A couple of hours north of Perth. It’s not snow.
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November 23rd, 2013 | Tags: Photography, Unthreaded | Category: Global Warming |  Print This Post | | This study on “skeptics” came out in the weeks just before the Australian election. I had quite some fun with it, then promptly forgot it. (You’ll see why soon). But Amelia Sharman, of The Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, seems genuinely interested, claiming skeptics haven’t been studied much, suggesting skeptical blogs are quite important, and wait for it, discovering that the thing that makes the most central skeptical blogs popular is that they are interested in the science. Despite all the rumors that we are an organized funded campaign of political ideologues, she discovered we are not densely connected, not-centrally-organized, and what ho, we value a command of scientific knowledge. If perhaps she was hoping to uncover some secret structure that would reveal a coordinated chain of command, she must have been disappointed. To her credit, she called it as the results described it. However that post-modern education leaves poor Sharman wandering in the dark. I feel like such a killjoy. Usually when academics reach out to the skeptics to “study” us, it is to attack us. So I ought to be grateful that Amelia Sharman is one of the few who appears to be doing it more […] It goes without saying that all of these folk could just as easily prefer a sensible, small spending government that was frugal with taxpayer funds. Right? The Australian finally gets the information on the ABC salaries: “ABC spares no expense”
Mark Scott | $678,940 Tony Jones | $355,789 Juanita Phillips | $316,454 Quentin Dempster | $291,505 Richard Glover | $290,000 Jon Faine | $285,249 Leigh Sales | $280,400 Barrie Cassidy | $243,478 “The ABC received $1.03 billion of taxpayer funds last financial year, of which $465 million was spent on wages, superannuation and other entitlements.” The culture is obvious. The ABC show their respect for the taxpayer… by fighting doggedly for years in court to hide the details of their taxpayer funded salaries from legitimate FOI’s. Now that they’ve been leaked, Mark Scott has apologized to the public his staff and promises an investigation into how it happened. (Imagine taxpayers finding out how their money was spent!) Remember Richard Glover? He gets paid $290,000 for insight like this: “Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies”. – June 6, 2011 It’s not like you can pick up that kind of ill-informed […] November 20th, 2013 | Tags: ABC, Big-Government, JoNova's Favourites | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | At least someone once thought London was the home of carbon finance. Now, not so much. According to the Financial Times, JP Morgan has scaled down their carbon trading team, Morgan Stanley traders are now “part time”, Barclays sold theirs last year, Deutsche Bank closed the office, and UBS shut its climate change advisory panel. Then there is a slew of smaller fish cutting back: EcoSecurities, Camco Clean Energy, Nedbank, Sindacatum, and TFS Green. [Financial Times] At least 10 London banks have scaled back or closed their carbon trading desks amid turmoil in the European emissions trading scheme. The fledgling market was once seen as a promising growth area, with the City of London Corporation predicting in 2006 that London would become the leading provider of services to the “mushrooming” sector. But the number of City workers employed on carbon desks has fallen by 70 per cent in the past four years, according to Anthony Hobley, president of the Climate Markets & Investors Association. Things are dire: “…as a stand alone business it is basically over,” said an executive who oversees European energy trading at one large bank. Read the full story here (Paywalled for some?) The State of the […] UPDATED with another reply (See below) Across my desk came another one of Christopher Monckton’s many analytical entertaining parries, which I see SPPI has published already. Monckton and SPPI have supporting information in the documents linked from the images. – Jo Dear Professor Bada, You reply to my earlier email as follows (with some ad-hominem instances of the ignoratio elenchi fallacy removed): “OK so you accept global warming but say from an economic standpoint we would destroy our societies by trying to mend our ways. What about all the other creatures on the Earth? Do they have any say in your economic based claims we should to do nothing? What about ocean acidification from increasing CO2 and its affects on photosynthetic organisms?” Let me deal with your three points seriatim. First, mitigation economics. You may like to look at the attached reviewed paper that was published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists. The analysis is in line with the reviewed literature in concluding that attempted mitigation today would be 1-2 orders of magnitude costlier than adaptation the day after tomorrow. The calculation, which is simple and survived unchallenged after 90 […] November 18th, 2013 | Tags: Monckton (Christopher), Ocean Acidification | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Funny what you see driving home from the shops…. hundreds of thousands of tons of water-vapor had condensed in giant suspended formations. No one seemed to notice. Click to enlarge. Facing west East (dammit East) over Perth, last night. 