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Half of Australia doesn’t want to pay a single cent on Net Zero targets
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Saturday
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Secret comms devices, radios, hidden in solar inverters from China. Would you like a Blackout with that?
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Friday
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LSE junk study says if men didn’t eat so much red meat we’d have nicer weather
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Thursday
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Now they tell us? Labor says new aggressive Net Zero policy they hid from voters “is popular”
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Wednesday
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British politics in turmoil after Reform’s wins — Greens Deputy even attacks Net Zero from the left
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Tuesday
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Monday
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Children of 2020 face unprecedented exposure to Extreme Climate Nonsense…
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Saturday
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60% are skeptics: Only 13% of UK voters say Net Zero is more important than cost of living
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Climate change is causing South Africa to rise and sink at the same time
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Why is the renewables industry allowed to sponsor political advertising in schools and call it “education”?
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In trying to be a small target, the Liberals accidentally disappeared
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Tuesday
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Monday
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The best thing about the Australian election was that Nigel Farage’s party won 30% in the UK
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Sunday
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Saturday — Election Day Australia
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Vote for freedom…
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Friday
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Bombshell: Sir Tony Blair says climate policies are unworkable, irrational, and everyone is afraid of being called a denier
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Thursday
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Blackout in Spain to cost 2-4 billion Euro, likely due to solar plants — blind and biased ABC says “cause is a mystery”
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Wednesday
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Days after Spain reaches 100% renewable, mass blackouts hit, due to mysterious “rare atmospheric phenomenon”
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Tuesday
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Help needed: Site under DDoS attack from hundreds of thousands of unique IPs this week — especially China and the USA
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Monday: Election Day Canada
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When the Labor Party talk about “The Science” the Opposition can easily outflank and outgun them with bigger, better science
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Saturday
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UK Gov spends £50 m to dim sun to create slightly less beach weather
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Friday
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The cocoa price crisis is a Big Government price fixing disaster, not a climate change one
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Thursday
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Blame the Vikings! Moss found in East Antarctica lived in warmer summers a thousand years ago.
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Wednesday
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Tuesday
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Monday
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Easter Sunday
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Saturday
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Good Friday
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In crash-test dummy land, we solve teenage girl climate anxiety with $500b in fantasy weather experiments…
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Thursday
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Nothing says “Safe and Effective” like destroying all the data from Australia’s giant abandoned vaccine study
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By now every person in the climate debate knows that Monckton used a swastika on a slide in LA.
UPDATE: By the time I wrote this, Monckton had already been roundly condemned for his unnecessary hyperbole, and unreservedly apologized. I couldn’t see much point in joining in the chorus. Yes, I agree, he did the wrong thing. The ends doesn’t justify the means. We can hardly complain about namecalling, if we do it too. I’m just trying to add perspective on the magnitude of the crime. People are suggesting we exile the man for — as far as I can tell — one clumsy joke and one very poor choice of slide.
None of this would be necessary if the media had reported information from both sides of the story.
I groaned when I saw it. The fascist comment has been used many times before (and Garnaut is advocating ad hoc extensive government control over business). The Nazi swastika, though, is a new low in rhetorical excess. Definitely not one I would have used, and I’m glad Monckton has apologized so quickly, and won’t be using it again — it’s a cheap shot.
This is a very dirty war. There are 2.3 million references to “climate denier”, with You-are-a-Nazi-Sympathizer-and-Holocaust-apologist implied at large. It’s a dehumanizing label and a demeaning insult that’s meant to bully people into silence. Rudd, Gillard, and Garnaut have all used it. Where is the outrage? (Where is their apology? )
Monckton’s apology:
“Let me begin with an unreserved apology. In a recent lecture, I should not have described the opinions of Professor Ross Garnaut, the Australian Government’s climate economist, as ‘fascist’. I apologise humbly.
Will there be similar apologies from those who have called us ‘climate deniers’ or ‘denialists’, or who say we should be tattooed with our opinions, or imprisoned, or barred from Australia, or tried for ‘high crimes against humanity’?”
The cheap shot makes most skeptics uncomfortable, and rightly so. It sinks to the level of the average alarmist. I dryly note that Monckton gets his message in the media. [Herald Sun, The Age, The ABC]. You can rightly ask if that’s worth the price? It’s not the kind of media we want, but along with the apology, this, the real core of the debate, will appear tomorrow:
Professor Garnaut’s carbon trading scheme will cost $11.5 billion a year, rising at 4% above the annual rate of economic growth. He wants another $2.5 billion a year – again, rising at 4% above the growth rate – spent on “renewable” energy and “innovation”. And the Climate Change Department is already spending $1.6 billion a year. These are not the only costs, but let us assume they are.
Applying Professor Garnaut’s own discount rate of 2.65%, the cost of his policy over the next ten years will be close to $200 billion, with the aim of forestalling 25% of Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions, which in turn represent 1.2% of global emissions, which – if the policy worked at this cost – would accordingly fall by just 0.3%.
In the absence of any mitigation, CO2 concentration by 2020 would be 412 ppmv, but Australia’s near-$200 billion of spending would cut this to 411.934 ppmv, forestalling 1/2750 of a degree of warming by that year – less than 1% of the threshold below which modern methods and instruments cannot measure any global temperature change.
