JoNova

Jennifer Marohasy and ABC’s MediaWatch tribal warfare

UPDATE: While MediaWatch (ABC) is hassling Jennifer Marohasy, Marc Hendrickx at ABCnewswatch responds in kind, posting an excellent open letter to MediaWatch, asking if they can outline their own scientific qualifications to judge Jennifer Marohasy’s scientific work. ABC staff want to know her motivations, but Marc wants to know theirs. And “given that they employ 11 staff full time” and produce “one 15 minute show per week”, do they consider that this represents good value for the Australian taxpayer? Touche!

Brilliant Marc. It’s a must read.

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Jennifer Marohasy has extraordinary influence. She’s so powerful that the ABC’s Media Watch program has singled her out, asking questions about her income and disclosures that they don’t even bother to ask Tim Flannery. Presumably they don’t think anyone still takes Tim seriously.

They sent her a barrage of questions last Friday, which she hammered in a detailed reply on the weekend. I hear they are still sniffing around anyone they can think of who may know something about Marohasy, asking leading questions and volunteering information that isn’t correct.

Media Watch (aka Witch Hunt) thought this was a question worth asking:

[To Jennifer Marohasy] In your recent opinion columns in The Land and you appear to make no declaration to your readers about your long-standing history of public campaigning on the Murray. Do you think you have any obligation to do so?

Would they ask Tim Flannery the same thing?

[To Tim Flannery] In your recent opinion columns in [The Australian, The Age, ABC, SMH, blah blah blah] you appear to make no declaration to your readers about your long-standing history of public campaigning on climate change, the fact you profit from selling books on this topic, that your income as a member of the climate commission is dependent on selling a government policy, or that you own shares in Geothermal Coy which received $90 Million in Government support. Do you think you have any obligation to do so?

The bias is obvious. Activists in the ABC tribe don’t need to explain anything. The pathological ad hominem focus (where did she get her money?!) reveals a stone-age tribal brain and their loyalty to the regulating class. The ABC is yet again, shown to be an intellectual sink.

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9.4 out of 10 based on 117 ratings

Richard Black — the fastest apologist for misbehaving scientists

Black thinks the BBC reported on ClimateGate, instead they rushed to report a “hacking” that may not even have been a hack…

Richard Black thinks the BBC was the first to “report” Climategate in the mainstream press.

@BBCRBlackvia TwitterTired old meme that BBC was slow to report “ClimateGate” is circulating again – for record we were 1st main news org http://t.co/c4sU6puy

But the BBC didn’t report ClimateGate in that story at all. What they reported was a hypothetical hacking of a university in the UK, one which (two years later) still remains a claim that has no evidence in support of. Was it was illegally hacked or legally leaked? Don’t tune in to the BBC for the answer. They don’t even ask the question.

If the BBC had reported on Climategate, we could tell, because they would have reported what the emails actually said, not just the opinions that said “they don’t matter”.

Let’s compare Black’s reporting of Climategate and FakeGate

On ClimateGate, Black waited until after he had a spokesman from the CRU to comment, and having confirmed the emails were from the CRU, Black quoted exactly none of them. On FakeGate, Black posted so quickly that he had to rewrite it after Heartland replied, which happened in the first 24 hours.

With ClimateGate, Black ignored the emails that were effectively public property in the first place and turned out to be real. With Fakegate, Black either detailed or linked to quotes that turned out to be nonexistent (at least, I presume that’s what he needed to “re-work”, where is the original stored?).

Then there’s the point that ClimateGate is material to the scientific practices of lead authors in an issue of major planetary concern; FakeGate is about small amounts of legal, private funding that are irrelevant to the science. Oh yessity, those influential tiny funds from anonymous citizens must be public knowledge, (and forthwith!) but the original raw data of the worlds temperature stations? I don’t think so and stop harassing those scientists.

Point to note: Black is paid by public funds to report both sides of the story in an unbiased manner. The Heartland Institute is not.

With ClimateGate, Black was still referring to it o’ so carefully, as the “so-called ClimateGate“ issue more than two weeks after it happened, even though, by then, there were millions of pages using the term. (Those unnewsworthy heretics and all.) With FakeGate, he picked up the “DenierGate” term within 24 hours, and a month later, as far as I can tell, he still hasn’t used the term “FakeGate”, even though it’s beating “DenierGate” in the google stakes fully ten to one. (On last search “FakeGate scored 420,000 hits compared to DenierGate at 36,000. Now there’s a case study in a PR disaster.)

