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Desmogblog mark yet another day in the Diary of How the Skeptics Won. They thought they had Brazil sewn up, but now realize with dismay that skeptics are getting heard (funny how the truth spreads). Brazil with the 6th biggest economy in the world and 200 million people is “influential”.
Chris Mooney, of DeSmog, shows us his prowess in predictions. Did he see this wave of skepticism coming? Shock me, No!
Last year, I wrote about how journalists in developing nations were doing a better job of covering climate change, largely because denial hadn’t really taken root in many of these countries. In particular, I singled out Brazil for praise: According to a study by James Painter of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and his colleagues, Brazil’s major papers contained the least climate skepticism in all of the 6 major nations surveyed (U.S., UK, China, France, India, Brazil).
So it is with much dismay that I report to you that, in conjunction with the Rio+20 conference, climate denial is making a strong showing in Brazil.
Memo to Chris: See what happens when you rely on the mainstream media? (They are […]
UPDATED AGAIN #4 — Now with Vukcevics Hale cycle graph of Echuca. and #3 David Archibalds suggestion of the Hale Cycle at work. #2 with Willis Eschenbach’s graph and my thoughts, (see below)
Ian Bryce sent me a striking graph (or two). Looking at the original raw data from Echuca Victoria shows a dramatic cooling trend of nearly half a degree since 1900, and rather than being a siting anomaly, it’s repeated in two towns about 100km away.
Curiously he also finds peaks in the maximums at Echuca that look for all the world like they match the solar cycle. Is it a fluke, or could it be real? If it’s real, what conditions make the solar sun-spot cycle so apparent in Echuca — where its maximum temperatures seemingly peak with each second solar cycle. Can anyone find this signal in other places? — Jo
The area is inland Northern Victoria
Has there been Global Warming or Global Cooling in Echuca
Guest post: Ian Bryce
I have spent about 37 years working with processing tomatoes in the Goulburn Valley in Australia, and the last 25 years or so, with research into growing and processing canning tomatoes. Since 1984, […]
News coming in suggests Rio was a junket to nowhere. I’m still waiting for Monckton to go through the fine print. Is there a sting?
Still it’s not hard to feel happy. 🙂
The Telegraph says: “Washout”
It was so bad, even the cheer squad were shocked:
The organisers behind the 1992 Earth Summit, which this week’s meeting commemorated, were shocked and took the extraordinary step of denouncing the agreement in front of key UN officials at a private dinner of the conference’s great and good. Maurice Strong, who ran the previous summit, called it a “weak” collection of “pious generalities”, while former Norwegian premier Gro Harlem Brundtland – whose report gave rise to the 1992 meeting – said governments had “forgotten about the environment”. And Nick Clegg, who led the British delegation, revealed that the Government felt the result fell so far below expectations that it had considered “pulling the plug” on the whole thing.
It was so bad, the crowd even hints at the End of the UN. (Crack that champers!).
…as one top international official privately put it to me: “The UN could not survive many more meetings like this.” […]
I wrote yesterday about the unprecedented way the UN was locking out anyone at Rio that was not part of an official government delegation. More than ever before, the UN is not even pretending to to serve the people of the world. Even the facade is gone. The rules have changed since Monckton, Watts Up and the internet spoiled the party at Durban.
All the heroic NGO’s have been blocked from the negotiations (as well as those evil free market libertarians). They are only there for the theatrics. The real action goes on behind closed doors, in what Monckton calls a “concrete bunker”.
Lord Monckton Reports From Rio, via SPPI
The global coming together is not united. It’s separate conferences for the VIP’s and the riff-raff now. There’s a tent city darkly called “The People’s Congress” — which used to be near the main plenary sessions hall, but has been moved miles away. (Who needs “The People?”).
“Then the non-government organizations have been “corralled in the filthy, soulless, crumbling Rio Centro conference center, where hundreds of armed, sharp-suited UN goons kept them determinedly away.”
“Thirdly, to symbolize the total separation of the governing class from […]
In the comments here: E.M.Smith (Chiefio) responded to Paul Bain and then posted it on his own site. It’s very popular (thank you Michael!)
Response to Paul Bain
Dear Paul Bain:
First off, thank you for responding.
FWIW, I am a hard core skeptic. I’m the “target” of your analysis. As such, what folks like me think ought to be particularly important to you. So a bit of history on me and climate change.
