JoNova

Lewandowsky bitten by a hoax

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky may not understand much about the climate, but he is a professor of psychology — so satire, humor, and hoaxes ought to be right up his alley, right? He’s realized he fell for the brilliant Alene Composta (a master satirist) replying to her and even sending her fake request for advice to fellow blogger John Cook (who fell for it too).

Alene ticked all the headline stereotypical victim-leftie boxes, her interests included “christine milne”, “organic gardening” and “batik hangings” and lets face it, “Composta” is a red flag, rather. So she wrote to Lewandowsky begging for advice in dealing with monster commenters from Bolt and Blair, and notably pointed to him surviving my scorn and ridicule:

I recently began blogging, especially about climate change, and after a month my site was noticed. Noticed by the wrong people, sadly. Readers of Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt have swamped my site with genuinely abusive comments, many relating to my disability, which I find very hurtful.

So my question to you is this: How do you deal with monsters like this?

I have read and savoured every column you have published at Unleashed, and I have read the hateful comments that, even with an ABC moderator to vet them, still make it up on the site. The worst charge is that they simply do not take me seriously, which diminishes me in my humanity. I must confess that, after the latest round of abuse, I hugged my little cat and cried for an hour.

You have not only shrugged off that abuse, you have also survived the scorn and ridicule of your fellow West Australian Joanne Nova (I found that while googling your email address). It is a species of bravery I do not know if I can tap.
I’m a fragile woman and I thought my blog, Verdant Hopes, might be a force for good in the world. Instead it has made me a victim once again.

He replied, soaking it all up. In a bold twist reminiscent of Soviet psychologists, he called the skeptics “bullies” and the attacks “orchestrated”:

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9.3 out of 10 based on 12 ratings

130,000 Australians say No Carbon Tax, Greens flop, Labor issues biblical scare campaign

What a week downunder, just in case you missed it.

We’re a nation, up in arms. With three months til G-Day (when the Greens control the Senate on July 1) and the tax-based-on-a-lie likely to become legislation, the heat is on. Protests and smears are running strong. Forces are being mobilized, and people are being polarized. Yet the public is abandoning the carbon tax, and the parties who promote it.

As the mass rally movements begin the Big Scare Campaign fans responded with smears to paint the rally-goers as extreme fringe, loonies and nutters. The fringe in this case turns out to be 4 out of 5 people. Who are the “deniers”? When asked, do you support the carbon tax? One hundred and thirty thousand people said NO.

83% of the Channel Nine poll don’t want a carbon tax.

The Labor Party sent out biblical climate speaking notes to all it’s ministers — the floods and droughts are coming, oceans will rise up and wash away your home, there will be burning bushes, and the storms will kill your firstborn (or words to that effect). And they howl about Abbot running a fear campaign. Wait for the advice about the seven plagues of locusts. It’s coming.

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6.4 out of 10 based on 5 ratings

David Evans, Carbon Accounting Modeler, Says It’s a Scam

Dr David Evans’ address to the Anti-Carbon-Tax rally, Perth Australia, 23 March 2011.

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen.

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools and liars out of our politicians.

Let’s set a few things straight.

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now cheat and lie outrageously to maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.

Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.

The disagreement comes about what happens next.

The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.

This is the core idea of every official climate model: for each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three – so two thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors), only one third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

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6.9 out of 10 based on 7 ratings

We are being deceived

Perth Protest Anti Carbon Tax Rally

My speech at the Anti-tax Carbon rally, Wednesday March 23rd.

I used to be a Green. I used to think Carbon dioxide mattered. I still worry about falling fish stocks, old growth forest and erosion, but wind farms won’t help the fish, and solar cells won’t keep the top soil from blowing away. Real environmental problems are being sidelined by fake ones.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I thought I was well informed, but I was shocked when I found out how what was going on behind the scenes. Everything you may have heard about carbon dioxide can be turned inside out.

How many excuses does it take?

