Winning! The 1896 heatwave story is going viral and the ABC is reduced to weak, late excuses
Australians are realizing that our hot history has been hidden from us. We’ve set a new site traffic record with around 100,000 people checking in since Wednesday, plus thousands more reading the story elsewhere like Catallaxy and Facebook. Thank you for sharing! We first posted the 1896 heatwave here first in 2013, then again on Wednesday. The ABC has gone into damage control responding with a direct attempt to rebut the story, but they are too scared to name this site. What are they afraid of?
We, of course, have no such fear. Six years after skeptics let Australia know about the 1896 heatwave, the ABC and “experts” finally catch up but only under duress. So now they mention it, but use vague caveats, distractors, discuss different time spans, ignore 49 other hot sites, appeal to authority, and don’t mention their own recent artificial site changes that skeptics have documented in more detail than the BOM have. The “experts” allude to “thermometers on beer crates” but in Bourke the heat was recorded at the post office on Oxley st. Skeptics are well aware of the places using beer crates, verandahs and stone walls — they were recording temperatures like 130 F in the shade (a blistering 54.4C), and we didn’t even use those readings to create the heatwave map of 1896 (below). See Marra station N.S.W. and Berlino S.A..
If the ABC wants to focus on Bourke, bring it on. Let’s talk about how cooling trends were changed to warming ones, and how they threw out original data, and from a Stevenson screen — a record of 51.7C in 1909 — wiped “because it was a Sunday”. We can detail the site, the moves, the ground, the equipment and the flaws — apparently better than the “experts” can.
The Australian heatwave of 1896
My point remains — how can the BOM say they “know” it was cooler?
Where is the scientific accuracy to a tenth of a degree coming from? They can’t admit they don’t know and that it might have been as hot or hotter in 1896.
This is what 97% certainty looks like — a bunch of vague caveats
Wait for it: they “know” it was cooler because it can’t be “easily compared” and is “likely suspect”?
The Bureau of Meteorology noted in a 2017 report the 1896 data “cannot be easily compared with modern recordings”.
“Detailed study has shown that extreme temperatures recorded at Bourke during the 1896 heatwave were likely suspect due to non-standard exposure, and likely around two degrees warmer than temperatures recorded with standard instrumentation.”
The Experts don’t even know the Bourke readings in 1896 came from the post office on Oxley St:
University of Melbourne climate researcher Linden Ashcroft said thermometers in Bourke were likely placed in sub-standard conditions in 1896. “Some thermometers were under verandahs, or they were against stone buildings,” she said. “I’ve heard of thermometers being kept in beer crates.
How about 51.7C in Bourke recorded in a Stevenson screen in 1909 then? Still not good enough?
It wouldn’t matter if Bourke had a Stevenson screen in 1896, high temperatures would still not be accepted. How do we know, because Bourke had a modern Stevenson Screen and recorded 51.7C in 1909 and the BOM threw the original data in the bin and declared it invalid, “Because it was a Sunday”. Jennifer Marohasy and Graham Lloyd documented the whole scandalous incident where a long cooling trend was changed to a warming trend, and original documents were binned:
January 3, 1909, an extremely hot 51.7C (125F) was recorded at Bourke. It’s possibly the hottest ever temperature recorded in a Stevenson Screen in Australia, but the BOM has removed it as a clerical error.
The Stevenson Screen went to the dump and, but for fate, the handwritten notes could have gone there too. But without instruction, the records were kept and are now under lock and key, held as physical evidence of what the weather was really doing in the mid-20th century.
Independent research, the results of which have not been disputed by BOM, has shown that, after homogenisation, a 0.53C warming in the minimum temperature trend has been increased to a 1.64C warming trend. A 1.7C cooling trend in the maximum temperature series in the raw data for Bourke has been changed to a slight warming.
Apparently official temperatures were not recorded on Sundays in 1909 in Bourke, therefore it didn’t occur. Sure. No observer would voluntarily come in to work on the hottest day in history to note down the temperature. Probably there were too many other exciting things to do in Bourke, right? How about the observer in Brewarrina, a town near Bourke, who recorded 123F the same day. Both liars? Both wrong. It didn’t happen. You vill repeat after me comrade…
History is being destroyed.
Who’s in denial?
This is not just about Bourke. Lance Pidgeon and Chris Gillham and the BOM audit team including Warwick Hughes list extraordinary hot temperatures in 49 places. This was an Australia wide heatwave. Were they all wrong?
Bourke: Perhaps the BOM should hire a skeptic and find out about their own sites?
Let’s talk some more about Bourke. Skeptics like Dr Bill Johnston have inspected it closely (We published his 8 page documentation here). Did the BOM “detailed study” explain that they artificially warmed their own modern expert site in 2013 by clearing the ground around it? Bourke’s temperature station is one of the eight longest running and best in Australia, yet it’s still terrible. It started in 1871 and is still listed as one of Australias top 104 ACORN sites. The reading in 1896 would have come from the official post office, in Oxley Street several allotments east of the courthouse. The site has moved several times (Johnston lists them all). Bourke temperatures are hotter now than in the past because of site changes, not the climate.
Temperatures recorded there since 1999 have been artificially raised by site moves, a shrinking screen, electronic “super sensitive” thermometer, faulty and missing records and possible calibration problems:
“an automatic weather station (AWS) 700 m away in 1999, which used a small 60-litre screen and which reported whole-degrees before 2002. The many temperature values that were culled shows the AWS was frequently over-range, probably because its [rapid response-rate probe]* operating in the small screen recorded flurries of warm air that would not affect thermometers housed in large screens; or that due to calibration problems it was prone to spiking on warm days.
* Lance Pidgeon clarifies that it’s the rapid response rate which is likely causing the artificial spikes.
