it. It could not be more isolated from sea level change unless the whole of Egypt was submerged. At present rates, the 25 metres will take 2,500 years and people have time to move but why on earth did they list Cairo? Schipol airport at Amsterdam is 10 metres below sea level as is so much of the Nederlands, the Low Countries. Where is the problem?
110
Huge sea-level rise caused by something explains much of this:
“Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old.”
Evidence for SUV’s, coal fired power, lack of bicycle riding is yet to be discovered, but 97% climate scientists are sure humans are to blame.
90
Global warming can make sea level plunge
1999, By BBC News Online’s Damian Carrington
“Global warming can lead to a dramatic fall in sea level, says a US geologist.
This suggestion is the opposite of the generally-expected effect of rising temperature. And while it is unlikely to happen in the near future, Dr John Bratton of the US Geological Survey says the process behind it could offset the sea level rises which are predicted to flood low-lying areas of the world.
It could also explain mysterious plunges in sea level in warmer periods in the Earth’s geological past.”
. . .
El Gordo’s (missing) link:
9 February 2016: Sea-level rise ‘could last twice as long as human history’
Quite so much amusement, el gordo!
40
There is no doubt in my mind that the Klimatariat and its warmist minions in the MSM are all completely mad.
“We are making choices that will affect our grandchildren’s grandchildren and beyond,” said Prof Daniel Schrag, at Harvard University in the US. “We need to think carefully about the long timescales of what we are unleashing.”
——
On the other matter, the submerged city may have originally been constructed during the Younger Dryas.
11
It’s not just the “scientists” involved that need to go. If you can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theatre – without repercussions. Who gave the media the right to shout “fire” in our society without repercussions?
111
Mrs MacDonald from Victoria, who one can only assume has a farm, says climate change was coming “like a freight train”, possibly, considering the topic, filled with gravy.
The thing she seems to forget out her example is that when you step a few meters to the side, trains go harmlessly past you. Guess Mrs MacDonald went to the Prometheus school of running away from things.
71
Sounds like those “Australian climate scientists” will have a DIY replacement when Tony gets the Australian data linked
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-super-climate-sunday/
40
No, Tony hasn’t added the function that sends the raw data to the local department for climate change forecasting so that the appropriate adjustments can be applied. Without the adjustments, you cannot replicate the modelled findings of our unappreciated climate scientists.
41
Everyone in government is a ultimately tax burden to us all – including those in government . The bigger government is the more revenue it needs from a smaller supply source. Thats the circular problem with subsidised incomes….eventually other peoples money runs out. The solution is to lower income tax, free up peoples disposable income, and the freedom will flow to innovation, expenditure and growth. That will lead to consumption and the government gross taxtake improves.
50
Public servants pay taxes, but what they too often fail to acknowledge that they do not provide new revenue to governments. The private sector taxpayers provide real revenue and public servants are paid from that pool of money. All public service tax payments do is return money to that pool of money.
Therefore, governments should restrict the numbers of people on the public payroll to a bare minimum number, essential to needs personnel only.
40
7 Feb: Don Aitkin: If the science is settled, why do we need all these people working at it?
http://donaitkin.com/if-the-science-is-settled-why-do-we-need-all-these-people-working-at-it/
51
Let them ‘eat cake’ I say !
Geoff W
40
As part of the ABC/SBS frenzied story on this, the director of BoM was shown bemoaning the “loss of data”. Funny how it is that he’s presiding over the biggest loss of meteorological field stations in our history. They’re to be automated and staff “redeployed” or made redundant. The problem with automated systems is that they fall over, and when they do, it takes sometimes considerable time to get a technician to the site to fix the problem. That’s how we end up with big gaps in data. Of course these days they can pluck a number from thin air using data from a station 500km away.
31
The Cape Grim media sensationalism is a good example of the compulsive obsession with alarmism.
