RE: Mixed messages on climate ‘vulnerability’. Richard Black, BBC.
AND UPDATED: The Australian reports the leaked IPCC review, AND a radio station just announced it as “IPCC says we don’t know if there is a reason for the carbon tax”. See more below.
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This is another big tipping point on the slide out of the Great Global Scam. IPCC scientists — facing the travesty of predictions-gone-wrong — are trying to salvage some face, and plant some escape-clause seeds for later. But people are not stupid.
A conveniently leaked IPCC draft is testing the ground. What excuses can they get away with? Hidden underneath some pat lines about how anthropogenic global warming is “likely” to influence… ah cold days and warm days, is the get-out-of-jail clause that’s really a bombshell:
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.
Translated: The natural climate forces are stronger than we thought, and we give up, we can’t say whether it will get warmer or colder in the next twenty years.
This multipurpose prediction means that in the future, if it’s colder, they’re right; if it’s warmer, they’re right; and they have it covered for more or less storms, floods, droughts, blizzards and frost too.
And then there’s the perpetual-motion aspect of the threat. Greenhouse gases might not be dominant now (like they’ve been saying for the last 20 years) but they will be, they tell us. They will be! Look out! The storms are coming, we’re all doomed. (Well we definitely absolutely might be.) Got that?
If the century progresses without restraints on greenhouse gas emissions, their impacts will come to dominate, it forecasts:
- “It is very likely that the length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells, including heat waves, will continue to increase over most land areas…
- “It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation or the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls will increase in the 21st Century over many areas of the globe…
- “Mean tropical cyclone maximum wind speed is likely to increase…
- “There is medium confidence that droughts will intensify in the 21st Century in some seasons and areas…
- “Low-probability high-impact changes associated with the crossing of poorly understood thresholds cannot be excluded, given the transient and complex nature of the climate system.”
Then look for the segue where the scientists and activist-journalists, quietly shift the goal-posts;
It’s impossible to read the draft without coming away with the impression that with or without anthropogenic climate change, extreme weather impacts are going to be felt more and more, simply because there are more and more people on planet Earth – particularly in the swelling “megacities” of the developing world that overwhelmingly lie on the coast or on big rivers close to the coast.
That’s an EXIT clause and it reads like this: We might have been wrong about CO2 causing the disasters, but disasters are still coming. More people are going to die from climate catastrophes because there are lots more people! See, “we were right all along to be concerned about the climate”. (Just not quite right about the cause).
This is a handy excuse. Al Gore tried a segue like this out a couple of years ago — pretending that he was just fine tuning his altruistic saintly concern by saying quietly that CO2 wasn’t as bad as he’d thought but Black Carbon (!) was awful pollution. In other words, he’ll never admit he made a bad call, or has been caught pushing a scam, he’ll just say he was right all along, “carbon is still the issue, it’s just a slightly different form”.
These IPCC scientists are using the same technique: Climate Disasters are still the issue — it’s just a slightly different reason.
Repeat after me: AGW is still bad, skeptics are still wrong, and look over here at this slightly new twist on the predictions of disaster.
(See below for the update)
We all know there won’t be a slew of headlines trumpeting:
New IPCC leaked report; Weather could get warmer or colder!
“Storms might be not quite as bad, but could be much worse!”
“IPCC underestimate natural climate forces! Skeptics correct!”
Obviously this is an all-encompassing all-occasion document. For journalists fishing for disaster, there are ways to find it in the prophesies, and for scientists who want to be able to say “My predictions were right” in five years time, they can find just about any prediction under the sun somewhere in there and point to it to say “I told you so”.
Even Hulme is acknowledging that things are changing and the “climate” meme is receding.
As UK academic Mike Hulme and others have argued, such events will occur whether exacerbated by climate change or not; and vulnerable societies need protection irrespective of climate change.
He’s argued for a divorce, therefore, between the issues of adaptation, which he says could usefully be added into the overall process of overseas development assistance, and mitigation of emissions.
In other words, the money will still flow, it’s just being rebadged. But the developing nations don’t like that. They prefer the current arrangement when developed nations atone for carbon sins and “pay” the third world. The alternative is the same cash, but it’s called “aid” and that comes with more strings. Everyone wants to be paid their rightful due, and no one wants to be “indebted” in any sense.
It’s not proved to be a popular notion with developing world governments, which remain determined to tie the two together in the UN climate process.
Governments of vulnerable countries argue that as developed nations caused the climate change problem, they must compensate those that suffer its impacts with money above and beyond aid.
Developing countries like the fact that under the UN climate process, the rich are committed to funding adaptation for the poor.
That this is all a naked clamor for pork-barreling money and payments to patrons (and not about the poor or the environment) is not even hidden. Black points out that the aid is not getting out as fast as it should:
Yet as the brief prepared for the Dhaka meeting by the humanitarian charity Dara shows, it isn’t happening anywhere near as fast as it ought to be.
Only 8% of the “fast-start finance” pledged in Copenhagen, it says, has actually found its way to recipients.
Where is the outrage? Doesn’t this type of inefficiency or corruption completely undermine any pretense that there is a point in fighting to “solve” the climate problem (assuming there was one). The entire Copenhagen boondoggle was never about helping the world’s poor, because 92% of the money pledged went to “looking good” or funding bureaucrats or was a mythical promise, and hardly anyone cares.
Then, Wait! No. Seriously? You mean the IPCC is not about rigorous scientific analysis free of government influence?
It’s possible – no, it’s “very likely” – that the IPCC draft will be amended as the week progresses, and presumably the governments represented at the Climate Vulnerable Forum will be asking their delegates to inject a greater sense of urgency.
“Asking delegates to inject “urgency”? Wasn’t this supposed to be based on overwhelming evidence, all uncertainties acknowledged, no exaggeration, and the scientific integrity of thousands of the world’s top experts was a given? All along it’s just been a tool for Big-Government to use to suck the money from honest citizens. Even Black knows it.
Does Black realize that he needs an Exit Door too? “The skeptics were always wrong. I was just reporting the scientists who underestimated natural variability”.
No Richard, No. You switched off your brain, stopped investigating, and turned yourself willingly into a mouthpiece for government funded scientists against the unfunded independent scientists who turned out to have been right all along.
The shape-shifting here is entirely predictable. It means the machine adapts to reality, but hardly anyone one gets punished. A bit like the bailouts and fraud on Wall St — no one went to jail. (Occupy Climate anyone?) They just change the letterheads on the parasitic agencies that pretend to help the poor and care about lemurs, and all of them get away with the sloppy reasoning, wasteful practices, bullying, deceit, and corruption.
Unless of course, the internet foils that plan. May we always be free from the forces of censorship.
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UPDATE: WOW. The leaked IPCC report is making waves
The Australian reports the leaked document as if it is a statement from the IPCC. It’s a front page story. The political class in Australia can’t miss this. As I mentioned above I just heard it repeated on the radio as if the IPCC was not supporting any need for a carbon tax. The Guardian’s writer doesn’t seem to know about the leaked copy.
Review fails to support climate change link
- Graham Lloyd
- From: The Australian
WIDELY-HELD assumptions that climate change is responsible for an upsurge in extreme drought, flood and storm events are not supported by a landmark review of the science.
And a clear climate change signal would not be evident for decades because of natural weather variability.
This blows away many of their favorite propaganda lines. Will it stick? Will the final report really say this, and is there some weasel way out for the IPCC?
The full report will not be released for several months but a leaked copy of the draft summary, details of which have been published by the BBC and a French news agency, have provided a good indication of what it found.
While the human and financial toll of extreme weather events has certainly risen, the cause has been mostly due to increased human settlement rather than worse weather.
There is only “low confidence” that tropical cyclones have become more frequent, “limited to medium evidence available” to assess whether climatic factors have changed the frequency of floods, and “low confidence” on a global scale even on whether the frequency has risen or fallen.
Wait for it, in trying to control the damage from this, Prof Palutikof reveals a deeply unscientific, religious mindset. There is no signal yet of man made influence, but she “knows” it will emerge. A real scientist would wait for the observation.
Jean Palutikof, director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility at Griffith University, in Queensland, said the findings of the UN report would “not surprise anyone involved in climate science”. Professor Palutikof said it would take a while for the effects of climate change to become visible. But without action, she said, “gradually, over time, that signal will emerge with resounding clarity”.
Ditto for Will Steffen:
The federal government’s climate science adviser, Will Steffen, has acknowledged there is no statistically significant evidence that there has been a change in the behaviour of tropical cyclones.
However, Professor Steffen told the Ten Nework’s The Bolt Report at the weekend that most experts agreed we would see an increase in intensity in cyclones as the warming continued.
They are coming unstuck.
The only question is how the IPCC will try to do damage control.
The question now is: How do Australians exit from the carbon dioxide tax?
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The short answer is we don’t and the long answer is the same because it never was about CO2.The only reason they called it a CO2 tax is because they did not think they could get away with a breathing tax. 🙂
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Vote in Tony Abbott. 🙂
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Unfortunately Liberal won’t be that much better and they have too many ‘Greenie’ members such as Turnbull that will push for more stupid legislation regarding emissions/environment. In saying that, I will still vote for them over most other parties.
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It is our duty and responsibility to ensure that whoever is voted in does as they are required by their constituents.
Say YES to an election now !!
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One cannot help but observe that the scales are slowly, inexorably starting to tilt toward the side of sensibility and rationalism. When even the IPCC start to inject a metaphorical “but” into their argument, then you get the feeling that those of us who are yet to be convinced, may be finally getting an even break.
Well argued case as usual JN.
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IPCC have ‘scientists’? Since when?…sarc
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Their scientists specialise in the field of brainwashing.
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REPLY: Welcome your thoughts, do you mind picking a different username? (We’ll rewrite the username) –JN
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Fair enough, was only meant as a joke. How about Juliar?
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OK. It’s better. 🙂
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Don’t stoop to their level. We hardly want to justify their disrespect. Alan Jones’ references to tossing her into the sea has been used against all dissenters, despite their mob saying far worse. With another (worse) GFC imminent, the world is about to go pear-shaped and respect will become the scarcest resource of all.
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Yes they do. Political scientist.
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Given the IPCC’s new strategy of writing their predictions so vaguely that any outcome can be deemed to have been foreseen, perhaps they should go the whole hog and write the entire report in qautrains.
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All the IPCC Scientists with integrity have resigned and dissociated themselves from the “findings” long ago.
The steamroller is on the way.
That’s the good thing about science; It has a permanent truth that no matter how obscured, can eventually be found with enough persistence.