Black entirely missed the big story in ClimateGate, which was how trusted scientists were flagrantly breaching standards of honesty, good practice and transparency, and were admitting doing scandalous adjustments including “hiding declines”, dodging FOI’s, and colluding to manipulate the supposedly anonymous peer review process. And Black largely missed the big story in FakeGate too, of how an allegedly top researcher, Peter Gleick, stooped to impersonation, trickery and theft to “win” a debate about science. If stealing-to-save-the-atmosphere is permissible, then isn’t adjusting-the-data, or ignoring-inconvenient-data also “helpful”?

If it’s hidden it must be news?

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9.5 out of 10 based on 141 ratings

Climate Coup — The Politics

How the regulating class is using bogus claims

about climate change to entrench and extend their

economic privileges and political control.

Guest Post: Dr David M.W. Evans, 29 Feb 2012, last updated 13 Mar 2012, latest pdf here

The Science

The sister article Climate Coup—The Science (a more mainstream version of The Skeptic’s Case) contains the science foundation for this essay. It checks the track record of the climate models against our best and latest data, from impeccable sources. It details how you can download this data yourself. It finds that the climate models got all their major predictions wrong:

Test	Climate Models
Air temperatures from 1988	Actual rise was less than the rise predicted for drastic cuts in CO2
Air temperatures from 1990	Over-estimated trend rise
Ocean temperatures from 2003	Over-estimated trend rise greatly
Atmospheric hotspot	Completely missing –> water vapor feedback not amplifying
Outgoing radiation	Opposite to reality –> water vapor feedback not amplifying

The latter two items are especially pertinent, because they show that the crucial amplification by water vapor feedback ^[i] assumed by the models does not exist in reality. Modelers guessed that of the forces on temperature, only CO₂ has changed significantly since 1750. The water vapor amplification causes two-thirds of the warming predicted by the models, while carbon dioxide only directly causes one third. The presence of the amplification in the models, but not in reality, explains why the models overestimated recent warming.

Who Are You Going To Believe—The Government Climate Scientists or Your Own Lying Eyes?

The climate models are incompatible with the data. You cannot believe both the theory of dangerous manmade global warming and the data, because they cannot both be right.

In science, data trumps theory. If data and theory disagree, as they do here, people of a more scientific bent go with the data and scrap the theory.

But in politics we usually go with authority figures, who in this case are the government climate scientists and the western governments—and they strongly support the theory. Many people simply cannot get past the fact that nearly all the authority figures believe the theory. To these people the data is simply irrelevant.

The world’s climate scientists are almost all employed by western governments. They usually don’t pay you to do climate research unless you say you believe manmade global warming is dangerous, and it has been that way for more than 20 years. [ii] The result is a near-unanimity that is unusual for a theory in such an immature science.

Sideshows Instead of the Whole Truth

The government climate scientists and mainstream media have kept at least two important truths from the public and the politicians:

Two thirds of the warming predicted by the climate models is due to amplification by water vapor feedback, and only one third is directly due to CO₂.
The dispute among scientists is about the water vapor feedback. There is no dispute among serious scientists about the direct effect of CO₂.

They seek to persuade with partial truths and omissions, not telling the truth in a disinterested manner. Instead, we are treated to endless sideshows. Issues such as Arctic ice, polar bears, bad weather , or the supposed psychological sickness of those opposing the authorities, tell us nothing about the causes of global warming. They divert public attention and the water vapor feedback escapes scrutiny—hidden in plain sight, but never under public discussion.

The Silence of the Mainstream Media

The data presented in Climate Coup—The Science is plainly relevant, publicly available, and impeccably sourced from our best instruments—satellites, Argo, and the weather balloons. Yet it never appears in the mainstream media.[iii] Have you ever seen it?

If the mainstream media were interested in the truth, they would seek out the best and latest data and check the predictions against the data. They don’t.

Global warning has been a big issue for years. Yet all of the world’s investigative journalists—those cynical, hard-bitten, clever, incorruptible, scandal-sniffing reporters of the vital truths who are celebrated in their own press—all of them just happen not to notice that the climate models get all their major predictions wrong? Really? Even though we point it out to them?

Good detectives do not overlook clues. The presented data contains half a dozen clues of brick-in-your-face subtlety. How could anyone miss them? Will the journalists who read this paragraph now follow the instructions on downloading the data, and report on what they find? No.