If the whole world were to pursue Australia’s proposed policy, the cost of forestalling each degree of warming would be $545 trillion, or $18,500 from everyone on Earth. Preventing the 0.24 Cº global warming predicted to occur by 2020 would cost $130 trillion, or 18.3% of global GDP over the period.
The cost of the climate damage from doing nothing, however, would be just 1-4.1% of global GDP. Doing something would cost more than four times as much as doing nothing.
We can and should take the moral high ground, but for all our purity, it can take years to be heard. There are better ways than being reduced to an own-goal-ad-hom, but note that after Monckton overstepped the mark (and apologized immediately) the media have performed right on cue. I’m relaying messages asking for radio interviews to him today. (BTW You can probably hear him today in Melbourne interviewed by Bolt.)
In a perfect world, skeptic’s arguments would be heard without the performing circus and theatrics. But witness the difference between the Monckton tour and the Watts tour of 2010. I’m in the Watts camp — in the sense that I play it straight, and say reasonable things — but what happened when the Anthony toured Australia? Here’s a man who’d set up an extraordinary project, coordinating hundreds of volunteers to audit a national institution (which had a $4 billion dollar budget) and he’d found egregious failings, yet despite all that, the media in Australia went out of their way to ignore him. Watts was too “dangerous” for his normalcy.
One radio station in Perth was very interested in talking to Watts, but gutless. They wouldn’t interview him without also interviewing “someone from the other side”, presumably for fear of being labeled “deniers”. And the local university, UWA — which doesn’t even have a climate change specialty department, and sends out a psychologist to break laws of reason — o-so-conveniently announced they had no one who could do it. So Perth listeners were denied the chance to hear Anthony speak on radio and many were unaware of his lecture. (The venue was still nearly full, but for a man like him, it should have been packed.)
Compare that to the Monckton tour of 2009. The day Monckton arrived he told me the media were falling all over themselves to interview him. The ABC especially, were lining up to “showcase” him every which way they could. Why were they so keen to hear Monckton and not Watts? Because they thought they’d make Monckton look like a fool. They’d read the ad hom attack pieces, and were duped by the caricature. Instead of an easy target, Monckton took all those opportunities, and savaged their unresearched questions with humor and grace. His detailed research, thanks to years spent bed-ridden with Graves disease, meant he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the science and the history. The crowds filled every venue, lining up in queues til the venues overflowed. People were turned away in disappointment. The ABC had inadvertently played right into his hands. The dismayed recriminations flowed afterwards.
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7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings
 Naomi Oreskes The great Fred Singer takes the time to explain why Naomi Oreskes is a scientifically inept and a poor historian. Her famous claim of a scientific consensus based on 900 papers missed more than 11,000 that should have been included. Her grasp of science is so poor she isn’t familiar with the pH scale, thinks Beryllium is a heavy metal, mistakenly assumes that CO2 is trapped in the troposphere, and climate models can predict forest fires and floods. Embarrassingly, Oreskes doesn’t understand the difference between reactive oxygen and radioactive oxygen.
Armed with cherry picked distortions she sets about maliciously impugning upstanding senior scientists with distinguished records in science, and years of service. Unlike a professional historian she hasn’t even interviewed any of them to find out if the information she promoted was correct. Sadly Singer is the only one still with us to point out the flaws.
Years from now when their contributions are still recognized, Oreskes will be but a footnote in history classes of how poor research and largely baseless innuendo were used to serve a groupthink meme and feed a hate campaign against some of our best and brightest. No humility. No respect. No real effort to find the truth.
— JoNova.
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Science and Smear Merchants
From American Thinker.
Professor Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California in San Diego, claims to be a science historian. One can readily demonstrate that she is neither a credible scientist nor a credible historian; the best evidence is right there in her recent book, “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,” coauthored with Eric Conway. Her science is faulty; her historical procedures are thoroughly unprofessional. She is, however, an accomplished polemicist, who has found time for world lecture tours, promoting her book and her ideological views, while being paid by the citizens of California. Her book tries to smear four senior physicists — of whom I am the only surviving one. I view it as my obligation to defend the reputations of my late colleagues and good friends against her libelous charges.
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8.5 out of 10 based on 15 ratings
Can someone get Stephan Lewandowsky his medication? His new marketing message is that “deniers” don’t do peer review papers. There’s a curious case of acute-peer-review-blindness (APRB) occurring. It doesn’t matter that there are literally thousands of pages of skeptical information on the web, quoting hundreds of peer reviewed papers, by people far more qualified than a cognitive-psychologist, yet he won’t even admit they exist.
…most climate deniers avoid scrutiny by sidestepping the peer-review process that is fundamental to science, instead posting their material in the internet or writing books.
Dear Stephan, deny this: 900 papers that support skeptics. What is it about these hundreds of papers published in Nature, Science, GRL, PNAS, and Journal of Climate that you find impossible to acknowledge? (And do tell Stephan, if people need to publish peer reviewed material before they venture an opinion on climate science online, how many peer reviewed articles on climate science have you produced?)
Obviously, the real deniers are the people who deny the hundreds of papers with empirical evidence that show the hockey stick is wrong, the world was warmer, the climate changes, and the models are flawed.
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9 out of 10 based on 9 ratings
Here in Australia we are in a eerie twilight world: it’s obvious skepticism is thriving, and plain that those pushing the carbon tax are desperate. Yet this is a train-wreck in action.