70
Welcome to the real world. The climate guys are now just starting to worry about their futures. Just wait until you lose your jobs for real like hundreds of thousands of oil/gas industry people – like myself – who are already out of work. Mind you it’s worse for us as we were actually doing something useful.
121
Mr. Plant and Mrs. MacDonald are farmers? Are those made up names or just a crazy coincidence? That’s like an astronaut being named Johnny Rocket – has a kind of made-up sense to it.
90
Made up names?
Haven’t you heard;
Mrs MacDonald had a farm
Eeaye, Eeaye Ohhh!
00
hysterical?
9 Feb: SMH: Peter Hannam/Tom Arup: Australia to be ‘isolated’ from global research after CSIRO climate cuts: WMO
The World Climate Research Programme, a unit of the WMO, said the “substantial reductions” in climate researchers had “sent shockwaves into the international climate research community”.
“These cuts will sever vital linkages with Australian colleagues and to essential Southern Hemisphere data sources, linkages that connect Australia to the UK, the USA, New Zealand, Japan, China and beyond,” the WCRP said in a statement.
“Australia will find itself isolated from the community of nations and researchers devoting serious attention to climate change.”…
The comment from the WMO follow comments from Peter Stott, who heads the climate observation and attribution team at Britain’s Met Office, who said the proposed cuts were causing concern within the UK weather organisation.
Met Office chief scientist Professor Julia Slingo emailed colleagues over the weekend to say they should support CSIRO scientists…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-to-be-isolated-from-global-research-after-csiro-climate-cuts-wmo-20160208-gmoydi.html
30
On one hand it’s daft for Australians to outsource their climate to other countries, countries that may not always have Australias best interests at heart, on the other hand, the climate has been forecast with astonishing accuracy for the next thirty thousand years.
So that gives the country a little bit of breathing space before they have to employ another bunch of CSIROS to save the planet.
30
Something like the mischievous complaints made by the Canadian Wheat Board against the Australian Wheat Board over supply of Australian Wheat to Iraq when Saddam Hussein was the dictator and the United Nations had imposed sanctions against Iraq. The so called oil for food exchange programme. A programme some thousands of international businesses were involved in and monitored closely by UN Customs Officers supplied by member nations. The complaint was that the AWB paid bribes to gain orders from Iraq. The CWB case was taken up in the Australian Parliament for Labor by Kevin Rudd who used CWB as his source of “evidence”. Like taking evidence from Woolworths to accuse Coles of breaking the rules.
The fact was that all goods shipped into Iraq by sea were landed in Jordan and road transported to Iraq. Only one Jordanian trucking firm had the right to enter Iraq. The AWB paid for the Wheat export shipments in the normal manner, Cost & Freight or Cost Insurance & Freight. If bribes were paid indirectly the Jordanian trucking firm would have been responsible, not their client AWB.
30
I understand that the CWB is now a major shareholder in what was the AWB.
20
Must have wanted access to the “knowhow”?
20
It infuriates me that the Greens and the ALP screech their support for climate modelling, when the ALP, the ACTU and Trades Hall spent most of the late 80s and early 90s trying to get funding cut for economic modelling.
The even-more-innumerate Greens were likewise hostile to economic modelling, because it tells you that wasting tax money on vanity projects is welfare-destroying.
The ACTU and its subsidiary (the ALP) hated CoPS (and its precursor) because of modelling showing that protective tariffs on TCF and cars were welfare-reducing and that industry protection needed to be reduced (and the dollar floated).
Halfpenny (remember Big John?) and Hawke were both on record that CoPS (the Centre of Policy Studies at Monash – a genuine world leader in its field) should be de-funded.
“It’s all based on assumptions”… “You can’t reduce things to numbers.”… “Reality is much more complex than some set of equations.”
Seriously – that was their hymn sheet (hilarious since most of them could not add integers with any accuracy).