CO2 feeds plants. It’s the only” pollution” pumped onto farms to grow food. Did you know plant life goes dormant if CO2 falls too low? Farmers don’t just pump in an extra 5 or 10% either, they ramp up the concentration 4 or 5 fold in greenhouses. Did the government scientists forget to mention that?
Australia is the largest exporter of coal in the world. But did they say that China digs up nearly 10 times more coal than we do?
The famous ice core graphs of Al Gore — expanded to 20 meters square — turned out to show the opposite of what he claimed. Temperatures drive carbon and lead it by 800 years. Worse,iIt was well known, and not contested two years before he made his movie.
Global warming stopped, and none of the models predicted that.
The endless droughts — ended.
All that CO2 and Global storms hit their lowest level for 30 years.
And you have to wonder: nearly 90% of the thermometers in the US are too close to artificial heat sources. 90%. How much do the climate science team care about the science?
75% of thermometers used in the 1980’s have dropped off the official record. All that money, and less instruments to measure with…
They adjust the data — sometimes 50 years after it was recorded. Think about that. The 1970’s kept warming for the next 30 years.
3000 ocean buoys looked and couldn’t find most of the missing heat that our planet is supposed to be storing.
6000 boreholes tell us the world was warmer 1000 years ago, and even warmer again 5000 years ago. None of the models can explain that.
all the models predict a hot spot, and 28 million weather balloons can’t find it;
31,500 scientists don’t think we need a carbon tax. That includes 9000 phd’s. There’s a grassroots revolt going on out there. This was done by volunteers, and done twice. There’s never been another petition like it in science, ever. Did the media forget to tell you that too?
For every dollar paid to a skeptic, big government paid 3500 to global warmers.

It’s a topsy-turvey world out there:

We all have better things to do than come along today, but when the people who represent us call fertilizer “pollution”, and label the volunteers “stooges”, while they call the paid hacks “independent”; when they look at a color chart and say yellow is red, … and they call us “deniers”…

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8.9 out of 10 based on 10 ratings

Thousands of angry ordinary Australians turn up and alarmist smears begin

In Canberra today over 3,000 people went out of their way, coming in on 30 buses from more than 1000 km away, to let Julia Gillard know that Australians do not want her Carbon Tax. The news made every major broadcast for several minutes. Protesters were referred to as “climate skeptics” (mostly).

Other rallies around Australia got hundreds of people even though they were organized in a hurry, with no advertising, and with no pre-formed coalition of networked groups. There was a very good crowd at the Perth rally on a hot day during business hours, and one heckler (John Brookes). The mood was striking.

This is random shoe-string grassroots action at the last minute and look what it can achieve. It’s just beginning.

The photo gallery at the Australian makes it clear how decidedly normal most people were and what their main messages are.

This is mainstream Australia rising up, yet already the Big-Green-PR machine is at work, doing all it can to deny the undeniable. As I drove home in Perth after our rally, ABC news-radio didn’t mention that 3,000 people had gathered, nor that protests had happened all over the country, they may have said that earlier, but all I heard was how Tony Abbot was under a “cloud” for having spoken at a rally with “extremists” — The Telegraph headlined it too. Labor MP Nick Champion, Labor Party backbencher, gets press time for for his free shot at calling them “extremists“. It’s just another form of name-calling, and if the media had any standards they would not propagate the namecalling without demanding he substantiate it. (Do write and tell me if any journalist asked Champion to explain why it’s extreme to ask for major policies to be put to an election first, or why we ought to expect some achievable outcome when we pay billions — other than earning brownie-points for the UN). Does the word “extreme” mean anything?

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8.5 out of 10 based on 6 ratings

Was 2010 the hottest ever?

Was 2010 “the hottest year ever” as the PR machine repeats ad nauseum? Yes — but only if you ignore three of the four main global datasets and those awkward questions about why nobody thought to put thermometers in better places.

Run your eyes down this page to see how the GISS temperatures pan out compared to all the other compilations. This is James Hansen’s group, and GISS stands for the Goddard Institute of Space Studies — and in the topsy-turvey world of climate change, that’s apt — the space centre and hot bed of rocketry calculates world temperatures by ignoring … satellites. For GISS, measuring the world temperature, calls for irregularly spaced, unique, non-standardized temperature stations (sometimes near air-conditioning vents and concrete). And no sir, not the satellites that scan the Earth 24 hours a day, over land and sea, and which are usually not too close to exhaust vents, or buildings, or (thank goodness) fermenting vats of sewage either.

So, indeed, the only sane answer to the cherry picking crowd who crow triumphantly about their outlying most favorite result, is that “No” 2010 was not hotter than 1998, not according to the satellites. And even if it had been, the world was warmer for most of the Holocene. Get over it.

*PS: People still write to me and ask me how to reply to the oft repeated line about 2010. It’s also handy to mention that the world has been warming since before Napolean bought all those SUV’s. (The warming started before our emissions became significant, and at least since measurements began, the trend hasn’t changed and the models don’t know why. We also discussed this point in the here too, with other graphs.)

PPS: Vote here on the word “denier”, the ABC is wondering. (Thanks Bernd)

The four big temperature sets

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8.2 out of 10 based on 6 ratings

Yes, it IS about the science

Behind-the-scenes I’ve heard the line this “isn’t about the science”. I said that myself back in 2007: it’s not about the science, it’s about power and money. But it’s a dangerous meme. In the long run, it IS about the science.