Perhaps they think it’s all too complicated, that it will make our brains hurt? A story with two numbers is too hard? No, we all understand a graph of temperature over time and can spot trends. Judging by the huge response on the Internet, the public want well-explained technical details about the climate.

The government climate scientists and their climate models said it would warm like this and heat up the atmosphere like that. But it didn’t, just download the data and check.

The media are withholding this data, so the “climate debate” is obviously not about science or truth. It must be about politics and power. Reluctantly, uncomfortably, the only possible conclusion is that the media don’t want to investigate the claims of the government climate scientists. Why? Who benefits?

The Regulating Class

Consider the array of forces in the climate argument:

Believers	Doubters
UN (including the IPCC)	Independently-funded scientists
Western governments	Private sector middle class
Major banks and finance houses ^[iv]	Amateurs (from amore , the Latin for love)
NGO’s and Greenies
Totalitarian leftists
Government-funded scientists^[v]
Academia
Renewables corporations
Mainstream news media

The supporters of the theory of manmade global warming are mainly financial beneficiaries,^[vi] believers in big government, or Greens. They are usually university educated. They generally prefer the methods of government, namely politics and coercion, rather than the voluntary transactions of the marketplace—especially when it comes to setting their own remuneration.

They are an intellectual upper class of wordsmiths, who regulate and pontificate rather than produce real stuff. There is little demand in the economy for their skills, so they would command only modest rewards for their labor in the marketplace. Arguably they are a class of parasites enriching themselves at the expense of producers, because they are rewarded out of proportion to the value they create—value as determined not by themselves, but by voluntary transactions in the marketplace.

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9.4 out of 10 based on 127 ratings

A GONGO idea – a government funded job destruction program…

For pure, circular destruction of wealth, happiness and prosperity, it doesn’t get much better than this. Not long back Greenpeace and co were busted for planning a six million dollar campaign to disrupt and delay the coal industry — and today The Australian reports that three of the major organisations involved received close to $750,000 from the government, for “public climate change activities” raising doubts about whether public funds had been misused.

The Nature Conservation Council (NSW), Environment Victoria and the Conservation Council of Western Australia have received grants of $211,000, $213,215 and $319,420 respectively for public climate change activities since last December.

Environment Victoria and the Conservation Council of WA confirmed yesterday they had backed the development of the anti-coal campaign.

The coal miners are an industry that is legal, employs 40,000 people directly, provides the fuel for more than half our electricity and generates about $13b in tax dollars for the Australian government.

Now if the NGO’s wanted to explain to the rest of us why we ought to decide to reduce our coal mining, that would be fair enough, but they aren’t trying to convince us with reason or debate, they’re trying to disrupt a legitimate economic activity, and manipulate the legal system any which way they can. The headline title of the Greenpeace-CoalSwarm-Greame-Wood-Foundation project was not “Saving the Environment” it was “Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom”, as if that in itself was a worthy goal.

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9.4 out of 10 based on 115 ratings

Prius drivers behaving badly. Upper class more likely to cheat.

Prius drivers may claim they want to help the poor but they are less likely to want to slow down and let them cross the road.

You’d think Prius drivers would hold pedestrians, who emit less carbon, in high regard. But alas, roadside tests show about one third of Prius drivers broke crosswalk laws, putting the Prius drivers in the most-unethical-driver class. (As with all generalizations we ought remember that two thirds of Prius drivers did the right thing.) The common factor among unethical drivers was that shiny expensive cars were three times as likely to plow through the crosswalk. It’s not so much the hybrid, or the greenness, it’s the status…

In a final experiment, the researchers took their hypothesis to the streets. At a busy intersection in the San Francisco Bay area, the team stationed “pedestrians” at crosswalks, with instructions to approach the crossing at a point when oncoming drivers would have a chance to stop. Observers coded the status of the cars’ drivers based on the vehicles’ age, make, and appearance. Drivers of shiny, expensive cars were three times more likely than those of old clunkers to plow through a crosswalk, failing to yield to pedestrians as required by California state law. High-status motorists were also four times more likely than those with cheaper, older cars to cut off other drivers at a four-way stop.

In an interesting twist, about one-third of Prius drivers broke crosswalk laws, putting the hybrid among the highest “unethical driving” car brands. “This is a good demonstration of the ‘moral licensing’ phenomenon, in which hybrid-car drivers who believe they’re saving the Earth may feel entitled to behave unethically in other ways,” Piff says. (The Prius results were observed but not analyzed for statistical significance in the study.)