The BOM doesn’t fix their sites, they just magically homogenise the data instead, through a secret process. We call it vandalization:
Australia’s ACORN-SAT temperature datasets are riddled with problems. The process is opaque; lacks statistical control; synchronous inter-site changes such as replacing 230-litre screens with 60-litre ones and thermometers by AWS at infrequently serviced sites beside dusty tracks and in paddocks at airports, are propagated across the network by the process. Thus few ACORN-SAT datasets are independent of collective problems. Using comparator data that are not homogeneous to adjust faults in ACORN-SAT has no merit and should be abandoned. — Dr Bill Johnston
But the taxpayer funded “expert” doesn’t seem to know any of that, and the taxpayer funded ABC journalists are so incompetent they don’t ask. They only needed to do a ten second internet search to find the skeptics here that have done all their homework for them. It’s yet another example of how the ABC acts as a apologist propaganda agency to cover up for incompetent work from other government groups. Save the children, sell the ABC!
It’s all religious faith and excuses — not science
The UNSW genius explains that more people died in Bourke because “they wore more clothes”:
People weren’t prepared for heatwaves in 1896
University of New South Wales climate researcher Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick said people in 1896 were largely unprepared for extreme heat, meaning they were more vulnerable to its effects.
“Back then everyone wore a lot more clothing than what they do now, there was no air conditioning, people worked outside, they moved outside a lot,” she said.
“It’s like comparing apples and oranges.”
So if it’s like “apples and oranges” how can the BOM / CSIRO / UNSW say they “know” it was cooler? Only because of their faith, not their science.
Air conditioners, and cheap electricity will save more Australian lives than anything else
Lance Pidgeon points out that the ABC are downplaying the deaths, saying “The town of Bourke lost at least 40 people — 1.6 per cent of its population” (as if that isn’t catastrophic!). He finds evidence that it was many more than this:
Even now it is not known how many men perished ; and it may not be known for months. There was a time when the “travellers,”
having fairly defined beats, were known and almost expected ; but latterly quite a new class has appeared —unknown city men, who, generally biding themselves under aliases, may be dead for months and never, if indeed ever, be missed. Already a few unfortunates have been found—one near Warri Warri, another on Morden, two on Nundora, and another, it is stated, on Yancannia. On Tickalara, on the Queensland border, a young man named Myers and an old man named George Smith succumbed ; the cause in each case is said to have been sunstroke. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/44137042
Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick then tries to distract us from the topic the BOM and climate experts are unscientifically exploiting — the short heatwave. Suddenly she is talking about seasonal averages or annual averages, but the BOM is generating headlines and trying to scare people about heatwaves this week. Watch the goal posts shift:
Temperatures today are still hotter overall
Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said even taking into account flawed thermometer conditions, average temperatures in 1896 were still lower than last year’s average. “Around [1896], temperatures on average over Australia for that season were about one degree hotter than the overall climate mean,” she said. “But then in 2013, that summer was 1.5 degrees hotter than average.
“And last summer was over two degrees hotter than average.
“So although [1896] was a hot season, it wasn’t nearly as hot as some of the seasons we’ve seen since then.”
History denial?
The record “hottest day” in Australia graph on the ABC news last night only started in 1970 (a cool time when scientists were panicking about the coming ice age). Have they even tried to calculate the “hottest day” in 1896? And would we believe them if they did, after they have homogenised away many of the hottest days in Australia with two revisions of 100 year old data in the last six years?
h/t to Warwick Hughes, David B, George. Based on great research from Lance Pidgeon and Chris Gillham and the whole BOM audit team. Thank you!
If you can help me, I can say more the things that need to be said in the battle with the freeloaders
The war on science continues, and the bank account needs your help. It’s ammunition to keep exposing corruption, incompetence, hysteria and history. Thanks for you support via Paypal and Not-paypal. I can’t do this without you…
We battle against the self-interest of “Green energy investment” which is around $400 billion a year. The Big Bankers too, still want their cut of a $7 trillion global carbon market — perhaps they want to save the world, or maybe they need a new yacht? But Big-Government don’t seem keen to give grants to writers who want to stop Big-Government abusing science. And fossil fuels — they not only don’t fund me, the largest gas and oil producer in Australia wouldn’t even let me speak at a Christmas dinner for geologists. Such is the toxic spell being cast. Woodside dropped like a bomb on a volunteer run committee.
… one protest, against the Adani coal mine, sparked a “tough moment” for her son, who was around six at the time. He became “absolutely devastated” about global warming and damage to the Great Barrier Reef. “He cried, and he was so distressed, and I was quite taken aback just how strong his feelings were,” Ms Roberts [his mother] says.
Expert psych says give them both sides of the story… no wait, she says turn them into mini activists:
Environmental psychologist and therapist Dr Susie Burke co-wrote the Australian Psychological Society guidelines on talking to children about climate change.
Dr Burke advocates for parents to support their children, which could include helping their child write or send their letters to a local politician, or to heroes of the environmental movement.
“It’s helping children to shift their anxiety from just focusing on the troublemakers,” Dr Burke says.
Skeptics say “teach them history” instead, and that they need to research both sides of the debate.
Ms Roberts, the activist parent, thinks nature made her kids activists:
The Roberts family has a strong connection with nature that began with simply spending time outdoors — camping, gardening, visiting beaches and forests. “That’s mostly where their strong feelings of wanting to get active are currently coming from,” says Ms Roberts, who is a member of Australian Parents for Climate Action.
Does spending time outdoors make kids want to be climate activists, or is it spending time with activist parents really the problem?
She might want to look at the data on postcodes of kids suffering with climate anxiety and eco-fear.