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Yes the Paleoclimate mob have gone into tea leaf reading instead. If you look at the site http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/ there are only 220 authors, what happened to the consensus of 2500?
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How many times have we heard someone say “well you guys used to say it wasn’t warming, now you say it’s warming but…” I can think of numerous cases where those supporting this climate nonsense want to claim “well skeptics said this, now they say…”
Convenient how they ignore that their climate science heroes used to ignore natural variability, the sun, water vapor, and numerous other things skeptics would raise as examples of why their claims and theories were garbage. If we were so wrong then why are they now claiming “oh it’s a cooler sun” or “natural variability is overriding our <insert cause>” etc.
Why are the reasons that skeptics gave for why the theories were crap now creeping into their literature as “escape clauses” for predictions that, in claiming X will occur, really only tell us that we can safely assume X won’t happen?
And these charlatans try to claim we move the goal posts…
They have to have one hell of a shovel to toss the manure in that quote around. Climate changes and always has, if their “climate change signals” are so insignificant that they become noise drowned by that of natural variability then they were nothing significant to begin with. One might even say it was natural variability they were seeing all along…
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Because that is the way science is actually done. I know of several scientists (both of the political variety, and the physical variety) who are prepared to die in a ditch over some theory or another, and when you finally produce some evidence that refutes their theory, they modify their hypothesis to accommodate the new evidence and then claim discovery of the evidence in the first place.
That is really just human nature – the bad stuff is trying to alter civilisation based on the flawed theory in the first place.
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True that is how science should be done but after the last 10 or 20 years do we really expect it from the IPCC?
Scientists would modify the theory, while the IPCC I suspect is just covering their asses while still ready to claim the theory holds.
As with all things, time will tell.
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The Hockey Stick people started with the thought that the MWP and the LIA did not happen and then set out to prove it. They openly admited to altering the data to get the required result. The mystery is how they avoided jail, if it had been a commercial report for mining that is where they would be!
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I read with interest the following quote from the article
This may actually seem anecdotal, but move it to the scenario of those huge megacities.
During my time in the Air Force, I was stationed at RAAF Base Amberley, near Ipswich on three separate occasions, the first from 1969, the second from 1980, and the third from 1991. During that time, there were many changes to the Base.
The main runway was extended and widened not long before I arrived there the first time, to cater for newly purchased F111 fleet. At the same time huge concrete tarmacs went in extending them by acres and acres in fact.
At my second Posting, the runway was even further extended now well beyond 2 miles. there were also increases in taxiways as well. Many extra acres of concrete hard standing also went in.
For the third Posting the whole Base had expanded again, with more roads in the base area, longer and wider strip and taxiways, and even greater areas of concrete hard stand.
Now, I was also involved in sport as well, Cricket, and I got to have a fairly large circle of friends in the civilian area.
One of those was a long term farmer who lived not far from the base, who would always come to watch his son play.
We spoke at length, and on a number of occasions, and as per usual, talk got around to the weather, as I have found often happens with people from the farming community, also noticed from my time at Wagga Wagga.
This, er, older man, often mentioned the RAAF Base with respect to the weather, something I found intriguing, because, back in the early 90’s weather and climate was not as high in my thinking as it is now.
Having farmed in the area since the end of the War on his father’s property, he mentioned to me that now, major electrical storms were actually being generated in the area close to and around the base. He speculated on the enormous heat rising from the now many square miles of ‘blacktop’ and concrete, and how this enormous rising heat was in actual fact influencing the micro climate of the area.
I had even noticed it as early as 1980, my second Posting, when I went through the single most violent Electrical storm I had ever been in, directly over the base itself. Immense and strong, and lasting for nearly 2 hours, from 5 Pm until just before 7PM, it was actually the most amazing thing to be in the middle of. A number of us pulled up our chairs on the balcony of our living quarters and watched in wonder with some stubbies. We even saw one case of Ball lightning, rolling along power lines burning them as it went and then blowing a ‘transformer’, which went off like a bomb in a huge shower of sparks.
The noise was so intense, a couple of the guys were even wearing their ear muffs. When you see lightning crash less than 50 metres away, and then smell the air immediately after the crash, you have no idea what a storm is. This may have ‘seemed’ scary, but it was actually wonderful to see.
The old guy mentioned that these storms were completely non existent prior to the mid 70’s, and when we were discussing it in early 1992, he mentioned they were now commonplace at around 2 or 3 each Summer.
He put it down to the enormous heat from the Base itself, what we now refer to as the Urban Heat Island.
Now, with the advent of these megacities, it only stands to reason the storms will in fact become more intense and violent, nothing to do with AGW, but more to what is alluded to in the article.
Of course, it’s almost ‘convenient’ now to blame it on that AGW, but I feel sure some older people might have a more perspicacious reason as to why those storms are becoming more intense.
Tony.
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Good yarn Tony. Another reason why storms are going to be noticed more is NOT because there are more of them but with more people there are more eyes noticing them; along with improvements in detection generally. The effect of storms will also be more apparent because more people are living in areas where once they were not living and are likely to be affected where before they would not have been.
These issues are well noticed by insurance companies which, when the population increase is taken into account, have concluded that extreme weather payouts have not increased over the last century.
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Tony, Cohenite…
I think climate debate will ultimately devolve towards what kind of social vision and nation building strategy we will need going forward. But I don’t have any faith that the self-harming idiots that brought us the carbon tax will rise to the challenge.
The CAGW myth will soon be quietly shelved without apology, even as the Green prophets of doom invent some new drama. Maybe, like a broken clock, someday they’ll be right about something. After all, there have been cyclones, plagues, earthquakes, asteroids, solar flares, and supernova in the past… and there are very real issues with poorly planned mega-cities and the micro-climates that they produce as anyone who has visited a major Chinese city can attest.
As our cities expand, services and infrastructures are stretched, becoming less resilient. Systems build upon systems built upon systems increase our capacity for growth with dependency upon steady states far from our origins as people living directly on the land and so increase our vulnerability to disruption. Of course, there is no going “back to nature” unless 8 out of every 10 of us volunteer to be snuffed out.
Imagine the total civil breakdown that would ensue if the electric grid failed for an extended period in Sydney or London…It’s worth noting that if a major city lost all electric supply in 1950, it wouldn’t have been catastrophic… Then ask yourself — why do we tolerate those in our polity who are working to weaken our already over-extended energy generating and delivery systems?
What we need is not more self-harming limitations on our imagination for our country and our children’s future, but rather a civil engineering renewal and expansion of our infrastructure based on 21st century knowledge of design and materials. But our government demands social re-engineering rather than nation building to future-proof Australia. Instead, they’re locked into a black armband vision of fevered guilt and cultural cringe. We must flog our private sector with taxes on air, mail the funds raised to Nigeria for penance and never build anything big ever again.
The only thing our politicians ever expand is their power– bureaucracy, regulations and public sector unions wages at the expense of the electric grid, water, sewage, road or school systems or improving port facilities. As results, storms that wouldn’t have been much of a problem in 1970 might be truly catastrophic by 2020. Green mythology and legal blockades that stop the development of more dams, irrigation schemes, power plants and encourage higher inner city population density rather than suburb expansion will create the very dystopian future the Greens decry… A future where we’ll be plagued by water shortages alternating with devastating floods, food rationing and brown-outs, all leading towards declining productivity, increased poverty and ultimately civil unrest.
It’s as if the very people who are constantly predicting doom for our society are working their damnedest to make their doomsday prophecies come to pass!
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Yes, well said Wes. I’m so pissed off I think I’ll sue someone.
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There is a threat to our electricity systems brought on by the folly that coal can be replaced with wind and solar. This produces fear uncertainty and doubt for investors, that is sovereign risk. The situation is quite bad now for the eastern grid, so watch this space we are headed for blackouts soon.
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You make an interesting point Wes.
It is nothing to do with population per se, it has everything to do with the size of the cities – i.e. the area covered, not the height of the buildings.
I have on my desk ( … somewhere, ahem …) a UN publication that lists all of the Cities and Towns in the world, with some useful statistical information. One of the key measurements of size is based on population. I don’t think it even mentions the developed land area. When the publication finally surfaces, I will check and let everybody know.
But if my memory is correct, then the UN (and by inference the IPCC) will also be looking at cities in terms of population – this could be very interesting …
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Hi Rereke
Following on from your post I did a quick look-up of the comparison of area v population of a cities around the world. I tried to keep the areas similar in each case.
The results are intriguing.
Hamilton NZ
Area: 98.6 km2
Population: 131,400 (2005)
Coventry UK
Area: 98.64 km2
Population: 315,700 (2006 est)
Hong Kong Island
Area: 80.5 km2
Population: 1,289,500 (2008)
Miami Florida USA
Area: 92.4 km2 (land area only)
Population: 399,457 (2010)
Copenhagen
Area: 88.25 km2 (city only)
Population: 548,443 (city)
Beirut Lebanon
Area: 100 km2 (urban)
Population: 1,900,000 (urban)
As can be seen from these non random examples there is no correlation between size and population, not even between the developed and lesser developed world. It does however make one think about the “night lights” method of estimating non-rural areas for UHI correction 😉
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My uncle was meterologist at Amberley until the early 70’s. I saw the weather stations they used and watched him release balloons. I was a teenager then and global warming hadn’t begun.
Tony is right about the changes to the airfield – it was pretty rural back then.
So there is also the urban heat effect in the temperature record for Amberley which was always one of the warmer places in the southeast.
I just love the offhand way climate scientists today talk about adjusting the temperature data – my uncle would have been horrified.
As they all admit adjusting the data and refuse to show their workings why would any reasonable person trust them ?
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Tony, every month I enjoy reviewing the historical highs and lows for my region’s climate. I recently commented about September and October on this site.
I choose monthly records because they seem to be a better indicator of past conditions than daily records. While I don’t think much of anybody’s stats, my conclusion from pursuing this little pastime is that we may actually be living in a fairly clement period.
November has been particularly tame in recent decades. Our hottest mean maximum for the month was in 1915. (In fact, every month set its record maximum between 1910 and 1919, with the exception of August, which was at its hottest as recently as 1946.)
As far as record minima go, our highest monthly minimum temp was in 1914, our lowest in 1933.
Rainfall? Our wettest November was a mere half century ago, in 1959. And who will forget our Flanneryesque November drought of 1926, when a mere 1.3 mm fell on the region at a normally wet time of year? (Mind you, February, our wettest month on average, once got no rain at all…in 1939!)
But a recent November does show up once in monthly extreme weather figures. Can you guess?
