The Greens have blamed the federal government’s failure to address climate change for a cyclone and bushfires which have ravaged communities across Australia over the past 48 hours.
In an anti-coal speech in the Senate today, Greens leader Richard Di Natale said the government had been doing “everything it can to slow this country’s transition to renewable energy”.
–Joe Kelly, Andrew Burrell
Four thousand IPCC-Chief-Gurus said cyclones will become “less frequent” but “more intense”. Which is why Cyclone Marcus was a Category Six … Two.
Apparently climate change just makes less cyclones.*
Evidently climate change causes stronger buildings, or perhaps that has something to do with fossil fuels?
But this week in Darwin the local hardware stores have run out of chainsaws. Forty three years ago they ran out of walls.
Tomorrow: the Climate Druids lecture us on Fires.
__________________
*Thought for today: Looking at the cyclone trend graph — ponder if we are returning to the cooling period of the 1950’s-70s? It’s possible we may get more storms again, but for the opposite reason. As it happens another cyclone may already be on the way?
Images: Wikimedia Druids | ABC NEWs | Darwin, 1974, Courtesy – National Archives of Australia A6135, K29/1/75/16
A funny thing happens when you line up satellite and surface temperatures over Australia. A lot of the time they are very close, but some years the surface records from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) are cooler by a full half a degree than the UAH satellite readings. Before anyone yells “adjustments”, this appears to be a real difference of instruments, but solving this mystery turns up a rather major flaw in climate models.
Bill Kininmonth wondered if those cooler-BOM years were also wetter years when more rain fell. So Tom Quirk got the rainfall data and discovered that rainfall in Australia has a large effect on the temperatures recorded by the sensors five feet off the ground. This is what Bill Johnston has shown at individual stations. Damp soil around the Stevenson screens takes more heat to evaporate and keeps maximums lower. In this new work Quirk has looked at the effect right across the country and the years when the satellite estimates diverge from the ground thermometers are indeed the wetter years. Furthermore, it can take up to six months to dry out the ground after a major wet period and for the cooling effect to end.
In Australia rainfall controls the temperature, which is the opposite of what the models predict, but things are different in the US. (In the US, temperature affects rainfall).*
In Australia maximum rainfall occurs in the summer but it is highly variable, whereas in the US, while the summer rain is heavier, it’s the winter precipitation where the big variations occur. This seasonal pattern makes a big difference. . Both the Australian pattern and the US pattern appear in other places around the world, but the models only have the one scenario. It appears the modelers figured out the situation in New Jersey and programmed it in for the rest of the world, but whole zones of the world are behaving quite differently.
Models predict that temperature affects rainfall — but in Australia the rainfall affects the temperature. No wonder these models are skillless at predicting temperature and on rainfall — they are even worse.
As far as I know this is new and original research. Tom Quirk has run it past a few people, including John Christy of UAH who notes that this has been seen elsewhere. Let’s keep up with the peer review…
UPDATE: I’ve discovered Ken Stewart reported this correlation back in 2015. So for the record — his post was the first: “over three quarters of the difference between surface and atmospheric temperature anomalies is due to rainfall variation alone.” Some great graphs there….
— Jo
* Added for clarity. A more detailed post coming very soon.
In Australia, the bulk of the rain,
Falls in summer across its terrain,
With less heat above ground,
Where temp. readings are found,
Which the surface through drying would gain
— Ruairi
Why Satellites and Surface Thermometers Don’t Agree: Explaining the Difference in Australia with Rainfall
Original Research and Guest Post by Tom Quirk
There is continuing questioning of the relationship of rainfall and temperature. Does temperature determine rainfall or is it the reverse…? The following analysis is a comparison of rainfall and near surface (BOM) and lower troposphere (UAH) temperatures for continental Australia.
This analysis shows that rainfall modifies surface temperatures in Australia.
Figure 1 shows a temperature comparison. The BOM annual temperatures are averaged from 1979 to 2017 and then normalized to the UAH average, an adjustment of -0.33 0C so the two different time series can be compared.
The temperature increases are:
UAH 0.176 +/- 0.036 0C per 10 years
BOM 0.154 +/- 0.048 0C per 10 years
There is no significant difference in trends at 0.022 +/- 0.030 0C per 10 years.
Yearly measurements and analysis
While there is a good correlation of surface (BOM) and lower troposphere temperatures, there are two periods, 1999 to 2001 and 2010 to 2012 where the UAH satellite temperature anomalies are 0.40C above the near surface measurements of the BOM.
Fig 1: UAH and BOM Australian annual temperatures where the BOM anomalies have been normalized to the same mean value as that of the UAH measurements.
Bill Kininmonth, former head of Australia’s Climate Centre, suggested that this could be linked to periods of high rainfall as the dampened surface would lower the measured temperatures due to evaporation. This fits with other work by Bill Johnston showing a link between rainfall and temperature at individual sites.
A comparison of Australia wide rainfall sourced from the BOM (Figure 2) and the difference of UAH – BOM temperature anomalies (Figure 3) show that there is a correlation.
The government running the renewables crash-test-dummy state has lost
In South Australia, Jay Weatherill is gone. Resigned. Tally so far: Libs win 24 seats, Labor 18. Though according to commenters SA voters were choosing between Lite-Left and Hopeless-Left. The new premier will likely be less-bad. Xenophon (small alternate non-establishment player) was crushed. He didn’t side with either Labor or Libs, so voters probably felt they couldn’t afford to sit on the fence and risk more years of Weatherill’s reckless industry-destroying state government.
The Greens are down from 8.7% to 6.6%, a fall of 25% in their popularity. (Not that I could find any news headlines to that effect).
Chris Kenny: [A Lib win] … will flash a warning to Labor in Victoria, Queensland and Canberra about the perils of ambitious renewable energy targets prioritising climate gestures over electricity affordability and reliability.
The Libs appear to have made the most of hi-tech analytic campaigning. The Kochs and others in the US have set up i360:
Through i360 the SA Liberals believe they have progressed to a new level of targeted campaigning… the MP called up a marginal seat, much like finding a suburb on Google Maps, then zoomed in to a street where pins identified addresses deemed to house swinging voters. Deeper dives on households contained genders, ages, voting intentions or lack thereof as well as policy interests. The information is collated from the party’s existing Feedback system, updates from doorknocking and calls, responses to surveys conducted via email, online or phone calls plus census data and the harvesting of social media data. This is Big Brother meets grassroots campaigning. Neither the data nor the technology is much use without quality information fed in and strong analysis leading to the right strategies, along with diligent personalised attention in follow-up visits and communications.