The current government popularity is as sunk as sunk can be. On a daily basis, commentators ask how long Gillard will survive, or how the Labor Party could be doomed or posit yet another explanation for “the downfall”. “Change or Die” says party elder, John Faulkner. Yet paradoxically, it is just because the government is so desperate that it can’t “afford” to bury the dead-lemon policy called the Carbon Tax. A weak government is a dangerous one.
It’s like a barking mad virus has run amok
Two weeks from now, the Greens get control of our Senate (possibly for six years), but the House of Representatives is as knife-edge dysfunctional as ever. With legislative seats so closely tied, we’re left with three so-called independents who — in theory — might be talked into voting against the Carbon Tax. In practice, it’s virtually an impossibility. On the day that Tony Abbott delivered his searing budget reply, Windsor was seen to sympathetically put his arm around Gillard’s back and walk out with her as she left Parliament. And Rob Oakeshott was, after all, the one who named myself and Viv Forbes in Parliament as the insidious “smoking guns” that killed the Emissions Trading Scheme (why, thank you Robert 🙂 ). Wilkie seems the most hopeful, but then he used to be a member of the Greens, and in any case, we skeptical volunteers can make sense, but we can’t compete with pork barreling supported by the Commonwealth of Australia. How deep is your cheque-book?
But there is another approach — as word spreads of the corruption in science, it’s a one way street for former believers who discover the other side. The public is waking up. Polls are savage — the ruling Labor Party racked up a record low on the two party preferred of 41 to 59. That’s a theoretical landslide of massive proportions (if only there were an election).
Right now, we have more chance of convincing millions of Australians that carbon is not pollution than we do of convincing one of the three independents to knock back a big tax.
But get ready, I’m not joking. The Labor Party is so divided, so consumed with it’s own fear, that an internal division, a leadership spill or even the wildcard — a split in the party — are more likely to stop this tax getting through.
But get ready, I’m not joking. The Labor Party is so divided, so consumed with it’s own fear, that an internal division, a leadership spill or even the wildcard — a split in the party — are more likely to stop this tax getting through. The strategy then is to target the marginal Labor party seats.
And as it happens, there are many Labor seats staring abject defeat in the face at the moment. We need to convince those members that flowers and rainbows will not appear once the dust settles on this legislation and the public “get over” their fears. Julia Gillard is trying to persuade her fellow Labor politicians that the polls will bounce once the deal is done and she can finally point to one piece of legislation that “she” hammered through Parliament. (Shame it was one she said she wouldn’t do.)
Those marginal Labor members need to know that the business angst and public anger will only grow. The stories are spreading, BBQ to BBQ, door to door, at Rotary meetings, and school P & C groups. It won’t matter if the initial carbon tax is a paltry amount, hidden inside other costs, because once people know that they were cheated, they will be angry. At last count, at least 50% of the country is still unaware that the science is riddled with rank deceit, dodgy thermometers, outrageous attempts to distort graphs, and that every time Will Steffen says the science is settled he only proves he doesn’t know what science is.
The desperation is so fever pitched, Gillard is wheeling out her own dad to prop up the team, the NZ prime minister has been pulled over to tell parliament how successful their ETS has been (and he’s no doubt OK with that, because NZ sure won’t want to be left holding this baby all alone). Plus teams of scientists are flag-waving more supposed death threats, (got any evidence?) even though the last ones, merely two weeks ago were shown to be rehashed emails from up to 5 years ago which were mostly just boorish rude emails (even when they were current). This — from the team whose fan-base issue death threats regularly against skeptics. Oh the projection…
(Indeed the masters-of-spin tried to pretend that “new swipe cards” were specially issued to scientists facing death threats at ANU, yet Brice Bosnich informs me that the whole Chemistry Department at ANU received new swipe cards last year as a routine upgrade. No doubt skepticism will now increase a smidgen in that Department, as the good chemists grow more doubtful of everything else the warmists have said.)
Tony Abbott called for a plebiscite (a non binding poll of Australian voters) to secure the electorate’s approval of this tax (which obviously wasn’t obtained at the last election, as both major parties said they would not introduce such a tax). Despite this being so eminently sensible, Gillard tells us they have a mandate, and the independents and ALP run a mile, scoffing far-too-melodramatically at the idea of wasting all of $70 million asking the public what they think. Methinks they dost protest too much.
If we can convince enough Labor people that this legislation will end their parliamentary career, and mark the Labor party as the biggest fools in history: the gullible chumps who didn’t see the scam, that will tarnish the reputation of Labor Party for a generation.
Speaking of marginals: if anyone lives near or in one of these (see the list below), and wants to help, I’d like to hear from you. (Please email joanne AT this blog.) Some skeptics are taking things into their own hands. Some are gleaning emails from the white pages and sending messages to people in Windsor’s electorate. Others are printing flyers and doing their own letterboxing. This is grassroots gusto.
It’s time we think outside the box– the establishment sets the rules, but we don’t have to play their game. I’m not talking about breaking any laws, but it’s time to stop doing things within the boundaries they set.
If we can convince enough Labor people that this legislation will end their parliamentary career, and mark the Labor party as the biggest fools in history — the gullible chumps who didn’t see the scam — it will tarnish the reputation of the Labor Party for a generation.
No — my aim is not to make the Labor Party the subject of abject derision (they seem to be trying to do that themselves). I want a strong — and sensible — Labor Party. But I want them to know it’s coming if they continue on this path. The introspection needs to rise above “party process” and “factions” . This is what happens when you let political correctness dictate your culture.