Meanwhile councillor Dick Gross says we should scare them til we have evidence to show they are actually mentally ill:
Is this the right time to say “precautionary principle”:
His council was one of the first to declare a “climate emergency”, and he says there is space for that phrase in conversations with kids.
“The moral panic that we’re terrifying our kids is either not true or it’s exaggerated,” he says.
“To get people to change their beliefs on climate change, you have to have tangible evidence and you have to scare people,” he says.
“Until the evidence comes in that there’s been an outbreak of mental ill health because of the climate conversation, I’ll still continue to take my view that from an epistemological point of view, we have to scare people or at least make them aware.”
If only he had waited for evidence that it was worth scaring kids in the first place.
Tuesday was Australia’s hottest day on record sayth the Bureau of Meteorology.
And perhaps it was. But look at the temperatures reported in newspapers across the country during the month of January in 1896 when people were going mad with axes, dropping dead in coaches and railway stations and birds were falling lifeless from the trees? Emergency trains were ferrying people from the country to the mountains. Panic stricken people fled the outback on special trains and the death toll was in the hundreds.
How does the BOM know for sure that it was not hotter on any one of these days? Perhaps they don’t. Wouldn’t it be more honest of the BOM to mention that? It’s not like billions of dollars depends upon it…
See below for the links to the newspaper stories for all of these temperatures (Click to enlarge the map)
Photo: Jo Nova
The heatwave started in the West on Jan 1st and travelled eastwards, as most heatwaves do. The hottest day was possibly Jan 23 or 24 in 1896 which is when most of the Eastern States maximum temperatures shown above were recorded. And there are hints that this was both widespread and long — some of these towns recorded three long weeks of ultra high temperatures close to and over 110F (43.3C) like Nannine in WA (near Meekatharra) and Cunnamulla in Qld. Both reported peaks as high as 120F (48.8C). In Bourke temperatures were above 102F (38.9C) for 24 days in a row.
Here are the links to the hot days that were recorded but don’t exist
History down the memory hole: Links go to the newspaper article of the day
Geraldton W.A. Wednesday, 1 Jan 1896 – 114° F “at Geraldton observatory“.
Geraldton W.A. Thursday, 2 Jan – 115° F “A child succumbs to the heat. ” at “ Northampton, where the thermometer ranged even higher than at Geraldton.”
Geraldton W.A. Friday, 3 Jan – 125° F most papers, 115° F in some (possibly a date error as it matches the previous day).
Perth W.A. 3 Jan – 112° F ” Five deaths have been reported in the city on account of the great heat.”
Mullewa W.A. 3 Jan – 121° F “The town has been enveloped in clouds of dust.”and “crowds of people have bad to sleep out of doors. Water is very scarce.”
Carnarvon W.A. 3 Jan – 121° F Brick House station “It is farther reported that the mercury has been up as high as 125 in the shade there.”
Pinjarrah W.A. 3 Jan – 114° F followed by a minimum of 97° F.
Southern Cross W.A. Week ending 5 Jan – ”averaged 115deg.” “It has often been as high as 122deg.” Mr Mkay died in his office chair of heat apoplexy.
Cue W.A. Sunday, 5 Jan – ”Three weeks of uninterrupted excesive heat“ ”each day exceeded 105“ ”on two occasions reaching 118.“
Wilcannia N.S.W. Monday, 6 Jan – 117° F “Wyalong follows close with 114°. Then come Nowra and Corowa with 112.”
Isisford Qld. 6 Jan – 112° F ” The Government Astronomer states that the high temperature has been caused by a heat wave which has come across the continent from Port Darwin,“.
Bourke N.S.W. 6 Jan – ”The fact is that out of 93 weather telegrams sent in, 64 gave temperatures ranging from 100° at Cooma, Tabulam, Tenterfield, and a few other places, up to 118° in the shade recorded at Brewarrina and at Bourke. There were 22 stations which reported temperatures ranging from 110° to 118° inclusive.“
Canowindra N.S.W. 6 Jan – 114° F “Reaching the highest point on record“.
Farina S.A. 6 Jan – 113.5° F “the place occupied by the thermometer being a shadebox such as is used at the Adelaide Observatory.“
Ungarie N.S.W 6 Jan – 125° F “rural districts do not always recognise the nice distinctions between true shade and other shade.”
Quirindi N.S.W. Monday, 13 Jan – 120° F. Out of 54 temperatures shown on that list only one does not meet the 95° F (35° C) heatwave threshold.
Bulli N.S.W. 13 Jan – 115° F “This has been, the hottest day known“.
Kiama N.S.W. 13 Jan – 117° F ” A Scorcher Everywhere. Death and Distress.“
Parramatta N.S.W. 13 Jan – 111 ° F “Fruit Broiled on the Trees.” “Birds and Animals Drop Dead.”
Camden N.S.W. Tuesday, 14 Jan – 123°F ”Great Heat Wave ” “LIST OF CASUALTIES.”
Araluen N.S.W. Friday, 17 Jan – 110° F “It was thought that the heat had passed, but it was back again to-day“
Brewarrina N.S.W 17 Jan – 122° F “125 deaths attributable to heat apoplexy” (Sydney).
West Wyalong N.S.W 17 Jan – 114° F “The thermometer at the post office“.
Nannine W.A. Saturday, Jan 18 – ”After about three weeks of most oppressive heat, with the thermometer frequently registering 120deg. in the shade, the weather has broken.”
Farina S.A. Tuesday, Jan 21 – 112.3° F “Old residents say this is the hottest summer they have ever experienced.”
Broken Hill N.S.W. Wednesday, Jan 22 – 113½° F ”Two horses dropped dead in the street from the effects of the heat.“
Farina S.A. 22 Jan – 113° F “The temperature of our police cell was 148° several times.”
