Here’s a topic close to my heart. Before I became involved in climate change and currencies, my hot topic-of-choice for years was medical research and health. In my honours degree I worked to get a tiny step closer to treating Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. When I saw that The Australian Government was threatening to cut medical research, I wanted to put a razor fine point on just what muddy thinking costs us. This article I wrote is published in The Weekend Australian today. We can’t afford to get the decision wrong on climate change. We must fight the battles that matter, not build fortresses against imaginary foes.
Wasting money on climate change betrays sick
- Joanne Nova
- From: The Australian
- May 07, 2011 12:00AM
LOST opportunities are invisible but deadly. On climate change, the call to buy insurance by pricing carbon is a cop-out. Where is the cost-benefit analysis? We’re thinking of axing Australian medical research yet we’re supporting solar panel manufacturers in China. It doesn’t have to be this way.
All the money spent employing green police, subsidizing solar or researching how to pump carbon dioxide underground is money not spent on medical research. Opportunity cost is a killer. The path not taken could be lined with happier, longer lives. Only the best evidence and real debate have a chance of helping us see through the fog to pick the better road.
While most scientists agree CO2 causes some warming, there is great debate about just how much. If CO2 has only a minor effect on temperature then spending, say, $1 billion on inefficient roof-top solar panels is not just wasted money, it’s a choice that will kill people. We won’t be able to say exactly who it will kill but we can virtually guarantee that some people will die in the future who could have been saved.
Why? Solar energy costs us more than five times what coal-powered energy does. So instead of spending $1bn on solar panels, we could have spent $200 million on cheap electricity and used the other $800m to double our medical research budget.
Why? Solar energy costs us more than five times what coal-powered energy does. So instead of spending $1bn on solar panels, we could have spent $200 million on cheap electricity and used the other $800m to double our medical research budget.
Right now, the government is planning to cut $133 million from our $800m annual medical research budget. The Australian government has spent or will spend $3.8 billion dollars to combat climate change across four years. (The US government was spending about $7bn a year at last count.) When Julia Gillard spends money on climate-related work instead of medical research, she is making a choice about the net benefits and it’s supposedly based on science. It’s true sooner or later medical research will get the answers right, but for someone who is sick with a deadly disease, sooner makes a life-and-death difference.
If our government-funded climate establishment makes the wrong guess about what humidity does in a warmer world, CO2 emissions become trivial and inconsequential. But the money diverted or delayed from better causes leaves a trail of destruction that cannot be repaired. Money can always be replaced, but lives lost are gone for good.
“Which four-year-old in 2018 will die because Gillard introduced a carbon tax instead of increasing medical research funding? “
Julio Licinio, director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, put together a passionate, disturbing advertisement two weeks ago, a plea to stop cuts to medical research funding. His sister died aged four from a disease that is treatable today.
Which four-year-old in 2018 will die because Gillard introduced a carbon tax instead of increasing medical research funding? Which father will die in 2022 who would have lived if we had doubled our funding for medical research? It is for people such as four-year-old Fabiola that we should keep fighting for rational debate. Bad science makes for bad policy. Poor reasoning is deadly.
Medical research is blossoming at a phenomenal, historic pace
The exponential curve in gene therapy, telomerase research, genomics and glycobiology is barely beginning. Four significant breakthroughs were made in medical research in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000. These were the kinds of breakthroughs people had worked for decades to make, and some were not predicted even a few years beforehand. The human genome project was finished five years ahead of schedule and for a fraction of the expected price.
Right now, a year of medical research really does make a difference. These are the areas where we will be left behind and it will hurt. These are the industries where we need to stay at the head of the pack, not just to save lives but to save the economy as well. Access Economics estimated in 2003 that every dollar invested in the Australian health research and development sector returned at least $5 in national economic development.
What would we rather export ten years from now? Ten-year-old second-hand Chinese solar panels or an Australian made cure for prostate cancer?
When government-funded Australian researchers discover treatments, we own vital intellectual property. We not only export products the world wants, we avoid being beholden to foreign patent holders. Some effective cancer drugs cost $2000 a week. Isn’t that the kind of research we want to own?
If we lead the world in medicine, the world is our oyster. If it turns out clean carbon technology is useful, we can buy it with the spare change from the profits of medical research. We know we need a cure for cancer. We don’t know if the rest of the world will want to pump CO2 underground 10 years from now.
When we lead the world in putting inefficient solar panels on roofs, we only help Chinese manufacturers and we win a race no one wants to win. You can’t export second-hand solar panels or resell old pink batts.
Can we start looking at the cost benefits of all our policies instead of reasoning by fallacy? The precautionary principle is no principle of science: it’s a blind tool that works for both sides of any debate.
“In 1964 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma of childhood was 100 per cent fatal. Now the cure rate is over 80 per cent, thanks to medical research. When Fabiola died I was so upset that it took me decades to recover. From protracted mourning to survivor guilt, the impact of that death shaped my life. For someone like myself who suffered tremendously due to a disease [that] was incurable and whose cure has been subsequently achieved through medical research, the proposed cuts to the NHRMC [National Health and Medical Research Council] budget are unconscionable.
“On a very positive note, my mother, Aurea, lost her own mother early on. My grandmother died at age 47 due to malignant hypertension, which was out of control, and sky-high blood pressures. My mother suffered enormously because of that death; and she knew that she had the exact same disease. Later in life, my mother also developed breast cancer. However, medical research always caught up with her and her blood pressure was always well controlled. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer she had state-of-the-art treatment, guided by medical research. My mother died in 2007 neither from hypertension nor from breast cancer. Medical research gave my mother 40 years of active, happy and highly productive life.”
Joanne Nova is a commentator and the author of The Skeptic’s Handbook. She is a former associate lecturer in science communication at the Australian National University.
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The Australian article.
The federal budget will be announced on 10 May. There is still time for you to write to your federal member to voice your support to protect medical research funding.
The photo above — so poignant — is from the advert.
Support Medical Discovery Australia (Professor Licinio’s blog)
Discoveries Need Dollars A campaign initiated by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Even if you don’t live in Australia you might benefit one day from research done here. Why not voice your opinion?
Other articles published by Jo Nova in mainstream media.
——————————-
My reply to the follow up to this article in the Australian
The Greens and Warmisters won’t get IT because Fabiola wasn’t their child.
The Greens and Warmisters have already stated their desire to reduce the population.
There can be no greater priority than the health and welfare of our current children, for if we can guarantee their survival then they in turn will pass on and enhance that guarantee to their children.
20
Cancer, heart Disease, or other diseases affect a large number of people – either directly (they have it) or indirectly (their loved one does). But none affect all people. So they created a new bogey man –
Anthropogenic Gobal warming–Global Climate Change–Global climate disruption– CAGW to hoodwink all the people all the time. They forgot you cannot do that, and in the process of trying to fool all the people all the time, the neglect – or even cheat – avenues of research that have a concrete and direct benefit to society as a whole.20
A superb article Joanne.
Bringing this alternative perspective to the massive expenditure on trying to control the climate will resonate with many.
Do keep up your excellent work.
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Well put, but I fear that politicians care less about dying children than the next poll cycle. It certainly doesn’t hurt to make this clear and logical point to the readers. If it sways a few more voters to the side of reason it is worth it, because it will be reflected in the polls, and that is what drives the superficial politicians.
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Jo
I am alive today, and have had nearly sixty years of additional life that I would not have had were it not for medical advances made seemingly just in time to save my bacon.
My most recent adventure has been the insertion of stents via an artery in my groin into a blocked artery in my heart. And I watched the procedure! How do they do that? How many have had their lives saved by this procedure alone, worldwide?
Just think, the life expectation of those born in Britain in 1900 was just 47 years! My great-uncle was just 23 years old and acting resident medical officer at the Middlesex Hospital in 1893 when he died of diphtheria, for goodness sake. 20 years before he was born, only about 2 out of 5 children survived until they were 5 years old.
I don’t think I am being ‘over the top’ when I say that paying for more climate research at the expense of medical research, is criminal folly.
Great article, Jo, and what a haunting photo of Fabiola.
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Why would any logical person choose to cut funds for medical research, even if they won’t bite the bullet and cut spending on Climate BS surely there are other expenditures where savings could be made. This mob really need to step back and take a good look at themselves, my brother has Asthma and I remember the attacks pre Ventolin, what a difference that small thing made to his and countless other lives, how many lives need to be sacrificed on the altar of Climate BS Virtual Reality computer models when so many could be saved in the real world?
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Speaking of wrong decisions, here’s some detail on the upcoming WA Budget in The West:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/9332606/no-funding-for-stadium-in-budget/
Note in particular the reason for increased electricity costs:
WA householders can elect to pay for renewable energy by notifying Synergy that they wish their electrons to come from earth friendly sources. This forces the providers to source electricity from renewables – something which is auditted. The fact that less than 9% of WA’s electricity comes from renewables proves that over 90% of WA residents prefer cheap electricity over inefficient renewables. Funny that…
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Maybe our medical researchers will find a cure for the tunnel vision which afflicts the AGW faithful. Judging by their track record, there is certainly a need for more research into their mental illness which precludes rational debate and results in policy-based ‘evidence’.
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Maybe our medical researchers will find a cure for the tunnel vision which afflicts the AGW faithful. Judging by their track record, there is certainly a need for more research into their mental illness which precludes rational debate and results in policy-based ‘evidence’.
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Good on you Jo for highlighting this hypocrisy.
Keep it up.
Ken
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It all depends on how much you value a life, all life or even a philosophy. You may not get the answer that you want from a cost/benefit analysis, if it is simply based on our willingness to pay.
I spent a year and a half working as a research officer in the area of obesity and Type II Diabetes. I found it quite absurd that so much money is spent in trying to treat the associated chronic diseases when we know that a healthy lifestyle is the answer. When basic knowledge is not successfully applied would a cost benefit analysis suggest spending more money on medical research?
It is time for a thorough review of our research ‘industries’ (including cost benefit analyses and objective analysis of the funding system and consequences). I would rather see money spent on serious reform than feeding the machine.
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What those on the other side of this discussion* are really concerned about, is population growth.
They look at the worldwide statistics for population trends, and see no end to the growth. With one planet, they reason, we will consume ourselves into extinction. In biology, there are plentiful examples of specific species in limited habitats that have done precisely that.
They also reason that a direct appeal to lower the population through argument or legislation will not achieve the reductions required in the timeframe necessary to prevent a population disaster. China was the laboratory for an experiment in using legislation for population control, and though the experiment still continues, it has not given any indications of achieving the desired results. In fact is has many unintended consequences.
What they discovered is that Home Sapiens, in spite of our sophistication, still retain a very strong individual, familial, and specie survival instinct. And survival is still dependent on the family/tribe/collective society used by the other great apes.
“Others can reduce the size of their family, but I want my Aunties and Uncles to be around if anything happens to my parents”
Direct intervention does not work.
So the indirect strategy adopted, was to look for a global phenomena, with the potential to be dangerous and therefore frightening to humans (because it played into the survival instinct), that could be used to a) decrease the rate of consumption in the short term; b) lower the average life expectancy in the medium term; and c) reduce the total world population in the long term.
The answer is weather. Weather is dangerous in large amounts, and always makes the news.
In the global sense, weather becomes climate, and the job of the politicians has been to transfer the natural fear of extreme weather into an overall fear of the climate in general, and in doing so, find ways in which mankind, and by inference the growth of global population, can be blamed as the root cause of all of the extreme weather events.
This has been happening for about forty years or so, and for a while there, it looked like it might just work.
But what has changed the game, and done so in a significant way, is the Internet. Not because of discussions like this, as important as they are, but because people from around the world have only recently (in the last twenty five years or so) actually come to understand the vast differences in living standards and life expectancy between a New York banker, and a Mongol herdsman. And they have been able to juxtapose those standards of living, and those life expectancies, with the average number of children that each has. New York banker – 2.3. Mongol herdsman – 6.8. The difference is a matter of security in old age, or if the parents get sick.
So now the population argument is in the process of morphing. Rather than directly trying to frighten people into using less resources, the new strategy is pursuing a goal of equitable distribution of resources through taxation, levies, industrial relocation, et cetera. Not, as we might think, to make the affluent nations poorer, but to raise the living standard of the poorer nations, so that they will have less need to have large families for security reasons.
Of course the cynics like me will point out that all they are doing is redistributing the number of children per family, whilst maintaining the same overall average, and maintaining the same rate of growth. But that is another argument.
The point of this diatribe is to highlight that living standards of the New York banker are significantly dependent on having plentiful access to good medical care and pharmaceuticals. The less things there are that can kill you, the longer you will live. Governments that subscribe to the above scenario (and it is most governments in the west) will be reluctant to put money into medical research if it will increase, or even maintain, the current rate of population growth. It presents them with conflicting strategies, something that they are not wired to comprehend.
Health research is an important issue, and people need to know about any reduction in funding, and it may even be a game changer come the next election, but do not expect a change in policy, even if there is a change of Government.
* Avoiding the pitfall of labels
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Government penny pinching is great at making bad medical decisions. It is clueless because thinking is stuck in silos. Money spent on medications is closely scrutinized by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. Medications have to be cost effective to be subsidized. They keep people out of hospital. So when the medication budget rises, they want to cut it back, which means downstream it will bubble out as hospital expenditure.
The lunacy of thinking about medical research cuts could be lunacy or could be carefully schemed media manipulation to shift the focus from something else – a large budget deficit perhaps.
Please spend some money to prove that CO2 can actually cause a warming effect counter to the usual 2nd law of thermodynamics. (IR radiation by CO2 molecules can somehow pump heat uphill is what climate scientists believe.)
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Jo,
This goes with government decisions having NO ACCOUNTABILITY for their decisions in policy.
They would work far more carefully if they were accountable for what they do.
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Great article Joanne, and great to see you getting airplay, does politics interest you, we can only hope. I would like to start a campaign against compulsary voting, I strongly believe the uneducated disinterested voter votes green or radical or independant, I would love to have the FPTP UK voting system, I beleive common sense politicians prevail with non compulsary voting, to many crackpots are getting through the system with what we have.
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John F: #15
Why not form an, “Abstain” party? That way, people would still have to vote, but could effectively avoid voting for any of the other parties.
You never know, you might just get into power, and be able to absolutely nothing that is useful.
Oh, but wait! Isn’t that is what the other parties already do?
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Well we can’t expect any improvement if educated idiots like Dr. Karl exert any influence.
Just heard him on radio making the usual appeal to authority. “All the world’s leading scientific bodies agree…” says Dr. Karl on AGW. He didn’t differentiate between AGW and natural climate change.
Looks like some really do study to be stupid.
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I would like to add my positive feedback Jo. What a wonderful article for shifting perspective – for those of us who still think people are important! Time to attack that climate gravy-train and expose it as unethical.
I have to agree with some of the other comments though. To Greenies, people now are not important. People dying, as Rereke # 12 pointed out, is population control (just so long as it’s not their own at which point they start squealing and demanding medical intervention).
The true believers of AGW will still absurdly argue that fractions of a degree warming (or cooling) will kill more people in the long run and hence we need to keep throwing billions of dollars at this ‘might-be’ problem.
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Excellent thought provoking article that reminds us we live in an imperfect world that is improved for all of us only through human endeavour. Which is contrary to the claim, underlying climate alarmism, that the Earth and its environment was a Garden of Eden which is being increasingly despoiled by the activities of humans. Thank you Jo and glad to see the Australian has published it.
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800 million is peanuts in research terms. It would almost be better to send our brilliant minds to america where they would be provided with the resources to actually achieve something. Then we could provide protection from malaria for 53million families by providing them with a $15 mosquito net.
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The CAGW pols have dug themselves in SO deep that they can’t afford to wobble or waver in their attempt to commandeer the nation’s resources to leverage the Narrative and make the economy totally dependent on their “subsidy” decisions.
That is: once “Renewables” are the only permitted option, every part of the economy will be dependent on government for energy rations. Nirvana!
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i say don’t cut health funding cos i’m feeling sicker by the day!
remember these headlines in recent weeks?
Woodside signals war over carbon tax
Woodside joins anti-carbon tax camp
Carbon tax risks LNG exports: Woodside
LNG giants push for carbon tax exemptions
well, herald sun’s olga manages to get a CAGW HEADLINE out of the following!!!
7 May: Herald Sun: Olga Galacho: Woodside boss Don Voelte says he would welcome a carbon tax
One of the world’s biggest producers of LNG, Woodside would welcome a price on carbon if it did not compromise its competitiveness, he added. “We are not against a carbon price. We would be happy to go to a market-based tax, or link it to a regional effort to reduce carbon.”
Later, he told a media briefing he did not oppose the carbon tax and would be happy to encourage the Federal Government to pass carbon-pricing legislation, but with a trigger clause. Only when the rest of the world priced carbon should Australia follow suit…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/woodside-boss-don-voelte-says-he-would-welcome-a-carbon-tax/story-e6frfh4f-1226051400698
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Great article Jo. Spending priorities have consequences, and it’s about time the Government woke up to the fact.