While people think a carbon tax is bad, but believe that “carbon is pollution”, we have won a battle but lost the war.

Many new folk are appearing on the anti-carbon tax team, and here’s the weird thing for we seasoned skeptics, some of these oppose the tax, yet “believe” the science (?!) “It’s too hard” they say. They seem to think if we just beat the tax, we can ignore the reason the tax is supposedly there in the first place.

The science is the whole official reason for the tax, and if we don’t force the crowds to notice the corruption, the cheating, and the way science is exploited, then we are asking to be bludgeoned with it again. We are letting the most outrageous scam-meisters leave the room with their reputations intact and asking to be victims of the next invented crisis.

Some anti-carbon-taxers say, “Don’t confuse the punters”, just stick to the economics. And don’t misunderstand me, that’s the top-ranking point, and I’m the one who posted the definitive IPCC most generous temperature calculation, and said this is a knockout blow. But the war on our civilization is so much bigger than just one battle over one piece of legislation.

Science might seem hard to explain, but you don’t need a PhD to understand cheating. People know that publicly funded scientists ought not hide publicly funded information, and dodge FOI’s. They know that thermometers don’t measure global warming when they’re five feet above concrete, or next to warming air conditioner exhausts. They know that if carbon rises after temperatures, Mr Al Gore was not giving them the full story.

They need to know they are being deceived

While people think a carbon tax is bad, but believe that “carbon is pollution”, we have won a battle but lost the war. It’s not much of an achievement to stop this tax, but leave intact the infrastructure, the departments, the associations, and the dismal standards in our schools, newspapers, and ABC. As long as enviro-activists-masquerading-as-journo’s are the only ones explaining “science”, the West will be weakened and real environmental problems will go ignored. Until we get logic and reason into our universities and public discussion, the bullying, name-calling, distracting, and intimidation will still win debates before they even begin.

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4 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

Way back when climate scientists were scientists: Chapter 8, FAR, circa 1990

You’ll find this hard to believe but I get excited about the 1990 First Assessment Report (FAR). It’s very different from wading through the later ones, because it’s remarkably honest, and things are not hidden in double-speak (well, not so much). Scientists behave like scientists and talk of null hypothesis, and even of validating models. Indeed they had a whole chapter back then called “validation”. How times have changed.

This is the short summary of Chapter 8 “Attribution”

Thanks to Alan for sending me this link today (Chapter 8, IPCC FAR).

The “Attribution” Chapter is the part where they try to figure out what “caused” the warming. Chapter 8 says, essentially, “we don’t know, we might never know, our models don’t work, and we can conclude it might all be natural, but then again, it might not.” Got it?

This is in the same era that Al Gore was saying “the science is settled” and “there is no debate”.

What’s clear in 1990 from the FAR was that it was widely admitted that the models were bodgy, and that figuring out exactly what caused the recent warming was very difficult, indeed impossible at the time. There were too many variables, the signal to noise ratio was awful. There were almost no singularly unique points which the enhanced greenhouse effect would produce that we could use to definitively say “Gotcha!”.

Unlike today, when Professors of Climatism repeat “there is no doubt global warming is real” as if it meant something, back then they knew it didn’t.

“Global mean warming for example is not a particularly good signal in this sense because there are many possible causes of such warming.”

Mind you, even in 1990, they try it on anyway, just to see how it looks.

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7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

Australian Anti-Carbon Tax Protests

We all have better things to do, but when the people who represent us call the greatest plant nutrient “pollution”, and label the volunteers “stooges” while calling their paid hacks “independent”; when they look at a color chart and say yellow is really red (and they call us “deniers”); we know things are running off the rails.

When they ask us to pay billions to change the weather, then we know the quicksand has come. And when even they admit if we succeed beyond our wildest dreams that the results will be too small to measure (how many thousandth of a degree will that be, Julia?) sometimes we just have to do something don’t we?

We can act now or pay the cost for years to come. Each time we let them get away with an untruth they grow stronger. Each time we ignore the Orwellian perversion of our language (Is it carbon (sic) pollution (sic)?), we feed the parasites who want our freedom and our money, and that hurts us, our children and the environment.

The big protests around the country start on Wednesday next week.