10 out of 10 based on 1 rating November 17th, 2013 | Tags: Photography, Unthreaded | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | The UN will not be happy about this. The global movement is falling apart. Japan, third largest economy in the world, and the land of Kyoto itself, has dumped their ambitious plan to reduce emissions by 25% by 2020. Now they warn that their emissions may rise instead. Cabinet members said on Friday they had agreed a new target with an updated time frame, under which Japan would seek to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 3.8 per cent by 2020 compared with their level in 2005. Nobuteru Ishihara, the environment minister, is to defend the goal next week when he joins international climate talks in Warsaw. Japan’s previous target used an earlier and more challenging baseline: 1990, the benchmark year for the Kyoto agreement and a time when Japanese emissions were lower. Compared with that year, Japan said in 2009, it would cut its emissions by one-quarter by 2020. The new target announced on Friday represents a 3 per cent rise over the same 30-year period – a difference from the previous goal that is about equal to the annual carbon dioxide emissions of Spain. Read more at the Financial Times It is being painted as being due to the […] November 16th, 2013 | Tags: Carbon Credits, Japan, Kyoto Agreement | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | A new paper shows that sea levels rose faster in the ten years from 1993-2003 than they have since. Sea levels are still rising but the rate has slowed since 2004. This does not suggest that the missing energy from the atmosphere has snuck into the ocean, but rather that the oceans and the atmosphere were both warming faster in the 1990’s, then as coal power ramped up in China and billions of tons of CO2 was released, both the atmosphere and the ocean did not gain more energy per year, but less. That message again — something else appears to be the main driver the climate, not CO2. Their highlights include: The global mean sea level started decelerated rising since 2004. Deceleration is due to slowdown of ocean thermal expansion during last decade. Recent ENSO events introduce large uncertainty of long-term trend estimation. This paper discusses and graphs total sea level rise, steric sea level rise and the global mean ocean mass. The Steric Sea Level is the part of the rise due to warming and salinity changes, so it best represents changes in ocean heat content. The total rise also includes water coming or going due to changes […] November 15th, 2013 | Tags: Evidence, Ocean Heat Content, Sea Level | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Remember how the whole world was moving to a clean energy future, and they would mock and scorn us if we did not do our part? Statement by Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Introduction of Legislation to Repeal the Carbon Tax OTTAWA, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Nov. 12, 2013) – Today, Paul Calandra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, issued the following statement on behalf of the Government of Canada on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s introduction of legislation to repeal the carbon tax: “Canada applauds the decision by Prime Minister Abbott to introduce legislation to repeal Australia’s carbon tax. The Australian Prime Minister’s decision will be noticed around the world and sends an important message. “Our government knows that carbon taxes raise the price of everything, including gas, groceries, and electricity. Prime Minister Abbott has said that, in Australia, the repeal of the carbon tax will reduce the average household’s cost of living by (in Australian dollars) $550 a year, take $200 off household power bills and $70 off gas bills. “Our government has reduced greenhouse gas emissions while protecting and creating Canadians jobs – greenhouse gas […] Are the”rellies” asking what they can buy you for Christmas? Have you got friends who are skeptic-leaning and might appreciate an easy-going, cartoon-loaded book? Problem solved : -) Order it here. This is a book like no other. Carter and Spooner make a special combination. Readers here will know Bob Carter, who is a well known long-standing skeptical marine geologist, who has written Climate: the Counter Consensus (2010) and published countless papers. He’s formerly a Professor and Head of Earth Sciences at James Cook University (until JCU caved in to political correctness in a tale of remarkable petty spite). People may not realize that John Spooner is a prize winning cartoonist