10
feeling sicker by the minute! paddy manning can’t believe the scepticism…
7 May: Sydney Morning Herald: Paddy Manning: Corporate leaders in a climate of disbelief
Scepticism hung heavy in the air. At a packed Australian Institute of Company Directors lunch on climate change, the institute’s former chief executive, Ian Dunlop – a petroleum engineer who was a Shell executive and now is the deputy convener of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil – rose to put a question to keynote speaker, David Mortimer, the chairman of Leighton Holdings, the world’s biggest contract coalminer.
In full, Dunlop’s question ran for three minutes: ”The temperature increase we’ve seen so far is about 0.8 degrees Celsius. We’ve already seen a clear trend in extreme weather events related to just that increase. We probably have locked in already a temperature increase of around 2.4 degrees. If we were to follow the path that you’re suggesting in terms of continued fossil fuel usage to 2030, the likely outcome will be a temperature increase somewhere between 4 and 6 degrees. That probably means world population drops to a carrying capacity of somewhere around a billion people (you can argue 1 to 2 billion)….
http://www.smh.com.au/business/corporate-leaders-in-a-climate-of-disbelief-20110506-1ecgh.html
FES Brookings Institute: Governance Challenges in Financing Green & Sustainable Energy Policies
Ian Dunlop: He chaired the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88. From 1998-2000 he chaired the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading which, under the Howard government, developed the first emissions trading system design for Australia…
He is Chairman of Safe Climate Australia, Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a Director of Australia 21, a Member of The Club of Rome, a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, and a member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Climate Change Task Force.
http://www.fes-globalization.org/new_york/ny_assets/IanDunlop-Comments.pdf
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Yes indeed.
Better to spend in areas where we see real return and results. And what better than health and wellbeing?
Wouldn’t it be great if the health system was never an issue at elections because it just worked well? Surely we can achieve this. As a small country we are never going to have an impact on the global climate buut we could save millions of lives on a realistic timescale with a single research breakthrough in cancer or infectious diseases. These are realities we can achieve.
Brava!
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The communists did NOT disappear after the fall of the USSR, they infiltrated the “Environmental Movement” to continue to purse their agenda !
The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev…….
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/kohlmayer051107.htm
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Rereke Whakaaro@12:
Yes, you are right, climate change is just a symptom of too many people. It is one of many problems that will arise from overpopulation.
However, the cure for overpopulation is simple. Look at Italy – with no harsh policies whatsoever, the birth rate has plummeted below replacement level. In the developing world, simply educating and employing women will drastically lower the birth rate (although its not politically correct to criticise the patriarchal arab countries where this most urgently needs to be implemented).
This also brings us to how we structure an economy so that it will work without ever increasing consumption. On the surface, you’d think this would not be hard – but it will be an uphill battle against human nature. Of course you won’t change human nature, but you can change the way it is expressed, and that is what we need to do.
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Jo, your argument is odd. You appear to be saying that if we spend money to avoid global warming, then people will die because of failing to spend on medical research.
Just for a second, concede that global warming will be problematic, that it will kill people. Then medical research and action on global warming are both competing for dollars to save lives. There will be a balance which maximises the number of people kept alive. Its not one or the other, its both.
But since you start from the belief that global warming is either not happening, or will be very limited in effect, then every dollar spent on global warming is a dollar that could have been spent more usefully on something else. So in that sense, your argument makes sense.
The odd bit, for me, is that rather than equating a dollar spent on global warming with a dollar not spent on medical research, I’d equate it with a dollar not spent on war.
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John F@15:
It is not compulsory to vote in Australia – only compulsory to turn up to a polling booth and get your name crossed off.
As for first-past-the-post voting, its great if you plan to divide and conquer. You can win a seat with 60% of the electorate definitely not wanting you. All you need to do is make sure that your opponents split the vote against you fairly evenly among themselves.
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Well said Jo. This is one of the main tracks we need to push in the next few weeks.
Following is my own little effort for the week, in reply to an ABC request for Lateline topics.
“Subject: Pollution associated with wind farms and turbines”
Although it’s too much to hope that you would deviate from your totally biased approach as regards every facet of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming scam, it would be good (indeed amazing) if you presented some of the downside of Greens/Labor proposed “clean” renewable energy schemes (which of course don’t include the obvious options of hydro and/or nuclear)!
Just Google “Baotou and pollution” and link to the UK Daily Mail expose’. They’ve already done the work but you and other MSM have made sure it’s not known in Australia!
Fri, 6 May 2011 09:38:47 +1000
RE: WWW Form Submission
Thanks for your email. It’s much appreciated and you we will keep it in mind. Please stay in touch and keep us posted if you see anything you think should be on Lateline.
Best
Jo Puccini
Supervising Producer
Jo Puccini
Thank you for your not unexpected reply that you would keep the Baotou expose’ in mind as I’m 100% sure that’s where it will stay – in mind!
You have probably saved any viewers Lateline has left from the distressing sight of rabid Labor warmist Tony Jones choking on his words giving them information from the other side actually based on known and provable facts instead of computer-modelled alarmist drivel!
Heaven forbid that as Australia goes down the gurgler due to the lying efforts of Gillard,Brown,Combet, Milne, Wilkie, Oakshott, Windsor, Flim Flam Flannery, Karoly et al; the once respected ABC would provide some balanced reporting.
It appears that along with balance, integrity, commonsense, logic and real investigative journalism have left the ABC Building!
In the old once respected ABC (and yes, I’m even old enough to remember that) the Four Corners Team would have been all over this story like a rash!
So in reality, thank you for nothing, but at least you will not be able to say you were not aware of the pollution at Baotou!
Yours in deep frustration and genuine sadness for those who will suffer under the unnecessary, environmentally useless and economy destroying Carbon Tax,
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[…] On climate change, the wrong choice kills people either way […]
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Sure John, as soon as you provide empirical evidence that positive feedback occurs in the long run.
Good to see you got that point. Phew! I’m feeling pleased with my ability to communicate.
Congrats. Except that I don’t “start from the belief” that AGW not happening. Remember. For 17 years I started with the belief that it was. Then the evidence changed my mind.
As for your comment on war. I’d love to cancel defense forces, bombs, guns and stuff the world over, and simultaneously, but I’m not a God. Are you?
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Of all the reasons to oppose AGW, this probably the best.
As for the argument that curtailing population is the answer to AGW, assuming it exists; this is ironic because the most effective social contraception is prosperity and individual freedom; cheap energy is the mainstay of both of these social attributes yet the AGW supporters want to get rid of cheap energy and individual freedom! At best advocacy of AGW measures is cognitive dissonant, at worst it is misanthropic and oppressive.
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Ha, JB a god!? The god of gaps perhaps.
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Some more consequences of these communist green (RED) policies……..
Impoverished SE Europeans turn to wood for heating
http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/impoverished-se-europeans-turn-wood-heating-news-494816
Maureen’s madness – Today Tonight – CAN’T AFFORD POWER BILLS.
This poor lady will probably DIE!
http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/article/9037985/consumer/maureen-madness
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John F @ 15
I have always hated the idea of ‘compulsory’ voting but it was because I didn’t like the idea of people who didn’t care and hadn’t even bothered to understand the issues, being forced to vote when they didn’t want to. It has always appeared to be a type of ‘bullying’ to me.
Now, after watching the absurd development of the AGW and environmental debate and being forced to pay more attention, I have learned from asking seasoned political campaigners that compulsory voting is indeed a problem for Australia.
This is why: Straight from the mouth of a seasoned political campaigner….
start quote…
It’s a strange idea, but our democracy is founded on the distinctly undemocratic notion that people are compelled to vote thus, when the Party Faithful who are committed to Liberal, Labor, One Nation, Grey Power or Cold Power are removed from the voting pool then those that remain determine the election
They are the swinging and uncommitted voters.
And what is it that binds these highly powerful individuals together? Who are these heavy-hitters who get to decide who runs the State?
The short answer is that many are political morons.
The thing that unites them is their dislike of politics and mistrust of politicians. They won’t read policy headlines, they won’t believe promises. They won’t trust a word a politician says. To them a politician is a professional liar in a shiny suit that gets paid too much for doing it.
Most uncommitted voters wouldn’t turn up at the booth if they didn’t have to; but fear of a fine for not doing so has the unintended effect of making them the ultimate arbiters of who actually governs. It’s completely inappropriate. It’s like asking Mike Tyson to run a rape crisis centre.
It is this group at which the majority of election campaigning is directed. They are the most persuadable target group, so electioneers spend most time, effort and money persuading them to vote for them. Actually, that is not exactly true. Most of these people can’t be persuaded to vote for them. They won’t embrace anything they say, they won’t believe their promises and even though they don’t know what their policies are, they know that they are a nonsense.
To them, voting is a negative, not a positive act. It is a vengeful act of punishment, not an endorsement.
end quote
It makes it rather easy to frighten these people into believing that we have an impending disaster if we don’t impose a tax or a new raft of legislation don’t you think?
Also Jo, it’s very unfortunate but it would appear that these same extremely powerful morons have simply lost interest in medical research and medical breakthroughs. They find the weather and dangerous climate much more interesting and believable.
How ridiculous!
I also don’t need to worry about them reading what I have just said about them because they won’t be visiting a site like this one!
This is an excellent article and congratulations for having it published in MSM.At least the politically literate will understand.
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They won’t be visiting this site because they get all their information from places like the Daily Telegraph and Today/Tonight & Aunty etc…
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The reality of global cooling should be enough reason to stop this waste. http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ Now back online!
Sea surface, 0.23 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
Near surface layer, 0.36 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
14000ft, 0.42 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
25000ft, 0.5 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
36000ft, 0.46 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
46000ft, 0.48 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
56000ft, 0.55 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
68000ft, 0.43 degrees C Cooler than this day last year.
102000ft, 0.21 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
118000ft, 0.03 degrees C cooler than this day last year.
March UAH global temperature 0.1 deg below the satellite average.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
Australia below average temps for twelve months:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=meananom&period=12month&area=nat
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Congratulations Jo.You wisely wrote in moderate terms,an approach which is likely to appeal to the majority of Australians,who thankfully are still prepared to use their common sense.The terrible problems facing the majority of people in the world such as food shortages,disease and access to clean water easily trump the carbon dioxide scare.Medical research clearly benefits the deprived people in the world as well as ourselves.It has yet to be shown that carbon dioxide reduction is either a necessary or practical objective. It is only too clear that the poor in the world are to bear the brunt of the carbon dioxide reduction programme initiated by comparatively wealthy western nations.You seem to be one of the first to recognise that the alarmists very much bear the onus of proving their alarming prophecies.In order to be capable of being evaluated any scientific theory must be capable of being proven or falsified by data when it becomes available.Where has the energy allegedly resulting from carbon dioxide accumulation over say the last 60 years gone? Where is the hot spot? So far as I can see noone has yet answered these questions so ably asked by you.
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Isn’t the Government simply looking at the big picture and thinking long-term with their climate change policies? That way, our children and grandchildren still have a healthy planet to enjoy. I agree that medical research shouldn’t be cut. Here’s an idea, what if the medical research budget could be boosted by not giving out such huge tax benefits to big oil companies?
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great article Jo
concerning, and see here for another concerning matter:
check out Australian FOI law keeps secret the construction of New Zealand seven station temperature series
(hiding behind peer review)
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=950&cpage=1#comment-30900
for those of you who believe in transparency by Govt funded organisations please check out Warwick’s post and make a comment
NIWA is also hiding behind ‘peer review’ check out the link on Warwick’s post
and Jo, this is worth a post on its own
how can two entities each paid by the public purse hide behind ‘peer review’ which is a process of self regulation by a profession preliminary to being published as a scientific article worthy of publication
and you will see the same problem at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/06/top-secret-noforn-restricted-acc
Top Secret NOFORN Restricted Access Climate Model Results
Posted on May 6, 2011 by Willis Eschenbach
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Y’know, some of these climate games are getting kind of boring. I’m tired of people who are paid with my taxes hiding their data, results, and findings. Case in point, the “Community Earth System Model” of the University Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).
is this the preliminary to nothing is transparent
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John Brookes: #28
No, you are misquoting me, or drawing the wrong inference from what I wrote.
I did not say that climate change is a symptom of too many people.
I really said the same thing that others have said on this site, and that is that climate change is an excuse, and no more than an excuse, to justify various forms of social engineering, one of which is the transfer of wealth from the more affluent and productive nations to the less affluent nations in the hope that doing so will stabilise the global population at a sustainable level.
I was merely filling in some of the rationale and the history of how we have got to where we are politically.
But you are right when you say, “… the cure for overpopulation is simple. Look at Italy – with no harsh policies whatsoever, the birth rate has plummeted below replacement level.”
That is another example of what I was saying, the population growth rates drop when people reach a certain level of personal security. You can measure this in terms of affluence, if you subscribe to a capitalist ideal, or you can measure it in terms of social insurance, if you are more inclined to socialist teachings. Either way, when families feel secure, and in charge of their own destiny, they tend to have less children, so they can spend more of what they earn on each child.
But taking money, by way of taxes from the rich countries, and giving it to people in the poor countries, does not solve the problem. Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat every day. The original mandate of the UN was to achieve this, and it is still their primary mandate. Unfortunately, like any bureaucracy the organisation grows, so that an ever increasing proportion of the aid donations goes to supporting the administration, and less goes to actually teaching people to better fend for themselves, and to gain a better standard of living.
Politicians know that there is a limit to the amount of aid money, as a proportion of GDP, that the electorate will allow. If politicians step over that limit, there is considerable push-back from the electorate. So they think of schemes like this Carbon Tax, which is really intended to harvest aid money, but not under that name.
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As a practicing Catholic I am both sickened and appalled at discovering this following group, who pretends to be Catholic, is promoting this global warming FRAUD !!
http://www.catholicearthcare.org.au/AboutUsJuly09.html
Clearly they are are nothing but Heretics and I have emailed them to tell them so!
It just demonstrates how far the Evil Tentacles of these green communists have reached and how far that will go to promote their agenda for one world government………
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Bravo Jo! You have nailed the essential immorality which drives the feel-good moral vanity of all the do-gooders who wish to ‘save the planet’ and who define themselves as nice, caring, reasonable, noble, (insert appropriate adjective) people who are so unlike the detested great unwashed, ‘planet-hating deniers’.
Opportunity cost does not figure in the minds of the moral vanity brigade. They sing from a peculiar song sheet which values their own narcissism above all else. These people are most likely INFPs on the Myers-Briggs psychometric scale. They are the world’s tree-huggers who make decisions based on feelings and ignore rational or logical processes. This makes them the most dangerous of all all the Myers-Briggs personality types – most dangerous if they get to be decision-makers, that is. The concept of the opportunity cost of lost medical advances (and lives saved) just cannot be accommodated in their black and white feel-good worldview. These people should be outed; and the only way is for those who understand the life and death issues which Jo raises to stand up and be counted and never, ever allow themselves to be cowed by peer pressure or PC claptrap.
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More on this Despicable Catholic Earthcare organization and their connection with Al Gore……..
http://www.globalcarbonsystems.com/News/2010-03-16/CarbonSystems-to-support-Catholic-Church-in-Australia.cfm
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Ii this you Jo? – that’s what facebook puts up for your link
http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=2176cecd9cc68dcd3cba54de786a7f62&w=90&h=90&url=http%3A%2F%2Fresources1.news.com.au%2Fimages%2F2011%2F05%2F06%2F1226051%2F436693-joanne-nova.jpg
REPLY: I don’t know how they got that photo from a long time ago, but it’s not one I’ve posted on facebook. I’ll have to send The Australian a newer pic next time. — JN]
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Well said Jo. Well thought out and finely written.
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Jo:
You raised excellent points. Medical research is an area that Australia can be a world leader, with a very positive impact. Why curtail that?
I am very glad you heard my plea. I hope others do too.
All my best,
Julio
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Jo, One day, science and society will recognise the courage of people who eschewed fashion and stool up to the zombie invasion of 2000-2020.
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John Brookes at #28
This article may be of interest, however it does not include the consequences of poor policy and decisions in [lack of] infrastructure spending.
Riebsame WE et al (1986) The Social Burden of Weather and Climate Hazards, Bull Amer Met Society 67 p1378-88
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%281986%29067%3C1378%3ATSBOWA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Jo, your article today in The Australian was most welcome and informative, thank you.
A further issue however is allocation of the grant $ to research areas (agendas). Those that have followed grant distribution see the skew towards socialised medical research competing for grants, advisory committees of ‘experts’ etc. For eg, how has medical research grants benefited remote Aboriginal kids? Vaccine research has certainly benefited as immunisation schedules specific to Indigenous kids were developed.
If one reads for eg the Senate Inquiry into Petrol Sniffing (2006:2009:2010) the vast majority of medical/health submissions blithely refer a single sentence or dismiss child abuse as a variable to be considered in the poor health of Indigenous kids and youth. $19.5 million on OPAL fuel rollout with no certainty provided of volatile substance users was spent.