We want an election first. The tax affects every transaction in the economy. We want a choice before this major legislation goes through. Julia Gillard did not get a mandate at the last election. She promised a “committee” and no tax, then gave us a tax anyway. Where was the debate, the discussion, the analysis? The voters voted overwhelmingly for parties promising “No Tax”.
It will hit the economy. Gillard won’t give details, she’s hoping we’ll all think someone else will pay and that vague “compensation” will save the pain for the big “polluters”. But these so called polluters are also companies owned by Australian shareholders, with Australian employees, and Australian consumers. We will all pay one way or another.
It won’t help the environment. If we abandon Australia we save 0.015°C and 2mm of sea level rise. So this is not about the environment, it’s about power and money.

CANBERRA

Weds 23 March, 12:00pm
Parliament House
Facebook
Website: http://www.nocarbontaxrally.com/ (CATA Consumers and Taxpayers Association)

Speakers include Joe Hockey, David Archibald, Bob Carter, Angry Anderson, John Madigan, and possibly quite a few others.

There are at least 30 buses organized for this already. Please sign up by TODAY if you want a lift from Melbourne or Sydney.

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5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

A warning from Europe: The green-tape jobs we don’t want

When Björn Lomborg wrote that Green jobs were overhyped, a visiting European friend agreed and sent me examples of the spreading inanity of the green-tape-jobs-market that has taken over Europe.

Stefan points out that most Green jobs created by building windmills or solar power are short lived. The permanent “green” jobs are, insidiously, the expanding green bureaucracy and police. In Europe, the green-police fine people for putting plastic in a glass recycling bin. They force people to write lists of what’s in their rubbish bags; to use electricity when it suits the wind-generators, and not the people.

The Green-police are self propagating. They unwittingly create problems that then need even more auditing, advising and checking. Green-police closed off the natural drafts in houses, then when people got sick from the fungus, they sent around officials to create artificial airflow to stop “sick building” syndrome. When green bureaucrats demanded everyone use less water (whether they needed to or not) stagnant ponds were created in places that had water to spare, and that then led to the creation of a new army of green-water-specialists to sort out the putrid ponds. In an exponential pattern, the populace was slowing co-opted from productive tasks into the big-government-green-merry-go-round.

Thus the patron class of big-government dependent voters expands, and that of independent free citizens shrinks. And we are all poorer, because of the missed opportunities for all that wasted human talent and labor. — JN

A warning from Europe

If you comply with the European follies this time, your brave soldiers will have fought and died in vain. You will be no longer be free citizens, able to hold the politicians responsible. You will be regarded just as stupid ATMs, just like the Europeans are now.

Dr Lomborg is right, many predictions about green manual jobs in the manufacturing of windmills and solar panels were overhyped. Most jobs are shortlived. Many companies manufacturing renewable energy in Europe pay just the legal minimum wages. They frequently go bankrupt and offer little job security.

The big increase in “green jobs” in the last 20 years in Europe has been in the public sector. A whole new caste of people are working to expand green tape. Green tape is now the reality, and has created millions of new public sector jobs in Europe. Typical green jobs are mainly public sector jobs – enforcing regulation, taxing, and surveillance of people. An ever-increasing tax on carbon will speed up this transformation of society.

Let´s give some examples.

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7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

Carbon Tax Australia? Welcome to Futility Island

Assume the IPCC is right. Assume that Australia would have kept emitting the same proportion of global emissions of CO2 for the next four decades — despite the rapid catch up in emissions-per-capita as the developing world gets cars, frozen foods, and holidays-in-Bali. Then assume somehow, theoretically, we might be able to completely stop emissions of CO2 suddenly (by Tuesday). What’s the most generous possibility of success we could get from massive Australian sacrifice and green action now? Answer: Tops, absolutely as high as it gets, exceeding beyond our wildest expectations — if Australia stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, we could save … 15 thousandths of one degree of warming (0.0154 °C) by 2050. Spiffy eh?

David has done the number crunching that we’re “sure” the ALP has done many many times as they redirect billions of Australian dollars in search of a world that’s immeasurably (and un-measurably) cooler. — JN

CARBON TAX AND TEMPERATURE

Dr. David Evans, 14 March 2011

BY HOW MUCH WILL A CARBON DIOXIDE TAX REDUCE AUSTRALIA’S TEMPERATURE?

Suppose Australia reduced its emissions over what they would otherwise be. The effect, according to the IPCC’s theory of man-made global warming, is:


Average reduction in Australia’s emissions from now to 2050	Decrease in the temperature in 2050 due to Australia’s reductions
0 %	0.0000 °C
5 %	0.0007 °C
10 %	0.0015 °C
20 %	0.0031 °C
50 %	0.0077 °C
100 %	0.0154 °C

Notice that if Australia shut down entirely, and emitted no CO2 starting today, it would lower the temperature in 2050 by just 0.0154 °C (on IPCC figures).