Calling on people who want the madness to end
Never doubt that you can make a difference. One organised person in each marginal electorate who is dedicated to work against the carbon tax will most definitely be noticed, with trepidation, by the member there. One person to find a venue for skeptics to meet, one person to act as a lightning rod for the anger, frustration and resentment that hundreds of people feel. We don’t have to organize rallies. Groups of people wandering the streets with flyers to put in letterboxes will be noticed. There must be local businesses who’d be happy to print copies. And there must be local people who like to walk for exercise who’d enjoy letterboxing — and even more so, with good company.
Of course, we need to let the local member know how keen we are to inform the electorate.
Even if you are not in a marginal seat, think about starting a local social group — like Jim did at Five Dock in Sydney. It’s so popular now, they’ve all made new friends and they meet every week. I need to update that social ties page. Perhaps you might prefer a hotmail account just to start with, or maybe you’re happy to have your contact details spread wide? Think about it.
PS: Anyone with Rotary connections, I did a very successful talk at a Rotary group just a week ago. Word has spread and I’ve already had four invitations since then. If you are hooked up with a Rotary club, and want a speaker, let me know, I’ll try to find one in your area. Likewise, if you want to help present slides at a Rotary function, it’s time to get in touch. 🙂
These are the top 15 ALP marginals:
–
…
Plus Wilkie…
| Denison (Tas) |
Andrew Wilkie |
IND |
51.21 v ALP |
…
To send your email to a member of parliament, see the Email list for the Australian Parliamentary Representatives.
UPDATE:
Can we get a group started in Greenway (for anyone who lives close enough to visit). It is north-west Sydney, the Blacktown district. It includes Acacia Gardens, Girraween, Glenwood, Kellyville Ridge, Kings Langley, Kings Park, Lalor Park, Parklea, Seven Hills, Stanhope Gardens, The Ponds, Toongabbie and parts of Blacktown, Pendle Hill, Prospect, Quakers Hill, Riverstone, Rouse Hill, Schofields and Vineyard.
Please email or add your name in comments if you are interested. Thanks.
5.3 out of 10 based on 3 ratings
Yes, we all wish we didn’t need to protest, but it’s a small price to pay for living in one of the best nations on Earth. If we don’t stop this slide now, corruption and inefficiency grow stronger, and we will all be poorer in every sense of the word.
We don’t have to have a carbon tax. We don’t have to work for part of every day in order to prepare Australia for a threat that the evidence suggests is a non-event, and that most nations are not taking seriously.
Melbourne – Sunday June 19th !! 12:30 NOW
UPDATE: Bolt has this listed as “a rally against the carbon dioxide tax tomorrow outside Melbourne’s Parliament House at 12.30pm. Advertised speakers include the Nationals’ Barnaby Joyce and the Liberals’ Sophie Mirabella.”
1 pm outside Victorian Parliament, (see Facebook)
NSW CENTRAL COAST — REVOLTING CO2 TAX
Sunday, June 26, 1:00pm – 2:30pm,
Gosford Waterfront
Dane Drive (next to the Gosford Swimming Pool)
Note: Rally date confirmed Sunday 26 June. Venue is still being finalised with Council and will be published as soon as possible. Volunteers please email Darren [email protected]
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5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings
The trenches in the climate war tonight have coalesced at Lynas’s blog and at Judith Curry’s. (I did say yesterday it was shaping up to be a Judith-Curry-moment didn’t I?)
It’s in the news: David Derbyshire, Daily Mail, Oliver Wright, The Independent, Lorene Gunter, National Post, (h/t GWPF Benny Peiser)
Stefan Singer, Director for Energy Policy at WWF, has waded into the comments on Lynas’s formerly-quiet site. Bob Ward is also still at it. (Lynas is asking who exactly Bob Ward is — answer, a PR man for the Grantham Institute). Meanwhile the IPCC staff are rushing to reply to questions as written up by Andy Revkin.
The signs are excellent. As Lynas says:
If the ‘deniers’ are the only ones standing up for the integrity of the scientific process, and the independence of the IPCC, then I too am a ‘denier’. Indeed, McIntyre and I have formed an unlikely double-act, posing a series of questions – together with the New York Times’s Andy Revkin – to the IPCC report’s lead author Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, to which he has yet to respond.
What Mark Lynas wrote is apropos — and pointedly so.
Here’s the scenario. An Exxon-Mobil employee – admittedly an energy specialist with an engineering background – serves as a lead author on an important IPCC report looking into the future of fossil fuels. The Exxon guy and his fellow lead authors assess a whole variety of literature, but select for special treatment four particular papers – one produced by Exxon-Mobil. This paper heralds great things for the future of fossil fuels, suggesting they can supply 80% of the world’s energy in 2050, and this headline is the first sentence of the ensuing IPCC press release, which is picked up and repeated uncritically the world’s media. Pleased, the Exxon employee issues a self-congratulatory press release boasting that his paper had been central to the IPCC effort, and urging the world’s governments to get on with opening up new areas to oil drilling for the benefit of us all.
Well. You can imagine the furore this would cause at Greenpeace. The IPCC would be discredited forever as an independent voice….
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5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings
What were they thinking? Greenpeace and the IPCC are both bleeding credibility over this one. The silly thing is, if they weren’t so arrogant, they could have hidden this so easily. The obvious conclusion is they are not even trying.