Yep. November 1999 was our coldest on record.
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I was at Amberley for the RAAF 80th anniversary. The place was like a furnace.
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What a massive admission of utter failure. Folks, this is as contrite an expression of institutional shame that anyone could ever have hoped for from partisan professional hacks and rent-seekers.
Imagine just how bad the evidence for CAGW must be for the IPCC to admit that any anthropogenic warming is totally swamped by natural variability, which is exactly what the skeptics have been saying all along.
But as Jo notes, the show–the multi-billion dollar global climate con game–must go on, tens-of-thousands of careers depend on it. After all, does anyone expect the Ministry for Climate Change in Canberra announce problem solved and petition parliament to end its charter?
Climate fearmongering is now permanently institutionalised into our culture and our law. Or is it?
The Americans can’t even get anyone to turn up at a congressional hearing into the End-of-the-World as we know it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/17/the-empty-chamber/#more-51362
It might well turn out that Climate paranoia only resonates with the public when….
1. Times are relatively good, the economy is strong and we have the leisure to entertain climatological phantasmagoria. And…
2. When the mainstream media runs a relentlessly biased, fear- and hate-based propaganda campaign to the exclusion of ALL alternative voices.
The only climate that’s about to experience catastrophic change is the political one.
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Well said Wes!
“Climate fearmongering is now permanently institutionalised into our culture and our law. Or is it?”
This is the crux of the matter. The ABC are core contributors to this, just listen to Fran Kelly or ABC 24.
The CO2 tax is not scheduled to begin until next year 1st July.
We still have time to influence the rest of the population to see sense.
What bothers me though, is the Carbon Groupies going off on their junket to Durban, saying Look at me, look at me, We’ve done it!!!
The tide is turning Wes and lets hope it turns bloody quickly.
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It’s already too late. The supporters of CO2 tax are being bred in schools so we will have an entire generation of gullible idiots. I am only just out of high school and my teacher once told me that those who don’t believe in climate change are misinformed and don’t know what they are talking about. I was horrified.
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Not nessesarily. I can report with some pride an email from one son on subjects green with link
“Hey Dad,Have a look at this BS”
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Yes but when teachers are holding events such as “Earth Hour” (which is clearly a load of bs)and students believing it is ‘raising awareness’ and making a difference to stopping Climate change and then students believing it is like Gospel, then you know that it is too late for people to wake up the AGW scam. In saying that, the teachers brainwashing methods on many issues has been going for a while and it is evident that they have bred and fostered this greens party movement with their increased support (from mostly young people) in elections over the past decade.
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Thanks, do keep letting us know what is going on in the schools. It’s scary. — Jo
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I think it is instructive to read this http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/11/how-tony-abbott-should-fight-the-culture-wars The conservative side of politics in Australia has practically lost an influence on the mainstream. The left has people who have the same group think in the whole education system, the main stream media, government bodies and the unions. It can be reversed as the article shows but it will not be easy or quick.
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That is the key right there and it goes for any government agency or group created to solve a problem. The problem (real or imagined) will never in fact be solved because doing so means there is no further need for the agency or group.
It doesn’t take long from the creation of the agency or group for their mission to change from that which it was created for to what becomes their real mission which is maintaining their funding and relevance.
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The standard mechanism in any of the Western governments is to merge departments together and in the process get rid of the dead-wood.
In the process, “mission statements” change, and with it the organisational structure and jobs that are no longer required.
I expect, and some stage, for the Ministry of Climate Change to merge with Environment or Science and Technology, or even Energy. No fanfares, just merged and gone ….
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As I have said before the IPCC is set up to find a problem with CO2.No problem no need for the IPCC.
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Yes well, I admit I was guilty of just looking at it from the country level as I was responding to a comment about Canberra.
But, at the end of it all, the folks who work at the IPCC are bureaucrats, just like any other bureaucrats in any other UN agency. The merger approach will still be the mechanism for disbanding it, or perhaps a few functions here will be moved to another agency, and a few functions there will be modified so it can be combined with something else, and the rest of it will be merged with another agency and so the name will go away, and before long all of the bureaucrats will have found jobs elsewhere, and will be plotting new stuff. All that will be left is the name, and as I said, that will disappear in a way that looks as though it was successful.
There will be no resounding victory of the sceptics over the IPCC, because the IPCC will quietly leave the battlefield in the middle of the night, and nobody will see it passing.
The last thing that the UN will want, is to be throwing cash at an agency that is not giving it a return on the investment. Depending upon what happens in Durban, we may well be close to that point now.
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To save humiliation the AGW scare mongerers and their annointed supporters in the media and bureaucratic class will ensure this quietly dies in the night.
In Durban I suggest the developing countries will still have their hats out for Billions from the West to “help” them become more energy efficient or “Save” them from rising see levels. Unfortunately for them (and us) it looks like GFC Part II is just around the corner so the Developed Nations including US, Australia and even the EU won’t want to know about it.
Together with the revelations of the leaked IPCC report this should have an even greater effect on Durban as Climategate did to Copenhagen. I must admit I had almost lost faith that the big scare campaign was a beast too big to slay but now I think the wheels are really starting to fall off under the weight of empirical data not supporting either the model projections or the hype.
Sceptics will eventually be vindicated but we will not be allowed to celebrate the victory and rub their noses in it.
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But I thought the warmist’s were saying it was getting worse and they have the evidence to prove it. I would really really like to see that evidence but it hasn’t arrived as yet, I will be waiting for a long too I think !!
Say YES to an election now !!
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[…] IPCC scientists test the Exit doors. […]
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Yep, CAGW is all Greek to me too. 😉
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Good story Tony from Oz…We had one of those storms in about 1998 in Broome with 500mm of rain in 5 hours and constant lightning hitting town. It was referred to as a 100 year event, but I know of at least 3 of these events since 1900. Looking up old station aerial photos before and after the flooding that occurred along the coast for a hundred or so kilometres, the vegetation differences show that this flooding has occurred many times in the past thousands of years.
Everyone seems to have short memories these days. Another cyclone passed just north of Broome in about 1974 that brought an estimated 36 inches over 24 hours to a station in the area, the rain gauges were demolished after 12 hours…
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Good point, Cohenite. Remember as well that every mobile phone now has a camera to record spectacular storms so the evidence moves from the anecdotal to the visual.
But extreme weather was always peripheral to climate variation. The unavoidable consequence of the method of calculating global mean temperatures is that a warming trend must manifest itself primarily as a rise in non-extremes. If an annual mean is the average of 12 monthly maxima and 12 minima then the major element in a change in the annual mean will be changes to the 8 months that are neither the hottest or coldest. And of the remaining 4 months, half of the 4 minima and half of the 4 maxima will be records that do not contribute to extremes. That is, a winter maximum cannot produce an extreme cold and a summer minimum cannot produce an extreme heat wave.
So 20/24 (83.3%) of any mean temperature trend will not be sourced from extremes.
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That’s true Mottie; one of the strange[r] things about AGW is that if it works as it is supposed to there will be a converging of temperature with minimums growing faster than maximums. Extreme weather depends on energy gradients so with temperature differences conflating the energy continuum necessary to fuel major weather events is depleted.
That is, AGW should cause less extreme weather not more.
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Indeed! Spencer covered this too. The tough tornado season this year was because of unusual COLD fronts not warm.
The series of two discussions:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/todays-tornado-outlook-high-risk-of-global-warming-hype/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/the-tornado-pacific-decadal-oscillation-connection/
But really why the IPCC has to say these things is because the future does look colder .
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Is it possible that CAGW is now irrelevant? mega billions of our money has been wasted on CAGW, with more of our money “committed” to be wasted. Total collapse of the CAGW hypothesis and our money is still wasted.
The primary issue (to me) is becoming govt wasting my money.
I agree with all that Jo says in this article which can also be summarized as:
CAGW is a crock so we will now waste you money on climate change.
Climate change is a crock, so we will now waste your money on… er.. something.
See, we are a good govt and know how to waste your money!
Time for citizen initiated referenda methinks.
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Well its hitting the fan now. I think I will allow myself a couple of days to enjoy it, but Jo is correct, verbose mendacity will be standard operating procedure starting immediately.
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Fairfax reporters read different words it seems…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/un-scientists-forecast-more-severe-droughts-cyclones-and-floods-20111113-1ndu0.html#ixzz1e2E9npXV
Southern Europe will be gripped by fierce heatwaves, drought in North Africa will be more common, and small island states face ruinous storm surges from rising seas, a report by United Nations climate scientists says.
A 20-page draft ”summary for policymakers” says that global warming will create weather on steroids, and that these amped-up events – cyclones, heatwaves, diluvian rains, drought – will hit the world unevenly.
In the worst scenario, settlement in some areas could be wiped out, the report says.
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Metaphoric hat is on.
I think they’re scrambling to find parachutes, but they’ve noticed:
Their parachute cords were ripped up by climategate
Their parachute canopies were shredded by the 10:10ers
The parachutes bag has been dissolved by the catastrafarian media
And their parachute straps have been torn to pieces by Jos and others critical and rational reasoning.
If I were them I would hand their chutes to the pollies, tell them to jump (you’ll be fine – the warm air will cushion your fall) and try to land the plane.
All we need to do is to step aside and make sure noone gets hit by anything from above.
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Just give them a back-pack and push them out at 15,000ft … should do the trick.
Honestly, I look forward to ‘Royal Truth Commissions’ to weed out the pervayers of the lies and deceit and their lackies and administering long jail terms. Their assets can be confiscated as proceeds of crime and distributed to anybody that has not previously had one of those free Kevin07 & Juliar handouts.
If over population is the issue then the socialist warmistas can do the world a great favour in the footsteps of other infamous ‘religious sects’ and martyr themselves for the Cause.
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I notice one of the things we are going to get is extreme sunshine.
Could someone tell me how that is different to normal sunshine or mild sunshine.I mean who makes this stuff up.
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Ah, but if you spell “Extreme” without the “E”, and capitalise the “X”, you get Xtreme Sunshine … sort of like Xtreme Sport … only useful for young alpha males as a way of improving the gene pool (said the old fart in the corner).
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The ALP must be rubbing its hands with glee at this news.
If everything turns sour, they can just keep all those lovely Billions to bolster their bottom line.
Sort of reminds me of the two frame cartoon of the guy on a swing rope as he swings out across the River.
The first frame shows glee as he soars through the air after letting go of the rope, and the second frame shows the Croc breaching the surface under, him mouth open wide.
Tony.