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/petrol_sniffing/tor.htm
Much of the scientific medical research was ceased in Indigenous communities in the late mid 1980s. Some research continued but only research which was approved by specific Indigenous Ethics Committee. And this approval required endless consultation and involvement by all levels of ‘gatekeepers’ in some instances.
It is many years now and many lives have been brutally lost and/or disabled. Medical health research premised upon accepted principles and methods of science, as expected by all Australians, has not been adequately delivered, specifically to remote/rural Aboriginal people.
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I have included some examples of hereditary medical diseases for readers not familiar with the Australian outback.
Machado-Josephs Disease (MJD)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/funds-for-islands-rare-nerve-disease/story-e6frg6po-1111115713494
The blame for MJD disease was initially attributed to exposure to manganese and by proxy then to the mining company on Groote Eylandt. Numerous studies were done to attribute this cause-effect.
One could not begin to describe the horrendous suffering endured by people affected with this disease living in this environment and as the [environmental] politics flew back and forth and over them and their families (carers). And the time wasted until a brave individual rigorously researched the situation and the truth of the disease became evident.
And this coroner’s report (with apologies to the families) from the Northern Territory,
http://www.nt.gov.au/justice/ntmc/judgements/20091127ntmc.htm
where another neurological disease (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) is highlighted.
The same coroner that conducted the inquests into deaths of three young people at Ayers Rock/Uluru. ‘…..so distressed the coroner, Greg Cavanagh, he abandoned the rest of the day’s hearing.’
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Perhaps if government would focus on the only job we need it to do, stopping others from stealing our stuff and killing us, we could afford to invest in the medical research that is in our several best interests.
As it is, government is focused on stealing our stuff and doesn’t give a damn about what that does to us in the process. This is largely because they are willing to use the excuse that it is for the sacred other that they take our stuff. Somehow the other is always someone else rather than anyone in particular.
Even if the so called laws that “allow” this to happen were passed by the prescribed process, they are not legal laws in the sense of defining and protecting individual rights. They are laws in name only backed up by the gun of the government and the willingness of the functionaries government to pull the trigger if we oppose the so called law.
Those so called laws are nothing but smoke screens used to hide the actions of thugs doing what thugs have always done: taking our stuff and killing us. That they kill us slowly only makes it a worse crime against the individuals suffering from a violation of his rights. Who are those individuals? Each and every one of us!
Question their smoke screen. We are NOT our brothers keeper except by voluntary choice. Once it becomes impossible to say no to keeping your brother, as it is today, every one loses his status as brother and becomes part of the gang of thugs stealing our stuff and killing us. That it is theft by proxy only increases the evil of the crime.
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What’s This ? The Vatican’s Academy of Sciences , going the way of all other similarly Augustly named Indtitutions and succumbing to the AGW meme. .
What happened to that timeless wisdom ?
Where are the Knights of St. John when you need them ?
Perhaps Lord Monckton could have a quiet word.
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“..by acting now in the spirit of common but differentiated responsibility…”, goes the Report of the ‘Pontifical WG’, betraying not only the message but also the language, of the UN inspired social control mechanism, having been swallowed almost undigested.
Having a more dedicated following & more powerful influence on society globally than the UN, shouldn’t the Vatican know better than to let itself be hijacked by such such transient, temporal, Anthropogenic notions.
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Good God! It’s only that discredited Railway Engineer again, now using the Vatican to peddle the insidious message of his lost cause to its faithful following.
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Joe V @53
Rome has a bit of form on this. Backing consensus science I mean. It was not so much a religious but a scientific controversy in which the scientific consensus of the day was that heliocentricity was not possible because there were no observable parallax shifts in the star’s positions as the earth moved in its orbit around the sun.
It was more Aristotle and the geocentric consensus versus Galileo than God versus the Devil.
So as now, Rome then backed the flawed consensus science which was relying on insensitive measurements. A similar reason to the one that produces 21st Century AGW skeptics.
Perhaps Rome’s chronic malaise is the result of its propensity for syncretism and sometimes gets its religion mixed up with its science but that is another issue.
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Is this article saying that the rational thing to do is to try and save every life we can today, and that it is rational to allow our emotions towards a single life inform our collective decision-making? Isn’t it more rational to think about the long term survival of our species by thinking about a greater global good? Research is research, and we shouldn’t restrict it, but to try and claim that one field is more important than another seems a little biased.
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ceebus @57,
Why is it that the “greater global good” always turns out to be the exact opposite for actual, living, productive individuals? Apparently, you believe they are to pay without choice while you propose and dispose at your whim.
Use your own wealth to do the “greater global good”. I won’t stop you. I will do my best to stop you taking, by proxy of government gun or otherwise, my wealth that I produced for ANY purpose whatsoever no matter how much “good” you think it will do.
If the survival of the species requires that any portion of anyone (especially myself) to be sacrificed, the specie be damned! It is not worthy of survival.
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ceebus@57
No I wouldn’t read it that way. Medical breakthroughs and other beneficial applications of science are not only for “now” or for the individual but for all future generations of mankind. And it hardly needs to be stressed that today’s science, particularly medical science in its applications forms part of that rich matrix out of which new beneficial discoveries will come.
Ever heard of veterinary science? Or botany? They amongst disciplines mean that the growing store of human scientific knowledge is beneficially useful for other fauna and flora species beside man. In other words the Earth is indifferent to the well being of all its inhabitants and it is only man through his science and technology who can make improvements in health and prevent epidemics decimating the rich diversity of life on our planet.
A final thought. The life expectancy for humans at birth in industrialised countries that have a sound scientific medical tradition is on average close to 80 years.
At the bottom of the rankings are the industrially undeveloped countries, mostly in Africa, that lack institutionalised “Western” medicine, these vary from the high 40s down to Swaziland at 32 years. Even factoring in deaths through conflicts in some of those countries it is a no brainer that it is modern science via medical applications that accounts for that massive difference in life expectancy. That comparison alone indicates that Jo is on the right track.
(If we examine the life expectancy in a given Western country it is pretty obvious that one important co-factor is the Industrial Revolution, based on cheap energy (which spreads the benefits to all of the society) has increased life expectancy from less than about 40 years to the present about 80 years).
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Lionel @58
The greater global good requires sacrifice, yes. And, unfortunately, it is at odds with an individualistic ethos. I believe that it is the unborn who will be forced to pay without choice – and on the contrary, those of us living today have a choice – I know you have made yours.
Indeed, I have also made mine and am using that choice to be a part of the greater global good, even if it means a little personal sacrifice. I will do my best to stop you taking, through inaction, the opportunities away from those yet to be born. I will do this by trying to set an example for you.
I am deeply saddened to see that you damn our great species based on that individualistic ethos. But fortunately, not enough of us share your views of selfishness and instead believe that we are worthy of survival.
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ceebus @ 60
What is your definition of the ‘greater global good’?
What is your definition of “a little personal sacrifice”?
It sounds like you have bought the idea that there is such a thing as a benevolent centralised global solution that will benefit future generations? And that it only requires ‘a little personal sacrifice’from people like you?
How will that work do you think?
Also, considering it will obviously be based in the Northern Hemisphere somewhere, how will it benefit Australia and in particular future unborn Australians?
I have a sneaking suspicion your solution for the world is actually worse than the perceived problem the world is supposedly facing…especially for Australia.
I am however prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you to explain what you think ‘the greater global good’ actually is. And how some ‘personal sacrifice’ could achieve that.
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ceebus: @57
Collective decision-making? What, like a global Gaian super organism you mean?
You’re sounding pretty creepy….
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Llew @59
I agree that medical breakthroughs and other benefits are not simply for the here and now. Research will undoubtedly have benefits in the future that we may not be able to perceive today.
What I find peculiar within the article is the fact that a particular four-year-old’s death in 2018 should feature in a discussion on the carbon tax. If not to evoke an emotional response against it, what is its purpose? Could we not also argue that the introduction of a carbon tax will save the life of a four-year-old in 2018 due to them not being exposed to harmful pollution generated at a power station that would otherwise still be polluting? What then of the father in 2022?
Indeed, Jo is on the right track in making a connection between modern science via medical application and life expectancy – but I think most people could make such a basic connection.
Where I disagree is that I don’t believe it is a case of the sick being betrayed by those who spend money on climate change. Let’s be fair, the cut to medical research is not at the request of the climate change researchers, is it? Hopefully cuts to vet science and botany will not also result in the death of a four-year-old?
In reality, there is merit in spending money on both medical research and climate change, and it should not be a case of one or the other, as the article’s undertones suggest.
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ceebus @ 60,
To sacrifice: to exchange a higher value for a lesser value. If you wish to give up any portion or all of your life for things you value less than that, it is your choice and I have no right to stop you. I do have a right to stop you from sacrificing any portion of me or mine to meet your goals. Even if the life of all mankind is dependent upon me being sacrificed and even if I knew that were the case I still say: mankind be damned!
The thing is that the continued existence of mankind as men is NOT dependent upon anyone being sacrificed for any reason. It is dependent upon the exact opposite: the principle of free producers of wealth freely trading value for value wherein each receives more value than he gives. THIS is the only moral way for men to treat each other. It is totally and completely without sacrifice.
I proudly proclaim that I am an INDIVIDUAL who is SELFISH. My life is mine to use as I see fit to achieve my own purpose BECAUSE it is MY life by RIGHT and not by permission. The lives of others are theirs by right and because of that, they too have the right to achieve their own ends as I do mine.
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So Ceebus,
What are you going to do when your idea of “the greater good” and somebody else’s are mutually exclusive? The usual result seems to be that people who have ideas about what constitutes “the greater good” end up trying to enforce the behaviour of others at the point of a gun. Then free men and women have to spend a large amount of time, effort and blood to kill them and their followers. I’m much more comfortable with a world of Lionells. Value for value and no right to initiate violence or the threat thereof. Note however, these people usually aren’t pacifists. Use violence against them at your own peril.
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Debbie @61
A greater global good is something that benefits many, not just a few. It is something that may not benefit yourself personally, but others on the whole. It is inextricably linked to sacrifice, which is when you forgo your own interests, among other things, for the benefit of others. I don’t believe there will be a centralized global solution, and I certainly don’t believe any centralized global body, governmental or otherwise, will spearhead this. There is no such thing as a panacea – solutions need to be multifaceted.
Loaded Dog @62
I think you have misinterpreted what I mean by collective decision-making, which is where we share our ideas, opinions and perceptions with those we elect to represent us, and then they make the decisions and accept responsibility for them. Don’t confuse this with consensus, which is something different. Regarding your link, if you did not make sense of what Tim Flannery was saying, I would suggest reading his latest book, which goes into a little more detail than a 6 minute youtube clip can.
Lionell @64
I see our existence today as the product of much sacrifice, which, as I mentioned above, is linked to the common good. For instance, people work all day to receive an income of which a fraction is collected as a tax, pooled together, and redistributed to many by those we elect to represent us as a whole. These funds contribute to the needs of many, such as the national healthcare system.
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Mike @65
Personally, I would ask my represented officials to try to come to a compromised agreement with those in opposition, if this fails I would urge them to try again and again and again, if necessary, to avoid violence. This is a grey area, however, and a little off-topic in this comment thread.
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ceebus: @66
It was all I could to to stomach the 6 minutes and you are suggesting I read a whole book?
Please…
Any vestige of credibility Tim (1000 year) Flannery may have had went out the window with his numerous failed alarmist prophesies long ago. The man is a hypocritical fool.
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What the devil do they do in there, apart from troll blogs like this?
The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency total budget for 2010-2011 was $1.5B; then there are the equivalent departments within the CSIRO, BOM and at sundry Universities.
Climate science, if it can at be called a distinct branch of science, is in its infancy.
I can’t see any reason at this stage of its development, why climate scientists need do anything other than meticulously collect data, but they seem incapable of doing even that with any reliable accuracy.
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ceebus: #66
Source: Leon Trotsky.
How often have you sat down with “those we elect to represent us” for a nice fireside chat, where you can share ideas?
Listen up. The people who represent us, are not chosen by us. Politics of that ilk stops at the local community services group. In realpolitik (politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives), we just choose, by proxy, some warm body who happens to work for the political party that is lucky enough to get the majority of the votes, and therefore gets into power.
The political party, through its selection processes has chosen the person who will represent the warm body for the next few years. How do those selection processes work? You would probably prefer not to know, because the principle of “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” invariably comes into play. Also, money has been known to change hands on occasion, and blackmail is not unknown.
Are you naive enough to believe that your vote actually makes a difference to who ends up in the legislature?
If you are, I am glad for you. Stay as Peter Pan for as long as you can. Reality is a bugger.
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I see we have a new Troll here…..
(SNIPPED) CTS
So “ceebus”,
Please quote one, just one reference to a Peer Reviewed Scientific Paper, which PROVES, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that human beings and carbon Dioxide (Plant Food) are/is responsible for global warming.
PS Computer models do NOT constitute either evidence or proof!!
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Rereke Whakaaro @ 70
give us the source of your Leon Trotsky quote please
I have lived in a communist country and have been a fan of Trotsky
But I would never put a quotation attributed to him without a source
which is what you have done
sorry, that’s not an appropriate method – if you want to quote someone then quote your source (not just the name but the publisher volumn and page no)
Sorry, I’m a bit shocked!
I’ve never seen someone do what you’ve just done!
Maybe, I just haven’t been reading comments properly
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Ceebus @ 66
That was not an answer to my questions.
That was a collection of platitudes and generalisations.
The questions were:
What is your definition of ‘global good’ ? I guess I should have pointed out that it should be in relation to this thread and the comments about climate science and how much time and money is being spent on it.
What is your definition of ‘ a little personal sacrifice’ once again in relation to this thread?
‘forego your own interests, among other things, for the benefit of others’ doesn’t mean anything at all.
What interests? What other things? What others?
Making sweeping, unsubstantiated, noble sounding, statements does not prove anything or make any point.
If you think that people who question the veracity of climate science and wonder why we as a nation are becoming obsessed with climate science is somehow threatening the future of the world, you need to explain why.
Pretending you’re standing on some noble soap box and mouthing meaningless platitudes is not a practical or useful answer.
What is the terrible catastrophe we need to avoid Ceebus?
What is the better future that personal sacrifices will achieve?
Indeed, how will your little personal sacrifices achieve it?
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So when the negotiated settlement fails, Ceebus, I guess you ARE prepared to point a gun at someone’s head?
I think Jo’s point in this thread is that resources are ALWAYS limited and they should be spent where they will do the most good. We currently have ZERO observational evidence that anything unusual is going on in the Earth climate system but we do see people dying or living restricted lives because of medical disorders which may be helped by medical research. There are other examples where money might be spent to improve people’s lives instead of funding a bunch of third and fourth rate researchers who are playing at being scientists.
Dick Smith ran into this problem when he was head of the CAA. He talked about “affordable safety” and many of the morons working in the air traffic management system castigated him for it. It is quite obvious that an infinite amount of money will not be spent to assure aviation safety so he simply said it should be spent where it will do the most good i.e. buy the most safety.
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Bob Carter, erudite and eloquent as ever, here.
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Loaded Dog @68
If you have jumped to conclusions about something you have not taken the time to properly consider, that is a pity. I hope all of your opinions are not so similarly arrived upon.
Rereke @70
You are quick to smear my remarks as marxist yet at the same time you are very cynical of democracy. If you don’t think your vote counts, there perhaps vote Greens at the next election – that is, since you believe the choice is superfluous. However, if you can formulate a better system of government, I will be first in line to congratulate you on your nobel peace prize.
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ceebus @76
I don’t make a habit of putting too much consideration into the words of fools. You are obviously different.
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Damien @71
No one single peer-reviewed scientific paper can prove anything with complete certainty. Childish name calling, however, is complete proof of a closed-mind.
Debbie @73
I think any response I give explaining a definition of a both global good and personal sacrifice to you will not suffice your desire to object to it. I do not question healthy skepticism, nor do I suggest any terrible catastrophe – you have assumed these notions from my comments yourself. And if you think that little personal sacrifices don’t add up, again, I don’t see how any response will help you see otherwise, but perhaps a trip to the war memorial would help.
Mike @74
I used to be in the army and, yes, I was prepared to serve my country.
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Ceebus,
You are not Fran Barlow writing under a noms des plume? I note similar linguistic styles and the patronising attitude in your posts here.
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Cebus – you have chosen your name well
CEBUS A legendary wookiee warrior of myth who travels the starwars universe in search of bitch-ass cowards and combat medics in order to impale with his mighty pike.
From your post in 40 – written in 2010 language – suddenly you transformed into an orator of the magnitude of (in your own mind of a reincarnation of Cicero) leader of the GREENS in Post 57 omwards. Your english is a mastery of the rhetoric.
But you lack substance or fact. This is about finances of different sciences – your science still belongs in the Roman Warming Period and maybe if your department of Vet Science/Botany did your work – then maybe you can save yourself.
Say Hi to Mattybee – at least he gave facts!
