John: But everyone wins a prize in this raffle – we’re going to save the world!
Bryan: What from?
John: Everything!
Bryan: What does Everything do?
John: Everything does Everything, Bryan! Droughts, floods, heatwaves, blizzards, hurricanes, volcanoes, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, species extinctions, plagues, pestilence and starvation. And that’s only for starters…
PS: I’m touring at the moment with Monckton, sorry for the gaps between posts. It’s much fun all round, especially as journalists try to trip him up and come unstuck, as did the ABC this morning, when Adam Spencer was so angry that Christopher had excellent answers to all the questions that he hung up mid-interview. Ouch for him. Monckton was nonplussed about this interview, so much so, he couldn’t remember who the interviewer was he told us the story this morning.
Why don’t the interviewers do their homework and read the answers the Monckton has given to Abrahamson and others before they try to “enjoy” scoring points? These are the holes you might step in if you don’t read both sides of the story. When will the believers wake up and realize they’ve been living in a groupthink bubble?
As I’ve said — Monckton puts on a clown disguise, arrogant interviewers think that it will be an easy kill, and they get shocked when they discover the man is razor sharp and so used to be being attacked he has an answer before they ask…
The presentations in Newcastle went very well. There are many well informed and dedicated skeptics there.
From Andrew Bolt:
“Listen to Spencer’s attempt to discredit Monckton without tackling his arguments here and, and post hang-up, here.”
I kid you not. Chris Mooney at Desmog has got the data that shows skeptics were more literate and numerate than believers, and he wants to share it.
Last week, an intriguing study emerged from Dan Kahan and his colleagues at Yale and elsewhere–finding that knowing more about science, and being better at mathematical reasoning, was related to more climate science skepticism and denial–rather than less.
When faced with the news that smarter more mathematical people were skeptical of man-made global warming, it’s a sure bet that as a Desmogger, he would fail to reach the obvious conclusion. Are believers gullible fools who can’t see the flaws in the reasoning? No. Skeptics are more literate and numerate about everything else, except for climate science, when they become dangerously overconfident and seek only to use their intellect to punch holes in the theory. Its not like these bright types have anything else to do is it? Of course.
This is bad, bad news for anyone who thinks that better math and science education will help us solve our problems on climate change. But it’s also something else. To me, it provides a kind of uber-explanation for climate skeptic and denier behavior in the public arena, and especially on the blogs.
Anson Cameron makes a PR contribution in the big fog of the Climate War (Please: don’t dump the Monck), and I must say that it’s more sophisticated than the 50 religious academics who have no answer to Monckton and are terrified he might — God-forbid — speak.
Cameron’s been called out from somewhere to go into damage control. The pro-tax-team might be catching on to the idea that academics and clumsy GetUP campaigns have helped the skeptics no end. (Ta boys!)
Cameron’s better than the brutes-of-silence, and pretends to be oh-so-sensible and wise, but in the end the pretext that underlies his commentary is a joke. He can point to lots of keywords that are ripe for mockery, but when it comes down to it, Mr Cameron can’t explain why Monckton is wrong on the climate. Oh, he can link to Real Climate and mention the Stefan-Boltzman equation, but can’t explain it (I assume, or he would have; this is his only substantial point after all).
Cameron resorts to ad hom after ad hom, probably doesn’t realize how anti-scientific that is, and pulls out all the usual Monckton Voodoo doll points to stick pins in. But, when it boils down to it, what we are reading, thanks to our tax dollars and the ABC, is essentially the scientific opinion of a fiction writer (Lies I Told About a Girl, Tin Toys, etc etc) who can’t explain why Monckton is wrong, but reckons that the blog site realclimate is right and Monckton is wrong.
I guess poor cad, no one has told him that realclimate is run by the same guys who withhold their data, use tricks to hide declines, turn graphs upside down accidentally, and base much of their work around a tree species known to be the wrong one for the job.
This is, of course, par for the course for a quality piece of ABC “science discussion” (aka propaganda). Ergo, Ad hominem Unleashed strikes again.