for The-not-so-skeptical-Age daily newspaper in Melbourne. He has won too many prizes to list (see here) and is a brilliant political satirist with exceptional skill at the art of caricatures. It’s worth buying the book just to read the first chapter written by Spooner, once-upon-a-time-a-lawyer turned cartoonist. The best cartoonists have to be smart– if they aren’t a step ahead, it isn’t funny. “Every cartoonist and satirist in the world, not to mention the investigative reporters, should by now have had their bullshit detectors on high […] November 13th, 2013 | Tags: Book, Carter (Bob), Cartoon, Spooner (John) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | The Australian government is curtailing Climate ActionTM. But there are still billions of taxpayer dollars headed for Direct Action and renewables and other efforts to change the Global Weather. This petition from Des Moore has been circulating in email for a week or so. Des is a former Deputy Secretary of the Australian Treasury and he wants a Royal Commission to consider both costs and benefits. If you agree, like I do, please print, sign and post it, and email to friends. Responses must be signed on paper. — Jo —————————————————————————————————– Petition for a Cost/Benefit Inquiry on Programs to Reduce Emissions Click for the PDF Dear All I am sending you this message to ask if you would sign the attached petition. A number of colleagues and I have become concerned that billions of taxpayers’ dollars are being spent by our Federal Government on programs designed to reduce fossil fuel emissions but without undertaking a cost/benefit study. The petition seeks to have an inquiry that would do that. I anticipate that an appropriate motion will be moved in the House of Representatives. By contrast, the Coalition has severely criticised the Labor Government for […] The UN wants $100 billion from wealthier countries (about $2.4 billion from Australians or $100 a person). The Australian government has produced a position statement for the Warsaw UNFCCC conference. It is unusually brutal. I don’t think I remember seeing the phrase about socialism “masquerading as environmentalism” in an official statement before. (I’m sure readers will correct me). It’s good to see some recognition that the science has become less clear, and that it may become more so. Essentially, the new Australian government ‘s message to the UN is: we are reducing CO2, but we’re not giving you a cent. Furthermore, if the science becomes muddier, we might drop it. We don’t think this UN meeting is remotely important and we have better things to do. And when it comes to wealth transfer through the UN the answer is No. Thank. You. The Australian has seen part of the document and it declares that, while Australia will remain “a good international citizen” and remains “committed to achieving the 5 per cent reduction” by 2020 of the 2000 levels of emissions, it will not sign up to any new agreement that involves spending money or levying taxes. – The Australian The […]
The old jetty at Port Denison, 3 hours North of Perth. | Photo: Jo Nova 10 out of 10 based on 1 rating Not a bad Friday. Tony Abbott will not be travelling to Warsaw with a hairdresser, photographers, and a chef in an entourage of 114. Nor even is Greg Hunt (the Environment Minister) going. They are too busy back home trying to cut expenses and repeal the carbon tax (though that looks like it will have to wait til the new Senate starts in July). It breaks the chain of Ministers bowing to the IPCC, though last year the Labor Party only sent a Parliamentary secretary for Climate Change. This year we will be sending a junior (but why send anyone at all?). Not a good look for the IPCC. Australia’s carbon tax was the main bright spot on their outlook, and now it’s being snatched away from them. Bravo, I say. But can we stop sending the money? Soon we might be free to speak again More good news — the Racial Discrimination Act (which was used against Andrew Bolt) is a high priority on the chopping list. It’s the first thing Attorney-General George Brandis will bring to Parliament. Not a day too soon. If we have to have a human rights commission, then it ought to protect the […] How much don’t we know? This week doctors announce that yes, really, there is a whole ligament in the human knee that we didn’t know about, and it’s not a small one tucked away but a mid-size one and “hidden” on the outside of the knee. They’ve named it the anterolateral ligament (ALL), and it does matter if it fails, people’s knees collapse suddenly. “Only” 97% of people have one. But how is this, it was first postulated by a surgeon in 1879, and took 134 years to find. For much of that time you might have been told there was a consensus on knee anatomy, and because thousands of doctors have done knee surgery and knee replacements are now de rigeur, you might have thought the science was settled. Sorry about the graphic photo, but when I saw that headline, I thought this would be a tiny artifact. You need to see it to