Charleville or Cunnamulla QLD. 22 Jan – 120.5 ° F (116 °F official ) “The average daily temperature from the 1st instant exceeded 114 degrees.” 25 days!!
Olary S.A. Thursday, 23 Jan – 116° F “and dust flying in clouds during the afternoon.”
Adelaide S.A. 23 Jan – 111° F “Herbert Crown, an ostler at the Langham Hotel, fell down in King William-street this afternoon with sunstroke.”
Swan Hill Vic 23 Jan – 116° F “To-day, it is again exceedingly oppressive”.
Farina S.A. 23 Jan – 114.3° F “Five deaths have occurred in the town and one outside“.
Mildura Vic 23 Jan – 120° F “PHENOMENAL HEAT IN VICTORIA.“
Broken Hill 23 Jan – 115° F “Dr Enill took the temperature of the body an hour and a hall after death, and found that it was 109¾ .”
Halbury S.A. 23 Jan – 118° F “Many children are unwell, and it will go hard with them unless a change soon, comes.”.
Rapanyup Vic 23 Jan – 113° F “To-day it is again exceedingly oppressive“.
Natimuk Vic 23 Jan – 115° F ”Telegrams from the country districts show that the heat was general throughout the colony.”(Victoria).
Bega N.S.W. 23 Jan – 113° F “The minimum heat during last night was 73 . To-day the heat was terrific In the true shade the reading was 113 at 2pm“.
Geelong Vic 23 Jan – 110° F ” Largely due to a burning north-west wind.“
Hergott Springs S.A. 23 Jan “On three different days it showed 118° and three times 116°, the average for the last month having been 113°F. “
Grenfell and Ivanhoe N.S.W. 23 Jan – 122 ° F “At Ivanhoe the heat was so intense that the mail horses fell dead on the road.”
Charleville / Cunnamulla QLD. Friday, 24 Jan – 126/5° F “The official readings at the Post Office are lower; but the instruments used are placed in a thickly-planted garden which has been heavily irrigated during the last week,” So at which town was this garden and non stevenson screen recording? The clue is in the name “Grosvenor” here.
Cunnamulla QLD 24 Jan – ” The official record showed a reading on Tuesday of 111 degs. in the shade, on Wednesday 116 degs., and to-day 117 degs. On Wednesday at midnight, the high temperature of 99 degs. was recorded.”
Isisford QLD 24 Jan – “The thermometer on Monday rose to 114 degs., on Tuesday to 112 degs., on “Wednesday 115 degs., and to-day 118 degs. The country is very bare and the water is giving out fast.”
Wilcannia N.S.W 24 Jan – 123° F “not a breath of wind was stirring during the night”.
Hillston N.S.W. 24 Jan- 115° F “Anything under 110 is now beginning to be looked upon as contemptibly cool.”
Wilcannia N.S.W. Saturday, 25 Jan – 120° F “The thermometer fell 50deg. at Wilcannia, but a death from sunstroke occurred there yesterday.”
Plus
125°F at Middle camp station Netely (Perhaps 160 kilometres south-east of Broken Hill).
There are even more extreme examples listed in the original 1896 post, like Berlino 130F, which ““hangs on a stone house with a thickly thatched verandah facing West” … “never reached by the sun“. Instead, these seemed like the more reliable estimates.
Thanks to Chris Gillham, Lance Pidgeon, Ken Stewart, Warwick Hughes, and all the BOM audit team. So much more still to come. Thank you!
The big decision Australia faces — We could try to stop all arsonists, lightning, wind, droughts and cool the entire world, or we could reduce the fuel. Which will it be?
In Australia, the situation is comi-tragic. As potential record-breaking heatwave heads eastwards across the country our fire-fighters are reduced to emergency backburning— an act of sheer desperation on the verge of panic in these conditions. The fires they light in the hope of stopping firestorms are causing firestorms — with flames 70 meters high — even burning down one of the RFS captains homes. This is fuel reduction six months too late. One twelve year old drove a car to escape a fire. 2,000 firefighters are battling 108 blazes. A coal mine and a power station are in the path in NSW. The Mount Piper Power Station generates about 10 per cent of NSW’s electricity and is 3km from a fire front. At the coal mine unprocessed coal lies on the surface. How much fun can you have?
Temperatures of 44C (111f) and 46C (114f) are forecast for the outskirts of Sydney on Friday and Saturday.
Fire has already consumed almost three million hectares of land across NSW this bushfire season driven by hot, dry and windy conditions. Six people have died, and 724 homes, 49 facilities and 1582 outbuildings have been destroyed. — Nine news
The East Coast is a cauldron of fuel, millions of hectares of dense match-sticks waiting-to-go. Meanwhile Greens are complaining about the smoke haze and pollution that their policies created and chanting about “climate change” with all the indulgent self righteousness and scientific reasoning of injured four-year-old fortune-tellers.
The grown-ups see things differently. Roger Underwood is a former General Manager of CALM in WA (Dept of Conservation and Land Management), a regional and district manager, a research manager and bushfire specialist. Roger Underwood has 60 years experience in Australian bushfire management. He is one of the leading experts behind Bushfirefront, and this graph (below) that I keep showing. For 18 years they’ve been warning “reduce fuel”, “reduce fuel”, “reduce fuel”.
As he says: Fire need three things — oxygen, fuel and a spark. The only thing we can control is the fuel.
The big decision Australia faces — We could try to stop all arsonists, lightning, wind, droughts and cool the entire world, or we can reduce the fuel. Which will it be? The intellectual giants running the national conversation are still not sure which way to go.