I first came to the AGW issue thinking “Gee, this looks important, I ought to learn more about it.” At the Skeptic sites (like WUWT) I had generally kind acceptance and explanation of where I had parts missing from my understanding of the “issues” about AGW and where it was “gone wrong”. At “Believer” sites (an curiously appropriate term as it has all the hallmarks of a religious belief) I would ask simple and innocent questions and largely get derision in return. Simply asking “But doesn’t CO2 have a log limit on absorption effects that we have passed?” or worse, saying “But this article (on skeptic site) seems to have a valid issue.” would bring “Attack the messenger” responses. That, for me, was the first and […]
According to Greenpeace its an “epic fail”. WWF says its a “colossal failure”, and it’s so bad, Oxfam want to start all over again. That news may sound good to the free citizens of the West, but that’s only because we aim so low.
They may not get as much as they aim for, but they will still get what they came for.
Rio 2012: How big is this junket?
[It is] “billed as the biggest UN event ever organised. This time, 15,000 soldiers and police are guarding about 130 heads of state and government, as well as ministers and diplomats from 180 countries and at least 50,000 others.”
The Guardian
So 50,000 people got a trip to Rio. They may want world peace, free energy, and control over your light bulbs, your car, and your wallet, but most of them still got an expenses paid ticket to the Olympics of Global Bureaucracy. In the end they may say they are disappointed, but in reality they still scored one heck of a free lunch. And this is the point. As long as the masses are not saying that they want their money back, the show […]
This week Nature Climate Change published the Bain et al letter about ways to “promote pro-environmental action in climate change deniers”. How does Nature define this group? They imply that deniers deny science, but can the researchers, editors or reviewers name any peer reviewed paper with empirical evidence that the deniers deny? Surely this whole paper is not based on a name-calling assumption, a confusion about an illusory sub-species, Homo sapiens denier? Could Nature now be the Journal of UnScience? We shall see…
I have written to ask the lead researcher Dr Paul Bain:
Dear Dr Paul Bain,
Right now, it’s almost my life’s work to communicate the empirical evidence on anthropogenic climate change.
I can help you with your research on deniers. I have studied the mental condition of denial most carefully. There is a simple key to converting the convictions of people in this debate, and I have seen it work hundreds of times. Indeed, my own convictions that lasted 17 years were turned around in a few days. I can help you. It would be much simpler than you think.
Firstly, to save time and money we […]
No one says it quite like Rupert. Reprinted with permission, thank you. Read, enjoy the vivid panoply,
— Jo
My favourite extract — the 26 ethical flaws of propagandists
(For the full letter and context go straight to the post below – apologies to Rupert for discontinuous edits)
Climate change major risks: Such as? There is not one shred of empirical evidence for your assertion. There is, of course, an ocean of mendacious and fraudulent computer modelling by people with vast vested interests in promoting the scam.
You state that you do not underestimate my ‘strength of feeling on this important issue’. With respect, you are well wide of the mark. I have no strong feelings about climate change. Climate change is fact of life and, in that sense, is a banality. I do, however, have a prejudice against blatant chicanery and outright knavery.
Neither is this, anyway, a scientific issue. The science is clear. There have been and are no untoward changes in global climate outside those which flow from natural variability. There have been no recent climatic phenomena, which do not have numerous precedents. CO2 has nothing to do with […]
Sorry the site was down twice yesterday. We are still figuring out what happened. It’s probably innocent, but we won’t know for sure until we’ve gone through the logs which are monstrous.
I suspect that restoring all 100k comments (lost to data corruption after the transfer of my blog) may have set the traffic over the limit with recaching from many automated spider bots and what-not’s that needed to update all 824 pages and 100,000 comments at once. The log files of the action on my site the last few days are huge, so it will be some time to sort out what happened. I gather the servers may have thought they were under attack and shut down.
When trouble strikes the site, check out my Twitter account for info. Don’t forget to follow @JoanneNova.
So why did I move the site in May?
Last year we did get a denial of service attack in June. We decided with that and the increasing costs, we needed to move the site to cheaper, more secure US servers. That move, and all the traffic went very smoothly, but cost more than $6000 over the year. And even on the cheaper servers, the […]
Joanne Nova and Ken Stewart
A team of independent auditors, bloggers and scientists went through the the BOM “High Quality” (HQ) dataset and found significant errors, omissions and inexplicable adjustments. The team and Senator Cory Bernardi put in a Parliamentary request to get our Australian National Audit Office to reassess the BOM records. In response, the BOM, clearly afraid of getting audited, and still not providing all the data, code and explanations that were needed, decided to toss out the old so called High Quality (HQ) record, and start again. The old HQ increased the trends by 40% nationally, and 70% in the cities.
