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Relish this win.
Recursive Fury, the ideated paper that Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook and Michael Hubble-Marriott tried to publish early last year, was of such poor quality that it was placed in the scientific limbo-land of being not withdrawn, not retracted, and not published for almost 12 months. Lewandowsky previously published an article claiming skeptics believed the Moon Landing was faked, based on only 10 anonymous internet responses gleaned from sites that hate skeptics. Recursive Fury made out that skeptics who objected this previous paper were barking-mad conspiracy theorists with nefarious intent.
Finally, a week ago, the journal issued a strange but brief official retraction notice. Bizarrely, despite the ignominious failure, Lewandowsky and many others played the victim card, fanning the idea that legal threats had stopped them from publishing a paper that was otherwise academically and ethically fine. The howls of faux-outrage grew, as usual, over-played to the point where they became self-defeating.
Now Frontiers, the journal, already suffering from being associated with such dubious work, has finally had to set the record straight and defend their reputation. They had not caved in to bullying, or legal threats from the evil denier machine. Actually there were no threats at […]
UPDATE: 50% counted so far, likely result = Lib 2 | Lab 2 | Greens 1 | Pup 1 [ABC tally] (This page says all 6 seats are “elected” yet only 50% is counted. Can someone explain? – Jo]
The WA re-election of six senators runs tomorrow. The carbon tax lie is still here, the zombie law dead, but living. The Abbott government can’t get the legislation through the Senate to bury it.
It’s been a novel political strategy by the Labor Party: make a definitive commitment to voters, win by the skin of your teeth, then do the exact opposite. Get caned in the next poll, lose resoundingly. Then stick with the commitment you promised you wouldn’t commit too. Apparently, at the core of the Labor Party philosophy — Truth Is Optional. Changing the weather is more important than being straight with the voters. It’s how you serve them, right?
Ponder the ambition. Gillard declared “there will be no carbon tax” then chose voluntarily, in full view, and with no gun to her head, to break her commitment. She hoped perhaps the Australian people would a/ forget, b/ say thanks, or c/ be understanding — after all, She […]
Who’s the Number One enemy of people who thrive on big-government dependence? Charles Koch. He’s the archetypal threat to their prestige and power. Not only does he have the money to actually fund programs to promote free markets, self reliance, and free speech, he could be a bit of a poster boy for the independent free-market way of life. There’s the danger more people might start to aspire to stand on their own two feet, to create 60,000 jobs while producing products other free citizens value. To take pride in their achievements, and to eschew hand-outs. Therefore it’s imperative that only moguls who toe the collectivist line be allowed to be seen to be “good” people.
..more government means less liberty…
Here he explains what he’s fighting for. What’s not to applaud? — Jo
Hat tip to The HockeySchtick.
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Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination.
An Op-Ed in the Wall St Journal
By Charles G. Koch April 2, 2014 7:47 p.m. ET
I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is those principles—the principles of a free […]
I decided that the IPCC Impacts report was irrelevant speculation because it utterly depended on the IPCC science report and the climate models which we already know are wrong. But the dedicated team at NIPCC show that, even if we take the claims of “impacts” working group seriously, they still come to nothing. Atmospheric CO2 is not a pollutant, there is little risk of famine due to our emissions or due to global warming. Life in the oceans is likely to adapt reasonably well as so many studies have shown, and less humans will die overall as a bonus. For those of you who enjoy well written, well researched arguments, and especially if you are looking for scientific references and the nuance of this debate, there is much to learn. The NIPCC reports are an invaluable reference for me. Careful scientific language is so much more informative than the full-gloss IPCC double-speak about theories which are consistent with uncertainties but not with observations – Jo
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Report Finds Global Warming Causes ‘No Net Harm’ to Environment or Human Health Independent review of climate science contradicts “alarmist” views of United Nations […]
There has never been a book quite like this. Please join us and make this happen.
The IPA is raising funds to make the ultimate climate book. I’m delighted to be involved, and I’m humbled and honored to be part of this extraordinary line up. Now Ross McKitrick joins us too. It’s a who’s who of the climate world, and as well as the names in the header, it also includes Donna LaFramboise, Jennifer Marohasy, Bill Kinninmonth, Ian Plimer, Alan Moran, Nigel Lawson, Pat Michaels, John Roskam, Rupert Darwall, Stewart Franks, John Abbot and Bernard Lewin.