Nowadays we’re supposed to believe that they actually believe that there is more precision in a climate model, than in an economic model… when the climate is orders of magnitude more complex than the economy, and the data on which climate forecasts are based are orders of magnitude less reliable than economic data.
In other words, the support of the left for ‘quant’ output on the climate is because it’s sufficiently bewildering that the layman jsut lies back and accepts it… and very few people have the ‘chops’ to properly assess its flaws (I would guess less than half a percent of people with specific quant training – and most of those have far better things to do with their time).
When the attempt to calumniate econoomic modelling (and try to cut funding) didn’t work, it seems to me that they sort of infiltrated the key government posts for economic modelling… that’s the only way I can explain how Blair Comley – who was one of my tutors at Monash, and overtly hostile to economic modelling as a paradigm – wound up in charge of the Treasury’s modelling section (including both the TRYM and PRISMOD teams). Blair was a very bright guy, but his hostility to any sort of quantitative economics ought to have made it obvious that he was being installed to run the modelling section to a shambles.
Whenever you get in front of a leftie numbskull who parrots climate-model nonsense, ask them what they think about economic modelling.
(For the record: I am neither leftie nor righty – I despise all political parasites equally, and am on record as saying that their highest-productivity use is to be ground up and fed to pigs)
41
Tie the scientists’ job losses in with the 2016 World Economic Forum elite discussing ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’ bearing down upon us – and what have we got?… More job losses!
Now, is that an economic catastrophic future? Or the beginnings of an Age of Leisure for us all? In which case, maybe the unemployed scientists can now put those brains to work and look at how the Technological/Robotic Age can distribute the abundance without human labour, without the workers?
Not such a silly question to ask. The potential of this Age of Abundance was seen a hundred years ago by an engineer (who had to make certain his models worked in the real world) employed at the time by the Farnborough Aircraft Factory.
While six million of the youngest and strongest were fighting for their country during WW1, the young, the old and the women were not only feeding, clothing and housing the nation – including the six million – they were operating the Industrial Machine that provided the means to fight the destructive war.
The power of the Industrial Machine could churn out the products at such a speed as not seen in the former age of muscular (human and animal)power.
We have now entered the Industrial/Automated Technological Age – so what have those ‘unemployed’ scientists got to say about that? Looks like they are going to have to join the estimated world-wide 200 million other unemployed – and come up with constructive answers!
40
o/t but vital to the discussion:
8 Feb: UK Telegraph: Jillian Ambrose: Energy supply crunch looms as Staffordshire coal plant to close
The second major coal plant closure announced in a week could drive the UK’s risk of blackouts higher next winter
The energy firm, formerly known as GDF Suez, blamed a “deterioration in market conditions” for the shutdown, which could lead to 150 job losses and heighten ongoing concerns of a looming energy crisis.
“Unfortunately, market conditions for UK coal plant have deteriorated rapidly in recent years, as a result of a continued fall in power prices on the back of commodity market decline, and INCREASES IN CARBON COSTS,” Engie said.
The UK is set to lose almost 9pc of its total generation supply within the space of a few months as coal-plant generators struggle to survive falling market prices in a greener energy system…
A spokeswoman for National Grid, the energy system operator, said the closures will have no impact in the short term, and it has already contracted generation units totaling 3.2GW to help keep the lights on next winter.
On Monday it was revealed that the 2GW Eggborough coal plant in North Yorkshire had signed a deal with National Grid to supply power next winter at times of peak demand. This financial certainty will enable the plant to reverse its decision to close this summer.
But the UK is still set to lose 7.4GW of output this year, leaving just 11.7GW of coal-fired power capacity remaining…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/12147020/Energy-supply-crunch-looms-as-Staffordshire-coal-plant-to-close.html
30
8 Feb: ReutersCarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: Engie announces closure of UK’s Rugeley coal power plant
Engie said it made the decision due to a deterioration in market conditions for coal-fired power in the UK, as well as a continued fall in wholesale power prices and an increase in carbon costs…
The UK’s carbon floor price, which nearly doubled last April to £18.08/tonne, likely played a large role in the decision as analysts have pointed to it, along with falling gas prices, as being largely responsible for the onset of more fuel switching within Britain’s power sector.