Billionaire US Republican sponsors Charles and David Koch are major investors in the firm, which openly canvasses only for “free-market” candidates. The SA Liberals purchased a product licence and have worked with i360 to modify systems for compulsory and preferential voting. Motivated by the frustration of 2014 where, despite a huge popular vote win, just a few hundred votes in the right seats would have made all the difference,…
The Libs are offering only 40,000 household batteries compared with Labor 50,000. They are also planning a stronger link to NSW. That will enable the good people of NSW to share the pain of high power prices experienced first in SA and now in Victoria due to the way intermittent generators destroy grid economics.
An interconnector to NSW will “spread the misery” – as both RickWill and Graeme No 3 point out. SA will be able to milk the national RET subsidies longer, and avoid paying for its own stable base. In NSW, increasing the access to subsidized solar and wind power will hurt the cheap providers there, destroying the profits of the cheapest generators.
In Victoria, in one seat, Greens lose to Labor, blame internal bickering
In Victoria a byelection was held in the inner-latte seat of Batman. Conservatives (Liberals) didn’t run. Labor won, though the Greens started out as favourites.
John Ferguson: “The Batman result is a disaster for the Greens and a significant campaigning achievement for Labor.”
As usual, the Greens search anywhere but their hypocritical policies. They could try having principles like caring about the environment instead of supporting big-banks, big business, and giant supernational unaccountable institutions. They could have an interest in science instead of doing their best to destroy it through namecalling to silence debate. If they had even one principle above “being elected” they would have some foundation instead of being the third leg, fashionable extra for people seeking vanity points.
The first year’s data is out — Australia’s secret Emissions Trading Scheme is up and running, it’s small, inefficient, and pointless, but all the government needs to do is raise those caps, and the carbon trading monster octopus could wrap around on half our economy.
Australian carbon credits are for sale (called ACCU’s), the price was $14-$18 and the total volume was probably around $7 million. This supposed tiny “free market” marvel could not even match the $11/ton price that Abbott’s direct auctions achieved — proving yet again how inefficient economy-wide incentive schemes on essential molecules are. If the caps were raised the price would rocket. (Remember Labor’s carbon price ended up being$5310 per ton.)
What do you mean, you didn’t know Australia had a carbon credit market?
Obviously, you havent been spending your weekends reading the finer points of our legislative instruments. The legislation for this was voted on in the last sitting of Parliament before Christmas of 2015 while Turnbull was a new PM. There was no public debate, no parliamentary discussion and no news coverage of it til May the next year, and it was barely covered at all during the election which occurred the day after this “market” started. For some reason Turnbull didn’t brag about his master success — achieving what Rudd and Gillard failed to do. This is because he is a self-effacing and humble man … or maybe he knew his voters hated it, and he hoped to deceive them.
The Press Release from the Carbon Market Institute, this week:
Data released on Wednesday by the Clean Energy Regulator indicates that under the first year of the Government’s ERF Safeguard Mechanism sixteen facilities have exceeded emissions limits, collectively surrendering 448,097 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to meet compliance obligations.
“Today’s announcement by the Clean Energy Regulator clearly indicates that Australia has a functioning carbon market,” says Peter Castellas, Chief Executive Officer of the Carbon Market Institute.
“Companies that had a liability under the Safeguard Mechanism were able to purchase ACCUs directly from project developers or on the secondary market – and the market was able to meet supply,” says Castellas.
About a dozen large emitters caught by the safeguard had to buy an estimated 400,000-450,000 tonnes of Australian Carbon Credit Units, pushing the price to $17-18/T as the 28 February deadline for compliance approached. Most of the trade was in the $14-15/T region.
Potter’s article mentions Tony Abbott fully ten times — slavishly trying to pin this as an Abbott creation. The legislation was drafted two weeks before Abbott was ousted. Was Abbott even aware of the details — would he have allowed this to go through to be voted on? (It would be nice to get clarification on this.) Abbott certainly didn’t want this, and we have Gore and Clive Palmer to thank for it.
Coming next — International Credits — Australians to pay money to foreigners for atmospheric nullity
This market appears to be Australian credits only, but the government made it clear they want to accept international credits next. You didn’t know? That news was also released just before Christmas (when all poison news is announced). International carbon markets are loved by large financial houses like Goldman Sachs, and Deutsch Bank who broker the deals. They also serve supranational unaccountable large governmental bodies like The World Bank and the UN.
Australians voted emphatically against carbon taxes and carbon markets in two elections. Abbott won a landslide 90 seats with a blood oath in 2013. Then Turnbull ran, didn’t mention his carbon-desires, and barely scraped in. Elections turn on this issue. Gillard would have lost in 2010 if she hadn’t lied about a carbon tax (she only won by 400 votes in Corangamite). Would Turnbull have lost in 2016 if it was an election topic? He easily could have, but even if he didn’t — in a transparent campaign he would have been forced to make some public promises or vows. At the very least, minor parties would have grabbed more power as the Liberal base fled, and Turnbull would have had to make deals with them to form government.
Democracy is not supposed to work by keeping voters in the dark.
Some things were never meant to be in a free market — like basic molecules of life. To recap on the features of a “carbon price”: — The government sets supply and demand and enforces it with threats of jail. This is as fake and unfree as it gets.
The players in a carbon market include “every living thing” on the planet plus oceans, dead peat and some rocks. Most players can’t play, and the product is based on the absence of an invisible gas, and sometimes even the “intentions” of the players. Accounting is nigh on impossible — we still don’t even know all the big drivers of natural emissions and sinks.
Like all markets that were never meant to be, carbon markets feed crime and corruption, fraud, and financial sharks. It’s prone to cronyism where exemptions are granted according to marginal seat status or the whim of a politician. Australia needs one like we need a massage from the mafia.
The Press Release from the Carbon Market Institute, 14th March, 2018
Pierre Gosselin has found a new study showing bats really don’t want to be around wind turbines. The effect is so strong there are 20 times as many bats around normal comparable sites compared to sites with wind turbines.
But when a turbine moves into the area, Bat-real-estate values must plummet:
The result of the study demonstrates a large effect on bat habitat use at wind turbines sites compared to control sites. Bat activity was 20 times higher at control sites compared to wind turbine sites, which suggests that habitat loss is an important impact to consider in wind farm planning.