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Troll “ceebus” (78),
Obviously English Comprehension is not a subject you have a firm grasp of.
You cannot quote one Peer Reviewed Scientific Paper which PROVES that human beings and carbon DIOXIDE (PLANT FOOD) is responsible for global warming.
Ignoramus!
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Oh Sorry Cebus – I forgot your award (stolen from the Loaded Dog)
Your are now the 2nd Offical warmenist after Mr. John Brooks on this Blog Site – How do you feel?
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Come on “ceebus” !
Show us all your evidence so that we may all believe in your Gaia God……..
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val majkus: #72
Val, I am so sorry. And of course, you are quite correct, I should have checked my source.
I am under time pressure, so I relied on (an obviously failing) memory. And if you say the speaker was not Trotsky, I will bow to your superior knowledge.
It was however a quote, or a paraphrase, from a member of the politburo around the time of, or just prior to, the start of the Stalin era. When I get some breathing space, I will have to go back to my text books.
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56Llew Jones:
May 8th, 2011 at 10:17 am
While one can see why Rome might reasonably take a position on something which is being projected to destroy God’s Earth, getting the same suspects that are conjuring these dire projections
(from the IPCC) , to prescribe the medicine – give us your money now – suggests elements within the Vatican are perhaps being rather readily taken in, by the mendacity of the IPCC machine, it’s appeals to authority & Nobelesse of its proponents & exhortations of the Science, without questioning the premise of an Anthropogenic cause.
We now have out there , a statement bearing the much venerated
name of the Vatican no less, but coming from the very same proponents of AGW that made a laughing stock of the UN’s IPCC. Where will they turn up next ?
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I do not expect the budget to cut medical research. Not even the ALP could be that foolish.
This threat is, like so many other ALP exercises, a very ill judged red herring exercise in cynicism. Ill judged because the damage already done to their image will be more remembered than the relief that it didn’t happen.
That said, this is a sound article. This government blew tens of billions on unplanned sprees, insulation that killed people and burned down houses, and school buildings we didn’t know we needed, paying no attention to getting value for money. Then had to raise a new tax to find $1.8 billion for flood relief. I don’t, won’t, believe it.
28 years ago we too lost a child to cancer. Our experience from that time and since showed that only a professional politician, elected or employed, could for one moment imagine that the people would want childrens’ medical research or services to have to depend for a single dollar on charity.
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Rereke @84
thanks for your comment; I’m not saying your source is not Trotsky, I’m saying I don’t recognise the saying as his – but I might if I saw a source
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Jo, excellent communication. Thank you.
In the last month I was rather touched when scanning a 1933 publication by the then CSIR. On the last page was a list of projects completed.
The following PAMPHLETS have been issued
1. Recent Developments in the Organization of National Industrial Research Institutions (1918).
2. Engineering Standardization (1919)
3. The Co-operative Development of Australia’s Natural Resources (1923)
4. The Bionomics of Smyntharus viridis Linn., the South Australian Lucerne flea.
5. Liver fluke disease in Australia: its Treatment and Prevention
6. Standard Methods of Drying Sultana Grapes
7. The Export of Oranges
8. Methods for the Examination of Soils
9. A Forest products laboratory for Australia
10. The Health and Nutrition of Animals
11. The Tasmanian Grass Grub (Oncopera intricata)
12. The cattle Tick Pest and Methods for its Eradication
13. The Mechanical Analysis of Soils
14. The Work of the Division of Economic Botany for the year 1928-29
15. The Work of the Division of Economic Entomology for the year 1928-29
16. The Work of the Division of Animal Nutrition for the year 1928-29
17. The Mineral Content of Pastures
18. The Influence of Frequency of Cutting on “Natural” Pastures in Southern Australia
19. Black Disease. A short Description of its Nature and Means of Prevention
20. The Identification of Wood by Chemical means – Part 1
21. The Density of Australian Timbers – a Preliminary Study
22. The Chemistry of Australian Timbers – Part 1 – a Study of Lignin Determination
23. Refrigeration Applied to the Preservation and Transport of Australian Foodstuffs
24. The Preservative Treatment of Fence Posts
25. Termites (White Ants) in South-eastern Australia
26. The Irrigation of Horticultural Community Settlements
It was striking that the list was so connected to food, clothing, shelter – all of which interact with health. The take home message? A programme of science is only as good as the skills of those who compile it. Today, such skills and priorities are sadly lacking. The term “competition for scarce resources” now seems to have little meaning, presumably because of the political dream that taxes can be raised at will.
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ceebus@63
It is not really hard to extrapolate from Jo’s personal to the general.
There is no doubt that medical research and its application has massively benefited and will continue to benefit all mankind. The same cannot be said about reducing human emissions of CO2.
Those who have some familiarity with the science of and the mathematics underlying historic and contemporary climate science know that there is no such entity as “CO2 pollution” where CO2 is the imagined villain because of its “greenhouse” properties. It is purely a propaganda expression to sell what is essentially an ideological rather than a scientific position on the nature of the Earth’s climate.
Thus there is no correspondence between the terrible and real danger that genetic and other diseases and uncontrolled epidemics present, and something as benign as doubling or even tripling Earth’s atmospheric concentration of CO2.
The science and mathematics tell us that there is a law of diminishing returns in play between temperature increases driven by increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2. The alarmists have always have had that problem since Arrhenius and Fourier so contemporary alarmists knowing that that science is against them postulate that the tiny CO2 effect on temperature change in turn causes water vapour feedbacks which cause an amplification of the CO2 effect. That in the hands of alarmist scientists becomes a catastrophic tipping point.
No research has confirmed that sort of feedback is operating but there is some research which indicates any relevant feedbacks are more likely to be neutral or even negative. That means the supposed serious threat to humans or any other species from an anthropogenic “pollution” of Earth’s climate system is highly unlikely and hence is not of a comparable order of seriousness to that which diseases, genetic disorders and uncontrolled epidemics present.
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Loius @79
I’m not Fran Barlow. Im not even sure if that’s a good or bad thing.
David @80 & @82
It’s just a username, mate, don’t read too much into it. I agree, this comment thread is a discussion about finances of science, and since my initial post was only strongly disliked, I had to change my approach, and it worked because now we’re discussing it – albeit the attacks on me personally and the request of me to be a dictionary. When did I ever consider myself a reincarnation of Cicero? And I don’t know who MattyBee is, sorry. If the award is for contributing constructively in this thread, then perhaps I do deserve one. Thank you for the recognition!
Damien @81 & @83
I will repeat what I said @78, no one single peer-reviewed scientific paper can prove anything with complete certainty. Childish name calling, however, is complete proof of a closed-mind. Actually, I don’t believe in a Gaia God, you’ve assumed that – and you know what they say about assumptions.
Rareke@84 & Val @72
The source is not Trotsky, I believe Rareke quoted me @66.
10
@ceebus #78
“Childish name calling, however, is complete proof of a closed-mind.”
I thought ceebus was another (electrical) name for ‘Smart Wiring’.
Your comment above is not that of a smart wired person ceebus.
We actually send millions of “Childish name calling’ individuals to places of education on a daily basis.
WHY:
Because our childish name calling schoolchildren have very open minds.
(If they didn’t have open minds, then it would be futile for the Education Department Warmenistas to try to Brainwash them about climate change).
10
Cebus @ 90
There is absolutely nothing you have contributed to this thread “Wasting Money on Climate Change Betrays Sick”
The award is given to you (CEBUS) again for Warmist in third place!
You CEBUS are another candiate for a top example of Peter Principle:-
I wish your rhetorical ability could be harnassed in the field of medicine for the good of all.
Instead you choose ????? AGW ???? and sincerely believe in this unfortunately!
10
Once again we have a clear example of the morality of sacrifice at work. The partial enslavement of creative and productive individuals is justified by the undefined needs of others. The enslavement is accomplished by the use of the government gun to take wealth (taxes) they produced which is then “redistributed” to others who did not produce it. This means, according to ceebus, that one has no right to the wealth that you created BECAUSE you created it and others have a right to it BECAUSE they did not.
How about MY need to be left alone to create those things I deem necessary to provide for MY life? How about MY need to freely associate and trade with others so I can benefit from their skills and knowledge and they mine? How about MY need to live MY own life to achieve MY own purpose without having to carry endless unchosen burdens? These are things that ceebus ignores and focuses only on an imaginary grand and glorious undefined collective need of many that he believe trumps the needs of each and every productive self responsible individual. It is only the need arising from irresponsibility, inadequacy, incompetency, and improvidence that hes recognizes.
It is not the benefit of the many at the a small expense of the few that ceebus seeks. He seeks the power to decide from whom to take and to whom give for what reason and neither are to have any say in the matter. The final result will be the destruction of all which, by the way, is his true goal. Ceebus wants to destroy a positive for the sake of a negative. He wants to destroy the good BECAUSE it is good. He is using the morality of sacrifice as his justification.
10
Ceebus?
War memorial?
How does that relate to the highly expensive obsession we have developed for climate change?
Our soldiers did definitely sacrifice, the ones we see memorialised made the ultimate sacrifice.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t sacrifice because they were worried about the possibility of the climate changing.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but I am certain they sacrificed so that our country could remain free. They fought for our right to remain a democracy. They fought for the future freedom of their families.
Ceebus,
Unless you haven’t noticed, most of us here do not see the need to sacrifice for some centralised global manufacturing of a price on carbon and an artificially created ETS that will be underpinned by tax dollars.
The science is not settled yet either way.
The solution we have been offered so far is actually worse than the perceived problem.
We have seen some patterns in our climate because we have collected an enormous amount of data.
That’s about it.
The main predictive models that supported the coming climate catastrophe seem to be struggling to match with reality.
The noticed warming trend has apparently receded.
Maybe it was just natural variability, maybe it was any number of possible reasons, including man induced CO2?
Don’t you think it may be a better idea to quit pushing the panic button and allow some time to assess the work?
While we’re doing that, I seriously would like my tax dollars spent on research like medical research.
I realise it is not as interesting or fashionable as climate change, but I believe it is a much better investment for all of us.
10
Ceebus,
So many words…so little understanding…so devoid of wisdom.
I am continually amazed at how people can live in a fantasy land without ever being touched by reality. You can get away with that because life in western civilization has become far too easy and you don’t have to live every day in the world you imagine. But be very careful because times are changing and you may end up being bitten very hard by your own foolishness.
—————
Just between you and me — and though I might debate some things with him — if push comes to shove I would rather have Lionell Griffith at my back than anyone else I know. And if you can’t figure out why then I don’t think you’d understand the explanation.
—————
I wish I could say otherwise but you’re just the latest in a long line of tragic fools to come through here only to disappear again when they find out we aren’t buying their nonsense.
10
There are billions of dollars thrown at fraudulent climate science research and the associated useless government departments every year which could be easily redirected to medical and renewable energy research. Problem solved.
10
“Ceebus”,
You have failed to produce any reference to any Peer Reviewed Scientific Paper which proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that human beings and carbon dioxide (plant food) are/is responsible for global warming.
Computer “models” do not count.
Therefore your global warming HYPOTHESIS is just an UNPROVEN theory.
Go back to your cave!
QED
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Roy Hogue: @95
Very profound Roy. I think you’re onto something there, and this may help to explain why those working the land (farmers) are so often blessed with common sense.
10
Climate modeling prediction strangely awry – again.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/08/the-new-giss-divergence-problem-ocean-heat-content/#more-39512
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The Loaded Dog @98,
I don’t know how profound it is but it took me a long time to slowly come to that realization. Once I was there nearly everything going on in human affairs tends to confirm that I’m right.
Easy living begets bad decision making because there are no immediate consequences, maybe even none at all. A tougher life begets better judgment because you suffer almost immediately from your mistakes.
I’ll leave you to be the final judge. But so far it seems to hold up.
10
Any copper (even a relatively young one with a few years service) would agree with you 100 percent on that score…
10
Roy, you are exactly right. Years ago, and not that many, you’d be called out for a duel if you crossed lines in civil society. (MattB comes to mind when I type this). A few years earlier you would only have to fight over a morsel, a woman, or your “turf” with a club or stone.
Today one can still eat and exist with all kinds of bad ideas pouring out of one’s head. Alas, that is why blogging is so popular……..and why Trolls survive……
If Warmists get their way, the world I see willl be more like the latter than what is has been for a hundred years.
Too BAD!
10
I am sorry but I do not agree to cut funding on Climate research to find extra money for medical research.
I respect peoples particular views on climate science but what I do not respect is people promoting their views by using emotional blackmail which your article does very well and is summed up in this sentence “Which four-year-old in 2018 will die because Gillard introduced a carbon tax instead of increasing medical research funding?”
Why didn’t you promote the idea of returning the budget to surplus in 2014/2015? This could provide that $133 million that is threatened to be cut.
What about axing the NBN, there are billions of dollars in that scheme?
Your closing sentence could just as easily been “Which four-year-old in 2018 will die because Gillard wanted faster Internet?”
I believe that you, me and everybody who read your article don’t want to see medical research funding cut but I think the primary purpose of your article was to promote your view on climate change.
10
Folks, the sad truth is that life in the west is easy. We seem to have a functioning high technology society where the vast majority of people don’t know any maths, physics or chemistry even at early high school level. Yet these people vote and help decide on things like our future energy sources, not that they’d even know what energy is. This probably won’t go on for ever.
10
To reiterate my first few points – because many of you have taken up bullying, and it seems pointless to respond to that: I would argue that the rational thing to do would be maintain, if not boost, funding in areas of research and development – it is not a case of one or the other. The issue I have with the article is that, 1. writers should try to avoid making a rational argument using emotive points about a single dying four-year old, and 2. is there even a direct link between the cuts to medical research funding, and the boost in climate research funding?
10
As a society, we cannot have a meaningful debate about climate change until we agree on two things: 1. A consistent Value of a Statisical Life (VSL) and 2. A consistent discount rate applied to all government investment. Currently we have neither. So one one hand we have Ross Ganaut worried that our great grandchildren will lose 8% income off a base that 400% higher than ours (and 100 years from now) when we are currently facing far greater intergenerational theft with the housing affordability crisis. We apply rigorous VSLs to taxpayer subsidied medicines, but completely ignore the wreckless behaviour of chain smokers (they pay the same health insurance premiums as people who actually care about their health). Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money.
10
Ceebus, bullying?????
It’s always funny when an intruder comes here and expects kid-glove treatment….WTF
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ceebus: @104
Oh dear…
tsk tsk tsk…
Perhaps I could arrange some counseling for you ceebus?
10
Oh yes yes, I agree ceebus. Writers or promoters of “certain things” should never try to make rational argument by being emotive using children.
Pweeeese…..help….da world…….
Wake up to yourself.
10
But Ceebus,
Jo was questioning the rationale and the philosophy behind cutting funding to medical research, when at the very same time it is clear that our federal government is syphoning more funding into climate research and a highly questionable agenda re a carbon tax and involvement in a Global ETS.
It was actually you who made comments about personal sacrifices and personal choices for the greater global good and fututre generations and a rather supercilious and superior unsubstantiated remark about how your choices were more noble than Jo’s arguments.
When some of us tried to question what you actually meant by that, you now say that we’re bullying?
While I take your point about tugging at heart strings via a 4 year old child, what do you think you were doing by making references to war memorials and our future unborn children?
Is there a direct link between cutting back on medical research and a boost to climate research funding?
Well at least you asked the right question there.
Maybe you missed the point of the article.
Jo is definitely questioning the rationale and the philosophy behind the increases to climate change research. When we consider many other areas where taxpayers’ money could be invested, and in this particular case it is medical research, is the increase for climate science actually a wise investment?
10
And still no EVIDENCE or PROOF from the the Vacuous Deceiving troll “ceebus”.
Typical Modus Operandi from a Brainwashed follower of the Gaia Cult…..
10
Ceebus,
I daresay that under the circumstances the thumbs down at 95 probably comes from you. So I have a question for you: Do you have the nerve to address me directly by name and tell me why you did it?
For the record, I’ve not clicked a single thumbs down on this whole thread. Your opinions are yours and I’ve no right to simply disapprove anonymously without a word about it. In fact, I’ve no right to simply disapprove at all, merely the right to tell you why I think you’re wrong and that I think your position is very foolish.
A society so easily willing to throw money away on imaginary problems will not last very long.
10
ceebus:
On 1. The issue is not about “a single dying four-year old”, it’s about all of those who have died and those who are suffering from potentially curable diseases. Motor Neurone Disease for example. I can think of dozens of such diseases which require research funding, and I’m sure you can think of a dozen more.
On 2. Research funding is limited, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Any funding to one research project means less funding to another. That seems to me to be a direct link.
10
Via Climate Depot…
and
10
Debbie @108
Thanks for the participating appropriately, unlike others who insist this thread is some kind of cool-kids club with awards and what-not.
I agree that she’s questioning the rationale and philosophy, and at the same time questioning the increases in climate research funding. What I don’t think she has appropriately discussed, and this is my critique of her article, is the link between how both lines of her argument interact.