According to EU data, the plant, which is 25% owned by Japan’s Mitsui & Co., emitted 4.64 million tonnes of CO2 in 2014, making it the 12th biggest polluting installation in the UK that year. That was down from 6.37 million tonnes in 2013…
Other large coal plants including Eggborough, Ferrybridge and Longannet are also due to be closed in the coming months.
A spokesman for the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change told the Shropshire Star: “There will be no impact on this winter and action has already been taken to secure extra capacity for next winter. We will continue to work alongside National Grid and Ofgem to take whatever additional steps are necessary to protect our energy supply.”…
http://carbon-pulse.com/15287/
20
pat:
“A spokesman for the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change told the Shropshire Star: “There will be no impact on this winter and action has already been taken to secure extra capacity for next winter.”
I guess his favourite pastime is dancing on a greasy pole over the shark tank. Or else he hasn’t a bloody clue about the real world.
10
SMH, March, 2015:
El Niño declared as climate scientists watch on with ‘amazement’
“Climate scientists are monitoring this with amazement,” said Cai Wenju, a principal CSIRO research scientist who has published widely on the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern. “We only understand what we have seen.”
NOAA, February 5, 2016:
NOAA launches unprecedented effort to discover how El Niño affects weather
Pacific research goal is to improve accuracy of weather forecasts and models.
10
8 Feb: Financial Times: One of UK’s largest power stations to close
One of the UK’s largest power stations is to close as it struggles to cope with stricter emissions targets, its operator has announced.
Engie, the French energy company, has announced it will shut its 1GW plant at Rugeley, in Staffordshire, resulting in the potential loss of 150 jobs, writes Kiran Stacey, Energy Correspondent.
The company blamed a rapid deterioration in market conditions for UK coal power, “as a result of a continued fall in power prices… and increases in carbon costs”…
Drax, the UK’s largest power station, which burns half coal and half wood chippings, told the Financial Times this morning (LINK) that the government’s target might be missed if additional capacity is not brought onto the system soon.
http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/02/08/one-of-uks-largest-coal-fired-power-plants-to-close/
above links to this for those who haven’t exceeded their quotas for reading FT material!
Drax power chief warns on deadline for coal stations closure
Britain will need power from coal even after the 2025 deadline to scrap it unless the government does more to encourage other forms of fuel, the head of the country’s biggest power station has said. …””If sufficient new build is not coming through then the government will have to look again at whether 2025 is the right cut-off date”…
Financial Times · 1 day ago
00
unbelievable:
8 Feb: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: US military to war game climate change threats
New directive from Pentagon calls for climate focus at all levels of armed forces; urging commanders to prepare troops for operations in extreme conditions
Under DOD DIRECTIVE 4715.21 chiefs of staff, equipment buyers and health advisers will need to integrate climate change into any new purchases, missions or infrastructure plans…
The document, which is signed off by Robert Work, deputy secretary of Defense, calls for greater work with climate scientists to “reduce risk and promote mission execution.”…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/02/08/us-military-to-war-game-climate-change-threats/
can’t copy from the following link, but read all and note:
8 Feb: 4Coffshore: Wind farm radar up and running
In its capacity as prime conractor, Serco has been working with Lockheed Martin to optimise the necessary radar technology that mitigates the interference created by wind farm turbine blades…
Christopher Carpenter, MOD’s project director and senior engineer,
commented: “…The MOD (Ministry of Defense) has worked in partnership with Serco, the Crown Estate and the Wind Industry to implement and subsequently optimise the radar for its mitigation capability for the Sheringham Shoal wind farm”…
The trade group Renewable UK has also been heavily involved in this initiative.