Put Anson and Christopher in a room and let them go head to head over the Stefan-Boltzman equation. Cameron’s climate science knowledge would be crushed to dust, ground into the floor, and blown away by the first light breeze.
All of the questions and answers herein must be reproduced in full: otherwise none of my answers may be disseminated in any form, in whole or in part.
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Q. I’m mainly interested in your reaction to the petition that’s been going round in Western Australia urging Notre Dame to cancel your visit. Is this an issue of free speech?
I understand that the petition makes the following assertions, to which I shall respond seriatim:
Primo, I am alleged to have circulated “widely discredited fictions about climate change” and to have distorted the research of countless scientists.
Please specify three instances in which I am thought to have circulated “widely discredited fictions about climate change”, with a clear citation in each instance of my ipsissima verba, and provide evidence, in the form of at least five peer-reviewed refutations in each instance, that the widely discredited “fictions” are indeed fictions.
Please specify 25 instance in which I am thought to have “distorted the research of countless scientists”, with a clear citation in each instance of my ipsissima verba, and with evidence from each of the scientists in question that he or she has directly criticized my work from their personal knowledge of it, rather than from hearing a distorted account of it via an interfering third party, and with evidence in each instance from the peer-reviewed literature that the scientist’s criticism is justifiable, and with evidence in each instance that the scientist in question is unaware of any peer-reviewed literature that might reasonably be held to support my alleged “distortion”.
Menzies House are reporting that GetUP are so scared that some Australians might hear Christopher Monckton speak, that they had a campaign to get the Brisbane Broncos football club to break their contract and cancel the “Climate of Freedom” speeches by Monckton in Brisbane.
GetUP are a virtual arm of the Labor Party, being funded by Unions*. They’ve already removed the “idea” where someone boasted they’d axed the Bronco’s deal. (Did anyone save a screen image? Pass it on 🙂 )
They are desperate! They know they have no answer to what Monckton has to say, and that Monckton convinces people everywhere he goes, so their only option is smears, slurs and banning him. GetUP have become ShutUP.
We don’t ask to silence them. We know if people hear both sides of the story they’ll make up their own minds, and we look forward to that happening.
Their plan will backfire, and could prove a media bonanza for us. Right now, scores of people are phoning the club to express their disappointment that the Broncos turned out to be spineless puppies, obeying their masters, caving in to “pressure” and not standing up for Australians.
We can thank the global warmers for one thing. Their claim that the sky is falling got people like me to investigate. What I found was that global warming is exactly wrong. Instead of warming, our planet is cooling as solar activity weakens.
The heating effect of carbon dioxide is minuscule. It is lost in the noise of the climate system. That is why the temperature of the planet today is exactly the same as it was thirty years ago. On top of all that, the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere is dangerously low. All living things would be better off if we had more of it in the atmosphere.
You have not been told that before because the global warmers have corrupted all the institutions that are meant to serve us. The CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, the universities, have all sold their souls, and sold the Australian People down the river. Those institutions we once respected are now venal and not to be trusted.
Global warming is a litmus test for our politicians. If they believe in global warming, they are easily deluded fools.
That leads me to a useful outcome from this debacle. Global warming is a litmus test for our politicians. If they believe in global warming, they are easily deluded fools. Either they are easily deluded fools, or they are Australia-haters. Because surely by now they would be aware of the economic damage the carbon tax would do to Australia. Yet they persist, and this tax has come back from the dead.
So far, it has been people like you and me who have taken on the responsibility to protect Australia against the depredations of the carbon tax. Our politicians are easily cowed, and a lot of them don’t seem to care even if they could tell the difference between right and wrong. Our academics have met our lowest expectations of them.
Dante said that the darkest recesses of hell are reserved for those who remain neutral at a time of great moral crisis.
Missing in action are the major companies who have the resources to sort right from wrong, and who should be working to protect their factories, their workers, their shareholders, their customers and the society they operate in. The society that has trusted them with a role to provide for the common good. But they do nothing, and have reneged on their side of the bargain with Australian society. This madness would be so easy for them to stop, if only they would choose to do so.