So goodbye “HQ”, hello “ACORN”. End result? Much the same.
That meant the ANAO could avoid an audit, since the BOM had changed data-sets, the point of auditing the old set was moot.
For me, this version is so much worse than the previous one. In the HQ data set the errors could have been inadvertent, but now we’ve pointed out the flaws, there can be no excuses for getting it wrong. Instead of fixing the flaws (and thanking the volunteers), it’s almost as if they’ve gone out of their way […]
George Orwell, Photo: Wikipedia
Sloppy language works for cheats and charlatans. In the search for the truth only accurate language will do. Orwell understood the power of language to change the way we think, indeed to fence off some possible options completely.
Roger Pielke Snr put out a call today asking for precise definitions and protesting about the misuse of the term “climate change”. But when did this nonsensical term start? Where else, but with the UN.
All the way back on May 9th 1992, UN defined “climate change” as man-made. See The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, (paragraph 6):
“Climate change is defined by the Convention as “change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods” (article 1 (2)).”
In other words, there is no “climate change” without humans because there cannot be, and by extension, the climate did not change, could not have, for the 4.5 billion years before 1880 when the first coal powered electricity station was fired up.
Such nonsense is what international treaties are made of. […]
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) –
A system of government where the least capable to lead
are elected by the least capable of producing, and where
the members of society least likely to sustain themselves
or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for
by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of
producers.
Thanks to treeman today (and before that Brice, Rupert, and Speedy who said: Ineptocracy — See also “Swan Song”).
Merci. ‘Tis a gem. If it is not in the Oxford now, it will be…
It could be that an ineptocracy is the inevitable end point of democracy……
…..
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. […]
Bank of America Pledges $50 Billion to Combat Climate Change
The unholy alliance between bankers and government is on naked display.
It’s the black hole in the kitchen: huge, obvious, and silent. And boy does it suck. As Climate Depot points out, Bank of America got a $45 billion bailout from the government during the global financial crisis. Now it’s promising $50 billion to “address Climate Change”. How Green is your Bankster?
It’s a feeding frenzy:
The bank’s new initiative includes lending, equipment finance, capital markets and advisory activity and carbon finance, as well as advice and investment help.
Bank of America will focus on promoting energy efficiency; renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydropower; lower-carbon transportation like electric and hybrid vehicles; and water and waste treatment and disposal initiatives. [Capitalgr]
They already spend nearly $20bn on climate and did it four years ahead of schedule. So why not $5obn?
The company has spent $17.9 billion toward its initial pledge, including $8.4 billion for energy efficiency activities, including low-cost loans and grants for retrofitting low-income neighborhoods for energy efficiency. It spent $5 billon on renewable energy projects, including helping the San Jose Unified […]
In an extremely worrying development, we can add Nick Drapela’s name to the list of skeptics fired for the heresy of speaking out. This email from Gordon Fulks came around today, and I want to spread the message. I have written before about the scientist of upstanding integrity and action that is Art Robinson — When he ran for Congress, three of his children doing PhD’s were targeted at OSU. The details of Joshua, Bethany and Matthews work are described on the Oregon State Outrage blog. These exemplary students were close to finishing their work towards PhD degrees in nuclear engineering when all three suddenly faced major obstacles and the likelihood of losing all their work to date. (See the Outrage blog for updates). But the outrageous behaviour continues. Legal action may not be the answer (In Robinson’s case the Uni apparently wants them to sue, so it will be obliged to have “no comment” while OSU would get taxpayer funds to extend the case at length.) What we need is facebook, twitter, letters and emails – a campaign to let the State of Oregon (and especially university donors) know their university has regressed to a feudal religious […]
“Agenda 21″ sounds like a daft-but-harmless-idea you can ignore. I found it hard to get enthused, but I was wrong, and no one sums this up better than James Delingpole in “Watermelons” (aka “Killing the Earth to Save it). To paraphrase James’s brilliant work (forgive me James) from page 190:
Some of you still aren’t convinced that you need to worry about Agenda 21 because you are thinking:
a) Agenda 21 sounds way too much like Area 51, (you know Aliens and the Roswell incident). Nut job stuff.
b) It was signed in 1992. If it was that bad, we’d have heard by now. Surely?
c) What sovereign nation would be so insane as to sign itself up for a binding treaty?