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8.9 out of 10 based on 12 ratings

(Un)Skeptical Science uses unmeasureable fudge factors

A comment from Tel late last year was so surgically cutting, it’s worthy of it’s own post. Un-Skeptical Science was trying to explain why climate sensitivity is high. The post includes formula’s and fancy graphs, and looks authoritative — yet underlying everything are errors of reasoning that nullify all the points that rest upon them. Things like assumptions about linearity (which means more or less, they make the mistake of assuming that all forcings and feedbacks operate at similar ratios and strengths when the planet is an iceball as they do when Earth hits a rare warm phase). An unmeasureable variable is the telltale signature of a fudge-factor. It is what you make of it. Fits better in a course analyzing postmodernistic intertexuality of Swahili neo-linguists.

Guest Post by Tel

This “Skeptical Science” post is an excellent choice to show how little credibility there is in the whole feedback house of cards:

It’s important to note that the surface temperature change is proportional to the sensitivity and radiative forcing (in W m-2), regardless of the source of the energy imbalance. The climate sensitivity to different radiative forcings differs depending on the efficacy of the forcing, but the climate is not significantly more sensitive to other radiative forcings besides greenhouse gases.

So sensitivity is all the same regardless of the forcing, but at the same time, it might be different thanks to an “efficacy” which means whatever you want it to mean, in order for everything to have the same sensitivity. Hmmmm, right I think I’ve got it. So what are the units of “efficacy”? Oh, it doesn’t have any units, it is unitless because all factors are scaled relative to CO2 forcing… except we have some of those forcings being solar radiation, others being a gas, and others as particulate matter. What sort of unitless scaling factor can relate particulate counts to solar radiation? Why, CO2 of course! Is that the LOG of CO2 vs the LOG of solar radiation (presumably giving an answer in decibels)? Maybe it is the small signal gain based on the first derivative about some arbitrary operating point? Who knows, who cares, just blurt some numbers on the table, no one is about to check any of this.

In other words, if you argue that the Earth has a low climate sensitivity to CO2, you are also arguing for a low climate sensitivity to other influences such as solar irradiance, orbital changes, and volcanic emissions.

Unless you happen to argue for different “efficacy” factors, in which case you get any result you feel like getting.

In fact, as shown in Figure 1, the climate is less sensitive to changes in solar activity than greenhouse gases.

So some forcings are more equal than others, makes sense. Solidarnosk comrade, we will outlast them.

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7 out of 10 based on 6 ratings

New Here? The “ten second” guide to the world of skeptics

…
Almost everything you thought you knew about man made global warming might be a worthless half-truth.


……………..	The evidence shows temperature controls carbon dioxide (you read that correctly). Temperatures rise first, and CO2 follows. Global warming is real, but it started a century (or two) before our emissions. The world is warmer than in 1850, but cooler than 1,000 years ago, 8,000 years ago, 130,000 years ago, and cooler than most of the history of life on Earth. CO2 is called “pollution” but it feeds all plant-life on Earth. Big-Oil paid some skeptics, but Big-Government outspent it 3,500 to 1, and even Big-Oil spent far more on renewables than on “deniers”. Big Greens used to fight big corporates, but now they are big-corporates. The real grassroots movement are the skeptics who take on the lot.	………………

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Lastly, Big Bankers want us to trade carbon. Think about that.

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The Skeptics Handbook sums up the science (with cartoons)

I used to believe in man-made global warming. Then I found out that there was another side to the story, and I was shocked. The good name of science is being exploited. Over $79 billion dollars has been fed into one side of a scientific question, while almost none has been put into auditing the reports, checking the results, or investigating other theories. (Which National Institute do climate skeptics apply for a job at? Answer: None.) We paid to find a crisis, and we got what we paid for. Thousands of skeptics are working pro bono because they are outraged. Retired scientists and engineers and teams of helpers are independently auditing official reports. They are busting major peer reviewed papers.

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We are being deceived.

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The killer question: How much will reducing emissions cost and how much warming will it save? They won’t name a number because it’s makes a parody of their policy. (See: Shut down Australia and save 0.01 degrees.)

…

Why has this become so big?

In 2009, world carbon markets turned over $130 billion dollars. If a new global carbon market was created it will become a $2 trillion market, the largest commodity market in the world (bigger than oil). Banks want to broker those trades (thank you, ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching). Auditors want to audit the unmeasurable, invisible gas; scientists want their rock star status, grants, and worldwide junkets; WWF would like the $60 billion in carbon credits it expects from buying Amazon forests; Solar and wind want the subsidies; Greens want votes, power and the chance to get control over everything down to the light globes you use, and most pathetically, journalists want to impress their friends at dinner parties. Few are brave enough to risk being called a “denier”. So the gravy train rolls on, and no one asks the obvious questions. Name-calling works, eh?