Chief Executive Maria McCaffery said..etc
http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/wind-farm-radar-up-and-running-nid3265.html
00
I submitted the following letter to the Newcastle Herald. Knowing the track record of this Fairfax publication, I doubt it will be published. Here it is:
The national story “CSIRO boss defends cuts to climate science” by Tom Arup/Peter Hannam, Herald 9/2, showed a picture of a large group of grim, stern faced climate scientists wearing blue armbands. They should have worn black armbands.
Ever since PM Julia Gillard said in May 2011 that “the science is in” on climate change, we should not have needed to spend any more money on climate change research. That is obvious, by definition if, as she said, the science was in, done and dusted. The fact that these climate researchers demand that taxpayers fund their special interest hobby and lifestyle indefinitely shows their arrogance and sense of privilege. CSIRO head Larry Marshall has decided to spend his limited budget on adaption to climate. That makes more sense than wasting money on esoteric climate trivia. Climate researchers love to publish on such stuff. They then use that to justify trips to international conferences in exotic places.
Those climate scientists who lose tenure should get a haircut and a real job.
61
almost 1,600 comments; Pielke Jr on page 3:
3 pages: 7 Feb: Washington Times: Rowan Scarborough: Pentagon orders commanders to prioritize climate change in all military actions
It (DOD DIRECTIVE 4715.21) says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.”…
The directive, “Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience,” is in line with President Obama’s view that global warming is the country’s foremost national security threat, or close to it. Mr. Obama says there is no debate on the existence of man-made global warming and its ensuing climate change. Supporters of this viewpoint label as “deniers” any scientists who disagree…
But there are stubborn doubters. A climate center in Colorado has said its researchers looked at decades of weather reports and concluded there has been no uptick in storms. The United Nations came to a similar finding, saying there is not enough evidence to confirm an increase in droughts and floods…
Dakota Wood, a retired Marine Corps officer and U.S. Central Command planner, said the Pentagon is introducing climate change, right down to military tactics level…
“By equating tactical actions of immediate or short-term utility with large-scale, strategic-level issues of profound importance, the issue of climate change and its potential impact on national security interests is undermined,” he said…ETC
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/7/pentagon-orders-commanders-to-prioritize-climate-c/
10
should have excerpted this from Washington Times piece:
The directive originated in the office of Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Final approval came from Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work.
10
Now that the “scientists ” have apparently reached a consensus that the earth has a fever and humans are the cause
they have served their purpose . The climate fraud industry thank them for their unwavering support and wishes them the best
of luck . Your 15 minutes of fame is over your personal effects will be returned in a carbon free taxi .
41
It has become grim at Cape Grimm.
30
As an ex farmer – now nearly 81 years old, and with a family history of farming in Australia going back 156 years, there is no doubt in my mind that farmers and graziers will be glad to see the back of the Climate Science Group at CSIRO. They are also fed up with the lack of accurate weather forecasts – 60% accurate we are told, not that much better than tossing a coin for 50%!!>
In 2006 I wrote to the the head of the Climate Science Group (or “Stream” I think they preferred to call it), Dr Penny Whetton asking her if she could send me, as a fellow scientist, (a physicist specialising for thirty years in the spectroscopyof gases, isolated and in mixtures), published or unpublished references demonstrating the physical behaviour of CO2 in the atmosphere which was causing global warming. At that time I believed the hype and was looking for a way to start taking part.
Dr Whetton promised to send me some references and literature, which I must say surprised me, since one would thing that a group studying the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide on the climate would have offices simply stuffed to the ceiling in such literature. Not so. She would try to find something. After about 10 exchanges of emails over a period of more than 12 months, a colleague of hers in Sydney, sent me a very ordinary but reasonable paper dealing with a small part of the physics, which they had obviously hadn’t read, as it concluded that the climate sensitivity was about one quarter of that proposed by the IPCC.