In Western Australia after the major fires of 1961 a massive and dedicated fuel reduction program stopped wildfires for twenty years. Then as the prescribed burn area fell, the wildfire emergencies returned. Its obvious, unarguable, and agrees with everything else we know. It’s still to complicated for the ABC.
A one degree temperature rise does not create a firestorm
The difference between 39C and 40C is not the difference between normal and catastrophic fires.
Modern witchdoctors wave their windmill-totems and want us to stop fires with solar panels and batteries — so possibly in one hundred years we might get shorter droughts, slower winds, less lightning, and temperatures that might be a meaningless 1 degree cooler (in their wildest dreams and with no possible numerical justification even through their own broken, failing models and as assessed by their favourite mass foreign committee of 26,000 experts).
Even if we sacrificed our economy and way of life and somehow achieved what they wanted the nation would be a powder-keg for the next hundred years, and then after they “succeeded” it would still be a powder keg.
Watch this space… pray for people, koalas and forests. Trainwreck in action in Australia…
Climate change versus bushfires: killer flaws in an unhelpful and dangerous argument
by Roger Underwood
A group of former “fire chiefs” are blaming the current bushfires across Australia on climate change, and demanding that Prime Minister Morrison takes urgent action to fix the climate. This, they claim, will fix the bushfire threat.
This position is not just unhelpful, it is dangerous. Even if we could change the climate (cooler summers, saturating winter rains, light breezes, no more droughts), it would not influence the current weather patterns or stop the fierce bushfire coming up the driveway this afternoon. Even if we knew exactly how to change the climate, anything we do in Australia will have to be replicated globally (especially in China and India) to make any difference, and even ifthese climate-changing measures were applied globally tomorrow, the desired new climate might not cut in for many years.
The “climate-change-is-causing-bushfires” position has two killer flaws.
First, it takes no account of fuels; and second
It prescribes no practical actions that will help with the immediate bushfire threat.
Ignoring fuel is an error of astonishing magnitude and seriously undermines the credibility of the “fire chiefs”. It is almost as if they never studied elementary bushfire science. In Bushfire 101 we learned about The Fire Triangle. This illustrates a fundamental reality: a bushfire (in fact any fire) can only occur if three things are co-present: oxygen (in the air), fuel (to burn) and heat (a source of ignition to get the fire started).
If any one of the three is missing the result is no fire.
Unfortunately, nothing can be done to remove the air and the oxygen it contains. Unhappily, nothing can be done to stop bushfires starting. They will either be lit by Mother Nature in the form of lightning strikes, or will be started by humans, either deliberately or accidentally.
But bushfire fuel can be removed, or at least the quantity of fuel around a house or in the bush can be reduced to a point where a fire will burn at a relatively low intensity , allowing firefighters to deal with it relatively comfortably.
On the other hand, if fuel is allowed to build up, as happens in long-unburned eucalypt bushland, the eventual fire will be of high intensity. If a crown fire results, generating a downwind ember storm, the fire will be impossible to control and highly damaging, no matter how many thousands of firefighters and water bombers you throw at it.
Blaming climate change for the current spate of bushfires ignores the fact that these bushfires have proven almost impossible to control once they got going. This is because they are burning in heavy fuels dried out by drought. Ignoring fuel is the ultimate cop-out. It absolves the authorities of any responsibility for the incubation of this fire epidemic, and especially it absolves the former “fire chiefs” for not doing their job over the years, allowing dangerous levels of fuel to accumulate in the nation’s bushlands.
A majority of people in the UK say the climate crisis will influence how they vote in the looming general election, according to an opinion poll, with younger voters feeling particularly strongly about the issue.
…
And of course the greatest landslide in 30 years wasn’t won by the party aligned with teenage girls who promised better weather.
Six weeks before the UK election and the poll served no purpose other than to fool some politicians and the journalists that write about them. The biggest issue facing mankind either got solved before December 12, or perhaps no one gave a toss, they just said what the pollster wanted them to say.
Bigger than Brexit? Jeremy ought to have that election wrapped up….
Christian Aid poll finds climate emergency should be a top priority for Boris Johnson
by Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian
Most Britons believe climate change is more important in the long term than Brexit and say it should be a top priority for Boris Johnson’s government, according to an opinion poll. Women and young people are more likely to say that action over climate change is a more pressing priority than issues around Brexit. The ComRes survey, commissioned by Christian Aid, found that 71% of the UK public agreed that climate change would be more important than the country’s departure from the EU in the long term. Six out of 10 adults said the government was not doing enough to prioritise the climate crisis….
…
Neither Guardian journalist asked any hard questions — did people have the option to tick “Total waste of time”,or “Looks like Pagan witchcraft”.
Most surveys have 6 shades of believer and only one kind of skeptic. Without satirical skeptical options most people recognise the poll as a lecture, and just want the interviewer out the door. 30% of people in the US did say Climate change was a total hoax. Has anyone even asked?
Did the surveys ask people how much of their own money they wanted to spend or did they just do the usual apple pie wish list — would you mind if the government paid for nicer weather?
Which is, of course, why real leaders who want to win elections, don’t read The Guardian.
The pollsters on climate exult,
In promoting their climate-change cult,
With questions that tilt,
At degrees of man’s guilt,
To achieve the desired result.
Stupid engineers think we need climate models that work and electricity that costs less than a dollar a kilowatt hour. All along we’ve been worried about FCAS, moist adiabatic lapse rates, voltage surges, and frequency drops, while the answer was staring us in the face.
The cheapest way to change the global climate is to call men petty names, bully them into submission and kick their truck nuts.
Here’s “genius” Megan MacKenzie: Professor of Gender and War at the University of Sydney showing us how little she knows about climate, men or war.
Is fragile masculinity the biggest obstacle to climate action?