James explains that it’s real, it’s important (like an anti-magna-carta), and its’ a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Governments could sign up because it was “voluntary”, but then those voluntary rules are scrupulously and doggedly enforced by the “labyrinthine, democratically unaccountable behemoth that is the United Nations.”
Furthermore, he points out that it’s not like they’ve bothered to hide their aims — they want to control your resources, your money, […]
The paper might have been scientifically invalid, but it was a box-office success.
The headlines were everywhere
“1000 years of climate data confirms Australia’s warming” said the press release from University of Melbourne. It was picked up by The Guardian: “Australasia has hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists find”; The Age and The Australian led with “Warming since 1950 ‘unprecedented’. The story was on ABC 24 and ABC news where Gergis proclaimed:” there are no other warm periods in the last 1000 years that match the warming experienced in Australasia since 1950.” It was all over the ABC including ABC Radio National, and they were “95% certain“! On ABC AM, “the last five decades years in Australia have been the warmest. ” Plus there were pages in Science Alert, Campus Daily Eco news, The Conversation, Real Climate* and Think Progress.
Blog review is where the real science gets tested
Skeptics have been looking through the paper, and three weeks after it was published a team at Climate Audit (kudos to Jean S and Nick Stokes) uncovered a problem so significant that the authors announced that this paper is “on hold”. It has been withdrawn from the American Meteorological […]
This is one of the star case-studies of the noxious cost of big-government. A pernicious soul-destroying wrecker of livelihoods. This tyranny in action.
Matt and Janet are skeptics who ran a Beef Feedlot from Narrogin, Western Australia (2 hours SE of Perth). When they spoke out against climate change policies, onerous license changes were added that drove them to bankruptcy. Readers here and at Watts Up raised over $30,000 dollars as they faced eviction in Sept 2010. (It was the first time skeptics around the world had been asked to help a cause like this, and the response was so overwhelming that Paypal still can’t list all the donations we received on Sept 18th, 2010. It breaks their site).
The Thompsons write today with an update: they’ve decided it’s unfeasible to try to run their business under these conditions and with the new carbon tax in Australia, and due to family reasons they’ve reluctantly left Australia, moved back to the USA with their four children (bad for Australia, but good for Uncle Sam). They’ve reached a settlement with the bank but fully intend to pursue their legal case against the Department of Environment in West Australia. I’m delighted to say […]
The site will be down again for well, some hours, in order to restore those 100,000 comments that went AWOL. Here’s hoping it goes smoothly..
9 out of 10 based on 6 ratings
Global Carbon Market trading climbed to $176 billion in 2011 according to the The World Bank, which has just released it’s annual State and Trends of The Carbon Market in 2012. That makes it about the same value as total global wheat production — which supplies about 20% of the calories consumed by the 7 billion people on planet Earth.
The global carbon market disguises itself as an angel against the greedy corporates. Yet it is, itself, a giant corporate playing field. The mainstream media remains largely silent on the “vested interests” represented by this major industry that did not even exist 10 years ago.
Global Carbon Markets are worth billions
Was 2011 the peak of global carbon trading? Looks all downhill from here.
A record number of emissions products were traded in 2011, even though prices of EU carbon permits and international offsets fells well below $10 a tonne late in the year. The prices have fallen, but the volumes have increased. Look out, the average price in 2011 was $18.80US, but the prices in 2012 are less than half that. It will take a monster increase in volumes in 2012 to keep raising the total market […]
Excellent video. This man is good. The message is spot on.
This is an edgy fast paced narrative about why we owe the most to some of the most unpopular people in history. It’s about free speech: why it matters, why we may lose it. About the threat that Finkelstein poses.
“It’s about arrogance, it’s about powerful people here in Australia who believe that they are smarter than you, that their opinion is worth more than your opinion, and that their thinking is better than your thinking, and if you think they’re wrong, you should just shut up.”
There have been nutters in history who were reviled, derided, hated, and spat on. A few of these held the answers that saved countless lives — including quite possibly, yours and mine.
The home site is The Forbidden History – it has a high resolution, larger screen display. This was a crowd sourced project costing $27k. Money well spent. He is raising money for part II and III. Topher has his own site and other video’s here.
Share it with your friends.
9.5 out of 10 based on 112 ratings […]
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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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The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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