Steve McIntyre discovered that a lead-author on an IPCC report was also a Greenpeace employee, and worse, he reviewed his own work. A recent IPCC report claimed we could get 80% of the world’s energy from renewables was thus founded not on a selective peer reviewed paper written by independent scientists, and not even on a shonky economic “study” issued by a big-government-loving-university, but, gasp, on a Greenpeace sponsored wish-list for world peace. Hello?
The IPCC issued a press release (May 9th) though as usual, with no details or sources at the time. They got the media headlines, then quietly “backed” it up a month later with a 1000 page report they figure no one will read. Certainly, they must be a little surprised that within two days of quietly releasing the tome, it is spreading like fire across the blogosphere, and some of it’s deepest secrets are already out of the bag.
Let’s be clear about this, Greenpeace is a $200-million-euro-per-year machine (see the Greenpeace annual report for 2009). Their charity status was recently revoked in New Zealand. They are a big political animal, like the IPCC. But both are claiming to use science to support them. And both, it seems, cite each other as if they were scientific. Greenpeace openly, but the IPCC hides the reverse-citations in invisible ink, between the lines.
As far as bang for your buck, goes, this scheme is quite a money multiplier. A Greenpeace donation is a neat “investment” (especially if it’s tax deductible). If you wanted to lean on many western government agendas (or the Western public at large) for a paltry percentage of your future profits (or tax revenue) here’s the plan: set up a “foundation”, donate to Greenpeace, and encourage them to write a report saying that all your products or favourite policies (carbon certificates, honky windmills, electric-cars, unsellable solar panels etc etc) are attractive, economic, brilliant, and absolutely essential or else the world will be consumed in a hot acid bath (or something like that) and “Voila”.
Basically Greenpeace writes what you and they want to hear, the IPCC pants in excitement, and before you know it, the PR agents who call-themselves-journalists have reprinted the IPCC declaration in the mass media, then Western Governments are quoting the IPCC, and saying how the idea has been reviewed by 120 scientists and 22 supercomputers, and we should be grateful to spend $2 trillion a year now and even more in the future. If you question it, you’re a cane-toad-like-farting-fool-idiot-denier-who-ought-be-tattooed-jailed-tied-to-a-post (or insert variation here).
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8.6 out of 10 based on 7 ratings
Apart from conferences organized by the Heartland Foundation I don’t recall a skeptic dominated professional conference or science association convention. Skeptics have spoken at many conferences before, but this time the skeptical speakers vastly outnumbered the fans of the IPCC, ten to one. This was an event where — by the sounds of it — it would have been uncool to be an unskeptical scientist (as indeed it ought to be). No prizes for guessing which branch of science could no longer be held down by political correctness.
It’s a sign of the times, the phase shift is coming.
Tom Harris gives a great summary in the Financial Post:
Climate Isn’t Up for Debate
Anyone not already familiar with the stance of geologists towards the global warming scare would have been shocked by the conference at the University of Ottawa at the end of May. In contrast to most environmental science meetings, climate skepticism was widespread among the thousand geoscientists from Canada, the United States and other countries who took part in GAC-MAC 2011 (the Joint Annual Meeting of the Geological Association of Canada, the Mineralogical Association of Canada, the Society of Economic Geologists and the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits).
Speakers included Bob Carter and Ian Plimer as well as Henrik Svensmark, along with many others who talked about water vapor, the role of the sun, satellite radiation measurements and many other approaches. One speaker spoke along lines that the IPCC would have been happy about, but none of the other IPCC supporters accepted the invitations.
Where were all the other scientist supporters of climate alarmism? Did they not know that climate was a major focus of this, the largest geologic conference in the country?
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6.5 out of 10 based on 4 ratings
 Qassiarsuk: This is the site of the Viking settlement of 972 and unlike much of Greenland, offers relatively sheltered grazing land for sheep. Photo: John McLean. (Click to see more images of Greenland). For the first time temperatures over the last 5,600 years have been reassembled from the inhabited area of Greenland. (Other estimates were from ice-cores that are far inland.)
William D’Andrea, the paper’s first author says: “.. we can say there is a definite cooling trend in the region right before the Norse disappear.”
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8.2 out of 10 based on 5 ratings
The precautionary principle is exposed again for the insidious mindless posturing that it is.
Biofuel policies push more people into poverty as food prices rise and the poor are forced to spend more of their income on food. In a study published in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Indur Goklany calculated the additional mortality burden of biofuels policies and found that nearly 200,000 people died in 2010 alone, because of efforts to use biofuels to reduce CO2 emissions.
Bad Government is a killer.
“Could Biofuel Policies Increase Death and Disease in Developing Countries?
Goklany (2011) estimated that the increase in the poverty headcount due to higher biofuel production between 2010 and 2004 implies 192,000 additional deaths and 6.7 million additional lost DALYs in 2010 alone.
He compared this death tally to the WHO figures for deaths attributed to global warming and finds that the biofuels policies are more deadly. (And he is not including any increase in poverty due to other anti-global warming practices).
1. Biofuel policies are retarding humanity’s age-old battle against poverty.
2. Since according to the World Health Organization’s latest estimates, 141,000 deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs in 2004 could be attributed to global warming (WHO 2009), biofuel policies may currently be deadlier than global warming, especially since the inertia of the climate system means little or no reduction in these numbers from any slowing of global warming due to any increase in biofuel production from 2004 to 2010.