Source: Science Mag

It could be a case of moral-licensing — the sense that drivers are helping the community by driving the hybrid car, so they are entitled to be a more selfish driver. This occurred with Green shoppers too. People who bought more “green” items were less generous when dividing up money and more likely to lie in tests where there was a financial reward.

But the real culprit could be status. The bigger implications of the study show that when people consider themselves higher up the social scale they are more likely to cheat, and when classes are split according to income, the upper class are more likely to lie, deceive, and take from others.

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior

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9.3 out of 10 based on 50 ratings

China finds the odd 200 years worth of fuel

Who isn’t finding shale gas these days?

To whom shall we sell all those super-costly solar units, that we will supposedly be “world leaders” in?

China reveals 25tn cu metres of shale gas

Financial Times

China announced the results of its most extensive official appraisal of shale gas reserves on Thursday, having found potentially recoverable resources of 25.1tn cubic metres – less than previous estimates.

Although the figure is lower than an earlier estimate of 31tn cubic metres, China is still believed to have some of the largest reserves of shale gas in the world and has been working to develop shale gas as a cornerstone of its energy policy. The new estimate is enough gas to meet the country’s current consumption for nearly 200 years if fully extracted.

As Richard North points out, this changes everything:

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8.6 out of 10 based on 58 ratings

Finkelstein — Yes please. Just try it…

Welcome to Australistan.

I haven’t read the whole 400 page Finklestein report, but Mark Steyn tells me that the Chinese government likes it. What more do you need to know?

As Steyn says, this is not a left-right thing, it’s a free-unfree thing.

Tim Andrews at Menzies House launches a New Free Speech Campaign: “This is a proposal that would seem right at home in North Korea or Zibmabwe. I never thought – as dark as things seemed- we could stoop this low here in Australia”.

People asked me if this would “affect your blog”. Ha ha, I laughed, Will it? Right now, I’m discussing whether I’d need to move to Fiji, or Florida, or become a citizen of the Dominican Republic in order to express my views. Could I split my blog into a different domain name each day to avoid being “monitored”? ( I could have 365 blogs: joannenova1.com.au, joannenova2.com.au… it would play havoc with the search engines.) Alternately, perhaps I write 100% satire, cartoons, irony, and the exact opposite of what I mean? Ho Ho. Who has the rule book on the Soviet black market for ideas? What can we learn and how does it translate in this Internet era?

If all this legislation achieves is to force me to invite Tim Flannery to do a post here, all I can say is Yes Please. Bring it on. But we all know that requirement would mean that instead of gaining “balance” we would gain silence. Because Flannery only has to say “Sorry I’m busy for a decade” and what, Joanne Nova has to hold all her posts until he finds the time? Paradoxically, though we could use the legislation to force the ABC to mention the unmentionable — except that in the end, selective enforcement by an unelected Big Brother team would decide what information was “safe” for Australians to read. And that pro-big-government team already thinks the ABC provides enough skeptic content (i.e. almost none).

They pretend it’s about serving the public. But the Finklestein report is aimed at skeptics and disabling the Murdoch newspapers, and the submissions were mostly from professional lobbyists. The “bias” category lists skeptic crimes according to well known warmists. Eighty-six percent of the 10,000 submissions the Inquiry received were boilerplate copies from Avaaz (foreign group), GetUp or “NewsStand”. GetUp support Avaaz, and NewsStand turns out to be a front for GetUP. All of them say they are for “Free speech” (as long it’s pro left-green speech). Avaaz and GetUp betray their lack of principles,when they run open “hate media” type campaigns against Murdoch papers.

Simon at Australian Climate Madness points out the futility of trying to stop an international information flow. “The Australian government cannot legislate regulations to take effect over media organisations outside Australian jurisdiction, without bipartisan agreements between those other states. I do not foresee this happening – for example in the US, the First Amendment prohibits any law infringing on the freedom of speech or the press.”