appreciate just how remarkable it is that this has been missed for so long. UPDATE: It’s so remarkable, I find Chrism comments below are useful #5, #8, #12, and quite possibly the ligament was known by another name, or associated with a different malady. Is […] November 7th, 2013 | Tags: Consensus, Medical research | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Tom Quirk has taken look at the numbers for the Australian Government’s direct action plan (someone had to do it). Not surprisingly in a vast nation with hardly any people, the numbers that matter are the ones about “land-use” — which means anthropogenic changes to farms and forests. Electricity is our largest emitter of CO2, but without shutting down the nation there are no easy gains to be had. Demand is inelastic. Cuts are expensive. Renewables are pathetic. Ditto for industry and agriculture. Whether we meet our targets and whether there is P-A-I-N all depends on whether we count the CO2 molecules that come and go from agricultural land and managed forests. The big question then is do we pretend those CO2 molecules coming and going from plants, soils, lakes and animals are irrelevant? (Greenpeace and the EU seem to think that’s a good plan). It’s a make or break thing in the carbon accounting world. But if carbon is causing global warming, surely all CO2 molecules are equally to blame. However only net emissions caused by humans (and which wouldn’t have been emitted naturally) count towards the national tallies and targets. If we […] November 5th, 2013 | Tags: Carbon Accounting, Quirk (Tom) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Rosenthal et al have put out quite a humdinger of a paper. They’ve reconstructed the temperature of the water flowing out of the Pacific to the Indian Ocean over the last 10,000 years and as deep as 900m. The Indonesian Throughflow is pretty significant in global ocean currents. There’s narrow routes for Pacific upper waters to squeeze through to the Indian Ocean through the Makassar and Lombok Straits, and via the Lifamatola Passage through the Banda Sea, and water comes in from both the North and South Pacific. An important point in global ocean currents where the Pacific flows through to the Indian Ocean. Points to note (assuming the study is right): Temperatures started rising around 1700AD — long before our carbon emissions. That temperatures were much warmer (0.65C) in 1100AD than they were in 1950. 8,000 years ago water was 1.5 to 2 degrees warmer — isn’t that meant to be a global catastrophe? Apparently coral reefs, fish, and turtles survived.
Figure 4. Holocene changes in Pacific Ocean heat content. (A) Reconstructed anomalies in Pacific OHC in the 0- to 700-m depth interval for the early Holocene, mid-Holocene, MWP, and LIA periods. Reconstructed anomalies are calculated […] November 4th, 2013 | Tags: Evidence, Holocene, Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, Ocean Heat Content | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Photograph by NASA/SDO Read about it, and watch the video below: 8.8 out of 10 based on 36 ratings […] Terry McCrann pretty neatly shows the vacuity of our Climate Change Authority. We need to reduce our quality of living, change the main source of energy our civilization was built on, in order to reduce our emissions by an amount so small, that others have already undone it by a factor of 120, (and that’s just since 2009). The Climate Change Authority say that our efforts are not good enough and it would be much more realistic if the rest of the world had only undone our “achievements” by a factor of 40. Their main argument (if you could call it that) is that “the world” would not think less of us? (Like we care.) It’s an idea so silly, it barks. This is our national conversation. MEET the fantasists of the Climate Change Authority – an institution spawned by the deal between former prime minister Julia Gillard and her climate change minister Greg Combet with former Greens leader Bob Brown; and, hopefully, to be as short-lived as its fellow blot on the public policy landscape, the already terminated Climate Commission. – 9.2 out of 10 based on 91 ratings […] From Australia Christmas Cards to Europe and the US were $1.60 last year. In 2013 it’s $2.55. I have never seen a rise like it. Back in 2000, it was just 80c each card. Normally postage stamp prices creep up with inflation. The fit is so good, historians often track inflation through stamp prices — see here for Germany in 1923. When I wanted a monotonic rising line to “correlate” with temperatures, US stamp prices were the obvious first choice. To give you some idea of just how well stamps and inflation go together, consider that US post is contemplating raising prices faster than inflation, and that is so unthinkable it made the news in the Wall St Journal last month. But here in Australia, this monster leap has appeared virtually without a comment… … 2010 stamp compared to 2013 7.9 out of 10 based on 31 ratings […] |
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