The PDF reports that sum it up

For the overview of the only points that matters in the science, see The Skeptics Handbook (translated into 15 languages by volunteers). To find out about the massive money poured in and profits pulled out, see Climate Money.

Global Bullies want your money – expands on the money, politics, and science of the first handbook.

To see the pattern of how results are almost always adjusted in one direction, how the “science” of man-made global warming relies on data that’s hidden, adjusted, and on poor equipment, poor placement, and poor methodology, see Climate Corruption. How many excuses does it take?

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The common ground?

Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Yes it absorbs infra red and will probably make the air around it warmer. Did you know, even most alarmists will admit that doubling CO2 will only lead to 1.2 ^oC of warming. That’s the theoretical direct effect (see Hansen et al 1984). Did they forget to mention it? Often when people rave about how much evidence there is, they are only talking about this direct effect and this minor amount of warming*.

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What’s THE bone of contention?

So why are we told the Armageddon of 3.5 degrees, or 6 degrees is coming!? Because their computer simulations assume that humidity will rise, stick around, and that water vapor (which is a more powerful greenhouse gas) will amplify that warming (along with cloud changes and other effects). This is called positive feedback. But, there is no empirical (by observation) evidence that net feedbacks (mostly clouds and humidity) will amplify the warming in the long run.

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9.1 out of 10 based on 70 ratings

The ABC notices the anti-carbon tax rage

Lateline reports on the rising anger among Australians on the carbon tax issue. Though as usual, it does’t actually spend a lot of time talking to the people who understand what drives this movement. Instead the reporter, John Stewart, tries to link it to the Tea Party (but only because presumably he thinks that’s a bad thing, and bear in mind, many people downunder don’t know anything about the Tea Party either). The editor makes sure to throw in Tea party file footage of heated anti-communist remarks — rather than any of the tea party’s carefully considered party platforms. We wouldn’t want to accidentally offer some insight there now would we?

Lateline then tries to suggest the new anti carbon tax movement could be a Liberal Party* front – but that ends up looking rather half hearted when they run out of any substantial connection.

Then they manage to allow someone to throw in the biggest ad hom they can find — wait for it — these protesters are linked (how vague is that) to … skeptical bloggers. And yours truly got a nanosecond of fame with a blog header on the screen (the ABC noticed us:-)). These devious nasty bloggers of course deny the basic science… –that’s the “science” according to one political online activist anyway.

JOHN STEWART: Most of the websites promoting the anti-carbon tax rally in Canberra also contain links to climate change sceptics. There are sceptics T-shirts and caps for sale.

The online activist group GetUp is planning to stage counter-demonstrations.

SIMON SHEIKH, GETUP NATIONAL DIRECTOR: What they’re calling for is driven by climate denialism. They do not believe in the basic science of global warming. They’re anti-progress. But if you look on their websites, they’re also anti-Islam, they’re anti-refugees. These are people who fundamentally don’t support Australia moving forward.

To get a skeptics T-shirt (as mentioned above) visit The Climate Skeptics Shop. I’ll tell you more about this shop soon, but let’s just say I know the business owner — a fellow pro bono skeptic in arms — he’s not doing this for profit, but because he wanted a classy way for skeptics to identify themselves. Any profits will be used to help skeptics like myself keep running. (Thanks).

Lateline ABC program: Conservative uprising targets carbon tax

At the end of the day, the ABC coverage is helpful, but what specifically did viewers learn about what is driving the anti carbon tax rallies? Err… We found out it’s being linked to the Liberals, but they are not driving it, and that left leaning commentators who don’t understand the tea party think the two movements have something in common. (They do, but only that they’re both driven by grass roots anger at the political class of rulers who have pushed voters too far.) We also found out that the opposing political group (Get Up) can always front someone to say ad hominem attacks that the ABC will dutifully repeat, on air, with no substantiation, or right of reply.

That’s because the ABC “thinks” (I’m being generous) that ad homs are the way to understand the climate.

*Liberal Party in Australia, perversely, is a conservative party. It’s wierd I know.