How many times do we hear that “it can’t hurt to reduce ‘pollution’ (sic)”?
Even if CO2 was a form of pollution there is little justification for trying to reduce it.
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9.4 out of 10 based on 8 ratings
Ladies and Gentlemen this is the front line trench of modern science. If climate science is so important, and there is no time to waste, why does the system try so hard to discourage dissent (because they don’t want to find the truth, only the “correct” answer)?
This paper by Lindzen and Choi was submitted and rejected by GRL in 2009, then rejected twice more by PNAS. (And in part because it needed to meet impossible standards. In the end, it was supposed to include “the kitchen sink” but fit into a sandwich bag — see below). The paper could have been out for discussion in 2009, and while it has improved upon revision, was it worth the two year wait? Those gains could have been made in two months (or two weeks) online.
Even the reviewers understand how significant these results would be if they are right. One admits the new paper shows the models don’t match the observations.
Science needs free and open criticism, and competing theories. If Lindzen’s analysis is revolutionary, but potential wrong, is it so bad to publish those results? He is one of the most eminent researchers in the field — and surely the crowd of “experts” would quickly find the flaws and point out the omissions, and both sides could move forward.
It’s time for scientists to step outside the system and stop paying homage to the dogma of the old rules. It slows down research because the all-too-human gatekeepers can keep a topic away from public view for month after month, while people pay money for schemes that are not necessary and government reviewers can ignore results that are inconvenient.
In this day of electronic publication where space is no limit, and results can be discussed widely, transparently and easily, why bow to a system that has strict limits on words?
As long as we pay respect to anachronistic rituals, and establishment procedures, the prevailing system can be a stranglehold on the ideas that the community can discuss. Formal peer review has proven to be as corruptible as any human process, as the Climategate emails show. There is a point where we must ask, why bother?
It’s time real scientists had an impartial rigorous publication to send their material too. Where is the 21st Century new version of “Science” or “Nature”? There is no rescuing the old publications.
This post is long, but it is, in effect, about both the problems with peer review, as well as being the latest news on the point in climate science that is more critical than any other — the modeled feedbacks.
The Paper: Lindzen, R., Choi, Y.S. (2011) On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications. Asian Pacific Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, in press. [link]— Joanne Nova
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8.2 out of 10 based on 5 ratings
The Australian 2011 Monckton Tour
A Carbon Tax will
BANKRUPT AUSTRALIA
THE SCIENCE DOES NOT JUSTIFY IT
Viscount Christopher Monckton will explain why.
Dr David Evans and Jo Nova will accompany him in Sydney and Newcastle
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5.5 out of 10 based on 4 ratings
The Greens are a community oriented party, and often ask for feedback. Indeed they’ve been searching for feedback on their emissions trading plan for over two years on their blog.
“Do you support the Greens’ plan on emissions trading?”
Their blog visitors were giving them a clear message. Of 2268 voters, 80% didn’t like their plan.
Even though this poll started on May 4th, 2009, within 2 hours of the link being posted here, a dreadful accident must have occurred and the page disappeared to a 403 error. It wasn’t just lost from Sarah Hanson-Young’s blog, it also disappeared from Bob Brown’s blog, and Adam Bandt’s blog. (It had taken them many blog-page-years to amass those results, which says something about traffic stats of the Greens blog.)
To help them I’ve saved a screen capture, with the results.
The long running successful poll has mysteriously been taken over by what looks like a feral cat.
…
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4.9 out of 10 based on 7 ratings
 TODAY June 7th 2011: Phenomenal eruption on the sun (see the bottom of the post for more info). Apparently previous studies of the sun-climate connection looked at the equatorial polar magnetic field which produces sun spots, but they did not consider the polar magnetic component of the solar dynamo. The polar fields are less strong than the equatorial fields, but it is claimed that the total magnetic fluxes of both fields are comparable. With proxy data they derive an empirical relation between tropospherical temperatures and solar equatorial and polar magnetic fields. The polar field could contribute about 30% as much as the equatorial field.
The paper, published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics focused on the period 1844-1960 (but extended at least one graph back to 1600) and finds our current warming period is not that different from earlier episodes and that the increase in solar activity in the last 400 years explains the warming, without any need to invoke a man-made enhanced greenhouse hypothesis.
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8.2 out of 10 based on 5 ratings
Wait for it, some death threat emails have been released. Number eight is positively sinister with intent (shield your children):
Now several of the abusive emails have been published on a blog by environmental writer Graham Readfearn, after the scientists agreed to release the poison pen letters.
Number Eight:
“If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you. We will not do so if you rightfully argue against our points from a science view. But we will if you choose to stray into attacks on us as people or as a movement. The institution and funders that support you will find the attention concerning.”
God forbid, imagine a member of the public imploring a scientist to argue with science instead of slurs. Well I’ll be!
How chilling does it get?
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7.5 out of 10 based on 4 ratings
Guest Post by Speedy
“Speedy” in comments on this site has done a better than excellent job of satirizing the satirists (Clarke and Dawe), so I’m reposting one of his comments here for those who missed it. See the bottom of the post for the background on the duo he is satirizing and a youtube of them. Speedy has very much captured their style.
 Bryan Dawe, ABC If the ABC was relevant, Part 32.
(The Repairman)
(SCENE: Front door of BRYAN’s home. Door bell rings. BRYAN answers door. It is JOHN.)