…
What about the insects?
Since these are insect-eating bats, the next obvious question is whether mosquitoes are 20 times as common around wind turbines, or whether they hate the turbines too.
Has anyone even looked at this? Think of the possibilities: Are wind farms mosquito repellent, or will wind farms help spread dengue fever?
Apparently this was one of the first studies to look closely at the impact of wind farms on insectivorous bats in tropical hotspots. If so, we built some 350,000 wind turbines, then — then, we thought we might check to see if it affected bats?
The Western media was apoplectic about Russia!Trump!Hillary! but apparently missed the real game. Behind the scenes, the Russians were feeding the eco-gullibles “Frack-hate” campaigns in the UK and elsewhere in the hope of curbing the threat Fracking posed to Russian gas exports. It’s paying off — British people are buying Russian gas.
Did the Russians capture Victoria and South Australia? Who knows. The ABC won’t ask, and environmentalists won’t tell. Possibly Putin didn’t need to bother — we’re pretty good at destroying our export industries ourselves.
Before we’d even had a debate here in Australia, everyone “knew” fracking was bad.
Half of Britain’s imports of liquefied natural gas so far this year have come from Russia, illustrating how UK households have started sending more money to Moscow after Vladimir Putin made boosting exports of the super-cooled fuel a priority.
Today, Russia is waging another active-measures campaign. But this time Russia’s target is fracking. The facts are clear. Fracking, which is revolutionizing energy politics, offers a cheap, new source of global power. But that’s not all. In offering Europe independence from Russian energy exports, fracking poses a direct challenge to Russia. Because Putin depends for revenue on his oil and natural gas-exports, fracking’s cheaper alternative presents him with a big problem. Indeed, lower oil prices are already driving Russia’s economy into recession.
Facing this threat, Russian intelligence has implemented a three-pronged strategy.
First, Russia has ramped up covert payments to environmental groups in the West. By supporting well-intentioned environmentalists with hard cash (often without their knowledge), Russian intelligence gains Western mouthpieces to petition Western audiences in its favor. Based on Russia’s prior record, we can also assume that Putin has funneled money through intermediaries to sympathetic Western politicians.
Second, the Russian SVR (CIA equivalent) has directed its spies to gather intelligence on the American energy industry….
Finally, Russian intelligence’s biggest cover operation — its RT “news” outlet — is undertaking a massive propaganda campaign against fracking….
Romanian officials including the prime minister say that the struggle over fracking in Europe does feature a Goliath, but it is the Russian company Gazprom, not the American Chevron.
Vlasa Mircia, the mayor of this destitute village in eastern Romania, thought he had struck it rich when the American energy giant Chevron showed up here last year and leased a plot of land he owned for exploratory shale gas drilling.
But the encounter between big business and rural Romania quickly turned into a nightmare. The village became a magnet for activists from across the country opposed to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Violent clashes broke out between the police and protesters. The mayor, one of the few locals who sided openly with Chevron, was run out of town, reviled as a corrupt sellout in what activists presented as a David versus Goliath struggle between impoverished farmers and corporate America.
“I was really shocked,” recalled the mayor, … “We never had protesters here and suddenly they were everywhere.”
In 2012, Bulgaria issued a shale-gas license to Chevron. Immediately, activists pounced, peddling hyperbolic warnings that fracking pollutes drinking water. (In reality, the practice carries a minimal risk of groundwater pollution when done properly.) Protests erupted, and the Bulgarian government caved, banning fracking entirely. Gazprom, Russia’s state-run energy company, proceeded to give the Bulgarian government a 20 percent discount for signing a ten-year contract for the provision of natural gas.
According to the reports, entities connected to the Russian government are using a shell company registered in Bermuda, Klein Ltd. (Klein), to funnel tens of millions of dollars to a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) private foundation, the Sea Change Foundation (Sea Change). This money appears to move in the form of anonymous donations. Sea Change then passes the money originating in Russia to various U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations such as the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, and others. These funds are dispersed as grants that will be used to execute a political agenda driven by Russian entities. The purpose of this circuitous exchange of foreign funds is to shield the source of the money.
— Rep. Lamar Smith and Randy Weber
And were the environmentalists concerned that they were being used as useful idiots by the Russians. Are we kidding? They’re in so deep the greens think they are using the Russians.;-)
In the West, when it comes to end fracking,
Certain groups will not be found lacking,
If it means the destruction,
Of cheap fuel production,
The Left and the Greens give it backing.
Many Australians don’t realize that those without solar panels pay are forced to pay for those who do through their electricity bills. That pain point is about to launch itself above the horizon and into public view. For those readers with solar panels (there are a lot) this is not about you, this is about the system. Our badly managed grid is now so obscenely inefficient and expensive, droves of people are installing solar panels because they feel they have no choice.
Tony Abbott says “Australians are paying too much for our emissions obsession”.
NSW MP Craig Kelly: “It’s effectively a reverse Robin Hood scheme where we are increasing the electricity prices on the poor to reduce electricity prices for the rich.”
As Jo says: We could have put that billion into a new hospital. Instead we put magic squares on our houses, hoping to get nicer weather.
The Clean Energy Regulator has released figures showing that more than 1057 megawatts of capacity was installed last year, equating to 3.5 million solar panels being fixed to rooftops.
Industry analysis obtained by The Australian reveals the cost of small-scale technology certificates — created to increase the incentive to install rooftop solar — shows the value of the subsidies was $500 million last year.
The solar industry is expecting the subsidy to increase to about $1.3bn this year….
— Joe Kelly, The Australian
With 8 million households that works out as $100 extra added onto electricity bills this year — on top of the $60 per household we paid last year for solar subsidies. That will be $160 total per household, just for solar subsidies, this year alone.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott is demanding action… [he] led a chorus of Coalition backbenchers urging the government to end the small-scale renewable energy scheme, with Liberal MP Craig Kelly declaring the policy was more economically damaging than the Rudd government’s home insulation scheme.
“Australians are paying far too much for our emissions obsession. Government must end subsidies for new renewables,” Mr Abbott said yesterday.
Nationals senator John Williams said the policy forced struggling families to subsidise rich people’s solar installations.
Mr Kelly, chairman of the Coalition backbench committee for energy and the environment, said the government should halve the maximum certificate price to $20, followed by another halving in its value next year before it is phased out a decade early in 2020.
When people find out just how expensive, toxic and pointless this is, there will be a riot.
