Goldilocks graphs: not too close, not too far

Have you noticed, the scaremongers are being boxed into reusing the same graph over and over. We sceptics are not afraid of any graph, but alarmists just don’t want to look from too close or too far away…

When skeptics debunk a graph we show the graph we debunk. Not so the carbon-is-a-crisis crowd. The latest trend in graphology-PR is to debunk sceptics graphs by ignoring the graph itself and putting up an entirely different graph.

7.8 out of 10 based on 8 ratings […]

July 7th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: AGW socio-political, Global Warming, Logic & Reason | Print This Post Print This Post | |

The antidote to 150 million quadrillion joules

Oceans are critical to proving that humans are having an impact on the climate.

The big scary number of the week is 15 × 1022 (or 150 million quadrillion). It’s the number of Joules the ocean has apparently heated by since 1961. But convert it to degrees per year and suddenly the big scary 15 × 1022 becomes three thousands of one degree per year. Unmeasurably small. So realists everywhere, lets check the math, and get ready to spread the word. Everywhere you see the ocean heat capacity argument or graph, let people know the numbers just don’t add up.

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED SEE HERE FOR THE LATEST FIGURES.

…

6.8 out of 10 based on 5 ratings […]

July 6th, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Scientists call for Royal Commission* into climate change science

Released today. Four independent scientists respond in detail to the evidence that government scientists claim shows that carbon dioxide causes significant global warming. The real debate continues. After the return fire from the skeptical experts, there was not a single point left standing.

10 out of 10 based on 3 ratings […]

July 3rd, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: AGW socio-political, Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Funded arrogance

Professor Matthew England

The debate that Senator Steve Fielding started continues, this time between heavyweights in Australian climate science. Yet again, the side with the funding, the power, and the large claims is unable to answer basic polite science questions. The pompous arrogance is evident. Why not just answer the question?

Professor Matthew England’s research teams have received nearly $2.5 million in funding from the Australian government, much of it for studying oceans and climate change. So when we need good answers on the topic, he would be the man. If a school student asked for help, we might expect only a two line reply passing on a link. But when the question comes from one of the most informed climate scientists in the country, with 12 years as head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, and it’s about a graph at the centre of legislative negotiations, it’s inexcusable that the reply was vague, poorly reasoned and didn’t answer the question. All this, in a conversation that England himself started.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]

June 30th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: AGW socio-political, Global Warming, Logic & Reason | Print This Post Print This Post | |

The Wong-Fielding meeting on global warming

Finally, the question we’ve all wanted to ask of the people in power: Where’s the evidence?

Senator Fielding holds a crucial vote on the proposed Emissions Trading Legislation. Fielding and four independent scientists faced the Minister for the Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, The Chief Scientist, Penny Sackett, and Professor Will Steffen, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. Read what happened from someone who was there. Joanne Nova

Guest Post by Dr David Evans

8.8 out of 10 based on 10 ratings […]

June 19th, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: AGW socio-political, Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Finally, a politician doing what politicians should do

This is a big step. Steve Fielding in Australia holds a crucial senate vote on the proposed Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). Astonishingly (for a politician) he stands out from the crowd for simply saying the obvious. He wants to “hear from both sides of the debate.”

A simple statement like this should not be remarkable—but it’s so rare. Steve Fielding assumed the mainstream thinking was right, but is now doing what anyone who hasn’t looked at the debate in detail ought to be doing. Some research. It’s a rare occasion when you can see the good side of democracy and free speech in action. He paid for himself to fly to the far side of the world to attend Heartland’s 3rd conference on Climate Change to hear from scientists who are not convinced carbon has a large role to play in our climate.

The Australian newspaper covered it. And Steve expanded today in the Australian on why he went to Washington.

His visit to the Heartland conference has given the Australian ABC enough reason to bother sending a journalist to it (unlike the two previous conferences). See their short coverage from Washington. (Look out for the glimpse of The […]

June 8th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: AGW socio-political, Global Warming, Science Communication | Print This Post Print This Post | |