Indeed, I made broad comments about personal sacrifice, personal choice, the greater global good and future generations, but since they are rather broad, there is no usefulness in defining each phrase.
Name-calling is a form of bullying – that’s pretty obvious.
Sorry, but the death of a single four-year-old in 2018 is a little more specific and emotive than a broader concept such as future generations and millions of individual personal sacrifices during war time.
Medical research should not be cut, and yes, I would see that climate science is a worthy investment – much like insurance for a house. Because through spending a little now, it might come in handy in the future. There is no guarantee that it will pay off, that’s a gamble – but so is investing in other forms of research.
10
I can understand the concern over focusing on a 4 year old in such discussions and how it can pull at the emotional heart strings. Yet, there is no getting away from it that this is a clear example of ‘opportunity costs’; i.e. given X how do you decide to spend it between option A and option B?
One would assume that a fair amount of fact based analysis would go into such a decision, especially where one option (medicine) has a known track record of improving general quality of life and where the other option (climate research focused towards AGW) has no known benefit to general quality of life yet..
10
Congratulations, Joanne. Another fine piece. Well done.
Did it inspire Dr Teo to go for a big number?
$50b in funds could cure brain cancer: surgeon
One of Australia’s leading neurosurgeons is calling for a massive increase in funding to find a cure for brain cancer.
Doctor Charlie Teo says an extra $50 billion of funding over the next five decades is needed to help find a cure for brain cancer.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/08/3210770.htm?section=justin
Meanwhile, OZ business sector a worry. Many of the players see big $$$ in the carbon (dioxide) con.
AFR editorial last weekend – “Good climate-change policy can’t be rushed” – very much pro-tax/ETS.
Alice
10
Ceebus says:
I say thanks for being so much the authority. Especially thanks for being so smarmy and elitist and oh yes; brilliant! In fact, you have been so persuasive and wow saving the future generations……All by your self no less……..
Future generations? Do you have the sole license to permit or deny fate? What guarantee do you have that there will be any future?
What is left after nature has run her course has ALWAYS been used up by evil people (especially evil people proclaiming how urgently you should give up your wealth). Only by cheap energy have we been able to climb just a foot or two out of chaos. You and your ilk will have us back grubbing for food soon enough.
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Roy @110
On the contrary, it is the fact that we are able to use our imagination and think about future problems and the potential consequences of our actions that we have thrived as a species.
10
Ceebus,
A broad unsubstantiated comment is just as meaningless as a specific emotional comment if you then fail to back up your argument with facts.
The difference between what Jo has done and what you have argued is that Jo has very specifically outlined her objection and the reasons for the very serious questions she is asking.
You are now attempting to duck away from what you have done by saying this:
Indeed, I made broad comments about personal sacrifice, personal choice, the greater global good and future generations, but since they are rather broad, there is no usefulness in defining each phrase.
Whether you like to admit it or not, that is a totally unsubstantiated and meaningless comment.
It proves nothing at all.
Your comments about providing insurance against a ‘might be a problem’ scenario at least have some basis in the current mindset about climate change.
That one takes us straight back to the question.
Is there really a measurable danger?
Is it worth the exponential investment of tax payers’ money?
And finally for me….how is a carbon tax and an ultimate artificial ETS trade going to insure us against this supposed risk anyway?
Especially Australia.
I reiterate, I believe that we would be much wiser to stop pushing the panic button, assess the climate work away from the hype and for the time being, invest out tax money in research like medical research.
10
SANCTIMONY ALERT…
Read any ceebus post for your edification, re-education and enlightenment.
Rejoice fellow bloggers, for one of the “enlightened” has chosen to grace us with his/her presence.
(I couldn’t resist chucking in another “cool-kids club” comment yo)
10
Mr. Dog, I resist the religious “sanctimony” however may I offer: “smarmtimony”?
10
ceebus @ 104: “… because many of you have taken up bullying …”
What ever happened to “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me”? Apparently, you are made of very fragile stuff because our only tool here is words.
When you post on this list you will need to grow a very thick skin and a very agile well equipped mind. We do NOT pull our punches when we deal with a sanctimonious elitist troll. Especially one who espouses our enslavement to serve his imagined noble goals justified by a projection of an undefined collective need.
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Lionell Griffith: @121
I was thinking the same thing Lionell.
And what’s more interesting in light of ceebus’s fragile emotional state is his/her statement below:-
I wonder where ceebus was “prepared to serve”….the canteen?
10
Lighten up ceebus.
The resident trolls here are normally pretty good natured and I personally enjoy their sense of humour.
10
Ceebus,
How shall I answer that? There are so many possibilities. For most of its history the human race has not had the luxury of spending time and resources on “…future problems and the potential consequences of our actions…” The reason is very simple. For most people present problems were too critical to allow time and resources to be wasted on a Don Quixote like mission to joust at windmills (if you see a pun it’s intended).
Increasing use of technology changed that. As I said, when things are easy there’s no consequence to spending time and more importantly, money and lost opportunity in la-la-land. But the bill still mounts up and whether you believe it or not, it’s soon coming due. And you aren’t going to be able to pay it.
So look out for the future consequences of your actions while you can. And when the world starts to collapse on your head, remember that you were warned. Remember that strong arguments were made to you that you’re on the wrong road. And if you want more, try becoming a student of human nature.
And above all else, remember that the piper belongs to a stronger union than you do and that when you dance to his nice seductive music, you will pay the bill, one way or another.
By the way, that word potential gives you away. You aren’t even sure there are adverse consequences if we don’t tax ourselves into poverty. I’ve been around a while and I’m absolutely certain that there are adverse consequences to the way you propose to go.
10
Well said Roy @ 126!
Ceebus,
Taxing carbon and involving Australia in an artificially created tax payer sponsored trade on emissions is not a demonstrable insurance against anything at all.
What are we insuring ourselves for or against?
Who determines the value of the tonnage of emissions and indeed the place where they are offset?
I have no complaint about the need to keep updating and assessing climate research.
I think we should…but that is not actually the issue here….
I agree totally with Roy about the consequences of the plan that we are funding at the moment.
Maybe you need to do a little bit of research into political history and economic history?
This scam has been tried before….many times….using different excuses as its platform.
It has never, ever, ever achieved the supposed noble, altruistic goal.
Can you guess why?
Here are some questions to get you started.
When has a centralised, socialist inspired bureaucracy ever managed to successfully raise its country to a better living standard?
Where, in the history of the whole wide world, was it ever proven that it’s a good idea to remove valuable resources from productive enterprises and then also tax them for the priviledge of doing so?
10
Of course! it is medical research or climate change. Of course! How have I been so blind! Not armed forces vs medical research. Or Road building vs medical research. Or Immigration centres vs medical research… or any other line item of the multi billion dollar budget? That danged Climate Change!
I had the misfortune of reading the weekend oz on Saturday, and almost choked at this terrible terrible article.
10
“There is still time for you to write to your federal member to voice your support to protect medical research funding.”
My local member doesn’t listen to me any longer. Not since I requested she front up with the proof of AGW.
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Matt b @128
I agree. There are any number of Labor/Green coalition budget wasters/stuffups which could be rejigged however climate change (CAGW) is the biggest one because it’s the biggest fraud and potentially the biggest cost ($billions forever) perpetrated on the Australian people in history.
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GBees & Matty B
This one has been around the block a few times already, but if you want a good example of your tax dollars at work consider how much money went into this even if it doesn’t get up:-
The Australian Government and the NSW Forestry Service were presenting an
alternative to NSW sheep farmers for controlling the dingo population. It
seems that after years of the sheep farmers using the tried and true
methods of shooting and/or trapping the predators, the Labor Government
(Peter Garrett – Environmental Minister), the NSW Forestry Service and the
Greens tree-huggers had a ‘more humane’ solution.
What they proposed was for the animals to be captured alive, the males
would then be castrated and let loose again. Therefore the population
would be controlled.
This was ACTUALLY proposed to the NSW Sheep farmers Association and
Farming Association by the Federal Government and the NSW Forestry
Service. All of the sheep farmers thought about this amazing idea for a
couple of minutes. Finally, one of the old boys in the back of the
conference room stood up, tipped his hat back and said, ‘Mr. Garrett, son,
I don’t think you understand our problem. Those dingoes ain’t rooting our
sheep – they’re eating them.’
You should have been there to hear the roar of laughter as Mr. Peter
Garrett and the members of the NSW Forestry Service , the Greens and the
other “tree huggers” left the meeting very “sheepishly”.
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“ceebus”,
Stop wasting everybody’s time !
Either post some PROOF & EVIDENCE or shut the f.ck up and go back to your cave !
10
Hey ceebus, the rules are pretty strict around here. It goes like this: Make your point, and then shut up. What the locals really hate is someone who tries to have a sensible discussion to prove their point. They feel all uneasy if you keep going on and on, and it brings out the worst in them.
You can try Skeptical Science, or Real Climate, but they are scary places where people tend to focus on science rather than conspiracies….
10
Climate change is a natural hazard: excerpts from Jennifer Marohasy’s speech at the Brisbane No Carbon Tax Rally: http://bit.ly/lXH9AM
10
Thanks Pattoh @131
Another good example of the uselessness of this government. Anyone who has worked in private enterprise knows how rigorous Is the scrutiny over budgets and how accountable one is for his/her own budget. None of the ministers presiding over these programs and budget blowouts and stuffups would survive in private industry. That’s why they are public servants. They don’t have to make money honestly they just thieve it from taxpayers and squander it.
10
Ceebus
I’ve heard much of what you have said before, in history. “The individual rights must be sacrificed for collective rights”. You sound like a Communist? That kind of ideology has never worked anywhere. It creates poverty, environmental destruction, wars. Under our current economic system and society (slowly being wrecked by socialists) we can make up our minds as individuals, and can invest our resources where we so desire. Improvements in all areas have been made including great strides in helping the environment. This comes about because of our free market system. People like you would have us give up free living lifestyles for a warped ideology based upon corrupted science. I chose not to follow you and would resist people like you at every opportunity. History has time and time again outed your kind of people.
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Matt b @ 128 and gbees @129 & @130,
The underlying theme is a delight in frightening the general population into believing that there is a need to tax them to avoid an impending disaster.
Therefore: fear of invasion,fear of boat people, fear of catastrophic climate change, fear of unseen environmental pollutants,fear of losing jobs to immigrants etc….
We can also be afraid of evil polluters, evil capitalists, evil communists, evil sceptics, evil farmers etc…
They (feds & centralised bureaucracies) are never happier when people are afraid of something. That translates into a perfect excuse to create another tax and fund yet another bureaucratic department.
Unfortunately for us, for a little hiccup in time, they actually snagged a weather pattern that they could use to frighten the (you know what) out of people.
Mother Nature has recently belched,purged the hiccups, rolled over and decided to create a new pattern that they can’t quite tie down yet.
In Australia and in other places around the world, those danged climate patterns are just not behaving themselves and following the predictions.
I sincerely wish that we could get back to investing our tax dollars into worthwhile projects like medical research, upgrading tired infrastructure,Agricultural and vetinary research and while we’re at it, some further research into climate patterns.
Looks like a wiser investment to me.
It’s probably a better insurance investment for the future as well Ceebus.
Unfortunately it’s not scary and not particularly exciting. We have run out of noble ‘greater global good’ comments to make about them.
It makes it difficult to sell.
10
Thanks John @133
Indeed, it is a little odd.
Damien @132
You can’t find that sort of ultimate proof and evidence, in the same way that you cannot ultimately prove that cuts to medical research will result in the death of that four-year-old girl in 2018. Ignore me if you don’t want your time wasted, mate – it’s pretty simple, really.
10
I Have to agree with MattB and John Brookes, this argument is not going to win over the true believers. While one funding decision is ideologically based, the other is simple bookkeeping. These two decisions are not related to each other, we’ve seen Labor prepared to go into massive deficit to fund their schemes if they feel that the policy has electoral legs.
Personally, I’d like to see less government funded science across the board, even medical research. Please alleviate me from the nauseous medical science which scattered across the media on an almost daily basis. Case in point: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/06/3209926.htm
This rubbish could never be funded privately. I wouldn’t give my hard earned dollars to a scientist to come up with this drivel.
@ceebus: please don’t feed our trolls. 😉
10
Oh, and when someone says “for the good of all”, run. Run away. Fast!
10
“ceebus”,
I am not your “mate”.
You are a communist who has nothing to offer but Lies in order to try and justify your agenda of Wealth Redistribution……
IPCC REAL AGENDA – WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION
An interview by one of the top IPPC men given to NZZ am Sonntag on November 10 2010.
Ottmar Edenhofer is a German economist who deals with climate change policy…….. He is currently professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Technical University of Berlin, co-chair of Working group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and deputy director and chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research…… In 2004 he was a lead author for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.
In the interview Edenhofer freely admitted that the goal of Climate Policy is to transfer wealth from the West to the Third World by imposing economy eviscerating carbon caps on the West.
http://www.libertarianadvocate.blogspot.com/2010/11/ottmar-edenhofer-co-chair-of-uns-ipcc.html
And This….
IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World’s Wealth”
http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1877-ipcc-official-climate-policy-is-redistributing-the-worlds-wealth.html
THAT SAYS IT ALL!
THE TRUE AGENDA IS REVEALED !!!
10
“ceebus”,
You can’t even cite a single scientific paper which PROVES your Hypothesis…
Vacuous and Fallacious ar the only two words to describe you and your communist ilk !
10
Another article about this global warming Cultist “Graeme Readfearn”….
GRAEME READFEARN – A dollar is only dirty in the hands of a sceptic:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/a_dollar_is_only_dirty_in_the_hands_of_a_sceptic/
10
John Brookes: 133
Riiiight.
So when were you thinking of having one of those “sensible discussions” Johnboy?
I haven’t read one from you to date…
10
Damian Allan. If you are trying to drag the reputation of this site into the mud you are going the right way about it.
10
What has been the value; either collectively or individually for the human [research subjects] of this small example of government Indigenous research? And the fiscal worth? And to whom?
How many remote and rural Indigenous children would be educated, employed and alive today if this research had been systematically used and been aligned to recognised principles and methods of science?
Where did the greater benefit lie: the sea turtle, bettong and triodia spinifex ecological studies or the human studies on the lives of little children and youth?
http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/indigenous/pubs/evaluation/indigenous_research08_09/Documents/Comm_Gov_Indigenous_%20Research_08-09.pdf
source: http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/indigenous/pubs/evaluation/Pages/default.aspx
10
CARBON TAX QUIZ
QUESTIONS: (Please complete using a Blue Pen, Warmenists may use a Red Pen)
1. If we immediately reduce Australia’s CO2-e emmissions by 5% of year 2000 levels, (160 million tonnes reduction), how much would that cost us each year, in dollar terms, at $25 per tonne.?
2. How much, in dollar terms, does the Gillard government expect to collect in ‘Carbon Tax” each year at $25 per tonne CO2-e.?
3. How much would it cost us each year, in dollar terms, at $25 per tonne to REDUCE our 2010 CO2-e emmissions (545 million tonnes) by OVER 80%.?
4. Which is the only country that has successfully introduced a ‘Carbon Tax’ and why was it successful.?
5. Which country (who’s president is co-chair of the UNFCCC) introduced a ‘Carbon Tax’ that drove UP Per Capita Emissions of CO2-e by 43%.?
6. Where do you think the difference in money collected between the answers to questions 1 and 2 will be spent.?
Multiple Choice
a. The UN, for it’s 100 Billion fund for Africa and small Islands.
b. A slush fund for Wayne Swan to bring the Budget back into surplus.
c. A bribe to Tony Windsor for carbon sequestration in his electorate.
d. Wealth redistribution to Australian family benefit A and B recipients.
e. All of the above.
.
.
ANSWERS:
1. $4 Billion
2. $11 Billion
3. $11 Billion
4. Denmark, because it used all the funds collected to invest in, and assist industry to lower CO2-e emissions.
5. Norway
6. Ask Wayne Swan, he can make $2 Billion for the UN + $5.5 Billion for Family’s + $5.5 Billion for Industry + his slush fund for the Budget + a bribe for Tony Windsor, + the beaurocricy to run it all, add up to $11 Billion – I can’t.
10
@ MattB
Welcome back, I missed your smiling avatar.
@John Brookes: #133
Hey ceebus, the rules are pretty strict around here. It goes like this: Make your point, and then shut up. What the locals really hate is someone who tries to have a sensible discussion to prove their point
John, you are being far too generic, most people on this site will give you a fair hearing, as long as you are not talking drivel.
@ ceebus
Welcome to the conversation, I hope you don’t take John’s comments as a reflection of all posters on this site.
@pattoh: #131
Absolute classic mate – I loved it.
@Damian Allen
The second part of your post #141 shows your intellect, your post at #132 negates it.