The Minister Josh Frydenberg talks about ancient history and promises Santa is coming:
Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the Australian Energy Market Commission had found the average cost to households over the past five years was about $29 a year, with the price peaking in 2012 at $44 for the year. “The AEMC forecasts residential electricity prices will fall over the next two years as renewable energy, including small-scale solar supported by the Renewable Energy Target, enters the system,” Mr Frydenberg said.
Giles Parkinson at Reneweconomy calls this a “right wing push” to slash “incentives”
Don’t threaten the cash cow! In parasite-language a subsidy is not a subsidy, it’s an “incentive”. A sensible request not to force the poor to pay for the rich is labeled an ideological “right wing” push. And when you don’t have an answer, blame the Murdoch media for standing up for poor consumers.
After the namecalling, the claim that rooftop solar is helpful:
Criticism of the small-scale solar scheme invariably ignore the considerable benefits of having such a large amount of rooftop solar in the grid.
Network owners and operators in all states have highlighted how rooftop solar has reduced and deferred the events of peak demand, thereby reducing the cost of wholesale electricity because there is less need for peaking plant and less opportunity to trade on scarcity.
… rooftop solar is more popular than it has ever been – including when some state governments offered overly-generous feed-in tariffs in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Yes and coal power is more popular than it has ever been with 62 countries building 1600 new coal plants. Perhaps they are all stupid and we the only ones who can see the obvious blinding truth? Is Jay Weatherill the only genius running a state or is he the gullible fool who believes the green industry propaganda and thinks the ABC has impartial reporters?
Rooftop solar is only popular because our grid is so screwed people feel they can’t afford electricity any other way.
One in five houses have solar panels. What happens if we all got solar?
Flannery will be on Q&A tonight (bet you can’t wait, copy your questions and tweets below please!). Let’s check the exact wording of his original 2004 prediction that Perth would become a ghost town. It tells us something, not just about Flannery and a messiah complex (he really does talk of himself as an old testament prophet), but about journalism. Back then journalists interviewed critics too. Flannery was even called “alarmist” in 2004.
Perth will become a ghost city within decades as rising global temperatures turn the Wheatbelt into a desert and drive species to the brink of extinction, a leading Australian scientist warns.
To bring back the rain, Flannery advised windmills to defeat “the enemy”:
In years to come these will be seen as totems to the wind and sun gods:
The South Australian Museum director and author of the best-selling The Future Eaters said a major shift from coal to renewable fuels such as solar and wind energy was needed in WA. “Coal is the enemy,” Dr Flannery said…
As temperatures around the world warmed by 2 to 7 per cent, [Per cent of what? — asks Jo] Sydney could glimpse its future by looking at the devastating impact that global warming had already had on Perth, which he said was likely to become a “ghost metropolis”.
“There will be conditions not seen in 40 million years…”
–Anne Davies, Sydney Morning Herald
Perhaps “per cent” was a misprint. But 40 million years was not, and includes the formation of the Antarctic circumpolar current, super volcanoes, asteroid strikes, countless ice ages and millions of years of temperatures higher than present. The end of the last ice age saw a 125m sea level rise.
Still it’s not like the man is a paleontologist… oh, wait.
And what do we make of this 2007 admission? The man was billed as a “top scientist” in 2004, but in Feb 2007 he tells us he’s just spent two whole months reading about “climate change”.
Dr Flannery said he had spent the past two months reading “everything I can get my hands on” about climate change, and had been horrified by what he had learnt.
After a full nine week crash course, the man is a prophet:
The next line after that:
“I wake up in the morning thinking there are lots of times when people have woken up feeling like this, like the Old Testament prophets,” Dr Flannery said.
“I try to find a way out of it, but I can’t. Its life-changing to realise what is going on.”
–Anne Davies Sydney Morning Herald
Flannery, expert on fossil mammals, offers his global geopolitical, physiological, and economic synopsis:
“We are one of the most physically vulnerable people on the Earth,” Dr Flannery told the Herald.
The dryness of the continent made it especially fragile in the face of climate change.
“There may be a few worse places, like Bangladesh. But southern Australia is going to be impacted very severely and very detrimentally by global climate change.”
Somehow a nation which is among the richest, with more square kilometers per person, more resources per capita than possibly anywhere on the planet, and on a stable landmass, and exporting food and coal, are “the most physically vulnerable people on Earth”. The journalist, Anne Davies, did not even question this or think it might be worth getting a second opinion.
Archaic media: Back in the old days journalists would talk to critics too:
In 2004, in a different era, when Carmelo Amalfi of The West, had the sensationalist headline “Perth Will Die” but still clung to the old fashioned anachronistic habit of getting an alternate view, in this case from Jorg Imberger, who called Flannery’s prediction “alarmist” (even though he seemed to believe the IPCC):
Jorg Imberger, head of the University of WA’s centre for water research, agreed, saying the plant would produce about 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. “Building such a plant is the worst thing we can do when we have Yaragadee, with 1000 years of water in it,” he said from Singapore yesterday. But Dr Imberger said Dr Flannery was wrong to suggest WA was heading for an arid future when overall the world was getting wetter, not drier. He said his forecast was alarmist.
It’s a simple world. Flannery appears to be a one-variable man:
Hydrologists understand that streamflow and run off is determined by undergrowth, land clearing, evaporation rates, wind speed, etc. Flannery seems to think that only temperature matters. Warming means “less rain” which means “less run off” which means “death to flowers”:
He said a global temperature rise of less than 1C last century had robbed the State of over half its annual rainfall run-off. Global temperature rises of up to 6C would transform Perth into an arid city unable to feed itself.
A 1C rise was enough to wipe out an estimated two-thirds of WA’s native flowering plants.
Another day I’ll do something on the issue of rainfall versus runoff in WA which is a whole ‘nother topic.
For the moment, this is really about the media. Flannery doesn’t realize it, but he’s been hung out to dry by the failure of the media to ask sensible questions and interview informed critics. With better journalism, his wild, unresearched fantasies would have been ignored, or couched in sane terms with skeptical headlines. But the man has been walking the red carpet for years because he was so uninformed he could say the things that real experts couldn’t. He deserves the mocking he gets.
We heard years ago from an insider at The Australian Greenhouse Office that he appeared to be a dejected man when he walked.