If you only buy one book on the climate this would have to be it. It will have something for everyone.
Donations are tax deductible. This book will make waves.
(Click the book to be a part of it)
I’ve got some great news for you. Already 512 IPA members and supporters have donated a total of $144,544 to support the publication of a new book – Climate Change: The Facts 2014. Confirmed contributors include Mark Steyn, Andrew Bolt, Richard Lindzen, Jo Nova, Anthony Watts, James Delingpole, Bob Carter, and Ian Plimer.
9 out of 10 based on 87 […]
We could spend hours analyzing the new IPCC report about the impacts of climate change. Or we could just point out:
Everything in the Working Group II report depends entirely on Working Group I.
( see footnote 1 SPM, page 3).
Working Group I depends entirely on climate models and 98% of them didn’t predict the pause.
The models are broken. They are based on flawed assumptions about water vapor.
Working Group I, remember, was supposed to tell us the scientific case for man-made global warming. If our emissions aren’t driving the climate towards a catastrophe, then we don’t need to analyze what happens during the catastrophe we probably won’t get. This applies equally to War, Pestilence, Famine, Drought, Floods, Storms, and Shrinking Fish (which, keep in mind, could have led to the ultimate disaster: shrinking fish and chips).
To cut a long story short, the 95% certainty of Working Group I boils down to climate models and 98% of them didn’t predict the pause in surface temperature trends (von Storch 2013) . Even under the most generous interpretation, models are proven failures, 100% right except for rain, […]
Time to panic. Climate Change could make humans extinct, warns the Sydney Morning Herald.
“The Earth is warming so rapidly that unless humans can arrest the trend, we risk becoming ”extinct” as a species, a leading Australian health academic has warned.” The trend, the trend, which trend exactly? The trends have been flat on the surface for 17 years, so if that trend continues, we risk “staying the same”? That’ll be deadly. In 1997 global population was 5.8 billion. Since then, there has been no significant warming in the part of the world that humans live in, and global population plunged to 7.2 billion. Hold off on the End-of-Humanity Party.
Helen Berry, associate dean in the faculty of health at the University of Canberra, said while the Earth has been warmer and colder at different points in the planet’s history, the rate of change has never been as fast as it is today.”
Luckily Helen Berry has seen the Neanderthal global data sets from the paleolithic era which recorded those climate changes. Otherwise how would she know the exact rate of global warming from, say, 11,900 -11,860BC or 42,040 – 42,000BC? The only records I’ve seen (like, the ice […]
Just another signpost on the road to Sensible-land. Remember how skeptics were the fringe minority, the dying dinosaurs, and there were only a few left on the planet? That was last week. Suddenly, begrudgingly, being a skeptic is fashionable (but still wrong, of course). This is “fashionable” in the sense of popular but meaningless, not storming Gucci-type chic, more like getting a high-def TV built into the fridge door. It’s trendy but essentially useless. (By the way, the cool TV has a remote control, DVD and FM radio so you… don’t have to get off the kitchen floor. I suppose it’s just a matter of time before the TV in the family-room will get a fridge built in?)
But I digress.
The Telegraph has the headline “Global warming – there’s hope amid the gloom” .
Geoffrey Lean tells us “scepticism has replaced concern about climate change”, and you and I might think, that therefore, global leaders ought to pay attention to their citizens. But Lean says more skepticism means world leaders have to shout at the punters even louder. Never, ever assume the voters are right.
Lean hasn’t read Marcel Crok and Nicholas Lewis’s report about climate sensitivity being lower […]
Australian Outback | Photo by Geoff Sherrington | (Click to enlarge)
… Photo by Geoff Sherrington
9.1 out of 10 based on 17 ratings
Friday curiosity: Duck-diving Cuvier’s beaked whales can hold their breath for over two hours, and reach a depth of 2 miles (3.2 km) underwater. What’s more, when they come up, they recover in an unbelievable two minutes. (Actually, I really do find this hard to believe. Two minutes? Seriously? )
Cuvier Beaked Whale | Oceanus Magazine Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
These whales can go four times deeper than modern nuclear submarines which are estimated to have a hull crush depth of around 730m. Presumably the Department of Defence will be looking into blubber power or nuclear whales.