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Methinks I hear the scraping of sword hilts on the floor as a mass of AGW exponents shuffle about preparing to topple onto their swords…
ahh well, dreams are for free!
Let them all, every last zombie, be held to account for their excruciatingly destructive nihilistic doctrine of primitivisation. Let the scientists who sacrificed their integrity to sponge off the fount of infinite funding, spend the balance of their careers teaching ethics 101 and let the cross party politicians that failed to ask the critical questions, that failed to guard and protect the freedoms and lives of those that trusted them enough to elect them be required to plant trees for a living for the rest of their occupational lives and retirement.
The sub-prime mortgage fiasco leading to the great early 21st century depression will pale to irrelevance when compared with the travesty of politics and “science” fueled by a politically correct hypothesis of AGW. History will not treat the leading protagonists well, and frankly neither should we!
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I pray for your outcome.
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This is no real surprise.
The whole theory is built on Junk Science.
Have you seen how they calculate Earth’s “effective temperature” from a “top of atmosphere” radiation balance ?
There are numerous problems with this nonsense.
Firstly what has the temperature at the top of the atmosphere got to do with the surface ?It is minus 18 but this is about 5km up in the air. It also shows that the Earth only needs to radiate approximately 240 W/sq m over the area of the sphere to balance approximately 1000 W/sq m over the illuminated disk – wow ! Given the way the geometry is anyone can see this if they look at it properly.
Secondly – there never has been nor will never be a “top of atmosphere radiative balance” – the whole idea is nonsense – large amounts of incoming energy are stored in biomass through photosynthesis – if it wasn’t there would be no life on Earth, no fossil fuels etc. We know enormous quantities of energy are stored in the biosphere without increasing the temperature -you put some of it into your car for example and convert it to work and waste heat – but apparently scientific experts in the field of climatology cannot understand this obvious paradox.
The problem is the Whitlam government funded sewering Brisbane and denied those of us who remember “thunderboxes” a use for otherwise useless IPCC reports.
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Good call, Jo.
When, for example, yahoo!7 regurgitates the AFP story about this report, the trick is not in questioning the terminology or spin they use in the report, but recognising what is NOT in the story.
I probably would not have thought to do that myself.
For example where IPCC now says:
It would have been normal in the past for them to say:
I hope they brought a BMX or else they will find backpedalling quite futile when they get on their bike.
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I see one of our favourite friends is being pushed by the ABC (under the Environment section this time) again:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/11/16/3366790.htm
If this is their “Environment” section it makes sense that they should publish material from a cognitive scientist. Why discuss climate science when you can ad hominem skeptics instead?
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What a surprise our old mate Professor Stephan Lewandowsky
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Why do people reject science?
Why do people reject Professor Stephan Lewandowsky is the question.
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Prof. Stephen Lewandowsky knows more about climate science than he does about Psychology so he would know. He also knows the he is more arrogant than us.
Say YES to an election now !!
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Governments of vulnerable countries argue that as developed nations caused the climate change problem, they must compensate those that suffer its impacts with money above and beyond aid.
Sure they’d love this … all that extra money straight into the bank accounts of the African despots like Mugabe, more guns and more killing dissenters. The Socialists and Greenies have no shame whatsoever.
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[…] IPCC scientists test the Exit doors […]
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I would not get to excited folks it is a game sceptic that stands between and alarmist and a pot of gold.I will wait for the WG1 release in 2014(I think).What odds do I get on it being WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
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Now there is a downer wish I could reject it but it certainly is a possibility. But then again this financial downturn is not over and will get worse. The “science” of economists is as bad or even worse than the climatologist, so maybe there will be no money to control the weather.
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This latest excretion by the IPCC shows that they are still doing superb work. The IPCC was created as a resource for governments to draw upon “best science” and then to use it as they choose. As long as the IPCC continue to give a passing nod to actual science, and pepper their version of the results with ambiguous predictions of man made disaster, then the IPCC will continue to be useful and well funded.
If pointing out the failings of the IPCC is expected to change the mindset of the tax-collecters, then sorry, but that is naive.
Australia, UK, Europe, US, etc. etc. still swear by the IPCC, junk-science and all.
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Jo,
Temperature could never be an indicator of predicting future weather events. It takes too long to establish a trend and misses a great deal of planetary circulations.
There is a 6mm drop in the oceans this year. That is 3 times what was rising in the past. This means we are in for some very NASTY weather events with heavy precipitation.
But hey, I’m just an observer on the outside pointing to interesting indicators.
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The report in The Australian Nov 18, 2011 is not so encouraging that we have dodged the bullet:
But we can live in hope this is wrong… Why worry?
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I wonder how the source for the Australian article would define “likely”? Better than a 50% chance, perhaps?
And if we can agree to that, how would the source define “very likely”? Better than a 60% chance? Or might it be 65%? Or even a 51% chance? Hmm, hard to tell.
And what is the standard “length” of a warm spell? How is it measured? What are the starting conditions? What are the ending conditions?
And how about “intensity”? Is intensity spread out over a wide area, and if so how big an area? Or perhaps it is very intense in a small area? “Don’t stand there because that is the spot where intense … damn, it happened”
Finally, if we go back in history to 1811, could the same statement have been made then, in regard to the weather over the 19th century? Absolutely it could, because there was an increase in tropical cyclones at some time in the century, and there were wind speeds that peaked above average, and there was the occasional high-rainfall event, if you cared to notice.
Conclusion: The Australian piece is pure propaganda and therefore not worth reading unless you are doing a training assignment on poorly written propaganda. So no hope is required. The piece is wrong, and there is absolutely no need to worry.
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They (IPCC) defined likely (66-100% probability), the source document is http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-SPM_Approved-HiRes_opt.pdf the part being talked about can be found under “CLIMATE EXTREMES AND IMPACTS” but make sure you are on page 9 there are two.
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Jo,
The more the planet changes, the more it makes sense to what it is trying to achieve.
The sole purpose of an Ice age is to re-leave pressure buildup over a long period of time. This is caused by overheating.
We have a 6mm sea surface drop in the oceans this year. That is 3 times what was rising before.
This all deal with the surface face of evaporation.
An example is a tall glass of water evaporation compared with a pie pan to evaporate. It is the face surface distance compared with volume with less face surface. This gets into pressure difference in a tall glass compare with the surface pie pan. Weight of water on top of each other.
The surface volume at the poles that was melting was very small. Had a small window space of tilting time for melt and has a small face of volume compare to an ocean.
Much of the lower latitudes salt became denser on the surface. This inhibited evaporation while the higher latitudes became fresher. This opened the face of ocean volume surface water to evaporation.
We can expect MASSIVE precipitation events occurring this year due to the amount of ocean water our atmosphere picked up.
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Hi Joe
I do not know if your theory is correct, however what can be said from straight observation is that the extremes of weather (hottest-coldest, driest-wettest etc) do not happen during the 25 to 30 year warming and cooling periods, they occur in the transitions from one cycle to the next.
The last transitional period in the Seventies (from a cool cycle to a warm cycle) was also the last time we had major flooding on the eastern side of OZ, and the last time “tornado alley” in the USA lived up to its name, just as a couple of for instances.
Further, it would appear from the historical record that the extent of the transitional extremes depends largely on the extent of the cycles surrounding it. Again, for instance, the cooling period of the Fifties to the Seventies was mild (PDO and solar output were both positive), and, despite the rantings of the climwit cultists, there was nothing extraordinary about the beginning of the just-finished warming cycle. Hence, by historical standards, even the “extremes” of the mid-Seventies were not all that “extreme”.
Conversely, by the end of the last warming period (1970’s to 2000) we had reached extremes in one direction; maximum solar output, positive PDO, AMO and ENSO, and now we are swinging into a cooling cycle marked by minima solar output, negative PDO and ENSO and an AMO turning negative,
So, just from the historical record of cycle transitions it is easy to predict we are entering a period of extremes simply because we are in transition; however based on a further study of the surrounding cycles it is equally easy to predict that we are entering a period of extreme extremes.
So, whether or not your explanatory theory is correct, your prediction of a “massive precipitation” (rain, hail, sleet and snow) is probably not far off the mark, along with record or near-record maximum AND minimum temperatures, drought AND floods, cyclones and hurricanes etc.
Given the nature and wording, and timing of the new, “leaked” IPCC Report, I cannot but wonder if all this is not known and well-understood by the powers-that-be.
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It will be very interesting to see how John Cook at Skeptical Science deals with this. So often he has used the IPCC as an appeal to authority. Will he now acknowledge the doubts and convey this to his followers?
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No William S he is an evangelist on a Religious campaign to save humanity from humanity. Why would he change his mind ?
Say YES to an election now !!
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“There is a 6mm drop in the oceans this year. That is 3 times what was rising in the past. This means we are in for some very NASTY weather events with heavy precipitation.”
Quote: Joe Lalonde.
Wow.
I thought along similar outcomes concerning the upcoming extremme weather to come and is here.
Simply consider cooling oceans and summertime in Australia. The temp difference is explosions ongoing guessing time> till the end of the temp difference?
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Jo here in Oz we only had a peninsulla of antartica warming due to a forgotten?discovered current cycle-probobly, however frankly also the artic is a mixed bag with tempatures up-or down.
You say T-buildup cycle of pressure adding the 6mm drop will dump big and heavy. Is that in relation to Australia?
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Now that so many independent scientists and engineers have identified the Marxist IPCC consensus as a new form of Lysenkoism conflated with a new phlogiston, ‘back radiation’, also we have insider cloud specialists identifying the gross errors in that part of the climate models, the likes of Hulme are shifting position.
They know the present battle is lost; cold winters have put paid to it, so they are trying to save the War by appearing reasonable. They also have an increasingly hostile financial situation with governments looking very hard at why they must fund Marxist Prime Donna OCS** people to create more fake science and even the UK Met Office is using solar data to get their weather forecasting to work.
Don’t trust ’em an inch. Hulme set up CRU on Marxist post-normal science principles. Psychopathic Gore will never give up and he owns a lot of people. You lot have your Gizzard psychopath and the dreadfully tortured Rudd who is a bit like our insane Brown. These people will never give up because the only way they can buy votes and pay back the banks who control them is to tax carbon. And once the population knows it has been deceived the politicians may be lynched if your economy has the same 25% fall in GDP that’s likely in Europe and China.