Four Corners has become TwoCorners — it represents both sides of politics — Green AndLeft
Brissenden has done no research, interviewed no critics, and asked no hard questions. When it comes to serving the Australian people, protecting them, and holding our government to account, he’s AWOL — promoting his own pet interests instead, hiding the scandals and critics. What do we pay him for?
The iconic show on the ABC won’t interview skeptics that walked on the moon or won Nobel and NASA prizes, but if a cherry farmer feels the climate is changing, send in the film squad!
After years of telling skeptics that you don’t ask a plumber to do heart surgery, the ABC “Weather Alert! last Monday was 90% plumbers.
The formerly iconic FourCorners “public affairs” show crafted a 43 minute advertisement for the Renewables Industry and Carbon Trading Bankers and the Green Blob. And we taxpayers paid for it all. As usual, most of their facts were correct, but only because they barely had any. The facts apparently are that at least four farmers across Australia have the feeling that their climate has changed and are “doing something”. Yeah. Plus a whole bunch of consultants paid to solve a crisis say there is a crisis to solve.
…
Witchdoctors from neolithic tribes used similar techniques to the ABC so-called journalists Sarah Ferguson and Michael Brissenden. In the stone-age, a Voodoo Chief would chant a list of recent weather porn (like Al Gore does now), then loosely connect it all with the evil new type of, say, cooking pot, (brought from his competitor). He’d follow it up with some Yes-Men “witnesses” who’d nod solemnly and declare they have seen the weather change since the new pot arrived. Voila, blame the pot for the storms, “see the light” and give the man some more conch shells.
…
Keep your eye on the pea. All the farmers are probably right about recent changes to the weather patterns, but like the cooking pot, there’s no cause and effect link between your air conditioner and earlier grape harvests. How do we know it’s not natural? Answer, broken “climate models”.
The ABC also gave time to APRA and the RBA — both notable climate science authorities (not) — who agreed with the IPCC. They interviewed (or rather, promoted) someone from a left wing think tank, the Special Counsel for Climate Risk from Minter Ellison, a consultant from “ClimateRisk” and a spokesperson from the industry body for insurance companies. All four of these specialists, predictably, were happy to help sell the topic that brings them more business. Could we imagine an insurance agent telling us that things are not going to be worse than we expect? Or how about a Special Counsel for Climate Risk that said the risk was inconsequential and her job was irrelevant? It’s a bit rich to call these “interviews” — no hard questions were asked. Much was made of the farmers historic weather books, but Brissenden didn’t ask to see their records from, say, Jan 1896 when a long heatwave killed hundreds across Australia and temperatures hit 50C in four states. He travelled around the country “over four months”, but didn’t find half an hour to phone one skeptical scientist, businessman, or lowly blogger who could have saved him from looking like a gullible patsy.
All the alpha-plumbers, I mean “experts” in something else, were followed by a yes-man who told the audience that the APRA or RBA “don’t make these decisions lightly” as if those organisations had done what even the peer review journals never did — check the actual data, replicate the method, get the same result. Did APRA or the RBA interview any skeptics? Don’t expect the ABC to ask.
We got the reverse osmosis version of the truth…
All up, this was the Agitprop star-list of filtered factoids. We got the reverse osmosis version of the truth — where 80% of the information goes down the drain, and the mineral-free-story gets presented to at least twenty or thirty Australians, or whomever is left that still watches this Pravda type predictable stuff. No wonder few commentators cite TwoCorners anymore. Everyone knows what every show will explain before it goes to air.
But wait, I hear you say, they interviewed a real climate scientist — Karl Braganza, the visionary modeler who can “see a direct link to extreme weather” through his crystal ball, I mean climate model. With his psychic gift he can see the real pattern hidden under error bars two miles wide with a skillless model (see the refs at the end). Sure, let him speak, but a real journalist might be able to find another expert modeler who can point out the dismal failure rate of the IPCC approved models, the inconsistencies and the fact that none of the models include any solar magnetic effect, solar wind, or changes in solar spectra. They might also mention that sun spots actually correlate with our climate — with the raw measurements — and on both the “up” bits and the “down” bits for the last 5,000 years. A real journalist might have asked Braganza how well his models predict all those past turning points? Australian voters who pay something like $600 a year per household for Renewable Targets might like to know that from the dawn-of-civilization up until 1979 his climate model’s success rate is “zero”.
The show opened by blaming the intransigence of the political system, which translated, is the ABC confession that after all these years of propaganda, the voters still picked the wrong people.
Rob Rogers, Deputy Fire NSW Fire service, conveniently said that modern records are so unprecedented there are “no records” of weather existing on that scale. Which — as we have seen from hundreds of historic weather reports is false — see the drought and death in 1896, and 1878, 1939 the fires of 1851 and the news of “Australia cooling” that came out in the 1950s...
Only a few weeks ago the BOM said the same thing about warming in Sydney and scored a lot of headlines, but had to retract it the same day when they realized it had still been hotter in Richmond in 1939. Not so unprecedented.
Braganza [BOM] explained that it is really only since the 1990s that we have started to see the extreme heat. What he didn’t mention is that a totally new method of measurement came into effect on 1 November 1996 – with the transition continuing, so each new year, additional weather stations have their mercury thermometer replaced with an electronic probe taking one-second spot readings.
Brissenden has done no research, interviewed no critics, and asked no hard questions. When it comes to serving the Australian people, protecting them, and holding our government to account, he’s AWOL — promoting his own pet interests instead, hiding the scandals and critics. What do we pay him for?
See the worst place on Earth for global warming — but hide bumper crops, cool summers and good rain
South West WA and Perth was made out to be the global posterchild for climate panic — “the changes here have happened faster and earlier than anywhere else on the planet”. ABC viewers won’t know though that the horrors of climate change mean we’ve had one of the coldest summers in two decades, a record surplus on a bumper grain harvest, and that our dams are fuller than they’ve been for years. These things are just “weather”, but so are most of the heatwaves and the storm surges that the ABC is pretending are prophetic “signs” of our guilt. Why is it OK to mention one kind of weather but hide the other kind?
” what a pageant of old wives tales mixed with assorted lies and exaggerations.”
Starting with the “Braidwood drought” was a dud move due to rain and floods a week or so ago in the region – so that should have been cut. Surely the show has staff that are half awake?? I mean Canberra flooded!!