Megan MacKenzie, ABC
Leaving fossil fuels in the ground symbolises a loss of power and money. Some male leaders see real climate action as a threat to power and to profit, through extraction and exploitation of the environment.
Male resistance to climate action has bipartisan support. Any hope that the Labor party might offer climate policy alternatives the Liberals went up in smoke in the past few months as Anthony Albanese announced he doesn’t want to phase out coal.
Researchers in Norway also found what they call a “cool dude effect” when it comes to climate change.
They show that white conservative men, especially those that think they understand the science of climate change, are the biggest climate deniers and the least likely to be moved by further research.
There are multiple examples of ‘cool climate dudes’ and petro-masculinity, including “right wingers…going crazy about meat”, by embracing diets called “the carnivore” or “the caveman” at the same time that vegans are belittled as “soyboys” and “beta males”.
We knew Sydney Uni and the ABC are intellectually primitive, incompetent, slaves to fashionthink, but this dumber than that.
Time to just say No. No more funds to Sydney Uni, no more funds to the ABC. No more funds to the human rights commission either. Sexist, racist, self-serving intolerance is apparently fine.
Toxic white men with balls are the reason Megan MacKenzie has the freedom to write noxious self-serving trollop and get paid for it.
Experts predict a warmer world will be “geologically turbulent”. Join the dots, get a solar panel, and stop the world cracking up ok?
Below one national news outlet speculates about the effects storms, melting ice and floods have on crustal plates, and fault lines. It’s possible, unknown, or at least not-entirely-ruled-out that man-made CO2 could maybe theoretically lead to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. The story contains stacked “ifs”, “buts”, “coulds” and caveats, plus some links that are not-statistically-significant and several “unknowns”.
This is essentially one-sided scientific rumour mongering. Quick let’s transform our economy.
Major storms, such as cyclones and hurricanes, can produce substantial changes in atmospheric pressure. This sometimes triggers a ‘slow earthquake’ – a slow but steady movement that does not create any noticeable jolt.
“They note that while such large low-pressure changes couldpotentially be a contributor to triggering a damaging earthquake, the numbers are small and are not statistically significant,” Buis says.
So experts say there is really no evidence at all here?
What does this next line even mean?
And then there’s the fact that weather is not the same as climate.
Would you like an earthquake with that?
Recent NASA research in California, Oregon and Washington indicate extended drought could have implications of seismic proportions.
Between 2011 and 2017, the Sierra Nevada mountain range lifted by up to 2.5cm as it shed water and lost weight. Then it fell more than 1cm after heavy rains.
“Such stress changes couldpotentially be felt on faults in or near the range,” Buis writes.
It supports earlier research linking depleted subterranean groundwater aquifers to seismic activity on the San Andreas Fault. Once again, the change in pressure and weight had a domino effect.
You don’t say:
But there are still too many unknown variables at play to be sure.
“We’re not close to being able to predict when an earthquake may occur as a result of climate processes,” he concludes.
Don’t be surprised if the Earth cracks up:
Researchers already know dramatic changes in the water levels of lakes and dams can trigger local seismic activity.
But upscaling this impact to a global level is difficult.
We know glaciers are retreating rapidly around the world.
So, what if such enormous weights shift?
“With this in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the loading and unloading of the Earth’s crust by ice or water can trigger seismic and volcanic activity and even landslides,” Professor McGuire says.
Stopping surprises like this is just what we have professors for.
The article mentions “climate” nine times, and the the sun, solar magnetic, solar wind and solar weather not at all. Get the picture? Your taxes pay for these experts.
Climate change could produce more stacked caveats.
Photos just in from Bill Johnston in NSW show why Sydney is shrouded in smoke and why so much is still at risk this summer.
The sign marks the fire trail — which is lucky, otherwise no one would know it was there.
Spot the sign in the photo below. Spot the fire-trail.
How many fires would this stop? About as many as a solar panel.
Fire trail or fire trap? | Photo Bill Johnston
This is NSW fire preparation in 2019.
..
This is what a different fire trail looks like (one that works):
Fire meets fire trail, stops. | Photo: Bill Johnston
This break was small but still stopped a manageable fire. Only the ocean will stop a firestorm.
As as Bill says — rainfall lowers the temperature, and drought raises it. Wet soils are hard to heat. Wet woodlands are slower to burn. If there is fuel to burn, a lack-of-rain causes a high fire risk, and everyone knows climate models can’t predict rain on any short term or regional basis. The only thing we know for sure is that a warmer world is a wetter one. Thus and verily 1 + 1 = a new water bomber. Blame Climate Change and say Give us your money!
— Jo
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Accumulated fuel is an environmental time-bomb
Guest post on the climate-science emergency by Dr. Bill Johnston
TheGuardian decrys that if only Australia had reduced its minuscule emissions, something would have happened to stop kiddies and other arsonists causing the allegedly earliest, longest, hottest, beastiest fire season in Australia’s history.
Resident catastrophist at the University of New South Wales Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick was “surprised, bewildered, concerned”, IPCC’s Professor Mark Howden from ANU thought “the public had already joined the dots” – the most obvious being that fire needs fuel and that ever since restrictions on fuel reduction were imposed by various native vegetation and biodiversity reforms twenty or so years ago, fuel loads across eastern Australia have inexorably increased.
Although supposedly paid to think, Euan Ritchie, wildlife ecologist at Deakin University misses the obvious. Not reducing fuel loads will always look like a raging bushfire every seven years or so when La Niña fades, the landscape dries out and El Niño kicks-in. Fire in Australia has been around for as long as there is fuel to burn and they invented two sticks to rub together. [Or since God invented lightning]. Surely the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action[1] would also understand the ferocity of fire is only abated by preemptively controlling the fuel load, which in their time they didn’t do.