OCS – Oxymoronic Climate Science, a new form of alchemy which believes that if you put 4 basic scientific errors into chaotic models and repeat the calculations often enough, somehow they will predict the future. The problem is, and I got this from debating with Australian climate science postgrads, their basic physics is lacking and even physics profs are teaching the ludicrous back radiation concept when it’s Prevost Exchange Energy. I even had one guy claiming CO2 lines up in the troposphere to form a Fabry-Perot Etalon to store energy. Incremental CO2-AGW is probably slightly negative now; the real GW is from aerosols causing clouds to transmit more light eneergy, particularly at the end of ice ages!
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I’m in shock. I used to be a rabid climate alarmist, I switched to a skeptic after reading the AR4 report in 2007. I have been fighting CAGW on-line ever since.
Is my personal war finally coming to an end?
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They are all scared – the CO2 satellite is watching and recording. The scrutiny has them rattled. No more free lunches on hypotheticals.
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No.
See my comment above #26.1
CAGW, AGW and even “climate change” are so yesterday. The new order of battle is “extreme”.
This “leaked report” is simply setting the stage so that the IPCC and others can claim they “successfully predicted” the coming cyclical, predictable and predicted, extreme weather events.
CO2 will remain the culprit and taxation will remain the remedy.
Your personal war has only just begun.
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Sorry – this was meant for Klem @ #30
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I don’t recall any mention of natural climate variability by AGW alarmists, until global temperature stopped rising around the turn of the century.
Then of course, ‘natural variability’ meant ‘lack of warming’.
What happened to the loud voices that proclaimed….’more CO2 means more warming, we’re heading for a tipping point’!
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Ice age smit my face:-(
A rise in temps will cause evaporation aerosols and more light energy emmiting clouds.
U know I like my theory
Carbon dioxide is magic it even can at times act as a camelion of any tempature. It likes to solidify if cold. Nasty ice age.
Burp.
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The ‘leak’ was actually an attempt by the IPCC to do ‘opposition research’. It was purposefully leaked to get insight into the arguments the realists would use, so as to be able to spin them ahead of time.
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Aunty’s latest spin on the IPCC Review makes Richard Black look like a skeptic.
IPCC: Climate impact risk set to increase
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15745408
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Its actually pretty encouraging that both Richard Black (BBC) and Andy Revkin (NYT) have been more cautious in reporting lately. WUWT today has Mr Revkin pulling up Joe Romm for one of his expectorations, and he’s quite nice to Prof Pielke Jnr to boot. Who I might add appears to be involved with this IPCC report. If you’ve read Dr Pielke Jnr’s posts on his website you’ll’ve seen his views on AGW links to disasters (ie not much).
Its signs like these that suggest to me that the BBC and New York Times are just starting to take out insurance against what they’re seeing happen – the unravelling of the CAGW mythology.
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So in the face of growing uncertainties and lack of actual evidence, climate scientists change their statements.
“Professor Palutikof said it would take a while for the effects of climate change to become visible. But without action, she said, “gradually, over time, that signal will emerge with unspecified but resounding clarity”.
So we now have a vague time period of ‘a while’ and an equally vague statement about some signal emerging with resounding clarity if we take no action on human CO2 emissions.
So there is nothing to measure or test against in her predictions. But why has she suddenly become so coy?
Palutikof doesn’t normally mind big noting herself and allowing herself to be described as a Nobel Laureate.
Her own resume states: ‘One of the foremost scientists in the world studying climate change today, Professor Jean Palutikof was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 in her previous post as the Head of the Technical Support Unit (TSU) of Working Group II of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).’
Professor Jean Palutikof is currently Director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility at Griffith University. She took up the role in October 2008, having previously managed the production of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report for Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), while based at the UK Met Office. Prior to joining the Met Office, she was a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences, and Director of the Climatic Research Unit, at the University of East Anglia, UK, where she worked from 1979 to 2004
There is no doubt Palutikof comes from strong climate alarmist stock as her previous statements attest:
“One scenario of climate change indicates that storm intensity in Northwest Europe could increase by 1–9% because of the doubling of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. A geographic-explicit, statistical model, based on recent storms and storm damage data for the Netherlands, shows that an increase of 2% in wind intensity by the year 2015 could lead to a 50% increase in storm damage to houses and businesses. Only 20% of the increase is due to population and economic growth. A 6% increase could even triple the damage.” See: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.175.5132 1999
Video 24 August 2010 Palutikof states “Doubling CO2 since 1850 will give 1.5C – 4.5C by 2100” http://www.griffith.edu.au/research-week/short-public-lectures/climate-change-adaptation/_nocache
Sept. 13, 2010 BOOMINGTON, Ind. — Nobel laureate Jean Palutikof, professor and founding director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) at Griffith University in Australia, will present two public lectures to launch Indiana University’s William T. Patten Lecture Series for the 2010-11 academic year.
However, with the failure of the international process around limiting greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation has become a much more significant player. At that presentation she had no qualms about making statements taht even the IPCC has now backed away from: “Palutikof said it has become abundantly clear to all that there is going to be climate change on a scale that will cause impacts to which we must adapt. These impacts no longer threaten the poor and the insignificant; this year Russia was “brought to its knees” through drought, with up to one-third of the grain crop ruined, and many thousands of people displaced by flooding in China and Pakistan.”
Charles Darwin Symposium Oct 2011
Professor Palutikof stated: “Approximately 20-30% of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5oC”
AR4: “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”
“Tells us that global emissions have to peak by 2015-2020, and to decline rapidly until 2050 and beyond if dangerous climate change is to be avoided The Australian carbon legislation is an important global development”
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdss2011/speakers.html
This is only a small sample of what Professor has had to say in the past so she can back away and generalise as much as she likes now, she is already totally on record with her unequivocal verdicts and predictions and we should see that she and others are held to account.
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Some people have been waiting over 2000 years for that sign.
What if that sign is better crops and less people dieing from cold will that be a good sign.
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With regard to the slow emerging evidence theory, I think I have heard something along these lines before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EweM_ILVt4
It seems the IPCC now has the credibility of a Pantene commercial. You know what? I remember another brand had light-reflecting technology… maybe it could be used to reduce the globe’s albedo… if only we all used it.
Yup, thank you Prof Palutikof of
the Pond’s InstituteGriffith University.10
“It is very likely that the length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells, including heat waves, will continue to increase over most land areas…”
When was there any demonstation that warm spells were increasing let alone “continue to increase”. This is a flat out lie.
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There is not just a pause in global warming that the UNIPCC are backtracking on. Courtesy of BishopHill we have caught a preview of the likely effects of any given warming. They are not nearly as extreme as in 2007. Gone are the mass global extinctions (to be replaced by more local effects),and any effects of sea level rise. Completely disappeared are the disappearing Himalayan Glaciers, or mass loss of the Amazon Rain forest.
I compare them on my blog here. Be skeptical of my claims and please check out for yourselves.
So now we have
– A pause of 20 to 30 years in global warming.
– Catastrophic impacts of warming less likely and less extreme.
– The biggest claims of the past now dropped.
I have done risk analysis in project costing in the past. To assess the present value of a risk you
1. multiply each potential cost by the likelihood.
2. Then depreciate this over the estimated time scale, using an appropriate discount rate.
AR5, if done scientifically, will project a global warming risk many times smaller than AR4. Then, to get to a mildly skeptical position, you need to factor in the lack of evidence for positive feedbacks from CO2.
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You terrible person, fancy actually suggesting that cost benifit estimates be done. And risk weighted?!! But you didn’t mention the discount rate…one thing I found ludicrous was Lord Stern’s discount rate around 1%, when us poor project financial people have to live with 8 or 9%.
Bjorn Lomborg actually had the temerity to do some NPV’s back when he came out with the Skeptical Environmentalist. I remember well the virulence of the flaming he got for the heretical idea of doing a NPV on CAGW mitigation proposals. What, spend money on making people’s lives better? Oh woe!
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“It’s impossible to read the draft without coming away with the impression that with or without anthropogenic climate change, extreme weather impacts are going to be felt more and more, simply because there are more and more people on planet Earth – particularly in the swelling “megacities” of the developing world that overwhelmingly lie on the coast or on big rivers close to the coast.”
As far as being obvious, that statement ranks up there with a statistic I read somewhere to the effect that most shark attacks on people occur in places where the water is less than four feet deep. The surprising reason being: “That’s where the people are.” Isn’t it amazing what you can learn on the internet?
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yes – it’s like the statement that most car accidents occur within the first 2 hours of the journey hence the stop and revive every two hours statement. The fact is that most car accidents occur when people are driving home from work and are tired.
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[…] JO NOVA BLOG IPCC scientists test the Exit doors November 18th, 2011 http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/ipcc-scientists-test-the-exit-doors/ […]
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The report you are referring does not need to be “conveniently leaked” – it’s published on IPCC site: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/
Click on “Summary for Policymakers”.
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I note troll traffic is at an all time low for this post. Could it be that they can’t appeal to authority any longer after this backflip by the all powerful IPCC? It’s pretty clear that natural variation in climate has been underestimated by several orders of magnitude, while anthropogenic effects have been exaggerated beyond all measure. They really had to torture the data to make outlandish claims and none of us are surprised that it’s all ending in tears.
BTW, I agree with MV’s postulate about extreme weather events occurring when the rate of change in the slope of the sine curve of global temperature is greatest. The IPCC is actively face saving and that is why we can’t let them weasel their way out by diverting first to Climate Change instead of AGW and then to extreme weather events which will doubtless happen but not for the reasons they hope to claim. Perhaps they will have to start then to look around for sacrificial lambs to cop the blame for distorting science, Mann perhaps with his UVA revelations in stall mode at present, and perhaps Hansen might have to fall on his sword. This may be very entertaining viewing as they scramble to shift blame and look for scapegoats.
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winston,
The same thing happened with climategate. They lost theirvoice for weeks.
This implies that they’re crying into their lentils again.
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They are just hiding in other threads like Gordon is doing as moving into another would further expose him. Many of the claims made by him in the particular thread in question are directly contradicted by this information and, well, he just can’t b.s. his way around that.
For example let us look at Trenberth and his desire to reverse the null hypothesis. Trenberth states:
The IPCC then states:
So we have one claiming the effects (and therefore the “signal”) is significant enough to have “emerged from the noise of natural variability.” (I’m now waiting for the “well the effects are independent of the strength of the signal” rhetoric) While the other contradicts that with the above block quote.
So where is that consensus again?
When you look at either statement one can see (just as I see with Gordon) that both are just playing word games. I want to see their proof that they can differentiate (or even definitively define) a “climate change signal” from the “noise” of natural variability.
From my perspective it appears that anyone really giving this any thought would reach the conclusion that they were looking at noise and making a big deal about it while the ignoring the natural signals which were the real drivers of the climate.