ABC enables virtue signaling “free advertising” for companies that say the right message:
Mark Valencia, sustainable growing blogger at SelfSufficientMe was scathing:
One of the farmer interviewees, the multimillion-dollar corporate winemaking dynasty Brown Brothers, cited climate change as the reason for its decision to buy into Tasmania in order to “climate-proof” their business. …
I guess spending 32 million acquiring vineyards in Tassy had nothing to do with this “poor Aussie battler” expanding their business hey… wink wink. Sorry, but call me cynical if I think their appearance on Four Corners was nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at toffee nosed left wing wine guzzlers residing in inner-city Melbourne.
Another farmer (I heard speaking on the ABC Radio promo) said climate change has made him “change” his farming method drastically! For example, he now rotates crops and cattle on his property… well, duh… shouldn’t you be doing that anyway? You are a farmer, for goodness sake, crop rotation and moving your cattle to prevent scorched earth makes sense, doesn’t it!?
Four Corners then introduces its resident scientific talking head, Karl Braganza from the BoM. Braganza wastes no time in saying things are going to get worse, temperature, storms, the lot. Braganza is amazing. Here he is back in 2016 claiming storms will decrease, albeit become more powerful in the future. That claim about storms becoming worse, albeit less frequent, is thoroughly rebutted here. In fact, all extreme weather is reducing: droughts, storms, rainfall, as even the IPCC and other prominent alarmists like Professor Muller concede.
UPDATE #2: Reader Peter P writes that the farmer’s numbers don’t make sense:
MARTIN ROYDS: Yes we have 130 years of rainfall and temperature graphs
Since 1985 to now, the temperatures have been increasing .8 of a degree per decade.
So, in that thirty year period, it’s gone up 2.4 degrees, maximum temperature. [my bold]
I was interested in this quoted rapid temperature increase, so I checked out the temperature figures for Braidwood on the BOM site. It appears that you can get an average max temp for the period 1907-1975 from a recording station in one of the main streets of Braidwood – my reading of the data shows the average annual maximum for that period to be 19.0C. After that period there are the records from an AWS at Braidwood Racecourse for 1985 – 2018. They show an average annual maximum of 19.2C, barely changed from the earlier period. And this is (roughly) the 30 year period of rapid temperature increase claimed by Martin Royds in the program. – -Peter
UPDATE #3: The great Ruairi
Many media, duped and misguided,
Have on climate-change, long since decided,
To report with great zeal,
The fake climate spiel,
From the Left and keep it one-sided.
–Ruairi
This is the ABC speaking to the fence sitting and ignorant, and the 2% of the population who need affirmation that they are smart, caring, and deserve their junkets, jobs or solar subsidized electricity bills.
If FourCorners wants to represent the four corners, and get some relevancy back, it needs to generate actual controversy by interviewing the best of both sides of this debate.
*Regarding the ABC interviewing those “paid to find a crisis” — the ABC should interview them — along with the skeptics who question them. And may the best argument win.
REFERENCES
[1^] Anagnostopoulos, G. G., D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Christofides, A. Efstratiadis, and N. Mamassis, (2010). A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data’, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55: 7, 1094 — 1110 [PDF]
[2^] Koutsoyiannis, D., Efstratiadis, A., Mamassis, N. & Christofides, A.(2008) On the credibility of climate predictions. Hydrol. Sci. J. 53(4), 671–684. changes [PDF]
[3^] Previdi, M. and Polvani, L. M. (2014), Climate system response to stratospheric ozone depletion and recovery. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc.. doi: 10.1002/qj.233
[4^] Christy J.R., Herman, B., Pielke, Sr., R, 3, Klotzbach, P., McNide, R.T., Hnilo J.J., Spencer R.W., Chase, T. and Douglass, D: (2010) What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979? Remote Sensing 2010, 2, 2148-2169; doi:10.3390/rs2092148 [PDF]
[5^] Fu, Q, Manabe, S., and Johanson, C. (2011) On the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models vs observations, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, L15704, doi:10.1029/2011GL048101, 2011 [PDF] [Discussion]
[6^] Paltridge, G., Arking, A., Pook, M., 2009. Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 98, Numbers 3-4, pp. 351-35). [PDF]
[7^] Anagnostopoulos, G. G., D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Christofides, A. Efstratiadis, and N. Mamassis, (2010). A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data’, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55: 7, 1094 — 1110 [PDF]
[8^] Sheffield, Wood & Roderick (2012) Little change in global drought over the past 60 years, Letter Nature, vol 491, 437
[9^] Miller, M., Ghate, V., Zahn, R., (2012) The Radiation Budget of the West African Sahel 1 and its Controls: A Perspective from 2 Observations and Global Climate Models. in pressJournal of Climate [abstract] [PDF]
Belated H/t to Robert Rosicka, DonS, MurrayShaw, Tony Thomas, toorightmate, Pat, Dave B, Original Steve, Another Ian, el gordo, Chris G
BBVA, the second largest bank in Spain, has launched a major new financing initiative to support sustainable development and combat climate change in the coming years.
Only gas and oil companies are “vested interests” seeking to profiteer from our demise. Banks are charities:
BBVA Group Executive Chairman Francisco González said, “At BBVA, we want to play a key role in mobilizing resources to halt climate change and promote sustainable development. It is an ambitious, long-term goal in line with our purpose of ‘bringing the age of opportunity to everyone.’”
Apparently, the bank’s role is to change Earth’s climate, and “bring the age of opportunity to everyone”.
Do their shareholders know, I wonder?
Can anyone see an elephant?
Warning — Meaningless acronym coming — SBTI:
BBVA has also become the first Spanish bank to commit to the Science Based Targets Initiative. The campaign helps major corporates work out how they have to cut emissions to prevent the impacts of climate change.
If you wanted to dress up a neolithic druid program to use windmills to slow storms, you’d call it “Science Based” too.
Right now Exxon are on trial even though they “believe in climate change” because they spent $23 million or so on skeptics over ten years, and a long time ago. Yet, here’s a bank offering one hundred thousand million… it’s 4,347 times as much.
Plenty more money where that came from.
Does anyone doubt that a river of money and power flows through this science debate?
Much of this “$100 billion” will be rebadged bragging money — money that would have been spent anyway but a change of label makes it “good for advertising greenness”. It’s also good for whipping up momentum in a struggling market.
The implications are staggering, half the population fail at blink tests, and can’t see newspaper headlines about “climate change”. If only we could make them see by using rhetorical and psychological trickery to get past their faulty filters, the world would be saved. Please send us another grant!
Naturally, this self-serving, circular, and poorly researched piece is brought to you by The Conversation. Where else?