Dante said that the darkest recesses of hell are reserved for those who remain neutral at a time of great moral crisis. That time is now, and most of our major companies have condemned themselves to the darkest recesses by their inaction and silence. Then there are those who do worse than that, and actively connive against the Australian people.
On the 24th of March, the Prime Minister herself provided us with a list of the names of these companies. These are companies who, instead of contributing to greater wealth for all, would rather feed on the shrunken carcass of an enfeebled Australian economy. I will now read the Prime Minister’s list of conniving companies.
Origin Energy
AGL
BHP
Santos
Shell
Insurance Australia Group
Westpac
These are the companies that wish ill on you and your children. They would sell the Australian people into the slavery and oppression of the carbon tax so that they can get their own snouts deeper into the trough. It is your patriotic duty to avoid these companies as much as you can.
These are the companies that wish ill on you and your children. They would sell the Australian people into the slavery and oppression of the carbon tax so that they can get their own snouts deeper into the trough. It is your patriotic duty to avoid these companies as much as you can. Withhold the blessing of your custom. If you need petrol, and it is a choice between Shell and some other brand, for Australia’s sake, for your children’s sake, for God’s sake, choose the other brand.
It’s all become a media frenzy. Who would have thought that holding an opinion about climate sensitivity due to a trace gas could become a reason to mark someone as an untouchable heretic? Venues are being canceled (and new venues arranged), the media are hunting in packs, and the university witchdoctors are coming out to show how neolithic (but politically correct) their reasoning is.
And they think they are so civilized.
They are stone age tribes with smartphones.
University Witchdoctors — collapse under the hypocrisy of their own reasoning
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s serious. We can no longer stand by and watch as once great institutions embarrass themselves with childlike efforts to silence dissent.
Natalie Latter, a PhD Student at UWA, wrote a letter, endorsed by a few other academic types (who ought to have saved her and themselves from such an embarrassing mistake):
“Lord Monckton propounds widely discredited fictions about climate change and misrepresents the research of countless scientists,” says the letter. “With zero peer-reviewed publications, he has declared that the scientific enterprise is invalid and that climate science is fraudulent …
“Only last week one of your leading newspapers, leading columnists, wrote a column saying that people like us should be gassed,” he said.
“No apology and none of you have gone round to her house and thrust microphones in her face and said don’t you think you’re being a bit unfair.
“So there is very plainly a nasty double standard here.”
Latter’s current research is a PhD thesis on the intergenerational and global ethical dimensions of climate change. It’s not like she has any conflict of interest then is it? And nor is it likely that she has published any papers in radiative physics, or analysis of climate feedbacks. Yet such is the poor standard of academic quality at the formerly great University of Western Australia that she doesn’t realize that when someone without any publications demands that someone else without publications be silenced because they don’t have any publications, she’s wallowing in abject hypocrisy.
Over the last month there has been a great deal of coverage in the Australian media of the death threats and abusive emails that have targeted Australian scientists working on climate change. These threats are fuelled by misinformation spread by figures like Lord Monckton and the distorted coverage that they receive in the Australian media.
Yes, let’s look at the death threats. These are the same ones that are two rehashed 1 – 5 years old “threats”, and mostly not death threats, and not worth reporting to the Australian Federal Police. Those who make wild exaggerations claimed they were given new swipe cards for security, yet the whole Chemistry Department got new swipe cards (thanks Brice Bosnich for letting us know). These people are serial exaggerators of the pathological kind. They are the team who send up hate-mail through the media all the time. Deniers ought be jailed, tattooed, gassed, and it’s “funny” ha ha if we blow up their children, right? Memo to Natalie, research means reading both sides of the issue.
There are two protests coming up in Sydney. Friday – tomorrow with David Archibald in Martin Place, and Saturday week with myself Christopher Monckton and David Evans at Hyde Park on Saturday 9th July.
Click on this link to see the Monckton tour dates.
Click here for other protests around the country.
If you live in or near the electorates of Greenway (NSW) and La Trobe (Vic) groups are forming. Please add a comment below or email me to find out more. If you want to start a group to meet like minded people, Holler!
Click on the image to see a larger one.