However since I haven’t gotten my check from Exxon in, well ever, I guess I can’t really be skeptical since I’m not “big oil” funded…
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Sun Tzu says:
“To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape.”
I take this to mean, that without an exit the enemy will fight like a cornered animal.
So, assuming the IPCC is looking for an exit, let them have one.
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That’s fine in a war with weapons, when you can disarm or overwhelm with the power of weaponry and manpower advantages. Then, they have no comeback. In a war of words, however, give them a way out and they will turn back around and attack you from behind, because all they need is another idea to re-arm themselves with in order to blindside you yet again.
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I’m with Winston-NO PRISONERS!
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I’m with Winston as well. They have had ample time to protect their reputations. Even after the public figured it out.
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So long as that escape route leads them over a blind cliff !
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aaah, wait… and all those bad things that happened from global warming?
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
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[…] a look at ‘JoNova’s’ post titled as […]
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“IPCC scientists test the Exit doors”
I don’t think it’s only the scientists checking the exit door. I counted over 70 posts above but counted zero from our warmist contributors. Gawd they must feel so betrayed. I suspect that, after some intense rationalizing and cognitive spinning, they will return.
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A few years ago I had the pleasure of being at a dinner with Professor Garth Paltridge and Alan Moran of the IPA. It was just before Copenhagen, and they were asked what they thought would happen? They said there would be much drinking of expensive French Champagne, much eating of expensive caviar, lots of talking and in the end nothing would be decided, except to meet again next year for another conference. This would go on for a number of years until the people started to notice that the world wasn’t warming and their doomsday scenarios weren’t happening. Then you would have some prominent ‘warmist’ like Gore, Steffin or Flannery get up and say, ‘of course I always told them we had to be careful with our predictions, but they wouldn’t listen to me’
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this will end badly too, and expensively:
17 Nov: SMH: David Wroe: Winds of change for new energy investment
Australia’s gradual shift away from coal and towards cleaner energy has begun, government figures released yesterday showed, with nearly half of new energy investment being in wind, hydro and solar projects.
The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics reported that new wind farms alone made up 41 per cent of the new energy investment either begun or committed in the year to October.
Gas, which is set to play a larger role under the government’s plan to shift towards cleaner energy, made up another 36 per cent of planned investment…
The Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, welcomed the planned investment but warned it might not be enough to meet Australia’s future electricity demand. Just two major projects – both wind farms – were completed in the past year, he said, compared with 11 projects in the previous year.
The energy sector needed more certainty, he said – a broadside at the Coalition’s stated plans to repeal the carbon tax…
The director of emissions and environment at Westpac, Emma Herd, said the passage of the carbon pricing legislation would help investors make long-term decisions about energy projects. ”Renewable energy will become more attractive as the carbon price improves the economics of deploying renewable energy,” she said….
The Clean Energy Council policy manager, Tim Sonnreich, said: ”Plenty of people still have the view that renewable energy is a very small percentage of our energy mix.
”But in South Australia it’s already 20 per cent and that will be the model for the country by the end of the decade.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/winds-of-change-for-new-energy-investment-20111116-1njds.html
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Oh god, it looks like were going to have to send our power, as well as our water to South Oz, to keep them alive by the end of the decade.
WE really should close the place down, I don’t know why anyone ever opened it up anyway.
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“Our water sent to South Oz.”
Queensland says “our water” thinking of NSW, Vic and South Oz. New South Wales says “our water” thinking of Vic and South Oz. Victoria says “our water” thinking of South Oz. Which of these are you in, you arrogant sod?
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This completely off topic but relates to previous discussions about peer review , consensus science and what it takes to change views in science.
An article in my local paper this morning
( NZ) about a celebrated surgeon.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/5993973/A-modern-miracle-worker
These are the pieces that caught my eye
“And a heretic. When he presented a paper at the international Society for the Study of Vascular Anomalies meeting in Montreal last year, the head of the renowned Vascular Biology Research Centre at Harvard Medical School stood up, says Tan, and said “I do not believe anything they have said”.
Yes, he says, a heretic is how he has been seen by some of the medical establishment for his unorthodox approach first to strawberry birthmarks and now to cancer. For years he unsuccessfully submitted papers to prestigious medical magazines on birthmarks until, not so long ago, he scored a couple of major prizes and suddenly his work warranted coverage in the loftiest of publications, such as the BMJ’s Journal of Clinical Pathology. ”
“When you write an article and submit it to a journal they send it for peer review to experts in the field, but who are experts of the past and not the future. And because your concept is so out of left field and so innovative, they reject it and, I suspect, they’re threatened by it.”
“What we need is innovation that leads to revolutionary rather than incremental acquisition of knowledge …
Sounds familiar to what has occurred in the climate science world ( and probably what happend with the West Australian researchers on ulcers , some tome ago)
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As a medical practitioner, I never cease to be amazed by how one-eyed and territorial many in the medical establishment are about resisting innovation and how reluctant they are to revisit the validity of their assumptions. With robot-assisted prostatectomy for example, while expensive due to consumables, the outcomes are a dramatic improvement on previous techniques with almost no post operative bleeding, few if any strictures, little if any incontinence issues- as opposed to traditional radical prostatectomy especially. Yet, say you are performing this procedure to traditional urologists, and watch them treat you like you are an Al Qaeda operative or that you broke wind at a cocktail party. This territorial behaviour is anti-curiosity, anti-intellectual, ignorant and prevents or delays the natural progression of advances in medicine, and yet it is the norm, not the exception. Similarly, the obesity epidemic and the real causes of this are hidden beneath a veil of accepted science and poorly researched assumptions and ideas that have their root in the early 1960s and refuse to die, no matter how unsuccessful traditional approaches are in solving the problems in the real world evolving before our eyes. At times it makes me ashamed of my profession, until I realise that this mindset is entrenched in virtually every branch of science, and further than that, in every form of human endeavour. We really are our own worst enemies. Thank god for the heretic, without whom we would stagnate in the mire of the already known, never venturing beyond to discover the new and unexpected.
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Winston, I admire you a great deal and agree with what you say in 51.1. Thank you.
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Thanks Mark.D,
I always find your posts helpful, knowledgeable and pragmatic also.
I am aware that I have a tendency to over-generalize at times and to write circuitously, skirting around the point of what I wish to say. I apologise for this propensity of mine. However, what I hope to provide in several of my posts is my observations of people (often more intelligent than I) and how they react when their beliefs are challenged, forming the wagons in a circle and rendering themselves impervious to logical thought or rational discourse. Climate science, in it’s current state, embodies this idea perfectly. Manipulating a theory to suit an agenda is dangerous, not least of which because the pursuit of the agenda itself can lead one to confirmation bias, where one ignores important facts which go against the desired polemic. But also because drawing biased unfounded conclusions leads to actions which are ill-conceived and therefore lead to unintended consequences. I feel this is a tragedy which would otherwise be avoided by having a little less certainty and being more open to modification of our ideas. After all, we are defined by the ramifications of our actions more so than their intent.
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Come on, get a room you two…
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Procedural specialists are very wary of new technology because it has the potential to radically reduce their prestige and incomes. If a GP, nurse or technician can perform a test or procedure it reduces the specialist’s income and leaves them stuck with performing only he most complex, time consuming and least lucrative procedures.
I imagine that within in 50 years that a GP will be able to diagnose and treat many very serious diseases on the spot.
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17 Nov: Gold Coast Bulletin: This little piggy offsets carbon…
A GRANTHAM piggery was the site for Agricultural Minister Joe Ludwig to launch the Government’s new carbon farming initiative last week.
The first methodology to be approved under the Carbon Farming Initiative, it will give pig farmers the opportunity to earn carbon credits for reducing methane emissions from manure…
Farmers can also trade the offsets they generate for carbon credits, which they can then sell to generate income.
Mr Ludwig said more than 680 commercial piggery operations in the country stood to benefit from the initiative.
“The rollout of methodologies such as this will see farmers across the country participating in the world’s first federally backed carbon offset market for the land sector,” he said.
“This will put Australian farmers at the forefront of emission reduction practices and provide valuable opportunities for farmers to trade carbon offsets internationally.”
The methodology was developed in collaboration with the Australian Government, the pork industry and scientists and assessed by the independent Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee
http://www.goldcoastmail.com.au/story/2011/11/17/this-little-piggy-offsets-carbon/
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what a great headline and opening para!
18 Nov: Ninemsn: AAP: CO2 sees opportunity in carbon tax
CO2 Group chief executive Andrew Grant is one of a minority of Australian business leaders to publicly welcome the federal government’s carbon tax package with open arms.
But the listed carbon credits provider does stand to benefit…
And he insists that despite his role as chief of CO2 Group, his support for the tax is not motivated by corporate self-interest.
“Do I look to BCA and Ai and other lobby groups to determine what’s good policy for us as citizens? The answer is no,” he said.
“Their world view would be no tax of any kind.
“This isn’t a question for business. It’s a societal question.”…
The Carbon Farming Initiative will create a new tradable unit, the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU), which can be banked or traded, including internationally…
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8376257
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18 Nov: Vancouver Sun: Gordon Hamilton: Six U.S. states abandon carbon-trade partnership
B.C.’s future in ambitious greenhouse-gas deal unclear
Six American states have formally withdrawn from the Western Climate Initiative, leaving only California and four Canadian provinces – including B.C. – involved in developing a greenhouse gas emissions trading program.
And even B.C. has not committed itself to joining WCI’s policy keystone – a cap-and trade system that would limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions companies could release, and then require them to purchase carbon credits for any emissions over that limit…
“We haven’t made a final decision at this point,” B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake said in an interview Thursday, referring to cap-and-trade. “What we want to do is leave our options open, we want to make sure we don’t rule out any options for B.C.”
Lake said the six U.S. states – New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Utah – had signalled their intentions some time ago, so their decision to leave formally comes as no surprise. Economic issues and jobs have pushed climate initiatives to the back burner, along with the election of Republican governors in some of the states, he said.
B.C. has no intention of leaving WCI, even though the province has yet to commit to cap and-trade, he said…
(Mark Jaccard, a professor in resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University): “Fortunately, California is still trying to move ahead, but it would be folly for B.C. to join California in the initial launch of cap-and-trade when the most likely outcome is to undermine our carbon tax. B.C. should encourage California, but stay on the sidelines while we see what prices develop for carbon dioxide in this cap-and-trade system.”