The big insight looks like pattern seeking and confirmation bias to me:
When we modified the test to measure people’s attention to climate change, we found people who are concerned about climate change are better at seeing climate-related words, such as carbon, right after the first target than those who are less concerned.
When we analyzed the data, we found a pattern: Conservatives who were less concerned about climate change were less likely to see climate-related words than liberals who were worried about the issue.
Or in another hypothesis, conservatives had better filters for pointless news stories with a prediction success rate lower than random chance. From experience, conservatives have figured out that these news stories are a waste of time.
Wrong with their first fact. Please, someone teach these Profs to use a search engine
The real problem with this study is that it starts from flawed assumptions, and everything “builds” on that. Apparently they only get their news from the BBC, or possibly 350.org flyers:
So the three authors based their entire research on untested assumptions that they may have sourced in a Greenpeace seminar (which is what the BBC did). Perhaps they formed their opinions surrounded by young left-wing lecturers and then went on to become three of the same.
A professor or bright undergrad,
Can easily be duped and be had,
By those who hoodwink,
Through consensus group-think,
To fall for the climate-change fad.
–Ruairi
The way to (Not) win over skeptics
Genius advice in communication apparently starts with calling people demeaning names:
We can do this by using messages that align with people’s political ideologies and personal values.
For example, we can frame climate change action as protecting our nation against climate catastrophes, advancing economic and technological development and creating a more caring and considerate society, which is an effective message to engage climate deniers.
Good luck with this theory:
Framing environmentalism as a form of patriotism can be successful, particularly if the appeal is seen as coming from one’s in-group.
It’s always hard to get someone’s attention, but if the messaging is in line with their personal values and motivations, they will take notice.
Messaging can be “in line” with personal values, but junk-in-line is still junk. Unproven half-truths and wild extrapolations won’t convince anyone bar the gullible groupthinkers.
Paul Homewood has either caught a Met Office prof rewriting history (the politest way I can put it) or Homewood has caught him issuing deliberately incorrect forecasts. Which is it — deception about the past, or deception about the future? Apparently he thought no one would check his past statements? (And as far as journalists go, he’s almost spot on.)
Ministers were warned about the Beast from the East a month ago by a Met Office forecaster who stockpiled provisions in preparation for the weather bomb.
Professor Adam Schaife, head of long-range forecasting at the Met Office, alerted the Cabinet Office to the incoming weather bomb four weeks ago.
He told them that they should expect Britain to be battered by a deep freeze.
In preparation for the polar vortex he stocked up on essentials.
‘I got extra oil, food and logs in, knowing this was coming,’ he said last week.
But Paul Homewood checked the past Met Office Forecasts. The Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) was key to the Beast, but when the BOM issued the 3 monthly forecast on the 26th of January they said:
…”there is little likelihood of a SSW, and an increased likelihood of milder-than-usual conditions at least in the first half of the 3 month period.”
Perhaps this was code for Ministers to buy tuna tins? By the 9th of Feb, Homewood says they had an “inkling” of the SSW, which was already happening by the 12th. Then they said it was ” too soon to determine exactly what impacts it could have on our weather in the UK.”
It was only by the 18th of Feb that the Met Office warned it: could lead to prolonged cold conditions over the UK, increasing the risk of easterly wind and significant snow”.
But wait! “Signs” appeared:
Prof Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal prediction work at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said “Signs of this event appeared in forecasts from late January”[2].
These mysterious “signs” apparently were signish enough for him to order logs and oil, but not spell that out for the public.
What were the “signs”:
a/ it’s winter
b/ tea leaves spelled “SSW. “
c/ a dream about the Dalai Lama.
The Met Office has some story about the weather patterns repeating from 2009 and 2013, and “starting over India”. Welcome to climate science where forecasts are post hoc but not predictive.
Paul Homewood:
Scaife has serious questions to answer.
If he really did give the Cabinet Office detailed advice about the severe freeze up at the beginning of February, then why did the Met Office not include the warning in their news releases until just over a week before?
On the other hand, if what the Met Office has said is correct, then Scaife is guilty of misrepresenting his advice to the Cabinet Office. He may well have said that there was a chance of some cold weather arriving, but to pretend he warned them about “the beast from the east”, as The Times claims, is clearly deeply misleading.
Perhaps the Met office are feeling a bit insecure?
Commenter RAH: Joe Bastardi was forecasting this Artic blast hitting western Europe a month ago just as he forecast the Nor Easter that is going to strike the East Coast here in the US over a week ago and has said it’s just the first of several that will hit the coast. It is all just WEATHER and Joe was telling people it was coming. — Read more here.
PS: Had a blackout last night, and no internet coverage most of today. I’ll get to the 4Corners report tomorrow.
Jon Erdman argues that March in the US is notorious for storms due to jet streams and a mix of warmer humid air paired with cold winter air. His impressive list of previous March extreme weather is a good antidote to the “Climate Change” claims coming in 3, 2, 1 ….
The deadliest March snowstorm was the infamous Blizzard of 1888, which dumped 40 to 60 inches of snow in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, wind-whipped into drifts which topped some homes. Four hundred were killed in the storm and its cold aftermath.
Here are a sampling of other notable March snowstorms:
Late March 1987: Three-day blizzard produced gusts to 78 mph at Dodge City, Kansas and Altus, Oklahoma. Pampa, Texas, picked up 20 inches of snow. Forty-six Kansas counties declared disaster areas.
Early March 1966: Blizzard across North Dakota, Minnesota produced wind gusts to 100 mph, whipping snow into drifts 30 to 40 feet high, paralyzing travel for three days.
Early March 1717: Four separate snowstorms hit the East in nine days, with up to 4 feet of snow in Boston and drifts to 25 feet in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Here are some other notable severe weather and tornado events in March:
March 28, 2000: Back-to-back tornadoes struck Ft. Worth, then Arlington, Texas, shattering windows, killing three.
March 25, 1992: Hail up to 4 inches in diameter pelted the Orlando metro area, virtually shutting down the area’s nursery industry due to broken glass.
March 28, 1984: At least 22 tornadoes tore through the Carolinas, including a 2.5-mile wide F4 near Tatum, South Carolina
March 25, 1952: Deadliest outbreak in Arkansas history, with 111 dead. In all, tornadoes claimed 343 lives in the South. One F4 tornado leveled the town of Judsonia, Arkansas.