But then, if the government control the fibre-optic cables, perhaps they really can block overseas sites. Is that why the Labor Party thinks renationalizing Australian telecommunications into the NBN (National Broadcast Network) is “good value” so they can bring sanitized propaganda to every home? Will skeptics laugh at the toothless tiger from overseas sites, or end up broadcasting from moving vans via CB radio? Will anonymous twitter-hack networks spring up to defeat the ruling? Either way, the nation spends more of its intellectual wealth fighting a bureaucratic maze instead of fighting lies, half-truths, and Gongo-ideas.*

The power of one voice

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9.5 out of 10 based on 141 ratings

Monbiot — Steal things and be a “democratic” hero?

Showing the intellectual depth we’ve come to expect from progressives, Monbiot argues that the public debate on atmospheric dynamics would be improved by knowing who-funds-those-who dare speak against the government experts.

It’s as if the truth of future tropospheric warming comes not from weather balloons, but from bank accounts and budget papers.

What words do Heartland print that are so dangerous, forthwith, such a public hazard, that we must know who funds the paper they are printed on?

(Dear George, when private citizens choose to speak, it’s none of your business whether they got funding or not, and who paid them if they did. It’s about science, not motivations. Data trumps funding. Debate the message, not the man. If you think Heartland promote lies, just explain what they are. Your megaphone is bigger than theirs, and if you asked to speak at a Heartland Conference to correct their views, I’m sure they would welcome it. It’s called free speech and may the best argument win.)

According to Monbiot, stealing is not just alright, it’s heroic. Your goods are mine, comrade. Too bad if you object.

I see Peter Gleick, the man who obtained and leaked the devastating documents from the Heartland Institute, as a democratic hero. I do not think he should have apologised, nor do I believe that his job should be threatened. He has done something of benefit to society.

I believe we have a right to know who is paying for public advocacy. The groups which call themselves thinktanks but look to me more like lobbying organisations working on behalf of corporations and multi-millionaires, exist to try to change public policy. Yet, with a few exceptions, they operate in a vacuum of accountability.

There are three problems with this (for starters):

1. It works against free speech

In the world of Monbiot, before you are allowed to say what you think you not only need to give us your whole full name you need to declare all your income, and the names and addresses of any sources of income (including donors). Now, that’ll really encourage people to speak up, and donate to causes they believe in, won’t it? I guess if you’ve captured government funding and have all the experts on your side, suppressing free speech seems like a natural fit.

2. It buries the real debate

Life is short, time is precious, and there is only so much room on the public soap-box to solve major public issues. How does it help humanity to fill it with clutter? What public service is gained from loading pages and airwaves with discussions of exactly which person funded another person who is pointing at inconvenient data from NASA satellites? The data is what matters; the emails, addresses, and names do not. Sure, if that person is speaking as an elected representative, or is spending public funds, then yes we need transparency. But if they are private citizens, and take no money from the public purse, any attempt to demand private information is just another way to shut down or distract us from the debate on the points that matter.

3. Who decides what qualifies as a “public benefit”?

Is it just God-Monbiot who can arbitrate on what is or isn’t in a public benefit? There was a man called Breivik who thought his work on Utoya was “for the public benefit” too. That’s why we have laws, and why no one is supposed to be above them.

It’s not “democratic” at all, it’s pro-establishment and anti-citizen

Demanding that private citizens must declare donations for groups and associations they support, hands more power to the bureaucratic rulers and takes it from the people.

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9.4 out of 10 based on 108 ratings

The Moons’ influence on the atmosphere over Australia

We know the moon changes our tides, but can it also change our rainfall? Could the moon also cause tides in the atmosphere? Some researchers have found such periodic movements in air above 3000m. Some have suggested that the moon drives the cyclical shifts in the Length of Day (LOD) that occur on a fortnightly and seasonal basis.

Ian Wilson has been scouring the data quietly for years, following these ideas, and has found a link between lunar cycles and the sub tropical high pressure ridge that occurs in summer over the East Coast of Australia. He noticed there were 9.4 and 3.8 year cycles which match periods in spring tidal cycles. What matters is how close the full moon is to perhelion (the closest point Earth comes to the Sun). It’s yet another piece of the puzzle that the IPCC favoured models ignore.

The lunar forces are, not surprisingly, smaller than the solar one, and as the abstract points out: “it is not so much in what years do the lunar tides reach their maximum strength, but whether or not there are peaks in the strength of the lunar tides that re-occur at the same time within the annual seasonal cycle.”