The six U.S. states that quit WCI have joined a new bloc of states, the North America 2050 Initiative, which is an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a range of climate change and clean energy strategies…
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/states+abandon+carbon+trade+partnership/5731555/story.html
18 Nov: Reuters: Japan CO2 emissions rise 4.4 percent in 2010/11
Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2, in the past three years roughly achieved its goal under the Kyoto Protocol when CO2 offsets are included, said a trade ministry official in charge of energy supply and demand.
“But it is uncertain if we can achieve the Kyoto Protocol goal in the remaining two years given the nuclear issue. Also, it is not yet clear how strong the economic recovery will be,” the official said…
Japan’s plans to meet the minus 6 percent goal include some 48 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year of emissions offsets from planting trees, as well as U.N. carbon credits bought from abroad by the government and companies.
At least 400 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent of Kyoto carbon offsets have been bought by the government and companies for delivery between 2008 and 2012..
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/18/us-climate-japan-co-idUSTRE7AH0PX20111118
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18 Nov: Port Macquarie News: Kate Prideaux: Carbon market is there to be embraced, say pollies
Simon Crean, the federal minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, addressed the Strategic Regional Leadership for Innovation Conference in Port Macquarie today.
There is money to be made, by farmers, from selling carbon credits overseas, he said…
Food processors and manufacturers, he said, also may be eligible for government assistance.
“There’s assistance in the (federal government’s) clean energy package not just to encourage better farming practices. . . but for the food processing sector itself to make the adjustment to a clean energy environment,” Mr Crean said.
Lyne MP Rob Oakeshott said overseas investors were ready to buy carbon credits from Australia.
He addressed the conference and also addressed the media outside Port Macquarie’s Glasshouse.
***”We’re not mucking around here, this is not a social program, this is real commerce,” Mr Oakeshott said. “There are deals already under negotiation.”…
http://www.portnews.com.au/news/local/news/general/carbon-market-is-there-to-be-embraced-say-pollies/2362996.aspx
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as if we didn’t know…
15 Nov: Reuters: Bribery, collusion hinder U.N. carbon scheme: research
A report from the University of East Anglia and University of Sussex on Tuesday warned that the Kyoto Protocol’s emissions offset market could become “a rich man’s club” of project developers, emissions verifiers and government officials, without benefiting the poor…
The researchers said governance of the offset scheme does not function properly, while CDM finance is seen as extra revenue for big corporations keen to prop up existing investments in fossil fuels.
“This is undermining the credibility of the CDM by prolonging the life of the very industries that most need to transition to a lower carbon economy,” they wrote…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/15/us-carbon-un-cdm-idUSTRE7AE15620111115
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Please, oh please watch this video.
I took one look at the time length of the video, and immediately did not want to be watching something for nearly 14 minutes.
However, I thought I would give it a minute or so, and then I was hooked, and you will be too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HRN9Pd8MI-4#!
This shows a couple of ‘green power’ protesters in NY City.
They get asked some probing questions by someone who actually knows what he is talking about, and he then proceeds to shred them. He is polite, factual, and informed.
Each time they try to ‘verbal’ him, he comes back at them with facts, and not only do they not have answers, they show graphically just how uninformed they really are.
Please take the time to watch.
Tony.
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tony you’re right it’s worth watching
a bit noisy and the video at the link you provided stopped for some reason
so I watched it through Andrew Bolt’s blog
totally agree – it’s excellent
and wasn’t it interesting how the occupiers checked his credentials closely
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Thanks for posting that video and introducing me to that guy. I actually found another video on the net from the same guy who talks about the green movement and capitalism. Here it is >
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The science used to be settled, but…
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Jo,
Great article, thanks, but I’m a bit confused about its “leaked” status. Earlier today I was reading a press release issued by the IPCC yesterday in Uganda:
I downloaded the SPM pdf, which appeared unfinished, and wondered why diagrams and footnotes weren’t inserted correctly. But it has been published by the IPCC.
Is that the report you’re talking about or is there another one I’ve missed?
Cheers,
Richard.
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and, as a satellite of the EU/US, we’ve obviously been conquered as well! incredible article:
18 Nov: Independent: Stephen Foley: What price the new democracy? Goldman Sachs conquers Europe
While ordinary people fret about austerity and jobs, the eurozone’s corridors of power have been undergoing a remarkable transformation
Simon Johnson, the former International Monetary Fund economist, in his book 13 Bankers, argued that Goldman Sachs and the other large banks had become so close to government in the run-up to the financial crisis that the US was effectively an oligarchy…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html
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Pat who ever you are PLEASE post in paragraphs and short!
I so loath the posts you provide simply because they are impossible to read quickly. I say this as a friend…..
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IPCC & PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
Jean Palutikof, director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility at Griffith University, in Queensland, said the findings of the UN report would “not surprise anyone involved in climate science”. Professor Palutikof said it would take a while for the effects of climate change to become visible. But without action, she said, “gradually, over time, that signal will emerge with resounding clarity”.
When in doubt, appeal the (pseudoscientific) PP and try to fool the people (again).
Peer-reviewed climate change literature full of this “without action” PP stuff too. After Judith Curry went public with her IPCC concerns, is the climate elite now frantically trying to convince us it was actually “concerned” about “uncertainty” all along?
An example from (a recent email exchange with) a top Swiss climate modeller. His “thought experiment”:
“Let us assume that we had a perfect model to make a prediction with no uncertainty. Would the world be any different? Would we more effectively fight the climate change problem? Accurate information on the expected trends is critical for local adaptation, and uncertainties in climate model projections are admittedly an issue. But they are unlikely to be the limiting factor that prevents us from making a decision and acting on, rather than talking about, the climate change problem. So what would be the limiting factor?”
“I think a perfect prediction would help to make adaptation decisions (flood protection, tourism, agriculture, etc.), but the limiting factor in making decisions about emission reductions (at least in my view) is the impossible task of agreeing globally who needs to do how much, and how much now versus in the future. The only case where a perfect prediction could change that is if we were to find out that the sensitivity of the climate system is at the very high end of the range, i.e. that we are likely to see the worst case of the projected range. Then the world would act quicker, maybe…”
“I am optimistic that models will improve. But they may do so more slowly than some people are hoping….The change in the mean climatological state (not the individual sequence of weather events or ENSO), say for the year 2100, should in principle be largely predictable if our models capture all the relevant processes and if we have enough observations to constrain the models. But it may easily take another 20 years or more to get close to that goal. _If_ (and that is of course another story) the goal is to limit warming to 2 degrees, we can’t afford to wait another 20 years before starting to reduce emissions.” (circular argument; PP)
So it “may easily take another 20 years or more to get close to confident “predictability”. Perhaps someone should tell Professor Jean Palutikof and the Climate Con Gang?
IF, IF, IF…”our models capture all the relevant processes”, etc. QED.
As for “natural variability”, whatever it is, it is also a sleight of hand, a neat avoidance strategy, a default position, a tricky way of saying: “We actually don’t know what is really going on here, so let’s put it in the NV basket”?
Alice (in Warmerland)
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There is nothing whatsoever new in the IPCC pointing out the uncertainties in the details of climate projections – the specifics of where when and how much. There is an entire section on uncertainties in the last IPCC report, if any of you care to read it. The overall empirical evidence for rising temperatures, loss of arctic sea ice, earlier growing seasons, migration of species etc etc are unequivocal.
This evidence is apparent even though we are in the very early stages of the effects of greenhouse gases on climate. The rise of temperatures of 0.8 degrees with a rise in CO2 concentration of 280 ppm (pre industrial) to 390 ppm is entirely consistent with the projection of a rise of 2- 4.5 degrees with a doubling of concentration.
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Bit of a waste of time then, wouldn’t you say?
Yep, climate changes. Always has, and always does, and always will, as far as we can tell. We have empirical evidence going back centuries that support that fact, so why is it now such a big deal?
Ah, the money quote! So, if we agree that there is empirical evidence that the climate has always changed, where is the empirical evidence (i.e. evidence by experimentation or unambiguous observation) to show the cause and effect relationship can be unequivocally laid at the door of CO2?
That would be a projection created by computer simulations that cannot even successfully back-cast weather earlier than 1950?
Sorry Philip, models and projections are not science. They are not certainties. And they are repeatedly shown to be inadequate at projecting anything, especially anything in the future.
If you are a student, as I suspect you are, then you need to find a better text book. Perhaps a book about chaos theory might help. Also, you might want to study some current texts about global economics, to better understand that the climate discussion has nothing to do with physics, and everything to do with geopolitics.
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Rereke. I am not a student. I am a research scientist with a PhD in chemistry. All scientific theories and measurements have an associated element of uncertainty. That does not make science a waste of time.
Models and projections are not the totality of science but they are certainly an integral part of it.
Yes climate has always changed but the current changes cannot be explained by natural variation alone. Only inclusion of the effects of greenhouses gases explains the climate trends of recent decades.
See these models which show how anthropogenic and natural forcings match the data.
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Well Philip Shehan what makes you pop your head up here got to defend your pals at IPCC.So tell us why Trenberth and Co are right at 3c forcing and Linzden is wrong at 1c.Oh by the way that is 3c+or-1.5c.If their lower range is correct they are only 0.5c difference to Linzden which is very close to natural variability and so far this century it has been 0c.
Also many months ago I asked you who the scientists in WG1 were on the IPCC that did not agree that CO2 induced climate change.So with a couple of months to think about it have you managed to find anyone on the panel that does not agree with AGW.
I am supprised that you have not managed to get a link in to your mate John Cook’s site or is the poor fellow in a severe state of shock. 🙂
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Philip,
Thank you for responding.
I assume from your response to my comment, that you are the Biochemist who coauthored a paper (with five others) on “The conformation of porcine-brain natriuretic peptide by two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy” in 1991. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I have a lot of respect for NMR Spectroscopy, as a technique, primarily because of the publication, by Dr Jane Strouse, at UCLA, of some of the known problems with the technique. To me, science must be prepared to openly discuss its boundaries, and uncertainties, in order to remain credible. It is not what we know that is important, it is ultimately knowing what we don’t know that is important. Wouldn’t you agree?
And this is where the field of climate science diverges from fields such as yours. Whereas you are using equipment that is based firmly on the laws and principles of physics, with known and acknowledged limitations, climate science is based firmly on unpublished (or only partly published) computer simulations that are known to ignore many physical phenomena, any of which could severely impact the results.