John: G’day. I’m here about the climate.
Bryan: What climate?
John: Your climate. Our climate. THE climate. I’m here to fix it.
Bryan: What’s wrong with it?
John: It’s buggered. Absolutely buggered.
Bryan: No it isn’t. I was using it this morning.
John: What for?
Bryan: For drying the washing out the back.
John: Spoken like a true layperson! What you have just witnessed was not the working of an healthy climate, but a clear manifestation of catastrophic global warming! Scientists warn that if current trends continue, solar drying of your clothing will cause it to be not only dried, but pressed and lightly toasted as well!
Bryan: You know what?
John: What?
Bryan: I don’t believe you.
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7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings
 Matt and Janet Thompson They came from the USA expecting to get a fair go. They broke no law, ran a profitable business, spoke out as skeptics and now stand to lose everything.
It’s not one law for all anymore, it’s 33 subclauses on your license because you’re not politically correct. It’s sudden changes to regulatory conditions that cost a family business millions. Bureaucrats can break a popular profitable business. What has happened to The Thompsons is something I didn’t think was possible in Australia. I thought we elected the people who make the rules. I thought our media would cover a scandal. How naive of me.
A Federal Court judge has just ruled that these Family Farmers can’t even sue the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) of Western Australia even though their license conditions were suddenly changed for no measureable, auditable reason. The decision is not good news, but Matt and Janet are not giving up. They will appeal the decision.
We can’t let Western Civilization be engulfed by bureaucratic fiefdoms. Matt and Janet could have taken the easier road and given up but they’re determined not to be beaten by the system, and if they can win, they help all of us.
Matt and Janet are fighting for all Australians. If they lose, we all lose.
Pop in to this thread and send a message of support to Matt and Janet in the comments. It can be a lonely road if you are the small guy battling the establishment. We need more people like the Thompsons.
The Background and Details
From Matt and Janet Thompson, a Federal Court judge has just ruled that they can’t sue the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) of Western Australia on behalf of their family-owned company, Narrogin Beef Producers.
After Matt spoke out as a climate skeptic at a greenhouse gas reporting meeting in May 2007 the DEC changed their farming license adding new impossible conditions which no bank would loan against. They had already signed contracts based on the previous license, and the newly reduced head-count drove them to the verge of bankruptcy. DEC even admits it broke it’s own rules. Apparently the Thompsons beef-feedlot didn’t smell right, even though Matt and Janet did everything the department suggested (and more), their closest neighbours wrote letters of support (wanting the farm to grow), 900 townfolk signed a petition for them, 6000 odour tests showed there was no problem, and wait for it, their farm was right next to a piggery which had run for 28 years. But 21 verified complaints from people who wanted to subdivide land and a number of other unchecked, not publicly listed, complaints about odours that can’t be measured were enough to close them down. And you thought Rule of Law applied in Australia? Not so, if you don’t butter up, pander, bow and obey the politically correct dictums set by unelected bureaucrats and the covert green-police, you too could be subject to random arbitrary license changes that insist your business must not offend anyone anywhere (and especially not your Green land-developing neighbours).
Should you ever be unlucky enough to be the small guy standing up to the establishment, don’t expect your tax dollars paid to the ABC will help you highlight the injustice and expose the corruption. It’s their ABC after all. And where is that supposed bastion of news: The West Australian? They don’t seem to be in a hurry to let the citizens of Western Australia know how their Department of Environment play kingmakers.
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Either there are a lot more skeptics than believers, or the skeptics are more likely to be on the net.
Some polls you may want to take part in (which are registering around 3 out 4 votes for skeptics).
The Greens are running scared.
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My sympathies go out to anyone who lives in fear for their life, no matter what their beliefs are about a certain climate theory. I soundly condemn death threats.
Though, as it happens, such a thing is completely out of character for any skeptic I know.
After 50,000 comments on my site, violent thoughts are exceedingly rare, from skeptics anyway. Only a few [skeptics] have even issued vague allusions wishing ill-health on someone. (And these were made not by regulars, but by anonymous “hotmail” commenters; real skeptics, or poseurs perhaps?)
Indeed, the team that makes naked death threats publicly has always been the pro-carbon-tax fans. Think of Greenpeace “we know where you live...“. Think of 10:10, “we will blow up your children”. Joe Romm encourages the idea that skeptics will be strangled in their beds. A blogger at TPM pondered when it would be acceptable to execute climate deniers. Richard Glover, suggests forcibly tattooing skeptics opinions on their bodies’ (though wisely thinks maybe it’s a bit too Nazi creepy). Willis Eschenbach came up with a list of hate-related behavior. There is plenty to pick from.
So when the Canberra Times claims skeptics have been threatening climate scientists, I am, not surprisingly… skeptical.
It’s possible that some aggrieved skeptics have said something none-too-friendly, unwelcome, and unwise. If so, these may be “death threats” in the Tony-Windsor style of capital fear, where much hoo-haa was raised about strong statements like “…you’re not going to get voted in again. I hope you die, you bastard.” and “you’ll get yours”. Not that it helps any cause to reduce the arguments to something so rude or banal. It’s bullying.