It remains to be seen how his hypothesis stands up in the long run, but it’s yet another example of a genuine research avenues that are not being followed by government funded researchers who are heavily funded to find connections between CO2 and climate, but not so much to explore all the competing possibilities. Only open research and genuine curiosity will help us to truly predict the climate, inasmuch as it is possible to do so. Farmers, people living in flood zones, town planners, and dam managers desperately need models that predict the climate, instead of models that just give fashionable answers.

Long live the spirit of relentless curiosity.

–Jo

Lunar Tides and the Long-Term Variation of the Peak Latitude Anomaly
of the Summer Sub-Tropical High Pressure Ridge over Eastern Australia

…

[PDF available from Bentham Open]

Guest Post by Ian Wilson

The main take-home conclusions from this paper are that:

The most important influence upon the climate of Northern NSW and Southern Queensland after the La Nina/El Nino phenomenon is the Peak Latitude Anomaly for the Summer Sub-Tropical High Pressure Ridge over Eastern Australia (L(SA)).
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8.7 out of 10 based on 36 ratings

FakeGate beats DenierGate in google war: DeSmog disaster spreads

In the big battle for the meme-of-the-moment, Fakegate has won.

DeSmog can’t be too happy about this. Google “DenierGate” and get 67,000 results, but google “Fakegate” and get 168,000.

UPDATE #2 March 14: FakeGate is now 6 times as popular. (“FakeGate” 420,000 results v “Deniergate” 69,000)

What do you know? Stealing things, breaching privacy, and exposing nothing but tiny funding isn’t catching on. As a PR faux pas this is a case study in implosions. DeSmog have inadvertently shone a beacon on the real David and Goliath story here, where the Big-Oil funding isn’t so big, and the real money is on the side who pretends they are “doing it for the planet”. Worse, between them, DeSmog and Peter Gleick have arranged a public ethics challenge for ethically challenged scientists, and a mass-media bias-test for biased journalists. The spectacle of scientists debating if it is OK to steal, and journalists making excuses for criminal activity, is doing as much damage as the original theft and overreaction. It’s so bad, even the Koch Brothers (target-number-one) can take the unassailable high ground (see below).

Fakegate google search hits

deniergate google search

Note the auto-prompts: When it’s “FakeGate” it’s news, but when it’s Deniergate, Google queries the spelling … Did you mean: “denigrate”?

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9.5 out of 10 based on 111 ratings

The Guardian: CO2 Apocalypse Now! Volcanoes, earthquakes, awaken subterranean giants

The Guardian “Climate change will shake the Earth” (parroted by the SMH) is feeding the pagan masses who worship The God CO2. Which would be fine, except they pretend that it’s science when it’s the “hell” part of any religion. If you drive your SUV too far you, sinner, will bear the blame for earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides. The mystery, we wonder, is why they forgot pestilence and plagues?!

Try this on. I’m quoting them: “So what – geologically speaking – can we look forward to if we continue to pump out greenhouse gases at the current hell-for-leather rate?”

“we could almost certainly say an eventual goodbye to the Greenland ice sheet, and probably that covering West Antarctica too”
“a 10-metre or more rise in sea levels.”
“these could trigger submarine landslides spawning tsunamis capable of threatening North Atlantic coastlines.”
[More]” landslide activity would be inevitable in the Andes, Himalayas, European Alps…”
“acting to squeeze magma out of susceptible volcanoes that are primed and ready to blow.“

Oh, Lordy. And what major study are these dire pronouncements made on? Why, someone called Bill McGuire has noticed a lot more volcanoes lately. That’s it.

He seems to have trouble keeping things in perspective.

The bottom line is that through our climate-changing activities we are loading the dice in favour of escalating geological havoc at a time when we can most do without it.

Sure, there has never been a worse time to deal with disasters: all those neolithic cave dwellers, and preindustrial people coped so much better with volcanoes and earthquakes than we do now.

Unless there is a dramatic and completely unexpected turnaround in the way in which the human race manages itself and the planet, then long-term prospects for our civilization look increasingly grim.

Grim? Here’s “Grim”

Among other things, Bill-the-vulcanologist seems to have overlooked the worst volcano in Human history, namely Toba, a supersized supervolcano of a magnitude 8 (and there is no “9” in that scale). It was so big it blew up in Indonesia and left 3-6 metre (10-20 foot) deep ash as far away as India. For all that Mount Pinatubo was a decent volcano, Toba blew off 200 times as much. In what was truly a global disaster of civilizational proportions, genetic studies on homo sapiens show a bottleneck in our gene pool at about the same time. It’s theorized that we were almost wiped off the planet — almost extincto-humanoidia.