But seriously, whales and seals can hold their breath for a ridiculously long time because they pack a lot of oxygen away in their muscles — it’s attached to myoglobin which they have in abundance. Myoglobin‘s quite a lot like the haemoglobin molecule found in blood, it uses iron to bind the oxygen.
For a completely useless culinary tip, whale meat is thus the absolute reddest-of-red-meats and very iron rich — “perfect” then, for anemic vegetarians.
Scientists monitored Cuvier’s beaked whales’ record-breaking dives to depths of nearly two miles below the ocean surface and some dives lasted for over […]
Dennis Jensen, M.P. in the Australian Parliament, made a formal parliamentary request for an audit of the BOM and CSIRO data handling processes.
This is an excellent request, something Australia desperately needs. Good data on the climate.
Given how important our climate is, I’m sure Tim Flannery, The Climate Council, The Australian Conversation Foundation, and The Australian Greens will join us in demanding that the BOM and CSIRO datasets are independently audited. Naturally, all of us would want to ensure our climate data is of the highest quality possible and not subject to any kinds of confirmation bias, or inexplicable adjustments. Right? And maybe its even worse than we thought, so they will want to check, yes?
Let’s leave no stone unturned in making sure we understand the threats to the Australian environment, the impact on our farms and homes, and on our National Balance Sheet! How could any Green disagree?
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Dennis Jensen talks about the response he got from the BOM and the questions he did not get answered:
” … the BOM state the temperature trend prior to 1910 is unreliable. But the IPCC use data on Australia going back to 1850. So […]
The IPCC Working Group II report is due out next week. As is the way, the summary is leaked in advance so the media can slaver over the ghastly possibilities, while the irksome details and accountability are held back so they don’t get in the way of the media pump. But alas, like Paul Reiter, and Christopher Landsea, another lead author wants his name removed from the IPCC document.
UK professor refuses to put his name to ‘apocalyptic’ UN climate change survey that he claims is exaggerating the effects Prof Richard Tol said UN academics were exaggerating climate change Comes as a blow to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Panel to publish its first update in seven years on the impacts of climate change
By Ben Spencer, Daily Mail
Professor Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex, said fellow UN academics were exaggerating climate change and comparing it to the ‘apocalypse’.
Prof Tol, the lead co-ordinating author of the report’s chapter on economics, was involved in drafting the summary for policymakers – the key document that goes to governments and scientists. But he has now asked for his name to be removed from the document. […]
RMR (Rick Mercer Report) sends up the long winter. Love that Canadian sense of humour. : – )
Pace, Paul Howard’s comment on youtube: here’s sending a group hug for our Canadian friends.
h/t Richard
9.6 out of 10 based on 80 ratings
Bureaucrats have not only taken over much of the science world, but even the parts of the bureaucracy designed to hunt out corruption in science are incapacitated with bureaucracy-at-its-worst too. This is second order corruption — even the checks and balances on corruption are corrupted.
As James Delingpole points out: Science is rife with corruption, incompetence, dishonesty and fabrication–and now, thanks to a frank resignation letter by the US’s top scientific misconduct official we have a better idea why.
Government science desperately needs auditing– or the free market solution, competition
One in 50 scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once. It’s not just about fraud, it’s about bias, and statistical sloppiness. Up to 30% admitted other questionable research practices. When asked about their colleagues, 14% said other scientists falsified results, and 70% used other questionable research practices (Fanelli 2009). In the modern electronic science world, not only are many results not replicated, but the raw data itself is not even available for checking most of the time. Research shows that scientists who withhold data are more likely to have published errors (see below). Half of the papers in high-end journals contained some […]
Remember the decidedly uncivilized protests we had here in Australia last week, called the “March-in-March”?
Tim Blair, of The Daily Telegraph, laments that he made fun of the kind-hearted and caring people who wore shirts suggesting they’d like to have sex with our Prime Minister, or alternately, to kill him. In a brilliant move he suggests the right thing to do is a mass national counter protest called “Work on Wednesday”. I’m in! Will you join me?
Celebrate civilization & democracy, and help the GDP too — Work on Wednesday!
Let’s make it global. This crosses national boundaries and cultures, it’s about democracy. It’s about being civilized. It’s about not using free speech to metaphorically behead, kill, or abort people. It’s about having an argument instead of just an insult.