10
Ceebus@104
You ask if there is a direct link between funding for medical research and climate change funding. Probably more than the link between C02 and climate. The point is obvious. The economy is in deficit. So where do we spend money to gain the greatest demonstrable long term benefit? Medical research produces tangible benefits that generate improved quality of life and lower a range of socioeconomic costs. Climate change research has consumed billions of dolars for now practical or even theoreitcal advantage. Using emotive stories to illustrate a point is a valid rhetorical device. At least the one used by Jo in her article is true, unlike alot of the blatantly false imagery and fantastic predictions constantly used by proponents of AGW.
10
Careful Jenness, you’ll be charged with
by ceebus et al.
10
Well, as long as you accept Lysenkoism as “science”. Try arguing against any of the “approved” conclusions, no matter how logically, or with what evidence, and you get banned. (Not that J.B. or Ceebus are likely to get banned there — they are junior members of the choir, so would never get out of line.)
No, if you actually want to engage in a discussion of the science, other than here, try Wattsupwiththat or Climate Audit.
like here (and unlike the “science” sites you recommend) they don’t feel the need to censor people who disagree with them, in order to maintain the illusion of truth.
10
ceebus doesn’t seem to want to comment on my post@113, apart from maybe a thumbs down. So I’ll make my point here about the strange phrase he/she used in 105.
rational a. & n, Endowed with reason, reasoning; sensible, sane, moderate, not foolish or absurd or extreme.
What’s wrong with doing that then?
10
Geoff @ 88
Great articles from 1933- have you got more covering from that period up to current? May show the timing of the decline of this organisation.
20
And, one wonders, does thinking about “the potential consequences of our actions” involve examining the consequences of similar actions in the past? Or are we all to simply have boundless faith in your fevered imagination and forget the past?
The philosophy of Lionel Griffith, which you denigrate so easily:
is the philosophy of “Classic Liberalism”: The belief that economic, personal, and political liberty best serves the advancement (and yes, survival) of the Human race. The implementation of this philosophy is directly responsible for the vast improvement in the Human condition over the last 300 years, and the incredible cornucopia that represents our present civilization.
On the other hand, the elitist philosophy that “enlightened” individuals should dictate to everyone else how they are to live and spend their energies, thus achieving an imagined utopia, has resulted, in the last century, in arguably the largest humanitarian disaster in Human history. I refer, of course, to Communism.
Now, in arrogant ignorance of all of history, you demand we repeat this disaster. You are offended by our requests for proof that you are right — no proof is possible, you say, just believe.
You are functionally insane Ceebus — go jump over the cliff, if you wish. We will not follow.
10
Nice.
Couldn’t have put it better myself
10
Hmmm, seems as though trolls don’t get paid overtime, or they maybe on a rostered day off. Gee, I had so many more questions for Adam, ceebus et al. Still, maybe later today.
In mean time, TrueNews@147:
Bugger!! Only got 4/6. (Must do more study)
Tough test actually, don’t think warmenists would get that many.
10
Waffle@139,
Don’t be too upset, it is a simple survey conducted in the USA. There are many privately funded research projects, and I’d suggest this may be one of them.
Quantitative “research” is common these days because results can be influenced, cheaply and easily collected.
10
Sometimes I think these trolls just throw things out for effect, like children who act up just to get attention.
10
Brian @ 158,
Question: how can they be so consistent and simply be as children trying to “get attention”?
If anything, children are capricious. Children try many and very different things to “get attention” even as they are “getting attention”. That is simply what children do. Try being a parent sometime. It will become self evident.
Trolls, either resident or drive by, say much the same things, use much the same rhetorical devices, and are similarly unresponsive to our questions. While most children do learn from their experience, few trolls actually appear to learn from their experience on this or any blog. They intend to do what they do to achieve what they accomplish no matter their words to the contrary. Getting attention is not their purpose. Their purpose is to deflect and destroy the conversation no matter what it is about. They are nothing but intellectual thugs deserving neither the forbearance nor gentleness that one would want to give to a child.
10
Lionell, are you sure they are “intellectual”?
10
Good point, Lionell, I suppose these people who troll can’t learn anything or respond to reason simply because they have no interest in doing so. They certainly don’t “troll” to influence anybody but themselves, maybe they repeat things with the objective of eventually convincing themselves (a technique applied by liars).
Anyway since they are old enough to know better, they don’t deserve a whole lot of sympathy for their efforts
10
Brian, you know the Trolls here recently are organized don’t you? When has a regular poster here gotten more thumbs down than on this thread? Matty Bee must have tweeted all his UNI friends…..
The Troll purpose is to cast subtle but effective comments like “conspiracy” or slip in as fact a comment which is not fact. (see Ceebus @ 60
among others. And of course the best Troll effect is when their inanity gets the locals all riled up. Look at what Ceebus has actually said; whole mouthfulls of gobbledy gook. (and reasonably red in color too). Other than that he has offered nothing meaningful.
10
Funny how all the real trollish trolls are all men (I believe them to be anyway).
Either women are too sensible to promote warmer nonsense, or troll clubs purposefully exclude women
NO GURLZ IN OUR CLUB!!!
10
If their intent is to “get the locals all riled up” (Mark D). And “they don’t deserve a whole lot of sympathy” (Brian).
Then, why do we continue to argue with them? Why do we show them any recognition other than a thumbs down. (Which I think is unnecessary.)
If a believer can do more than an AGW acquaintance of mine, ie just stop replying to emails. Then I’d be happy to continue “discussing” whatever issues they wish to raise. Who knows, maybe an agnostic is reading and they would be interested enough to ask questions themselves.
10
Having read Ceebus’ incessant plea for the “greater good” (but not having read all the responses to him), I know why we are headed to hell in a handbasket. For myopics like him, there is only ONE good, and everyone knows it. So there can be no argument, and anything that has to be done to bring about that good, no matter the cost, must be done.
I am reminded of Jim Jones, Pol Pot, Stalin, and yes, Adolph Hitler. Each knew the “greater good” and each spared no expense to attain it. And in the end, millions died for that form of myopia as well. Ceebus is not alone. There are far more quislings like him than there are rational people to battle and defeat the ownwers of ‘the greater good’.
10
It’s official now … climate change is an article of faith:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/09/the-vatican-gets-involved-in-climate-change/
Some priceless comments from the WUWT regulars in there.
10
Oh No!
According to one of Ceebus’ mates, we might have to sacrifice wifi due to gorebal woorming.
Well, that’s according to the UK Governments Environment secretary.
$200 Billion pounds should be enough to mitigate the catastrafarian scare to the UK Rail, water systems and the all important wifi hotspots….
I can only imagine the real research break throughs, in real valuable areas that could be made with $200 billion pounds. Instead it get’s invested to protect the UKs Wifi Hotspots from AGW, apparently.
Is there no end to this stupidity?
10
In addition to the thesis of Joanne’s article, we note that continuous electric power to provide clean water and sewer has eliminated more diseases than all the solar panels in existence or ever will be.
Response from trolls?
NO DON’T I CHANGED MY MIND I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR IMBECILIC RATIONALE
10
MaxL @ 164
Fair question, the easy answer; to make an example of them. No I don’t hold out hope that we will “convert” them. But, it is possible that a visitor to the site will read how we answer them, how poorly they respond and from that the visitor might become the skeptic.
I worry on behalf of Jo too. The blatant falsehoods and deceptions a Troll might pass off as truth cannot go unanswered. Since it seems very few posts get deleted here, it is a bit of duty calling don’t you think?
Oh, and once and a while I respond to them purely for sport.
10
You can’t “argue” with these people, any more than you can “argue” with – for stinking.
The real problem with them is, they provide governments with some justification for idiotic programs and initiatives
10
Morning All.
Jo’s thread reminds me of my experience with World Vision Australia. I realised that the sum of my years of “sponsorship” was used in sending a representative to Copenhagen. Where, presumably, they would argue the case for bio-fuels. Which, actually, makes starvation worse.
So I find that I have been paying people to kill people. 🙁 🙁 🙁
Speedy.
10
This has nothing to do with global warming, but is very ALARMING ………
Anna Bligh’s Queensland Alp Government To Record All Taxi Ride Conversations………..
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/big_bligh_is_listening/
Is This Australia Or The Old Communist Ussr ???????
Big Brother Takes Away Your Privacy !!!!!
Wtf !
Premier Anna Bligh and her despicable “government” Has Got To Go !
10
MadJak,
There you have one that’ll be real easy to flush out into the open when they try to hide the fact that it didn’t happen. Just copy this woman’s words and keep ’em around until Fall.
Dumb!
10
“Speedy” (171),
Here are some interesting articles about World Vision………
World Vision: blowing cash on a pagan cult:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/world_vision_blowing_cash_on_a_pagan_cult/
How World Vision helped fund a monument to a Jew killer:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_world_vision_helped_fund_a_monument_to_a_jew_killer/
WORLD VISION – SCHOOL RESOURCES – GLOBAL WARMING:-
http://www.worldvision.com.au/Libraries/3_1_1_Issues_-_Environment/Global_Warming.sflb.ashx
Needless to say our family no longer contributes to “World Vision” !
10
Brian G Valentine@168
Of course underlying all the naivety of the alarmist scientists and their fellow travelers is the failure to recognise the extensive benefits of living in highly industrialised societies. Science on its own is no more than philosophy that benefits few in society. All the rich life style benefits including medicine, which industrialised nations enjoy are a result of the Industrial Revolution.
That is when science was wedded to technology and science became the great and useful driver of the tremendous improvement in lifestyle including longevity that those in highly industrialised societies now enjoy.
Alarmist science does not have that that perspective or understanding but essentially repudiates the IR and hence fails to grasp the destructiveness of its solution to an imagined problem. That is one reason why the “trolls” are out of touch with reality and are thus best used to sharpen ones thinking processes.
10
Lionell Griffith
This is the reason I stopped trying to reason with trolls quite some time ago. It’s a complete waste of time.
As I’ve said before though, I enjoy poking them with a stick. They’re a bit like snails – when the slimey things come out of their shells you poke them with a stick and you can have a bit of fun watching their eye stalks recoil…
10
Does anyone know of an antidote to the sickening feeling I have every “Earth Day”? I feel like throwing up all over the floor and I can’t find any way to stop it.
Why would anybody celebrate a moron like Rachel Carson?
Who in their right mind ever let Tim Flannery out of a pen?
10
I have just caught up with the troll posts. Interesting to see the party slaves here.
For those who are upset by the specious claims of the pro-AGW crowd you should realize that the trolls are not aiding their cause. The purely political statements and lack of logic only serves to expose the falsity of their position. You can of course expect the regulars like Mr Brookes MSc (that stands for “Missed Science”) to support them.
The collapse of support for CAGW, I think, is partially due to the trolls moving away from the safety of sites such as Real Climate. As they move to a wider audience, the support for AGW collapses.
The false and illogical statements are preserved on magnetic storage for all to read for a very long time.
10
Mark D.,
Don’t tempt me. 🙂
10
a little off topic but it is still a reminder of how many ways governments can think of to waste our money on this fringe religion
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/wi-fi-quality-under-threat-from-climate-change-953796
10
A friend of mine just questioned me on why this UK government report was so stupid and i realised two things.
1) He is an idiot
2) There must be more of them out there
So i will tell you all why this report is so crap.
Firstly they state:
“If climate change threatens the quality of your signal, or you can’t get it because of extreme fluctuations in temperature, then you will be disadvantaged, which is why we must address the question,”
Extreme fluctuations in temperature…..hmmm….my wifi works at night when it is 2 degrees C and it also works in the day when it is 30 degrees C. JUST HOW MUCH TEMP FLUCTUATIONS DO THEY ENVISAGE?
Source here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/09/climate-change-wi-fi-connections
“There is even the suggestion that changes in the plants that grow in the UK could affect how radio waves travel.”
How the hell could changes in the plants that grow (whatever that means) affect the propogation of radio waves through the air. What a bunch of crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“In addition to the impact on range and reliability, warmer temperatures and more intense storms may cause communications infrastructure to be flooded, or damaged by an increase in trees falling onto overhead lines.”
I dont even know where to begin with the above statement
So the question is where does the money come from to ensure our communications networks are robust against this newly percieved threat?
10
Is it true that if we develop alternative energy sources and reduce the use of fossil fuels, we will save the lives of people (in 2018, 2022, or otherwise) who would have instead died a premature death due to the respiratory illnesses associated with pollution from fossil fuel energy generation?
Perhaps Jo’s article would have been a little more rational (Endowed with reason, reasoning; sensible, sane, moderate, not foolish or absurd or extreme) if it were more comprehensive.
10
crakar #181,
My wifi access point has an operating spec. of 0C thru 50C. My PC wifi spec is -5c thru 60C. I can only presume they expect it to get very cold.
10
Brian (163) its a bit like golf (Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden) well it used to be anyway. Its about time they got with the times i say.
10
Smells like pig in here again – open a window, will ya?
10
Incoherent rambler (181) Maybe they are expecting AGW to bring on another ice age. The premise is consistant with their AGw causes more snow meme.
Ceebus (182) Can you please enlighten me (and possibly many others) on the pollution that causes respiratory illnesses associated with the pollution from fossil fuel energy production and how this pollution fits in with Gillards proposed carbon tax.
TIA
Crakar
10
Ceebus @ 182 Sorry but I don’t think you could prove that.
What is true and could easily be proven is that you can save lives by having energy costs as low as possible. Thus permitting affordable warmth when it is cold outside and cool when it is hot outside. Presumably you’ll grasp that the same low cost energy means a farmer can run his tractor and the shipper can get the farmers stuff to your grocer.
Everything John Brookes, MattB, and a host of other crap believing warmists have suggested will make energy cost more. In a nutshell this is why you are not popular here.
10
Reducing the amount of fossil fuel pollution results in less exposure to that pollution and, therefore, less risk of respiratory illness. The carbon tax is designed to reduce pollution. Cheap fossil fuels can result in a greater usage, a greater amount of pollution and, therefore, a greater risk of respiratory illness. You do not have to be a warmist to recognize the benefits of pollution reduction to human health.
A quick Google Scholar search will help you locate relevant peer-reviewed literature on the health impacts of air pollution. Here’s one anyway:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12600037
10
MaxL @ 160,
They are intellectual in the sense they use words and ideas to express themselves. They are thugs in the sense they use the words and ideas as weapons to destroy the meaning of the words and ideas that others use. They actually practice anti-thought using anti-words to express anti-ideas in an attempt to nullify the ability of others to think and to communicate.
Intellectual thugs have other rather consistent attributes but this is the most fundamental one. Fundamental in the sense that it explains the most about their blogging behavior and that most of their other attributes are largely derivative from this one. I know of no other way to label this concept other than “intellectual thug”. If there is a better label, I am willing to use it. Care to offer one?
I will admit that ceebus is a rather ineffective and amateur intellectual thug. He uses the relevant thug methods rather crudely. Pleading that we were bullying him is about as weak and ineffective as you can get. I mean actually claiming to be a victim to gain strength of argumentation. It was totally lacking in subtlety of equivocation and plausible deniability.
I have known and dealt with an intellectual thug who could crush ceebug in twelve words or less. While, at the same time, holding off a hoard of intended victims with a flood of pretty shape shifting words and ideas. He could argue for and against both sides of the argument and almost hide that fact. It was enough to make one dizzy just watching it happen. The intellectual wreckage he caused was immense. I took him to the mat several times but after several years of encounter we ended in a stalemate. I don’t know about him but I learned a lot from the effort.
10
re: John @28
No, but he’s a Green Liberal, which is
almostat least as good!10
ceemobyus is a kind of troll, ie a moby inserted within a ceebus.
10
Ceebus, you are a dork.
Is carbon dioxide pollution? Does carbon dioxide contribute to lung disease or any other “pollution” caused illness?
Recall that the subject here tends to be global “warming” Specifically AGW.
10
Where have you been for the last 30 years, ceebus? (Or, maybe you’re only 14 years old and don’t know how to research history?) “Fossil” fuel power plants (in the US anyway) put out nearly zip that can affect anyone’s respiratory function. In the 1970’s, the Four-Corners coal-fired power plant in New Mexico put out a plume that, with an east wind, could cover the entire Grand Canyon (200 mi away) in heavy haze. Today, you can’t see anything but heat waves coming from the stacks. (Those dense white clouds that jokers like Al Gore like to feature are actually water vapor condensing into cloud. It doesn’t come from the boiler stacks, but from the cooling towers.)
Of course, China’s power plants put out lots of crap, but that’s because China is a totalitarian dictatorship and the self-selected “elite” that run it don’t give a damn what the Hoi-Polloi have to breath.
Your desired utopia in action.
10
Brian G Valentine
It certainly was a rancid smell Brian. It wasn’t me I can assure you – I haven’t eaten cabbage for a long time.
I noticed the stench was overpowering at 182; did you?
I quickly covered my nose and mouth and moved away…
10
Ceebus 188,
Thanks for your reply but i still dont follow you.
The only things a coal fired power station produce are CO2 and water vapour yes maybe a small fraction of other compounds but none of these are related to breathing problems.