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9.3 out of 10 based on 76 ratings

Australian teachers — pick up your free copy of Ian Plimer’s new book

The Education Department and the CSIRO push their propaganda and scare our children with apocalyptic, unscientific scenarios.

They are even trying to target pre-schoolers. The ABC has accepted grants from the Climate Change Foundation to work the Climate Change message into ‘DirtGirl’, an ABC4Kids TV. Then there are demonstrations of bias like this from a school in Sydney.

They’re trying to train the next generation to “think” their way. We’d be mad to let them get away with it.

Thanks to the Gallileo Movement and donors, 300 FREE copies of Professor Ian Pilmer’s new book ‘How to get expelled from school’, are available to schools in Australia.

The Galileo Movement’s aim is to expose the unscientific claims made by climate change scientists and political attempts to unnecessarily control our freedom and future prosperity. If you are a teacher or you know one, you can help ensure that your local school library has a balance of books on climate change science.

Can you convince your Federal, State or Local member to talk the local school on your behalf?

The books are available to schools within Australia, all they need to do is fax a Purchase Order from their school to Connor Court, the publishers, on fax number (03) 5303 0960.

Free offer for Teachers: Details here

My review of the book

8 out of 10 based on 47 ratings

2012 bloggies winner :-) Best Australian and New Zealand Blog!

thank you to everyone who nominated and voted and for me. Cheers! Jo

———————–

Update: Sorry for the brevity, it was sent from a smart-phone-and-dumb-keyboard, on this beach. Yes, it’s a much needed holiday. Great place to get the news! 2012 Bloggies

Thanks to the guest authors who contributed including Michael Hammer, Brice Bosnich, David Evans, Frank Lansner, Anton Lang (TonyfromOz), Geoffrey Sherrington, Ken Steward, Chris Gillham, Indur Goklany, and David Lappi, Anthony Watts, and Chrisopher Monckton and the moderators who work anonymously as volunteers without whom I could not keep the comments open.

Thanks of course to all the commenters, from whom I learn so much.

Merci!

PS: Skeptics are sweeping the floor in the bloggies. Make no mistake, the mainstream media makes this so easy for us by ignoring independent scientists with a cutting message. The truth is winning 🙂

CONGRATULATIONS to Watts UP for picking up two awards — Best Science or Techonolgy Blog, and The LifeTime Achievement Award! And to Tallbloke’s Talkshop , Steven McIntyre (Climate Audit ),

9.6 out of 10 based on 158 ratings

Unthreaded (updated)

There is much to say this weekend and I’m still at the beach… so here’s the Sunday thread. Jo 🙂

6.7 out of 10 based on 38 ratings

Unthreaded Weekend

I’m at the beach, it’s your turn to write 🙂

7.9 out of 10 based on 30 ratings

FakeGate: The sound of a meme collapsing

Heartland have released both emails that Peter Gleick wrote under his name (below) as well as under a false name. The deceit is there for all to see. Heartland have at all times behaved impeccably. — Jo

From James Taylor at Forbes.com

The real story in this Fakegate scandal is how the global warming movement is desperate, delusional, and collapsing as global warming fails to live up to alarmist predictions. People with sound science on their side do not need to forge documents to validate their arguments or make the other side look bad. Also, people who are so desperate as to forge documents in an attempt to frame their rivals are clearly not above forging scientific data, studies, and facts to similarly further their cause. It is both striking and telling how global warming activists have failed to condemn the acts of forgery in the Fakegate scandal.

CLIMATE CHANGE WEEKLY #39
FAKEGATE ILLUSTRATES COLLAPSING GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM

Why would a prominent scientist/global warming activist commit acts of fraud and theft against global warming skeptics and then send to the media a forged document containing fictitious, over-the-top schemes that would embarrass skeptics? Answer: Because global warming activists cannot muster sufficient credible science to win the debate.

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9.3 out of 10 based on 78 ratings

Malcolm Turnbull Flashback 2009: Conservatives will be wiped out if skeptics win

This is so apt this weekend. The Ghost-of-Malcolm-Turnbull-leadership is channeling a message for the Labor Party. Listen carefully to him and do … the opposite.