Not deterred, I tried again, and again and…when eventually Dr Whetton said that she was unable to provide what I was asking for and that the best she could do was to refer me to the statements in the CSIRO report, published in 2007, subsequent to AR3 IPCC 2007, which said and ZI quote almost verbatim: “We believe that most of the increase in global temperatures during the second half of the twentieth century were very likely due to increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide”.
What else was there to do but become an entrenched skeptic!!
John Nicol
[email protected]
61
Ahoy John
Apologies in advance for being presumptuous, but you could be just the man I have been looking for.
As a dumb jaffa who remembers ( vaguely) a bit of his high school physics, I have often wondered about the Greenhouse Effect as it it accepted.
I have read that the deal is that the incoming radiation is held up in the CO2 bonds ( one or both?) at a couple of frequencies & obviously the excitation would be at a specific quanta. ( & H2O CH4 their own etc)
The time lag of resident energy in the excited state I assume is the Heat Trapping which is termed the GH effect.
I guess CO2 being a heavy gas ( compared to ~99%+ of the constituent components & volume of the atmosphere) would tend to be subject to gravitational influences, so notwithstanding the convection & earth rotation & diurnal energy changes there would be a slight constant tendency for a vertical gradation.
Now for the dumb questions-
1. has there been any work done on the mean energy residence/ excitation time of the CO2 gas molecules? [ i.e. how long does the mean quanta of IR get held back?]
2. if/when the resident quanta is “spat out” back into the atmosphere; if the concentration of CO2 is of the order of now 400ppm & most of the rest is N2 & O2,
what are the odds that the same quanta of IR will be intact & lucky enough to take up residence in another molecule of CO2?
[ how much would end up being degraded by incidence with other atmospheric gas molecules?]
3. Are we being artfully misled by quoting CO2 concentrations from (1.)Mauna Loa the world’s largest active shield volcano & a sea mount forcing up( warming) colder more CO2 laden brine & (2.) Cape Grim facing the Roaring 40s over the circumpolar wind & ocean currents cycling north from the cold Antarctic { higher dissolved CO2 levels) to relatively warmer latitudes?
4. Are we deluding ourselves in the carbon accounting by assuming that CO2 is well mixed?
At the risk of sounding childishly ignorant, where I am going with this is simple:-
If the CO2 excitation is only measured in short periods { nS??) & the CO2 concentrations are as reported rising continuously in a nearly linear fashion the CO2 argument let alone the Anthropogenic CO2 argument falls over if one accepts the 1998 peak & to flat to declining temperatures since.
11
John Nicol,
I’ve written a response to you but it seems a discussion of this nature is no longer allowed here. 🙁
That comment is now in moderation. 🙁
It seems that some forms of free speech are more free than others. 😉
Abe
10
A little off-topic, but this headline smacked me between the eyes as I sipped my morning tea. What Earth will be in 100 years is so settled that the blob has run projections out 10,000 years. The cockroaches will need life-vests.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/08/what-the-earth-will-be-like-in-10000-years-according-to-scientists/
10
It is just not Cricket !
This reminds me of the 1932 Test match in which through Douglas Jardine’s direction and Larwood’s culpability the British team actually tried to “shut down” the Australian Cricket team, using the very dangerous “leg theory”.
The British team were literally attempting to physically disable Don Bradman and other Australian batsman.
Later Larwood was asked by the MCC to apologize , he refused, thus ended Larwood’s Test career.
No such request was made of Jardine who instigated the whole idea… 🙁
I realize this has nothing to do with the topic of CSIRO, but it just goes to show that Institutes of which many of us hold in high regards can sometimes be used for less than honorable purposes.
10
It finally occurred to me that if CSIRO, GISS and their parent NASA along with the IPCC and some others had admitted a long time ago that they didn’t know what was waiting for “us” (their word), we might not be going through all this climate change nonsense now.