If you consider CO2 to be a pollutant then so be it and Gillard claims her TAX will reduce this pollutant by reducing the amount of electricity generated but it wont reduce CO2 per ton of coal burned but i digress.
If you consider CO2 to be a pollutant and therefore a contributer to breathing problems and the like then should we get rid of all CO2 pollution in the atmosphere or is there a minimum amount that humans can tolerate and if so what is that level?
To all, i dont Ceebus needs any prompting to answer this question.
10
Ceebus: I notice the pollution study you reference is from China. They definitely do have a pollution problem, but it has everything to do with government by elite having no accountability to the people.
You know — your favored style of government, where the “enlightened” few make all the decisions for everyone else. Democratic countries (filled with those “selfish” productive citizens like Lionell Griffith who won’t tolerate companies polluting their air) don’t a pollution problem.
Perhaps you could enlighten us as to how Australia’s carbon tax will clean up power plants in China?
Are you really as dumb as you sound?
10
900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming……..
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
10
Coal Driven Power Stations and Carbon Dioxide…….
http://www.4bc.com.au/blogs/michael-smith-blog/coal-driven-power-stations-and-carbon-dioxide/20100111-m2h2.html
10
Let us deconstruct this pile of .
The first sentence is arguably sort of kind of approximately true. What he does not mention is that actual pollution from fossil fuel use has been reduced substantially. Respiratory illness has many causes besides air pollution and most have little to no direct connection with the pollution. Yet, ceebus lumps ALL respiratory illness under air pollution CAUSED by use of fossil fuel. He uses the weasel word “less” without mentioning that fact or giving any evidence of how much less for how much less pollution. Also there is no consideration of how many lives would be lost by an inadequate provision of energy which will cost more for less. Clearly, a slick willy use of words – it depends upon what “is” is. You are not supposed to notice.
The second sentence is patently untrue. It is said to be designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Said reduction is supposed to reduce the emission of CO2. More importantly, it is expected raise a lot of money for people who produce nothing. Yet, where it has been put in place, it has raised a lot of money for people who have done nothing and little else. However, it is even worse that he uses the stolen concept that carbon (a very mislabeled carbon dioxide) is a pollutant when, in fact, it is plant food which becomes food for animals (us included) who are carbon life forms and who’s food must be carbon based. The short eight word sentence is the logical equivalent of mass murder of the truth.
The third sentence is simply begging the question by asserting what must be proved. There is an implication by context that CO2 is pollution and that CO2 as pollution CAUSES respiratory illness. He fails to note that expired air has over 100 times the CO2 as the atmosphere. If CO2 in the atmosphere could cause respiratory illness why have we not died of it long before now?
The rest of his post is pure jabberwocky when put in context of the first three sentences of his post. He paints a “pretty” word picture that has no real connection with reality. He slides from partial truth through a falsehood and misdirection, to a grand flash-bang of a meaningless end. He hopes to take advantage of the reader not paying attention to the fact he has said nothing.
Again, his use of the intellectual thug tools is totally lacking in subtlety of equivocation and plausible deniability. An inferior rank amateur hardly out of kindergarten. The poor grasshopper has much to learn from his betters.
10
The term “false dichotomy” just sprang to mind.
10
Crakar:
“The only things a coal fired power station produce are CO2 and water vapour yes maybe a small fraction of other compounds but none of these are related to breathing problems.”
You can’t be serious? Even if you are a skeptic coal is dirty.
10
I think we need to have something more hard hitting than a poignant story.. I think we need exploding children !
That might get the message across to the government they are wasting our resources on the wrong product.
oh wait ..that’s no good it’s been done.
I think we need the IPCC selling cars !
10
Seriously. If it wasn’t true this would laughable.. I feel like having a good old fashioned cry and weep for the population of this glorious planet..
What is the Labor Government thinking or are they?
It will take our research back 30 yrs or more.
The Dark Ages have returned.
Beware of the IPCC Inquisition !
10
That small fraction of other compounds include ‘things’ such as acid gases, mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, uranium, radium. These ‘things’ are disadvantageous to health, human or otherwise, at particular concentrations. At what concentration, I’m not exactly sure, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out. Think about it this way, water is necessary for plants to grow, correct? But too much can kill it.
Bob @196
It would be very incorrect to think that democratic countries don’t have pollution problems simply because they’re democratic. I was not making a connection between the carbon tax and a clean up of China’s power plants, you incorrectly inferred that yourself.
10
Lionell @ 199
Very nice dissection of a toad post Lionell.
I’m really starting to enjoy your contributions…
10
Matt b: @200.
dichotomy’s a nice big word for you Mattie.
Well done…
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You know? You could turn this pile of … into something meaningful. If it is as you say “… it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out” why not do the work and FIND OUT. The results are sure to surprise some of us.
There are two things you need to consider as you analyze the numbers. The fundamental rule in toxicology is “the dose makes the poison.” This is normally interpreted to mean that if something is toxic at some level, it is toxic at all levels. It is simply thought to be minimally toxic at very low levels and lethal at sufficiently high levels. However, this turns out to be a major mistake for most substances.
There is also an interesting finding in internal medicine sometimes called “Hormesis” that is related to the toxicology rule. It is found that many substances do not have a strictly monotonic (effect increases as dose increases) relationship between dose and toxicity. It is found that both too much and too little can be harmful aka toxic. It seems that our biochemistry follows the Goldilocks rule and we must find the just right dose of just about everything. This also applies to the trace minerals such as chromium and nickel among many other metallic elements. In fact, I take a chromium supplement specifically to help my body regulate my blood glucose levels.
Now let us see if you can find the facts and come to a supported and validly drawn conclusion.
PS: Please don’t try to BS me. It’s not going to work. I have a graduate degree in pharmacology with a very substantial amount of physiology, chemistry, physics, math, and other sciences in my academic background and work experience.
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Ceebus (wonder what his name is on other blogs?) spits out trite “health advisories” that sound much like the justification used by certain leftist government officials for hitting taxpayers with a sandbag.
These politicians can do it in front of friendly crowds of impressionable potheads and in Chambers with little rebuke;
the response Ceebus receives here, is the response that the politicians would get had they had the courage to appear before the general public with it, and Ceebus should not be surprised at all by the intensity of the distaste that most people have for this sort of thing.
The public have HAD IT with this stuff, Ceebus.
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Lionell, can you see the connection between these two quotes? 1. “These ‘things’ are disadvantageous to health…at particular concentrations”, and 2. “the dose makes the poison”.
Similarly, is there a connection between these two quotes also? 1. “Hormeosis… [where] both too much and too little can be harmful aka toxic”, and 2. “water is necessary for plants to grow… But too much can kill it”.
I certainly see a connection, and I hope you do too.
P.S. I think this means we agree on something!
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Well Lionell, I’m sure you can see that ceebus is piling on the B/S thick and fast above. It’s the well known and elementary strategy. Find a point of agreement:-
(even if the point of agreement is a nonsense) and then try to negotiate or rather “convert” from there.
Funny stuff watching religious fanatics practicing their trade.
Usually works OK with the gullible.
But there’s not too many of those on this site from what I can see unfortunately for ceebus.
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I suspect that all this “morbidity caused by air pollution” is done the same way as nuclear radiation caused cancers. Take the effects of a large dose on a relatively small group and then take a very large group with the same integrated dose over the whole group and infer the same numbers of deaths and sickness. As Lionell pointed out this is not only not true but may miss certain health benefits.
I did see the other day a comparison of deaths from cancer from Chernobyl by the Union of Concerned Scientists(not really scientists but never mind)with the same methodology used to compute cancer deaths from commercial aviation. Commercial aviation is more dangerous than Chernobyl! Except that aircrew and cabin crew tend to be health monitored and they can’t find the excess cancer deaths in the real world. This should be the end of the Linear No Threshold hypothesis in a rational world.
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Lionell @ 189
How about communicative, in the sense that they are ready to impart; talkative. Note there is no suggestion that listening is one of their attributes. Communicative thugs, doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily, but it at least avoids crediting them with the attribute of possessing a good understanding etc.
As for thugs, yeah, that’s the word!
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ceebus said: I think this means we agree on something!
No it doesn’t. It simply means you copied what I wrote and found a minor similarity between your words and mine. THAT is not agreement as in meeting of the minds. All I see in your mind is mush – green mush at that. Its contents are approximate, fuzzy, poorly defined, and largely hidden even from yourself. There is no basis for agreement of any sort.
Your task was to find the levels of the emissions of the identified elements and their concentrations in the environment. Then to discover the dose of each at which toxic symptoms are detectable. Then, to compare the levels to see if you are talking nonsense or not. Finally, present the results, your conclusions, and the thinking that led from the data to the conclusions to us. That way we can judge your words, work, and thoughts without having to sort though a mountain of word salads filled with little green worms and ambiguous trite sayings. You are the one who said it would be easy. So do it!
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Ceebus,
You are at it again!
You accuse Jo of making emotional arguments that are not rational and then do exactly the same thing.
Jo’s post is most definitely questioning the wisdom of tipping an exponentially expanding income into A G W when our govt is cutting expenditure to research such as medical research.
Now you’re claiming that it’s a good idea because it will reduce respiratory complaints.
For fox ache. Taxing C02 will not reduce respiratory illness.
That will be medical research that will achieve that goal.
BTW ceebus C02 is not a pollutant to humans. It never was. We exhale it after every breath we take which means we inhaled too! Did you not know that?
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Dear oh dear ceebus, you will have to try another strategy won’t you – Lionells not buying, nor for that matter am I.
Come on ceebus, you’re letting the carbon dioxide haters “team warmist” down.
Off the ropes son, you’ve been tagged…
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I failed to mention that a troll infestation is also a sign that the site is recognized by the politically focused organizers as containing an excess of “inconvenient truth”.
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Lionell, they are virtually synonymous sentences. If you cannot comprehend that, I hardly think you would be able to comprehend any results I present from the ‘task’ you’ve assigned me.
Debbie, Jo’s argument contains a passage about a four-year-old dying because of the carbon tax. She uses this as a tool to evoke the imagery of a four-year old in our mind – we put a face to that single life. Since we don’t want any harm to come to that now familiar four-year-old and because, apparently, the carbon tax will kill him/her, we are more likely to have negative feelings towards the carbon tax. When did I ever employ such a tool in my argument? I never claimed that it’s a good idea to cut medical research – I cannot determine how you could have drawn such a conclusion.
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I love it!! Thanks Lionell, that made my day.
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MaxL @ 202,
I will consider it as an interesting alternative. What follows is me thinking about the issue in print. It is not my final thinking on the matter but it is where my thinking is at the moment.
To be an intellectual does not necessarily mean “possessing a good understanding”. It simply means that one’s focus is mainly on ideas, words, concepts, abstractions, and the communication thereof. Obviously a good intellectual would be in possession of a good understanding and likely a correct understanding. A bad intellectual would still be focused on using ideas, words, concepts, and abstractions but he would be using the wrong ideas, poor definitions, confused concepts, floating abstractions, and not be very good at communicating them. To be sure, the quality is low but the focus is on the necessary elements. Hence, he is legitimately a member of the class of intellectuals.
Now a bad intellectual may be bad due to lack of experience, lack of training, lack of ability, malicious intent, or some combination thereof. When the malicious intent becomes a major factor, we have the makings of a thug. Acting on the bases of that malicious intent makes the person legitimately a member of the class of thugs.
My original identification then is simply the integration of these two things into the concept I labeled Intellectual Thug.
If we use communication as the class identifier rather than intellectual, we loose most of why the thug does what he does and focus only on his output as relevant. We look only at the communication rather than the ideas, words, concepts, and abstractions behind the communication. The content of the communication simply becomes a disintegrated stream of words. Which, by the way, is exactly what the intellectual thug is intending to accomplish so as to stop his target’s ability to think clearly about the topic.
On the surface, Communicative Thug is a weakened concept that leads away from the understanding must be develop about the thug: what is he is doing and why is he doing it. I suspect it would make us very vulnerable to the thug’s slick willie talk because we are focused on the wrong part of the problem.
I need to let this cook for a bit before I give my final answer.
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The Religion of Global Warming
http://www.globalwarminghype.com/religion.html
Global Warming as Religion and not Science
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
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ceebus @ 217,
Point, set, and match. You are out of the game. You have no more plays. I am through with you.
You have said nothing. Your only contribution to this blog is to be a miserably poor example of an intellectual thug. You offered me an opportunity to write things that others might find useful or at least entertaining.
Have a good day.
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Good idea to post those links Damian considering the climate evangelism we’re being subjected to at present…
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Of course you didn’t say cut back medical research Ceebus,
I never said you did.
You are however arguing for insurance for future generations via the myopic, social engineering taxing of CO2.
You then further claim that it will rescue us from respiratory illnesses.
You are also trying to claim it is for the ‘global good’ and the betterment of mankind.
And to top it off you attempted to use the highly emotional ploy of war memorials and the sacrifices of our soldiers to prove your argument.
Excuse me?
Isn’t that rather similar to what you accused Jo of doing?
BTW Ceebus…you must have missed the final point so I’ll repost it.
CO2 is not a pollutant to humans.
It never was.
We actually exhale it after every breath we take which means we must have inhaled it too. Did you not know that?
It does not cause respiratory ilnesses.
There are other pollutants from the burning of fossil fuels that can cause respiratory illnesses but we’re not talking about them are we? Nobody is trying to tax them or discourage the production of them via a government inititiative are they?
They’re not the catstrophic pollutant that we’re supposed to be taxing and then trading for the betterment of mankind are they?
We’re talking about CO2 aren’t we?
We’re talking about the science of AGW and climate change aren’t we?
Stay with the program Ceebus.
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Debbie@223
Ceebus may be even more shocked to learn that he inhales 0.04% CO2 and exhales 4% CO2 with every breathe. So he along with about 7 billion other humans increases CO2 emissions by a factor of 100 simply by breathing. Thus we humans are intrinsically “carbon pollution”.
Adding up all that “pollution” gives about 2 billion tonnes of CO2 per year produced by us humans. Wonder if that’s part of the reason why the warmists want to reduce the world’s population to a “sustainable” one billion.
Any volunteers? From the believing warmist brigade of course.
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Rereke Whakaaro @42:
Just going back and following some discussions in more depth I came across this passage:
So, maybe what we need to do is find a way for the UN to raise its own funds. Would that not solve our current problem?
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Thank you Max L #150
My vocation is being a human being. And secondly a rational one.
I have not as yet been interested to trade this vocation or rationale to being a plant, animal or mineral. Or piece of praxis in ideology.
Nor exchanging the long history endowed to me from the sciences [or choice of religion], to be otherwise.
Lucky eh?
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Incoherent Rambler:
Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard. Some trolls are like rats, attracted to too much rubbish….
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Actually Jenness, it is I who should thank you.
Thank you for reminding me of the plight of the Indigenous communities.
I consider myself somewhat ignorant of the state of life in outback communities. My only source of information has been through the Mainstream Media.
I’d be interested in your thoughts about the relevance of this:http://neuroanthropology.net/2008/02/08/the-rat-park/
As I see it, one approach to stopping petrol sniffing and many other problems in the community, would be to give the children and adults, something to look forward to, something to strive for. You know, a positive outlook as opposed to a We’re all gonna die from CO2.
As for your vocation as a rational human being, I’d have to add, (after reading your posts) and a damn good one at that.
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Tee hee.
That’s actually pretty funny Johnboy.
Have to agree with the rat part!
Remember, one mans trash is another mans treasure
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John Brookes@227
Why do you leave yourself open to retorts like: So that’s why you keep coming back?
Are you a rat?
Come on John you can do better than that. I have seen you do it before.
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Debbie @223 Thank you for a nice summary. Saved me from lots of typing…..
Now lets see if Ceebus will respond coherently.
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The people who started Earth day were really celebrating Lenin’s 100th birthday — it was a badly kept joke among the radical left in the US.
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John Brooks #227
Yes, that is rightly pointed out John.
Studies in 1956 (James Old) ‘Pleasure Centres of the Brain’ discussed the mapping of the brains of rats. And began investigating the hypothalumus and thalamus.
‘Why is electric stimulation so rewarding? ‘ .. We have looked to see whether parts of the ‘reward system’ of the brain are specialised …’
(will have to provide original source)
Feynman had a good observation on the study of rats.
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
MaxL #228
I doubt I have an answer there Max.
In 1986/7 I nursed a young man who had shot himself through the upper arm. He had climbed the town water tank with a .22. His wish was to live with the young woman he loved. She was not his or her (anthropoligically proscribed) marriage partner. The community’ old men discussed the situation at length and allowed the relationship to go ahead. Politics in latter years prevailed and the young couple were re-educated to re-tribal versions and notions. Many of these young ones did not live.
Noel Pearson used the Swedish professional, Nils Bejerot in his discussions early 2000 of the addiction issues in Cape York. The same academic coined the Stockholm Syndome. Worth reading up on.
Drugs in environments where supply is controlled in the abscence of an open market is clearly a problem. And a dire one at that. Afghanistan tribals and poppy crops + heroin/trade in girls seems to me a similar moral and economic story.