Most oddly, there’s the point that scientists are moving to secret offices, getting private numbers and home security systems, but if the threats appeared to be of a serious nature why aren’t the Federal Police involved yet? As Simon points out at Climate Madness, it’s a very serious offense with a ten-year sentence. “The Australian Federal Police says it is aware of the issue, but there is no investigation underway.” [The ABC wrote that full line, but the SMH and Canberra Times decided to save their readers from seeing those last six words. What does it matter…]
When the rock star fame is waning, a highly publicized death threat is a way to win sympathy and keep the celebrity factor rolling.
The bottom line is that the people who have the most to gain from issuing death threats like these are not skeptics, but the pro-carbon-tax team. It’s a great way to win sympathy. Not that I’m suggesting these scientists are feigning it themselves, but that there are billions of dollars on the table, not to mention a cult-like devotion to the meme. It’s in quite a few people’s interests to help those scientists win the sympathy of the crowd, and to distract the crowd with something non-scientific. I expect there would be a few PR agents who’ve been hoping for just such a threat. Go on, it sounds macabre, but it’s business. Think of the UK transport Ministry advisor who infamously emailed on Sept 11, 2001 that it would be “‘a good day to bury bad news’.
Climate scientists have run out of anything scientific to say; they’ve tried their damnedest to win support. They’ve issued their 25th prediction that “we only have 10 years to go” and simultaneously (even though we haven’t fried yet) that “it’s worse than we thought”. When the rock star fame is waning, a highly publicized death threat is a way to win sympathy and keep the celebrity factor rolling. It also makes your opponents look like criminals. Convenient eh?
But, that’s the lesson for frustrated skeptics. Whatever you do, don’t threaten anyone’s health. Apart from being criminal and abhorrent (as if that’s not enough), it would be a PR writer’s gift. Savaging a b-grade scientist’s reputation by politely demolishing his reasoning is the method of choice.
If serious death threats have been issued, I hope whoever made those threats is caught and caught soon.
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He’s trying to understand the skeptic’s mind, but as usual, not by asking a skeptic. It’s the lazy journo tool for understanding the world, not with empirical evidence, but by bland analogy and baseless speculation.
People on the left instinctively believe in communal action, the role of government and the efficacy of international agencies such as the UN. They were always going to believe in climate change; it’s the sort of problem that can best be solved using the tools they most enjoy using.
His only insight into the “right” is just that it is the absence of “left”.
The right tended to be sceptical about climate change from the start and for exactly the same reasons. It’s the sort of problem that requires global, communal action, with governments setting rules. It is a problem that requires tools they instinctively dislike using.
Dearest Richard, some people were just born to follow authority, and others prefer to think for themselves. Neither group is necessarily right about science (because science is about evidence not politics), but if the authorities get corrupted (like that never happens) and they try to sell us imaginary bridges over third-world factories, one team will fall for it every time. Gullible group-thinkers rise to their call.
Not so long ago, 4 out of 5 people thought “Carbon was pollution”. The skeptical polls are surging, but not because people are changing their genetic voting predisposition. Wake up. Set yourself free of the serfdom to the National Association of Sorcery. Ask to see the evidence; unleash your brain!
And if you can’t face investigating climate science evidence, at least do some real research on how the other half think. Next time you want to write about a group, try asking them. (You can’t understand right-wingers by quizzing your leftie friends. Most of them have never talked to one either.)
7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings
 Australia (orange line second from the bottom) has a lower energy intensity of use than many countries (see below for more information). On this graph. Japan is the lowest. The world average is the dark purple line. China is so high it is off the scale. It’s part of the spin game that almost every statistic is spun-into-oblivion, and here, thanks to Mike Wilson, is the analysis of why “per capita” statistics are meaningless.
Ross Garnaut (and dozens of others) claim Australia has a high emissions intensity of energy use. Yet Mike Wilson shows below that Australia’s energy intensity is not just declining, it’s below the world average, and below Canada, South Africa, China and the US.
The Garnaut Review:
“Relative to other OECD countries, Australia’s high emissions are mainly the result of the high emissions intensity of energy use, rather than the high energy intensity of the economy or exceptionally high per capita income. Transport emissions are not dissimilar to those of other developed countries. Australia’s per capita agricultural emissions are among the highest in the world, especially because of the large numbers of sheep and cattle.
The high emissions intensity of energy use in Australia is mainly the result of our reliance on coal for electricity. The difference between Australia and other countries is a recent phenomenon: the average emissions intensity of primary energy supply for Australia and the OECD was similar in 1971.” — Garnaut Climate Change Review
Mike Wilson has found the statistics that expose the myth that Australian is a high energy intensity nation. We may use a lot of energy, but we produce a lot of goods, our intensity of energy use is lower than most. Garnaut and others quote figures “per capita”, but that’s misleading if the nation in question has a small population that produces a lot of goods for the rest of the world, and especially so if those particular items are high energy creations.
Australia’s GDP is growing faster than our energy use, so even though our energy use has doubled since the mid 1970’s, Australia is using that energy more efficiently and producing more with it. Compared with the rest of the world Australia is doing very well. China may run at a low energy use “per capita”, but it’s energy use is not as effective as ours. In other words, if we push high energy manufacturing into China, it will use more energy to get the same product, and so produce more greenhouse gas in the process. At the moment China uses three or four times as much energy as Australia does when compared on a GDP basis. — JN
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Australia’s Invisible Energy Trade
Guest Post by Mike Wilson (aka Bulldust)
The full PDF Report
There are three reasons that claims that Australia is a massive per capita consumer of energy, are irrelevant.
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7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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