Words have a way of turning ironic, don’t they? 😉
10
They should have admitted their uncertainty and downright ignorance from the start. Of course, Jo wouldn’t be the worlds most famous (and controversial) blogger if they had. But you can’t have everything. And I’m sure Jo would rather have had more time for her family right from day one.
11
Fire them all and then reapply for their jobs. Focus on integrity, useful work, added value, successful predictions, open minded analysis, independent thinking, critical thinking skills.
One-in-ten would qualify for rehire.
11
“..the same people who collect the data should not be the ones publishing papers and policies on it and “auditing” it. We don’t allow that with financial records. Why do we think our environment is less important than our tax returns?”
Because we’ve found that with financial dealings, too many people can’t be trusted to be honest.
Oh, hang on …
10
‘…Try to rationalise the statements “97% of scientists agree” with “we don’t know what the heck…”…’
As ever, spot-on. These hypocrites can’t even recognise the obvious hypocrites they are. Nice one, Jo!
02
That’s actually quite a far reaching statement if you are serious about the analogy.
It would require a kind of anonymised experiment clearing house where theoreticians can submit their hypotheses for any empiricists in the world to test. Maybe an auction system. You’d have to get the economists to figure out what system would maximise the incentives towards proper science.
Anyone can already, in principle, experimentally test most scientific papers ever written, but you’re going one step further to require observers cannot be testers. Anonymous peer review is not part of the scientific method, yet mainstream science has decided to operate science that way for catching errors. Separation of experimentation from analysis is just moving that auditing step back further in the process.
In practice, observation usually requires money, sometimes lots of money, and experimental design can be very tricky especially in anything involving heat transfer. It is easy for anyone to conjecture “the Higgs boson exists”, and given observation data it would be almost as easy to test the hypothesis against the measurements, but very difficult and expensive to produce the measurements. Separating data collection (i.e. empirical observation) from the analysis and review still requires some incentive for the practitioners that can’t be fiddled by the theoreticians.
If huge amounts of money are offered by theoreticians to “prove” their hypothesis, we are back in the same topsy-turvy anti-science situation as present.
Proposed Rules
My first thoughts about a couple of features of this new science game are:
• Every experimental proposal put up for auction must be concisely phrased in the form of an empirically testable hypothesis which predicts a range of experimental results that are statistically beyond the range of the null hypothesis (which is also stated).
• Make a reverse auction where experimentalists try to undercut each other on price and measurement error when testing a theoretician’s idea. Theoreticians can set a maximum price and a penalty rate proportional to actual error (in StdDevs or percent or a 99% certain absolute quantity, etc).
• The identities of the theoreticians and empiricists are secret until after the experimental result has been delivered.
• Empiricists pay their own costs of their experiment upfront, so they have the incentive to test ideas efficiently and still need to attract seed capital.
• Empiricists will get their bid amount paid by the theoreticians if the empiricist publishes their data electronically in a public archive and uses that data to disprove the proposed hypothesis as originally stated. If this negative result is disputed by the theoretician due to an ambiguity of the hypothesis, the empiricist still wins.
Analysis
This arrangement gives the empiricist incentive to remain within their original bid budget. They can also make money from science if getting a reliable answer (either positive or negative) is worth more to the theoretician than it will cost the empiricist to test.
As the remuneration is locked in before the result is known, it is a wager by the theoretician that their hypothesis is true. They also have incentive to be precise about the hypothesis.
If the empiricist cannot disprove the hypothesis then they have basically bought a positive advancement in scientific knowledge, the theoretician keeps the bid amount and gets some scientific glory, but the empiricist has the data before anyone else does which can be translated to profitability if it is marketable (so they may still be able to turn a loss into a win).
Unfortunately this implies nobody will want to test an idea that they think is true because there’s nothing to be gained in it, but in contrast to the present there is always a monetary incentive to disprove the prevailing belief. Probably governments will fund tests of “high likelihood” hypotheses so this doesn’t stop governments from wasting money, but no system ever can. 😉 Society benefits either way because the data is public.
10