And I expect Noel’s statement regarding alcohol
[‘Like too many black and white people from the outback, Katter tried to ignore the truth that grog and Aboriginal culture just don’t mix’ http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/hats-off-to-katters-grand-plan/story-e6frgd0x-1226051430675 ] is not conducive to Aboriginal people who wish to move beyond culture (and the language of this).
I state that because I worked with local remote people and had adult students [17-60yrs] that had moved beyond that premise told of and about them.
There are no open market economies in these communities. But controlled by ideology of the elders/spokespeople? And academics? And media. All the latter have rights as individuals (and education and employment) when they choose.
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The question practically asks itself: Do you mean anything by what you say? Just for reminders, here is what you said:
You say the AU carbon tax is “designed to reduce pollution”, then give as an example of such pollution a study in China.
But, Gosh! You didn’t mean to link the two! How could we possibly draw that conclusion?
OK, I’ll take you at your word: What you post is essentially contentless drivel and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
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MaxL,
On Communicative Thug vs Intellectual Thug as a concept label.
After sleeping on the issue and thinking about it more, I think the issue is resolvable on the bases of an objective epistemology: what we know and how we know it in an objective universe. This relates to the nature of concepts, the function of definition, and the use of symbols as labels for concepts.
A full explication of this perspective is much to extensive and complicated to present as a blog comment. The critical highlights are as follows:
1. A concept is a mental container which refers to an external object by referencing all attributes of the referent object both known and unknown.
2. A definition’s purpose is to provide an encapsulated specification of the fundamental attribute or attributes of the class of object so as to distinguish it from all other conceptual referents. A definition is not the concept nor is it a list of the entirety of the content of the concept. The definition and what is considered fundamental may properly be different for different levels of knowledge and the purpose behind the use of the concept. However, the fundamental must be demonstratively part of the object and not just an arbitrary fantasy.
3. A word is a symbolic mental unit connected to a concept by its (and the concept’s) definition. It serves as a link to the concept and facilitates the development of higher level concepts.
These three aspects are based upon the metaphysical principles that:
1. Existence exists.
2. That whatever exists is what it is.
3. The mind is capable of identifying these facts and what a thing is.
4. Our access to what is, is through our senses and automatic perceptions.
This leads us to further understand that:
1. Knowledge is contextual (we cannot know everything but we can know something)
2. To be knowledge, it cannot contradict (both be and not be the same thing, the same way, at the same time, any aspect of the context
3. Conceptual knowledge is the human way of grasping and working with reality. The whole process is called reason: the faculty of man by which he grasps reality by integrating the data provided by his sensory perception in to a non-contradictory integrated view of reality. There is no such thing as automatic knowledge or extra-sensory knowledge.
There is more – much more but the bottom line is that while there is a thug like communication in the concept we discuss, it is not a fundamental. It is only a derivative of the fundamental. Its the particular thug like focus on ideas, words, and concepts and how he uses them that is the fundamental here. I will stay with the label: Intellectual Thug because it still is the best encapsulation of the concept I have discovered to date.
Thanks for the offer of “communicative”. It was a worthy attempt. It caused me to think carefully about the issue once again.
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Lionell, I would label your metaphysical principles phenomenological. They become metaphysical if what is is described by a basis for is.
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Brian @ 236,
I strongly disagree.
They are metaphysical BECAUSE the means by which we perceive is also metaphysical: Our physical senses exist and have a specific identity. They therefor report what they sense exactly and precisely according to that identity. Our knowledge can reliably be of reality but only if we follow a process consistent with our identity.
The mistake you are making is the same monumental error Kant made. You are attempt to compare knowing something with no means of knowing with a knowing by a means that exists. Non existence cannot know and can be known only by the projection of the absence of all properties. Existence is not explained by non-existence. Existence simply exists.
Existence is the metaphysical starting point and only an existent knower can know by only an existent means. This is the foundation of an objective epistemology.
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Cogito knows that “cogito” is part of “is” because of sense data.
Without sense data, cogito would not know what “is” is.
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Brian at 238,
How is your statement different from my statement that knowing requires an existent means of knowing and an existent knower?
How does your statement follow from your comment in 236?
Why are you making either statement?
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(Digression)
Trying to make sense of the difference between “metaphysical” and “phenomena,” at least in my own mind, which I could never accomplish.
When I was younger I tended to agree with A J Ayer and David Hume that nothing had “sense” unless there was reportable data with it; but then such things as “ontology” “love” and a litany of other things have no meaning (are senseless).
But they are part of “being,” so I came to think that “any thing that communicated to another mind that had the same interpretation to them as to me” was “being” but that included a lot of things that don’t exist at all.
So they are not part of being but they are thoughts and thoughts are part of being so does the thought of it put it into being? At this point I have no idea .
(but thinking about things, such as global warming, makes people react all the same, as if they actually existed. Yesterday I read a blog that began “climate change is not evident in the USA yet. So we need to act quickly. Because when we see evidence of it it is too late.”
Too late for what? A return to sanity?)
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Hey loaded Dog – I owe a lot to dictionary.com
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Brian,
OK. Your purpose was to try to make sense between two, thought to be, very different things. I can and do accept that as a valid purpose.
Part of the problem may be because the word “metaphysics”, which in classical philosophy pertains to the basic nature of reality, has accreted the occult and mystical aspects of the so called paranormal. When I use the term, I use it in the classical sense.
Another part of the problem may be with the word “phenomena”. In the classical use of the word it merely means “what has, is, or will happen.” Yet since Kant, the word means subjective knowledge that has no necessary connection with reality “in itself”. In a very real sense, according to Kant, if we know something to be true, it cannot be about the real world. If we think it is about the real world, it cannot be known to be true.
With this kind of confusion, it is not possible to make sense of either term or their difference. If you look to most other philosophers both ancient to modern, you can only come away only more confused.
As always, part of the path to the solution to a fundamental issue like this is checking your premises. Somewhere there is a conflict (aka contradiction) within your working set of premises and definitions and/or between them and reality. Especially challenging is the examination of your hidden premises and definitions because they too are part of the working set. It is the hidden premises and definitions that can and often do the most damage.
How do you check them? You have heard of the logical processes of deduction and induction. Have you heard of the logical process of reduction? It means to trace the logical connections of a higher level concept down to first principles and the facts of reality. My post at 235 is an example of that process exposed to public view. The example suggests how you might resolve your quandary by performing a similar process of logical reduction.
It really does help to write the details of your reduction process so that it becomes an object of study rather than just a noisy rattling in your mind. The hidden becomes more visible. The contradictory becomes more evident and more easily correctable.
In the final analysis, this is the kind of work everyone needs to do FOR THEMSELVES. It cannot be done for you because most of the problems are hidden from everyone else’s view but your own. All anyone else can do is demonstrate the path they used and the answer they found. Since you are working with the same reality, you will find very similar answers.
That being said, my post at 237 gives my answer to your quandary. It is an end result of a long sustained reduction process on my part.
I hope this helps.
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Oops, the word “contributory” in the third to last paragraph should be “contradictory”.
[Done] ED
Sorry, sometimes my fingers think they know more than my mind and my eyes see what my mind said. The blog format tends to be stream of consciousness writing so such things happen. Especially when I am about ready to crash for the night.
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Thank you, Lionell, that’s a helpful programme, I’m glad I don’t have to carry it out with everything I believe I “know” or would like to know, but it does help for things I get stuck on.
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Why do I feel that I deserve a Phd just for reading the last few posts (except for 241)?
Thanks Lionell and Brian
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David @ 153 re early CSIR material and “decline”
If you seek to date a decline, it has not happened in some sections of CSIRO. It is mainly the climate section that has become a disappointment.
About 1964-7 I worked in CSIRO Tropical Pastures, helping the introduction of the legume Townsville stylo for the beef industry. My boss, Les Edye, later gained a CSIRO Medal for the success of his leadership work – but that was after success had been demonstrated. Although there was sometimes a decline of small duration when we played bridge all afternoon, the general standard of the work was as I would expect it to be today. So, for the part with familiarity, the decline was after the 1960s. I think it is relatively easy to get Annual Reports after that era.
I’m reluctant to knock CSIRO as a whole because it has such an important part to play. There were many times in later years when we helped fund CSIRO projects of lasting importance. I still have a copy of Brian Gulson’s book “Lead Isotopes in Mineral EXploration”, where my corporate colleague Dr Ross Large facilitated access to sample and data by CSIRO. It would have been quite difficult for an individual company to buy the gear and hire the experts, so CSIRO was the logical path.
The detrimental change has been Government funding replacing corporate funding. This has extended beyond science to social programmes like provision of set top boxes to pensioners when analog goes off air. As Gerry Harvey said, “They should have asked me.”
The difference between corporate funding and Government funding is that the corporate people who review progress, direction and funding generally know a hell of a lot more about the subject than government funding bodies do. This keeps a most desirable focus on the CSIRO research, a point that Jo raised from another angle in her response above, about auditing.
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Mark D #245… at least you understood my post:)
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Sorry for the delay, been hectic here taking friends to hospital etc.
Hi Jenness,
Thanks for the links, looks like I need to do more research. Can you suggest a couple of good sites to get me started?
Hi Lionell,
Wow, I’m kinda stuck for words, you’ve given an excellent analysis.
I’m quite happy to accept your phrase “Intellectual Thugs”. I guess for myself I’m considering the original meaning of the word thug as a member of a 19th century religious organization of assassins in India.
The religious and violence aspects of the original seems appropriate to many of the AGW mob. The word has taken on a different meaning since then, in that one doesn’t have to be religious to be labelled a thug.
I realize that intellectual can be interpreted as other than “possessing a good understanding”, and I agree with your thinking out loud post #219 regarding the good and bad intellectuals. I’m not a fan of Descartes, where he asserts that animals feel no pain because they have no mind. For me, the evidence is clear that all sentient animals have some intellect. Thus every human has some intellect, but not all I would describe as an intellectual.
I think it is important to remember what we are doing here, which is discussing what label is appropriate for certain trolls who for their own perverse reasons want to inform us of their opinion. I think it boils down to their fundamentalist dogmatism.
They are not interested in our views or the evidence we may offer, they simply ignore that and repeat their own mantra.
For me, I might just use the phrase Dogmatic Thugs when confronted with a classic example as ceebus. After they have clearly shown themselves to be dogmatic and/or insulting.
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MaxL,
I would agree that there is a sub-specie of Intellectual Thug who is Dogmatic: consistent in projecting a particular unfounded or counter factual position. Thus Dogmatic Thug might be a useful identification at times in certain circumstances.
I find that many/most Intellectual Thugs hold shape shifting positions depending upon the situation, topic, and particular target victim and thus cannot be classed as dogmatic. Hence, my focus on the Intellectual aspect as opposed to the Dogmatic one.
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Hi Lionell,
Hmm, shape shifting as in illogical, inconsistent and arbitrary?
Do you often update and view your own blog site? I’m thinking that Jo’s site may not be appropriate for any lengthy discussion about this, plus I’d love to get your opinion on some related issues.
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MaxL,
Activity on my blog site has been quite low the past year or so.
My working hypothesis has been that by injecting examples of an reality based thinking process, the fight against the madness of CAGW might be strengthened. The experiment to test this hypothesis is still in process. I suspect that the massive dose presented in this thread will take some time to be digested.
It might be appropriate to shift a significant part of our discussion to my blog. Especially if it is seriously off topic. Send me a comment via my blog at A. Rational Human and we can continue there. Any one else interested in discussing these kind of issues will be welcomed as well.
Warning: I am not as benevolent with respect to troll behavior as Jo nor as gentle with them.
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I’m sorry if I’ve upset you Lionell, but thank you for your time and effort.
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Max L 2 #248
Hi Max,
I hope your friends are comfortable and their hospital visits have resulted in relief.
I do not have many suggestions for your query. My experience in the rural/remote area encompases both working and observational, including reading of the unpublished and published papers over 25 years.
I am a member of The Bennelong Society. The papers posted on their site, I feel, are a fair representation of the field.
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MaxL@ #228
I should have added remote/rural Australia was my home (living and working)for more than 25 years.
Though whether that has more bearing on the previous response may be a moot point.
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I have posted a line-by- line refutation of your false dilemma at:
http://ethicsclimate.blogspot.com/2011/05/joanne-nova-and-false-dilemmas.html
I hope you find it interesting.
Regards,
Glenn.
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MaxL,
In the future, avoid troll like behavior
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Thank you Jenness,
I read your paper on the Bennelong Society site and it sent shivers down my spine.
I suspect this AGW BS will be finished in a few years, but the circumstances that you raise have been ongoing for over a century. (and maybe getting worse?)
I sometimes think that Peter Garrett should go back to gesticulating on stage and leave real issues to the adults.
As a personal anecdote, many years ago I had the honour of playing a few rounds of golf with an elder from the Ngunnawahl people. He impressed me with his fairness and acknowledgement of other peoples opinions and beliefs. I thought at the time, if the Aboriginal people have representatives like this, then surely justice and fairness will prevail sooner rather than later. I think of him often, and miss his wisdom and humour. Sadly, as you have shown, I was wrong again with my prediction. But I will always remember the man that I met.
I will be spending more time on this subject and I hope to read more articles from you (and maybe write again sometime).
And thank you for your concern for my friends, fingers still crossed.
—
Hi Lionell,
Best to leave it at that, and I look forward to reading more of your opinions on this site.
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Oh hi Joanne did you know about this real cure for cancer?
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/228583-Scientists-cure-cancer-but-no-one-takes-notice
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Ahh it’s not perfect…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid
Worth more testing though.
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AU today, USA tomorrow!
It’s time for American Progressives concerned about rising temperatures and American Conservatives concerned rising federal debt to realize the obvious: they need to BUY each other off in order to effectively address their pet ideological concerns—there is no other way. This means trading, among other things, the carbon tax that Hansen wants for a balanced budget amendment and a more limited government. This plan is outlined at letsmakeadeal-thebook.com.
Progressives and Conservatives are actually making the same apocalyptic argument albeit on different issues. They both make good arguments for action. But the public is yawningly uninterested in AGW and unwilling to make the hard choices on America’s fiscal problems. Buying off the opposition is the American way so use the system we have to get the outcome you want. And that’s what Let’s Make A Deal—The Plan is all about: getting the outcome you want.
[A bunch of cr*p if you ask me] ED
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LMADSter:
June 8th, 2011 at 3:02 am
Does that mean that if you argue about it for long enough you can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?
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Subject: The ice age cometh
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/all-three-of-these-lines-of-research-to-point-to-the-familiar-sunspot-cycle-shutting-down-for-a-while/
“All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.”
Some genuine scientists have always said that the time has come when the whole warmist agenda will be smashed and made futile. This is the beginning of their contention that rather than warming, the planet was due for a cooling down, even to the point of entrance to a new mini ice age. The establishment laughed at us. Now there is **official** support for the contention that a solar minimum will bring about the cooling effects that will stop the global warning agenda dead in its tracks. As a certain fictional character once said: “The truth is out there”. This really is the beginning of the end!
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A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.
The results were announced at the annual meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces:
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/SPD2011/
“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”
Quote>>
All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.
“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to ***Earth’s climate***.”
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[…] I just wish we were spending $25 billion on medical research instead. What would you rather have? A cure for cancer or second hand windmill made in […]
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Regardless of the cause the one point that most people miss when talking about climate is that we have to be prepared for change. It is pure human fantasy to assume that the Earth today is some sort of steady state system that is supposed to remain exactly as it is. Ocean levels will change and coastlines along with it. Rain belts will shift (North Africa used to be the bread basket of the Roman Empire before the Sahara ate it) and glaciers will flow and retreat. Nearly all the ideas in the climate debate are built on the false supposition that the climate that supports the current geopolitical state is the norm. Let’s quit trying to find someone to blame and figure out how to deal with change that will come regardless of whose fault it is.
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It’s more worser than that. They want to roll back the “geopolitical state” to the birthdate of meteorology (or prior), which happens to be the tail end of the LIA, the coldest decades in the current interglacial.
Murd’rous buggers.
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I agree, I’m not to blame for retreating or advancing oceans, neither are you. There are climatologists and climate alarmists all over the world who would disagree with that claim. They think that it is your fault and the fault of your Western capitalist economic system.
I agree also that we need to deal with changing climate, as in the ancient past humanity has always found a way to deal with the changing climate.
King Solomon said “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothin new under the sun.”
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Solomon was generally righter than wrong, but I doubt he contemplated anything like this:
focusfusion.org , LPPhysics.com .
I also doubt he ever said “nothin'”. 😉
If FoFu-1 succeeds this winter in fusing Boron-hydrogen for thermal “unity”, the world changes. Zero-emission power, at 1/20 European capital and output costs, 1/10 best American. Worldwide, distributed, dispatchable. Forever. Within 5 yrs., licensed mfrs everywhere would be cranking the generators out.
Solomon would be amazed.
And renewables will be economic roadkill. All of them.
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