Great news for Australia. Brilliant for the UK. The Brits have chucked out EU climate bunnies.
No one can deny the British want out. All the stupid parliamentary games, the attention-seeking mass rallies, and the fake concern about “threats to democracy” got knocked on the head. Finally the country will be able to follow the wishes of voters instead of the wishes of a few career pollies. In great part thanks to Nigel Farage.
Exit poll: Conservative 368, Labour 191, Liberal Democrats 13, SNP 55
If the exit poll results ring true, it will be the biggest Conservative general election win since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 triumph — and Labour’s worst result since 1935.
“Certainly this exit poll is a devastating blow,” said Labour trade spokesman Barry Gardiner. “It’s a deeply depressing result.”
The bloodbath in the UK marks the seismic realignment of the two major parties, with Labor losing working class seats that it has held for years, and the conservatives losing city seats that once were their strongholds. It seems the Labor alignment with the smarty-pants soy-latte set, foreign bureaucrats and immigrants instead of workers is fashionable but not a winning plan.
Predictably Labor M.P’s are blaming Corbyn, but not taking any responsibility themselves for the train wreck.
Plus the party’s method for electing leaders was rortable, which may have looked like a feature at the time, but what can be corrupted, will be. It doomed the party.
The pollsters running loaded push polls tell us everyone believes in climate change and wants to save the world. But despite the mass XR protests, and nightly news-catastrophes people don’t vote for “climate action”. There are so many more important topics than slowing storms one hundred years from now.
Finally the United Kingdom will be able to choose their own hairdryers and vacuum cleaners.
Don’t mention the Commonwealth?
In the land Downunder there has been close to zero discussion about the obvious benefits in Australia of freer trade with the fifth largest economy and long time cultural partner, almost like the media (especially the ABC) don’t want to mention it.
What’s remarkable here is that 44% of Australians don’t know or don’t back a post-Brexit Trade deal.
A majority of Australians support closer ties with Britain once it breaks away from the European Union, despite being largely ambivalent about the impact of Brexit on their own lives.A new YouGov poll found nearly two-thirds of Australians back freer movement between Australia and Britain after Brexit, while 56 per cent believe it is in the nation’s interests to reach a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain.
Britain is the second-largest source of foreign investment into Australia at almost $600bn. Two-way trade already stands at $29bn.
Why isn’t a post-Brexit deal with Britain a bleedingly obvious win for 99%?
Watch Spock in the 1970s describing how climate scientists were predicting a mile high wall of ice that could cover Canada down to Boston “in your lifetime”, and it may already have started. Commenter Bulldust found Gary Orsum’s droll commentary on that documentary. Great stuff.
Best part begins from 5:45 mins on:
In 1977 the worst winter in a century struck the United States… one desperate night in Buffalo, eight people froze to death…
the brutal Buffalo winter might become common all over the United States. Climate experts believe the next ice age is on its way.
Temperatures have been dropping for thirty years…
With 40 years headstart on climate scares, Orsum has all the answers.
Leonard Nimoy: Arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of the inhabitable portions of our planet into an Arctic wasteland.
Sure says Orsum, but there are ways to allieviate that threat even with your primitive caveman technology, just get the kids to take Fridays off school.
The opening five minutes explaining how he’s not a denier though he keeps being called one. Readers here have lived that landscape already. Just say “lukewarmer” and jump to 5:45 on. Worked a treat for me at 1.5 speed (look for the cog on the bottom right).
Imagine if schools taught the children history and they all watched documentaries like this once a year…
Friday 13th: Newcastle sceptics for lunch and Sunshine Coast sceptics are getting together for afternoon drinks.
Email me: joanne AT joannenova.com.au and I’ll forward your email to the skeptic in charge. Even if you can’t get there this time, we’ll let you know for the next. I hear the Sunshine Coast Sceptics are in for a real treat… (send me those photos please!) Jim, in Newcastle your email bounced when I replied. Please try again.
UPDATE: Poll results will be announced after 10pm GMT in the UK. That’s 9AM Daylight savings time Sydney Australia.
Thoughts are with you Freemen of the United Kingdom for a very important election.
Boris is just brilliant in this Ad. He carries off the parody of the carol singers in “Love Actually” without looking smug or self conscious.
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The Australian-ABC Groupthink Predictor points at a conservative win — since ABC NEWS has barely mentioned the UK election during the whole campaign, obviously it’s not looking good for the leading socialists. If Corbyn was in the lead we’d hear about it every night and see him with adoring crowds. If Corbyn was winning, it would be called a Climate Election, and a Brexit election.
But Groupthink can be wrong. To all skeptics and Brexiteers in the UK, please get out and vote. Don’t take anything for granted. Conservatives don’t just need a win, they need a workable government.
Will the nation that invented freedom manage to escape the clutches of the EU?
PS: Best of luck to the excellent Roger “Tallbloke” running in Oxford East. See his comment in #1.3
December 10, 2019, Josh Seigel, Washington Examiner
ExxonMobil won a first-of-its-kind climate change fraud trial on Tuesday as a judge rejected the state of New York’s claim that the oil and gas giant misled investors in accounting for the financial risks of global warming.
New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager said the state failed to prove that Exxon violated the Martin Act, a broad state law that does not require proof of intent of shareholder fraud.
“The office of the Attorney General failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,” Ostrager wrote in a 55-page ruling, deciding the case without a jury.
The Democrats in NY spent three years working on this before filing the suit, but apparently didn’t realize they were barking at clouds the whole time?
New York Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Zweig announced during his closing statement that the state would no longer be claiming Exxon knowingly and willfully misled investors on how it accounts for the financial risks of climate change.