8.2 out of 10 based on 5 ratings

The Big Scare Campaign looks set to claim another political victim

It made my day. The front page of The Australian: Record Labor low on Carbon Fury. Julia Gillards message is finally getting though and the voters are sitting up and paying attention. Where previously, they said “I like the idea of being good global citizens”, the question has changed: now no one is asking your opinion, they’re telling you they want your money and they will take it from you starting on July 1 2012, on every car, tank-full, and trucked banana, on cold days, hot days, rainy days and at night time.

How bad is the news for Labor:

According to the latest Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, Labor’s primary vote crashed six percentage points to just 30 per cent, the lowest primary vote in Newspoll survey history.

How intricately tied to the Carbon Tax plan, announced a little over a week ago, is the bad news?

In just two weeks, Ms Gillard’s personal support has gone from its best since she became Prime Minister in June last year to her worst. It is now the same as Mr Rudd’s failing personal support when he began campaigning for the mining tax in May last year.

As I said, Thank You Julia Gillard.

By announcing the Carbon Tax plan she has provided the catalyst to get the crowd to notice what it means. Am I pleased to see Labor reduced to such a weak point? No. But if they want to reduce the power of the Green vote they need to copy the good green policies and expose the bad ones instead of adopting them. It never made sense to pick the worst most-gullible plan as their “engine of change”.

This changes the playing field.

5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

The Silent Giant Coal Monster

Greg Combet (our Minister for keeping-the-weather-the-same) can keep a straight face when he tells coal miners that their jobs are protected with him. You might think that’s insane, (especially if you are Green) but he has a point. Even if carbon mattered, our coal exports do not. (Not that Combet seems to explain this point very well, he seems to think people won’t notice the contradiction about supposedly “making the big polluters pay”, even though he’s taxing mom-and-dad and partly-exempting Big-Coal).

Australia is the worlds largest exporter of coal, you’d think our production mattered. But Combet knows that it makes no difference at all to the environment if we dig masses of coal up and send it to the Chinese to burn. Australia might have lots of coal, but it earned the ‘biggest exporter” title only because lots of the other contenders forfeited. Basically, we only win because there are not many people living here. Other places dig up a lot more coal, but coal is so handy, vital, and irreplaceable that they keep every last sodding bit, burn it all themselves and have none left over to sell.

Australia sold about $55 billion dollars worth of coal in 08/09, more than iron, gold, beef and wheat. It’s our largest commodity export. Despite Australia making stacks of money selling coal, and using it to power 85% of all our electricity needs, we don’t talk about coal much. Coal has no friends, but it very much keeps Australia going, energy, jobs and money . Keep that thought in mind, as Cohenite shows the entire Australian annual coal production can pack into one Chinese average mining month. Then explain what would happen to the Australian economy if we made our coal more expensive.

Australia might be the world largest Exporter of coal, but that’s only because all the bigger producers keep their coal to themselves.

Guest Post by Cohenite

The major aim of the carbon tax is to cut CO2 emissions by making coal and oil energy too dear. Very few other nations in the world have or propose having carbon taxes despite all the lip service about fighting man-made global warming. So, the argument is that Australia should set the moral precedent by being the first major country [apologies to Kiwi readers] to have a carbon tax. This moral argument is bolstered by claims that vast economic opportunities for business and jobs will follow the imposition of the new tax and movement towards green energy.

However, there is a simpler argument against Australia bringing in, essentially unilaterally, a carbon tax.

Coal Exports are Australia’s largest single export industry. In 2009 Australia produced for sale ~335 million tonnes [MT] of coal, of which ~261MT were exported leaving 74MT for internal power generation. But large as that is, what China produces blows that number away.

In 2009, entirely for domestic consumption, Chinese production was just over 3 billion tonnes [BT] of hard and brown coal.

China is consuming about 40 times what Australia is and nearly 12 times the entire amount that Australia exports.

Keep reading →

8.3 out of 10 based on 6 ratings

Unthreaded

I’ll be away for a week with the family resting on warm beaches, near wandering rivers and spectacular gorges. I’ll be thinking of you. (Actually, I won’t be completely gone, though I may be beyond mobile range, and in uncharted non-NBN territory, there will still be some guest posts thanks to the o-so-talented pool of skeptics around here.)

If you have especially brilliant ideas, hot tips, or your comment goes lost, please email the dedicated select set of moderators at support AT joannenova.com.au. (Please don’t wear out the email address though. There are real people with real lives who have other commitments).

In the meantime, this thread is for commenters… there is so much to discuss. Like for example: the satellite that could have settled this: blown up I hear, and for the second time, how careless? Then there’s the Greenie-navel-gazing as they try to figure out what went wrong. “The long death of environmentalism“.[See here for some commentary.]

Australian Skeptics – put Weds 23rd March in your Diary. We’ll be protesting the Carbon Tax in capital cities. I will be speaking in Perth.