Let’s show them how a civilized protest is done.
Twitter: @WorkonWednesday. Retweet it to your friends.
Tim Blair explains:
I was also wrong to dismiss the March in March movement as inconsequential. This is because I hadn’t realised the rules had changed, and that last September’s election can now be overruled by some shouty people whose total number amounts to only around one-tenth […]
What insight. ‘Tis prosaic — Nick Cohen in The Guardian packs more truth — runs tantalizingly close to a major insight, yet skates off, one single word short.
It’s projection on a rampage, and Cohen almost seems to realize it. Perhaps we can help him?
“The climate change deniers have won”
Where else, but The Guardian?
Yes, Mr Cohen, those whom you deliberately and with malice call “deniers” are winning. Incredibly, even though they have only 0.03% of the funds, none of the machinery or the institutions, the enmity of western governments, existential opposition from the $350 billion renewables industry, no support from the large global carbon trading market, and only scorn and derision from the entire UN, and yet they are winning with nothing but wits and facts.
“Scientists continue to warn us about global warming, but most of us have a vested interest in not wanting to think about it” Exactly! If you care about the environment you need to think. How serious is the problem of CO2? Here’s a handy list of topics that won’t tell us that answer: Any list of organizations, associations, committees. Any survey of keywords used in publications. Psychoanalysis, pop psychology, anonymous internet […]
Carved granite | Photo: Jo Nova
Each year the winter whitewater carves out a tiny bit more rock, and each summer we see the ripples in the granite.
8.4 out of 10 based on 25 ratings
After skeptical climate science blogs dominated the science category in 2013, the bloggies caved in and dumped the whole category. This is your opportunity to show that scientists are skeptics, and the opinions of hundreds of thousands of readers still count.
So in 2014, I suggested we could lodge a protest, or we could just nominate our favorite blogs for other categories couldn’t we? And boy-o-boy, nominate we did. (Thank you.) Skeptical science blogs are now spread across many other categories. (In the end, trying to keep skeptics out may give skeptics more wins. Ain’t that the way?) But voting closes on Sunday, so if you haven’t already done it, please take the time to tick those boxes. I know it’s a chore, but it’s a way you can help bloggers reach a wider audience, spread their influence. It’s also a way you can direct readers to sites you find rewarding that they may not have heard of. It’s also a way you can let the Bloggies organizers know that it’s no accident that skeptical blogs are so popular.
This year I’ve been lucky enough to be a finalist in three (gosh) heavy hitting categories, with some stiff competition.
[…]
Another day is The Backdown? Everything is more important than carbon action these days. In China, real pollution is trumping the fake kind. China has been toying with carbon markets, but this month announced they might have to back away. (The shame!)
[Reuters] “…the all-out efforts to combat China’s disastrous pollution levels might get in the way of plans to tax carbon dioxide emissions in a bid to stunt the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions, Zhu Guangyao, the vice environment minister, said.
“We have to reflect the requests of the majority through many consultation rounds,” he told the Beijing Morning Post from the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary sessions.
A carbon tax is increasingly controversial among lawmakers, said Zhu, adding that an environment tax would be easier to push through without carbon in the mix.
Zhu also referred to the fact that Australia, under a new conservative government, is trying to abolish its carbon tax, while a price on carbon has been blocked in the United States.”
China’s carbon markets were never serious anyway — the glorious plan was to launch seven pilot trading schemes — and each new market was an excuse for environmental activists to issue press […]
Everything about associations and committees is so paralyzingly slow. But nearly four and a half years after 160 members bitterly complained about the American Physical Society (APS) statement on climate change, they are finally revisiting it, and there are very promising signs. They’ve appointed Richard Lindzen, John Christie, and Judith Curry, all either longstanding skeptics or sympathetic to skeptical arguments. That’s three of six. (Though I stress that I will remain skeptical until the new statement comes out. One other member, Ben Santer, has a record of rewriting conclusions of much larger committees, and other shenanigans*.)
In 2007, the APS improbably stepped out of the world of physics and into the world of policy and proclaimed:
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.
If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.
In 2009, when 160 members of the APS protested, the council “overwhelmingly” voted to reject their proposal. (See how these things work? There are 47,000 members, of which 160 people took the effort and time to publicly protest, and then a […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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