THE HUNTER VALLEY — SAYING NO TO THE CARBON TAX RALLY
Saturday, 2nd July 2011 1pm Foreshore Park, Newcastle see Facebook
Shouldn’t the government know what the benefits and costs of the carbon tax are before they make it into law? This is looking awfully like a case of “policy first, justifications later”.
First they promised they won’t do it. Then they do it, and they ask for even more of our money so they can pay PR hacks (introduced to us as scientists and economists) to tell us how fabulous their unwanted plan is — after all, the Climate Change Commission has no purpose other than to advertise the Carbon Tax. Then there’s a $12 million advertising program. But wait, there’s more…
Amazingly, there are now $250,000 grants (how many?*) from the Department of Climate Change to anyone who can persuade the public to accept the carbon tax!
If the government had thought this through, they’d already know why they wanted to bring in the tax. (Or maybe they did think it through, but are afraid to tell us the real reasons?)
As it is, they’re only bringing in the tax because 12% of the voters voted one green member into the House of Reps, and it was the price paid to keep Gillard in power. But for most Australians that’s not quite sufficient reason to fork out hundreds of dollars per person each year. It’s a tough call to “sell” that to the other 88% of the voters.
This is not rule by the people for the people. This is the rule of the elite self-anointed superior beings who “know” what is right for the rest of us.
Where do I apply for a $250,000 grant to teach politicians and teachers the basic laws of logic and reason so that they might protect us from scams, con artists, and schemes to control the weather, issued by witchdoctors who do not even promise to “cool” the world by more than an unmeasurable thousandth of a degree? Can someone point me to that department?
Let’s apply for a further $10 million to make sure all Australian children understand that argument from authority is the mark of totalitarian dictators, and that those who silence dissent (by paying to promote one side of the story, and denigrating critics as Nazi sympathizers) are acting in their own interests to deceive the public.
Thank God for the Internet.
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*UPDATE: Thanks to Dave in comments, apparently there is a $3,000,000 total.
Almost no one has gone from skeptic to believer on global warming. The conversion flow is nearly all one-way traffic. But on the Skeptoid site, author Craig Good is a “convert” of a sort, and I have to give him credit for writing the most sensible advice yet for believers of man-made global warming (see below).
But before anyone gets too excited, the two key questions here are: how much of a skeptic was he, and what did it take to change his mind? Answer, not much and not much.
This is not a big believer-awakening-moment of the Mark Lynas type, or another Judith Curry sort of conversion. Both of those were active, involved and outspoken in the climate debate. Craig Good’s entire skeptical position can be summed up in a few paragraphs, so yes, he qualifies as a skeptic, of the gut-hunch-it’s-wrong-but-haven’t-read-a-single-skeptical-paper-type skeptic.
If there are grades of skeptic from 1 to 10, he was only a 2.
So here’s the flash of insight, that’s never been seen before from alarmist circles
This is great stuff (if blindingly obvious):
To my friends on the Left: Do you want to convince more skeptics? I mean really? Is the truth more important than your politics? Great. I have some suggestions.
Stop calling people “deniers”. That’s very clearly a slap in the face, designed to link skeptics to holocaust deniers. Maybe it plays well with the base, but you’ll make no friends nor influence people with that kind of disrespect. Don’t poison the well.
Stop calling it “climate change”. That’s a weasel-worded political phrase that dances around the real issue. It looks stupid. Of course the climate is changing. It always has! If the problem isn’t human-caused warming, there isn’t a problem. So call it what it is: anthropogenic global warming.
Stop blaming every unusual weather event on global warming. “We blame global warming” has become a joke on the Right, and for good reason. Scientists need to do a better job explaining why a global average temperature change so small that nobody could feel the difference (how about I warm your room up a half a degree and see if you can tell?) can change weather patterns in a way that some places might actually get colder and some weather may get more intense – sometimes. But blaming every heat wave, hurricane, tornado and earthquake on global warming only confuses the issue. It’s hard enough for most people to understand the difference between climate and weather.
So what was his epiphany?
He watched a Dr. Gleick who was polite, and then read things on skepticalscience.