5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

Australian politics churning

Things are hotting up in politics downunder. The immovable force meets the polls. Twenty years of PR catches up on the PM who didn’t do her homework. As Tim Blair says: It’s a meltdown, Labor is seething. Bring Your PopCorn.

“There is evidence the public’s general confidence is being shaken by sudden policy shifts and uncertainty about a minority government; there is growing disquiet, even dismay, among business leaders that dealing with the government on the basis of compromise with a commercially viable outcome is being overtaken by ideological demands.” The Australian

Everything had the semblance of order until Julia Gillard announced the Carbon Tax. Sure the order was only superficial, and we knew dark forces of chaos ran underneath. The policies were based on corrupted science, self-interest ran amok, and the hung coalition was cobbled together with seats that would never have voted green. The government was running the knife edge.

It took 17 days deliberation to arrange the “deal” to form government, and it was said at the time that a hung parliament might be a poisoned chalice. If Julia Gillard promised the independents or greens that she would break her promise to the voters of “No Carbon Tax” then she reaps right now, what she sowed with deceit.

The blogs are alive downunder as the political landscape shifts. I’m not sure there is any coming back from a mistake as big as this. Not only did Julia Gillard break her word, it was on major legislation, a change that affects every transaction, every industry, and every citizen. There’s no pretending this was just another piece of spin. Worse, it was done clumsily, without party room approval.

Keep reading →

5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

Shut down Australia and save 0.01 degrees

The key question — with all the billions spent on cutting Australia’s carbon production: the trade and income lost; the jobs cut; the pain of living near wind farms; the foreign holidays avoided and then paying more for petrol and electricity than we have to — how many degrees will our actions cool the world by?

Assuming the IPCC are right about the effects of CO2, and that Australia stopped producing CO2 entirely (if we all left the country) by 2100 the world would be 0.0123 degrees cooler, and sea levels would be 2mm lower. These are so small they are unmeasureable.

Abandon Australia and save

0.0123°C

The statistics every Australian should know:

Australia produced 1.38% of global human emissions of CO2 in 2011. (EIA, 2011a)
Each year global emissions increase by twice Australia’s total annual output. (2.8%/year (EIA, 2011a). If we all emigrated and left a bare deserted continent, it puts off the warmer Armageddon by just six months.
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6.5 out of 10 based on 6 ratings

How well have the media and PR groups informed us about climate ?

Given the multimillion dollar budgets and advertising campaigns about climate change, it would be safe to assume there was a high public awareness of the most basic facts about CO2 right? But reader Gregg has taken the initiative and gone out and done a survey of 100 people and asked them a few basics and he’s made a valuable point in a prototype survey. The results tell us something about the aim of public education campaigns.

Governments and UN Agencies have enough resources to tell us that climate change will cause droughts, floods, storms, starvation, shrinking glaciers, extinctions, sea level rise, more aids victims, more wars, water shortages, rapes, terrorism, malaria, rabid bats, and biblical plagues of jellyfish (thanks to the Hooterville Gazette for the links to all those). But despite the acres of news space devoted to all these, Gregg’s quick survey suggests not many of our public servants or journalists have done much work to give the public the basic facts or to put things into perspective.

It seems that the average Australian is under the impression that there is 1000 times more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is, and that when it comes to sources of global emissions, people assume we put out about half of all the CO2, when really it’s only 3%.

In a perfect world, a good government would make sure it’s people had all the useful facts, so they could decide where they wanted to put their resources.

In the real world, the government has already decided for them, and it’s aim apparently is to filter the PR so that the public can reach the “right” preconceived conclusion. (An approach also known as “propaganda”.) Hence I can’t see the Climate Committee rushing to tell all Australians they only emit 1.5% of 3% of global CO2.

Question 1. What percentage of the atmosphere do you think is CO2?

Responses: Nearly all people thought it was “20% – 40%”, the highest said 75%, and the lowest estimated 2% – 10%.

Answer: 0.039% or about one thousand times less than what the average punter thought.

Question 2. Have you ever seen the percentage given in any media?

Responses: All said ’No’ or they ‘couldn’t remember’.

Question 3. What percentage of the CO2 is man-made?

Responses: Most estimated it to be 25% to 75%, and answers ranged up to 100%. Only four people thought it was 2 to 10%.

Answer: Human emissions are about 3% of the total.

Keep reading →

5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

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BY HOW MUCH WILL A CARBON DIOXIDE TAX REDUCE AUSTRALIA’S TEMPERATURE?

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The statistics every Australian should know:

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