Incompetence is the Deep State
Officials waste taxpayer money on frivolous law-suits to either support their own faith in a neopagan religion, or support the financial interests of their party donors. Their greatest strength is their overwhelming audacious confidence, but it’s also their greatest weakness, and guarantees they will take any tiny seed of something and run with it til they smash headlong on the rocks.
We can only hope some heads roll.
This is very related to the ASIC investigation coincidentally announced yesterday in Australia.
ASIC investigating large companies’ climate change risk management
Jackson Gothe-Snape, ABC
The corporate watchdog has launched a new surveillance program to ensure Australia’s biggest companies are dealing with the risks of climate change.
The move follows comments by former High Court judge and royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne that directors of companies could end up in court if they do not properly deal with the risk.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has started contacting large companies this week as part of its investigation into climate risk governance.
We wish ASIC would investigate the CSIRO and BOM for misleading taxpayers and corporations about the risks of climate change. Who protects the taxpayers? Who is responsible for all the malinvestment, wasted money, destruction of a perfectly good grid?
If there are directors who are concerned please get in touch. I can quietly connect you with information and experts.
Greater minds than I may have more insight into the validity of the ASIC move. Why is a government watchdog trying to protect investors in situations where sane investors should be making up their own minds — both about the risk of climate change and also the corporate response? It’s as if the government has decided that no sane investor would prefer to put money into companies that are not wasting it preparing for a fantasy future.
Welcome to creeping communism — where the state decides what private businesses have to do, and what private investors need to know. After twenty years of non-stop propaganda on this topic surely there is no person in the West within one SD of an average IQ who is not fully aware of theoretical, supposed “climate change” risks.
h/t Pat. Thank you for your card! h/t also Howard H.
The Deep State gets around congress and voters but we all know it isn’t supposed to be that way
…
The voters may not like the decisions, but they can’t vote out the bureaucrats. Think of the EPA, the FDA, and of course, the central bankers. Think of the Clean Air Act!
Some of these agencies effectively make the guidelines that we-the-people have to live by, then they enforce them, and adjudicate them too. They become defacto Kingmakers in their own fiefdoms. They are the fourth branch of government, also known as The Deep State.
But what feels wrong, may indeed be wrong, and it’s possible the Obama era Clean Power Plan could be repealed if it is deemed to breach the NonDelegation Doctrine, and there is renewed interest in this now that Brett Kavanaugh is in the Supreme Court. (No wonder some tried so hard to get him out).
The origins of the nondelegation doctrine, as interpreted in U.S., can be traced back to, at least, 1690, when John Locke wrote:
The Legislative transfer the Power of Making Laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated Power from the People, they, who have it, cannot pass it over to others. … And when the people have said, We will submit to rules, and be govern’d by Laws made by such Men, and in such Forms, no Body else can say other Men shall make Laws for them; nor can the people be bound by any Laws but such as are Enacted by those, whom they have Chosen, and Authorised to make Laws for them.
An article in E&E argues that no one has used them since 1935, but now with Kavanaugh on the benches, they might. That would rather drop the cat among the pigeons…
Court watchers say Kavanaugh’s addition to the bench could open the door to a revival of the long-dormant nondelegation doctrine, which prevents Congress from handing off policy decisions to federal agencies.
The return of the doctrine, which the court has not used to scrap an agency rule since 1935, could pose a threat to greenhouse gas regulations, said UCLA law professor Ann Carlson.
“The basic idea is that if Congress hasn’t specifically addressed a question, then for an agency to take up that question and regulate on it — particularly when there has been a relatively large passage of time since Congress spoke — it shouldn’t and can’t do so, at least in expansive ways,” Carlson said.
Litigation over the repeal and replacement of the Clean Power Plan could test conservative interest in bringing the nondelegation doctrine back into play.
Critics of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan have argued that EPA overstepped its authority when it drafted a rule to systematically slash emissions from power plants. Under President Trump, the agency has ushered in the less-stringent Affordable Clean Energy rule and has asked a lower court to find that the 2015 regulation was not allowable under the Clean Air Act (Energywire, Nov. 5).
Wikipedia: The Nondelegation doctrine
United States
In the Federal Government of the United States, the nondelegation doctrine is the principle that the Congress of the United States, being vested with “all legislative powers” by Article One, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, cannot delegate that power to anyone else. However, the Supreme Court ruled in J. W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States (1928)[1] that congressional delegation of legislative authority is an implied power of Congress that is constitutional so long as Congress provides an “intelligible principle” to guide the executive branch: “‘In determining what Congress may do in seeking assistance from another branch, the extent and character of that assistance must be fixed according to common sense and the inherent necessities of the government co-ordination.’
Delegation is a question of balance — how do we define what a “big policy” decision is, and what’s a small one?
Jonathan Adler, an environmental law professor at Case Western Reserve University said: “A revival of nondelegation claims doesn’t mean agencies like EPA would be robbed of discretion to act, but that Congress would make the “fundamental legislative choices,”… That could be a good thing, he added.
“Congress could certainly identify criteria on which the regulations would be based, and that’s the way the democratic process is supposed to work,” Adler said.
“The legislature is supposed to be making the big policy judgments.”
There is, maybe, hope in Australia and Canada and NZ … (See wikipedia)
Australian federalism does not permit the federal Parliament or Government to delegate its powers to state or territorial parliaments or governments, nor territorial parliaments or governments to delegate their powers to the federal Parliament or Government, but the states parliaments delegate its powers to the federal parliament by means of section 51 subsection (xxxvii) of the Constitution Act 1901.
Supposedly “Independent” agencies are also unaccountable agencies
Are all those deep-state agencies independent from political influence, or are they just independent of “the voters”?
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