March 20-22, 1932: One of the worst outbreaks in U.S. history from Mississippi to South Carolina to Indiana. Ten F4 tornadoes tore through Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee on March 21 alone.
Best wishes for those in the path of weather like this in the North Eastern US and in Europe too.
PS: I’m looking for jet-stream predictions from the IPCC and climate models — especially old forgotten ones.
In the climate debate, few men are more central, more loathed and feared than Marc Morano. In the flesh, few men are more warm, witty and polished — an absolute gentleman and a delight to be around. He’s so effective he’s been rated one of the top 17 “planet killers”, and according to the Daily Kos, “Evil Personified”. Thank goodness he’s on our side.
Not surprisingly, with so much going for him, he was the villain of the Merchants of Doubt documentary. Newsweek called him “King of the Skeptics” and Esquire Magazine devoted six thousand words to trying to unpack and investigate his key role in climate politics.
For a few years Morano worked for Senator Inhofe, who at the time was virtually the only Republican standing up to the media, academia and the UN on climate change. When Leonardo DiCaprio and National Geographic released their top ten list of climate deniers, Inhofe was number one, and Morano, number two.
Like a bullet it is now the #1 New Release in Environmental Science books. Let’s help keep it there. Right now, Leonardo’s worst fear is that you will buy this book and give it to people on the fence, impressionable teens, and any decent, deplorable teachers. Ask your local library to get a copy.
With his book “Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change”, Marc Morano vies to be the Thomas Paine of the movement to save the world from the tyranny of climate catastrophists. He exposes the seemingly infinite number of absurd claims, and the almost unbounded hypocrisy and venality of the proponents of this clearly inhuman and scientifically implausible attempt to control mankind by controlling and, more importantly, restricting access to energy. This book is an unrelenting polemic of the best kind.
— Emeritus MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen
The book has been endorsed by Nobel Prize Winning scientist Dr. Ivar Giaever. (see below)
Rush Limbaugh praised Climate Depot’s Morano in 2009:
“Morano’s probably single-handedly, in a civilian sense, the guy (other than me, of course) doing a better job of ringing the bells alarming people of what’s going on here.” – November 20, 2009
This book is the ultimate reference guide to climate change and no parent should be without a copy as their kids under climate education at school from elementary through college!
“…today anybody who defies the prevailing “climate change” scare puts his career and his reputation into extreme danger. That is where we find Marc. He is living life behind the eight ball. He has been there for decades. But whatever you may hear from his enemies in the climate change establishment, he is no crazy denier or shill for Big Oil. The explanation is simple. He is so certain of his data that he is quite comfy there…
This book is exactly what parents need to counter the indoctrination our children are now being subjected to…
Read this book and Marc will become your hero.”
— John Coleman.
Marc discovers he is Wanted in Paris, 2015
The book synopsis:
Less freedom. More regulation. Higher costs. Make no mistake: those are the surefire consequences of the modern global warming campaign waged by political and cultural elites, who have long ago abandoned fact-based science for dramatic fearmongering in order to push increased central planning. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change gives a voice — backed by statistics, real-life stories, and incontrovertible evidence — to the millions of “deplorable” Americans skeptical about the multibillion dollar “climate change” complex, whose claims have time and time again been proven wrong.
Russian trolls used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to inflame U.S. political debate over energy policy and climate change…
The committee’s report found that between 2015 and 2017, more than 9,000 posts and tweets dealt with U.S. energy policy produced by 4,334 Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts controlled by the Internet Research Agency.
Twitter told the committee that more than 4 percent of tweets produced by the Russians dealt with energy and climate issues.
…
Keep your eye on the numbers — 96% of their effort was not about energy and climate, and presumably we’re talking about 400 posts and tweets? Drop in the ocean…
Max says that IRA staff were tasked with monitoring tens of thousands of comments on major U.S. media outlets, in order to grasp the general trends of American Internet users. Once employees got a sense of what Americans naturally discussed in comment forums and on social media, their job was to incite them further and try to “rock the boat.”
When the U.S. presidential race was just starting, the IRA supposedly conducted classes on which of the early candidates were best for Russian interests. Max says the IRA even maintained a “secret department” that sent staff to the United States for certain undisclosed tasks.
Max says the international desk had about 200 employees, each earning 50,000 rubles ($870) a month. Staff would work two days, then have two days off, before repeating the schedule. People worked 12-hour shifts, he says.
But in the last 70 years could anyone name a year when there was no Russian effort to covertly undermine US leaders or institutions via propaganda? Isn’t this business as usual, but via VPN?
The Russians were true trolls. The main agenda was polarisation, inflammation, doubt:
The trolls worked both sides of the fence on many topics. You might think (it’s obvious) that it would suit Russians very well for the West to be fooled into giving up coal and nukes and handicap themselves with sacrificial windmills and solar panels. For sure, but the bigger goal here is to foment division, dissent and distrust. In a high trust society — losing trust in our government, our election process, and our markets eats away at the things that make us great, like acid. And it becomes self fulfilling. Once enough people assume the other players are acting in an untrustworthy manner (even if they are not) the good people tend to adopt the self-serving behaviours they imagine others are adopting.
In January 2017, a report from the U.S. intelligence community said Russian president Vladimir Putin had “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election.” The goals, the analysis revealed, were to undermine faith in U.S. democracy and harm the “potential presidency” of rival candidate Clinton.
Remembering that in Jan 2016, almost no one in the US outside of Donald Trump and Scott Adams thought Trump was going to win. So being anti-Hillary was not to be pro-Trump, it was anti-the-next-likely-POTUS. The real goal it appears, was to undermine US confidence in itself, and undermine the ability of the next leader to get things done.
Big-government fans at Grist don’t know what to make of it.
“Russian trolls shared some truly terrible climate change memes”
Terrible, I tell you! Or not…
…
This wouldn’t have been my first choice for “terror”. But it might win a primary school art contest.
This one is much better:
Grist author, Kate Yoder, totally misses the point: “And here are two anti-environmental memes that highlight the apparent beauty of tar-sands oil.”
Or maybe they highlight the ugliness of electric cars and (above) environmental activists?
But seriously, 9,000 likes and 250 comments? It’s a great tweet, but in a great nation, how much damage can it do? (Not as much as George Soros.)
The news that there are fake “activists” on both sides of the debate is far more threatening to the believers. Skeptics know why we are skeptics. Believers are following a group, so it’s much more unnerving to find that some members of the herd are there to guide the pack.
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