Turnbull’s uncanny ability to get it 100% wrong

From reporting by Richard Black (BBC)

Friday 27th November 2009

The issue (Climategate) is proving thorny enough to have split the opposition Liberal party, some of whose senators have rebelled against leader Malcolm Turnbull’s pledge to support the measure; and the government is planning to have another go at passing the bill on Monday.

It could even lead to a general election, with Mr Turnbull warning that the party risks annihilation if the rebels hold sway:

“We would be wiped out… the vast majority of Australians want to see action on climate change.”

The Coalition chucked the bill, and chucked the leader, and instead of oblivion, went on to poll 55-60%.

The Labor Party struggled, fought, wheeled and dealed, flat out lied, and got that climate change legislation through, and face… whats the word? Annihilation.

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9.1 out of 10 based on 80 ratings

Phase change: Australian politics turns liquid

Who says it’s only Rudd versus Gillard? Abbott came from nowhere.

Australia may have a new Prime Minister as soon as next week. Former PM, Kevin Rudd has just resigned from his Foreign Ministership so he’s going to challenge the current PM, and it could be any day.

Here in Australia everyone seems to be saying it’ll be either Rudd or Gillard… but think back to the way another candidate can emerge when the heat is on. That’s what happened to the Liberals (our conservatives) when Abbott appeared.

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9 out of 10 based on 63 ratings

Is stealing OK? Alarmist climate scientists don’t know – “in tumult!”

The Guardian: Gleick apology over Heartland leak stirs ethics debate among climate scientists

Whoops. Suzanne Goldenberg unwittingly exposes how empty the Ethics Vault is in establishment climate science. Peter Gleick used a false identity to steal documents, and released them without permission and without an effort to redact private irrelevant details. So let’s ask climate scientists if stealing, deception and breaching privacy is OK. It’s a yes or no choice, is it a/ heroic, or b/ misguided? We’d hope a ten year old could get this one, but Goldenberg tells us that its thrown “the scientific community into tumult, with fierce debates…”. Oh.

The correct answer was not even on offer in the Guardian: c/probably criminal.

So when is stealing OK?

Other (scientists and activists) acknowledged Gleick’s wrongdoing, but said it should be viewed in the context of the work of Heartland and other entities devoted to spreading disinformation about science.

Here’s a face-meet-palm-moment: if Heartland is spreading misinformation on science then why not try explaining where their science is wrong, rather than just repeat this mindless, unsubstantiated claim?

As it happens, if Heartland wanted to spread “disinformation” it sure seems an odd strategy to go out of their way to invite establishment climate scientists, and even Gleick himself, to speak at their conferences?

In this upside down world, Heartland are the ones trying to start a science debate on a shoestring budget, while the establishment scientists, with 10,000 times the funding, debate whether they should steal things instead.

The so-called “hero” scientists hurl names and unscientific ad-homs in lieu of evidence and reason.

Goldenberg didn’t do enough research to understand that she is acting as an unwitting tool of activists, quoting preposterous falsehoods that are known to anyone who can enter “climate science, controversial, skeptic” into a search engine (see ClimateDepot, and btw Bing is better). Dear Suzanne, there are lots of polite scientists who can help you, you just need to ask.

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9.6 out of 10 based on 100 ratings

Gleick admits his guilt – deception used to get documents in FakeGate – apologizes

BREAKING: Peter Gleick admits admits he’s the one who assumed a false identity and emailed Heartland so he could steal their private documents. His apology marks, finally, a small turning point in the PR scandal and ethical vacuum.

UPDATE: So when will DeSmog retract it’s false claim the documents came from “an insider”? When will they admit they were fooled, didn’t bother to check the veracity, and don’t care about putting out accurate information?

His answer doesn’t quite put all the pieces together. The fake document has a timestamp just prior to DeSmog and others releasing it, so it is not the “anonymous document” he refers too.

At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute’s climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute’s apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it.

Given the potential impact however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget. I forwarded, anonymously, the documents I had received to a set of journalists and experts working on climate issues. I can explicitly confirm, as can the Heartland Institute, that the documents they emailed to me are identical to the documents that have been made public. I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication.

I will not comment on the substance or implications of the materials; others have and are doing so. I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved. Nevertheless I deeply regret my own actions in this case. I offer my personal apologies to all those affected.

Andy Revkin get’s it right:

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9.3 out of 10 based on 106 ratings

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Lunar Tides and the Long-Term Variation of the Peak Latitude Anomaly
of the Summer Sub-Tropical High Pressure Ridge over Eastern Australia