To my friends on the Right: Are you willing to follow the data? Good, because if nothing can convince you to change your mind, your mind is closed.
Exactly. Follow the data. What data though? You mean the raw numbers that the CRU team lost, or the data Michael Mann hides, or do you just mean the “data” on meaningless things like the number of climate scientists who tick “yes” on a 2 minute internet survey? (And since we are asking, what do you mean friends on the Right? I thought this was a science question?)
Check these out. There’s been an ongoing war of ideas, Hayek vs Keynes, for eight decades and counting — and these videos sum it up consummately. This ongoing academic fight has shaped lives and countries for decades: booms, busts, unemployment, and possibly even wars.
Indeed it’s an ominous sign of the times that there is a resurgence of this debate. (The masses take no interest in monetary policy when times are booming.)
(If you are in a tearing hurry, skip the first minute).
I’m not a rap fan, but this is so good that, for the first time, I have to admit rap has its role.
There’s a second in the series and it’s even better.
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There are parallels between climate and economics. Using global markets against “man made global warming” is a Keynesian solution to the weather.
The big left-right divide is not about conservative versus progressive. The “progressives” want us slow down, and give up cars, flights and air conditioners, and the “conservatives” fight to keep development rolling. Ultimately the left right dichotomy boils down to the individual versus the collective. Thus Keynes (the big government solution) is the collective end, and Hayek (let the free market decide) makes the most of individual intelligence and choice.
On these YouTube videos, the Keynsian econs students wield jargon with flair in the comments, but ultimately, they miss the point. Could Keynesian “stimulus” packages be good at some point in the economic cycle? Sure. But do we have to have a cycle? If there were no low interest rate fueled booms, there would be no need for stimulus bailouts when it busts.
Fame and rewards go hand in hand with being a champion of collective action. It suits those who hold the largest purse strings in the land. Those who oppose pumping that purse, always push against the tide.
The Hayek team stands up for individual rights, and has few big backers, not government agencies, not bankers, not big business. The skeptics stand up for individual rights — for the right not to have liberties and finances confiscated for no good reason. If the skeptics win, millions benefit. But if alarmism wins then, like when Keynesianism reigns, big government and some financial institutions grow larger — government power and patronage increase. Paradoxically skeptics work to benefit all the people equally, yet have few collective backers. Even the large fossil fuel companies have put more money into renewables, or carbon trading, than skepticism.
This review of a book on Keynes is worth reading. My favourite snippets from a fascinating struggle:
Click on the image to go to a fully interactive infographic where you can find out just how much money people have buried, I mean, invested in clean energy in your country. It’s nifty.
Have you ever thought about how lucky we are that only kind-hearted helpful souls are involved in the erstwhile cottage industry known as “renewable energy”?
Imagine if a less-than-scrupulous agent got into these green-fields of money, and frolicked in the vast acreage of subsidies, schemes, and easy loans? Where would we be? The public would think the people and the industry were here to save us, the industry could prod levers of government to encourage more subsidies and pro-renewable energy legislation. The “cottage” industry could also pay for and help write reports that the government then used in order to convince the people to put more of their goods and chattels in the public-trough. In variations on the circular theme, the industry could apply for grants from the government to help pay for the reports it wrote for the government to help it earn even more subsidies, or to cripple it’s competitors. (eg. See here).
Thus deadly positive feedback would spiral out of control.
Then imagine it wasn’t just less-then-scrupulous renewable energy fans, but if money-hungry-profiteers from large well financed houses were set loose in a global trough?
Ponder that it doesn’t take a less-than-scrupulous operator to fund an army of full time emissaries-of-green as PR agents and lobbyists. Any honest businessman would do it, and no one would fault that. It’s just advertising and networking.
Even a small percentage of $243 billion worldwide buys quite a lot of lobbying. It’s time the world woke up and realized that renewables are no longer a small time struggling industry. They might not produce more than a tiny percentage of the goods and services, but they’re a large multinational conglomerate force.
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? )
“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.
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.
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.
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 literallythousands of pages of skeptical informationon 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.
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. 🙂
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.
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.”
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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