You give us a reference to the work of HadCRUT. Are you aware that they have been selectively modifying or ignoring original data that does not support their hypothesis – a process of post hoc adjustments that they refer to as “homogenisation” – in order to “make” the computer predictions fit the requirements of their political benefactors? Are you aware that they claimed to have “lost” the original (non-homogenised) data when sceptical researchers asked for a copy under the UK Official Information Act? Are you aware that some of the mathematical techniques used to construct the graphs shown in several IPCC reports have been shown to always produce those graphs even when presented with random (pink noise) numbers?
I acknowledge that you are a scientist, so apologise for suggesting that you were a mere student. But as a researcher, I would assume that you would be repulsed by some of the “techniques” adopted in the climate science field.
We all defend science. But the research that underpins your previous quotes from the IPCC is not science in terms of Physics or Chemistry, it is science in terms of geo-politics (in as much as that field can be called a science).
Your branch of science is founded on the principle of repeatable experimentation, and verifiable observation. Neither of these principles apply in the field of climate science, and that is why I called you out on your quote that:
The 0.8 degree figure is calculated, how? With what algorithm? The correlation of a rise of 110 ppm in CO2 with the 0.8 degree calculated rise in temperature, is derived, how? Which is the cause, and which the effect?
All scientists should be sceptical – it is actually a prerequisite for being a researcher, as you should be aware. And when a learned colleague states some facts as being unequivocal, and when they are published under the auspices of a political organisation (like the UN), then that is the time to be extraordinarily sceptical.
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Models can’t provide empirical evidence. The validity of any scientific theory must rest on empirical evidence. So I ask you, Philip Shehan, where is the empirical evidence that humans are causing the earth to warm?
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Philip – Always interesting when two people with similar backgrounds come to diametrically opposite conclusions (likewise I’ve a PhD in chemistry and I work as a research scientist, I’ll add that I’ve also been doing statistical and iterative modelling for a couple decades).
This is from memory, so I may be out by a little. As I recall HadCRUT v3 has a warming of 0.82 C over the 20th century. My rough breakdown, with links is:
0.4 C due to solar effects mainly indirect
0.27 C due to ocean cycles and the fact that 1900 was at the bottom and 2000 was at the high
0.15 C by difference, due to CO2, UHI, aerosols, volcanoes etc
This is consistent with a climate sensitivity of 0.7 C/doubling, which I independently found by analysing primary data. I did this exercise to check-test the IPCC reported values of 2-4.5 C against the satellite measured value of 0.6 C in Spencer & Braswell 2010, since I wanted to know which hypothesis best fit the temperature record. The check-test unequivocally fell at the satellite value, although the value I arrived at was a long term number whereas the satellite values are from the response to short term forcing.
We are seeing more papers coming out explaining where the solar indirect forcing comes from, and likewise on ocean oscillations – neither of which have been included in the GCM’s yet. But its pretty clear that during the training period for the GCM’s only about 1/6th of the variance is actually due to CO2.
Check it yourself, you’ll find that is the only answer that fits the data.
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Hi Bruce
“But its pretty clear that …….. only about 1/6th of the variance is actually due to CO2.”
Is that ALL CO2?
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Keith – OK, could be 1/7th.
This is scientists’ speak for “2/10ths of bugger all”. I could add error bars, but in my experience you usually assign error bars by saying ‘hmmm 5% looks about right’ before someone else says ‘nah, we should make ’em 10% to get past the peer reviewers, that Prof Ibid he’s a right b*****d’.
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I agree. It is about time that Prof Ibid retired. Mind you, Prof Etal is not much better!
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Hi Bruce
“But its pretty clear that …….. only about 1/6th of the variance is actually due to CO2.”
Sorry I didn’t put that too well.
What I was asking was; was the 1/6 Total CO2 as opposed to Human origin CO2.
Human origin CO2 has been stated to be around 4% of total CO2 which would then put Human origin CO2 at 0.66% of the effect.
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Phillip — You have a PhD
That’s not surprising given your statement:
“Yes climate has always changed but the current changes cannot be explained by natural variation alone”.
So the only thing left is : “Carbon Dioxide Poison”?
PhDs study more and more about less and less.
Maybe it’s time you re read your statement and if you can’t find anything wrong perhaps you should hand your PhD back in.
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Rereke: Yes that’s one of my publications (an oldie though) but in the context of the discussion of uncertainty it is interesting in that we got some huffy correspondence from a Japanese group as our determination of the conformation (three dimensional shape due to folding of the amino acid chain for the unititated readers) of the peptide disagreed with theirs and we said so. I wrote to them and attempted to molify the Japanese professor saying that the disagreement in structures could possibly be attributed to difference in pH or solvent or something (sorry I can’t remember the exact details after this time. Feathers were unruffled.
I have had other interpretations of mine in NMR publications challenged by subsequent authors – all fair enough. So yes NMR is a much more definite area of science compared to the complicated science of climate change but it still provokes robust discussion at conferences and responses from referees to submitted manuscripts.
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But I bet, Philip, that none of your NMR spectroscopy adversaries are called “deniers”, or marginalised to the point of being unable to gain employment in their chosen career because they dared to hold a different opinion or outlook on a given topic to yourself. So, what makes climate science (which you admit is a less “definite area of science”) so special that it does not allow the alternate view to be given a fair hearing, and is that good for the validity of this discipline to have such entrenched values that brooks no alternate views or dissenting voices.
I’ll answer for you, no it is not, and shame on anyone, PhD or not, who believes that to be a reasonable attitude or course of action for any scientist or discipline to take.
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Philip,
I appreciate the conversation, but you take advantage of me. 🙂
I may be quite widely read, but biochemistry is not one of my areas of interest, as you probably guessed. But buckyballs, on the other hand, are fascinating things … they raise lots of philosophical questions … but I digress.
Winston has put his finger on the problem, which is the politicisation of science. That is not to say that science has ever been above politics, it has obviously not been, but the “old” politics of science was internal and focussed on internal matters – much like your spat with your Japanese colleagues. The “new” politics is now conducted in the political domain, and by people who have agendas that are antithetical to the spirit of science.
Science is becoming the basis for the politics of duality – black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, them and us, funded or unfunded. Simple concepts that can be expressed in a five-word sound bite.
The people making these judgements are politicians, journalists, actors, and public relations people. Few of them are scientists, and even fewer have been practicing scientists.
Most of the basis of the fear surrounding climate variation is simply a derivation of the fear of the bogieman who might be living under the bed. Climate Science is hard. A lot of people do not have the education required to cope with the concepts. The math of climate physics requires a good understanding of chaos theory, a specialist knowledge of statistics and statistical processing, and a wide scientific knowledge – something surprisingly lacking in this age of specialisation. Polymaths are few and far between.
Let me ask you a question. Would you ever use smoothed data as an input to further statistical analysis? Not a trick question, I would just like to know as one professional to another.
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The ABC has finally lost any claim to integrity!
It is past time they were called to the Courts of Journalistic Truth and Justice.
Their ‘PINNOCHIO NOSE” has not only been thumbed at the truth, but the length and weight of that ‘PINNOCHIO NOSE” nose temporarily hitting the ground, instead of falling flat on their face, they have turned up that nose and tied it to the downward span to continue spewing their “SNOT”.
The ABC response to the IPCC draft report today is an absolute abrogation of their responsibility to the Australian people who pay their wages. The ABC response to the IPCC Report came many, many hours after other news media had reported it. The “climate change” reporters at the ABC must have hunkered down in their underground bunkers to face this crisis and plan their response.
Their complete misrepresentation is evidenced not only in the Headline
but also in their lead paragraph (prefaced by a hopefully frightening NASA image) of their reporting of this revolutionary report.
Any subsequent mitigation of that initial response is irrelevant, because they have, they believe, already engendered the required FEAR to pursue their agenda.
You can read their response on site at http://www.abc.net.au – News – Just In.
One positive thing they have done is provide us with a copy of the IPCC “leaked” report at
http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/
To lighten your mood – anger? – read Roger Pielske Jr’s encouraging response – and delightful video showing – at
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/11/few-comments-on-ipcc-srex-report.html
11
I just heard another excuse from the rent seekers which i think is a doosey:
“The cold summer this year and last year is a copy of the two years during the great federation drought before the federation drought continued. Therefore we will be in drought from 2013 onwards. We can’t share the evidence of this, but it is there”…
LOL. Talk about clutching at straws. They’ll be quoting nostradamus next!
10
“Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man, who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish that man would go away”
There it is: “the evidence that cannot be named”. They are not quoting Nostradamus, they are quoting J K Rowling.
10
Wasn’t the evidence for climate change mean to be visible by looking out the window and seeing the retreating glaciers, melting ice caps, etc? Now we’re told we have to wait decades to see the evidence? So all the so called “evidence” of current climate change isn’t?
Could all you climate scammers please decide on a consistent story??
10
The Doomsters are getting frightened that another human the ‘end is nigh’ predicition is going the same way as all other Doomster predicitions in the history of humanity … south. Wait for the absolute vitriol and abuse once the “consensus” is completely toppled, all hell will break loose. BTW: I quite like the term “Denier” now I find it amusing as it now seen in its proper context i.e. a straight out term of abuse which is derived from fear that the house of cards that is AGW is now collapsing in the onslaught of a slight breeze.
10
This is being spun as : —
IPCC Confirms Link Between Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change
Saw it portrayed in much the same way on the news this evening.
This isn’t going to slow the juggernaut down any.
Paul
10
You’re right. Any research news is reported as “it’s worse than we thought” even if it shows the opposite.
10
If it is always “it’s worse than we thought”, what does that say about the accuracy of their thinking? Doesn’t that make even their “it’s worse that we thought” highly suspect?
Conclusion: they are either stupid, ignorant, or intentionally lying to serve an agenda other than the one they claim. In any event, the critical thing is to know why the MSM, the political elite, and a large fraction of the general population pretend as if they believe them. We also need to know what to do about that pretense.
Fundamentally, they are at war with reality. That is a war that reality ALWAYS wins. So, in a sense, it is always worse than they thought. They think they can dictate terms to reality and they never can. Our challenge is not to become collateral damage while they loose their war.
10
@Philip Shehan
In fact, according to the IPCC’s own equations the current temperature from an increase of 110ppmv from its pre-industrial baseline of 280ppmv should be about 1.4C. Of course that hasn’t happened. Anyway, if as you say, for every 110ppmv the increase in temperature is 0.8C (that gives us a temperature increase of 0.0073C per 1ppmv) which is not consistent with the IPCC’s predictions, as you claim. According to the IPCC were have increased the atmospheric CO2 level they 110ppmv from 280pmmv. Therefore we have 170ppmv left to double the concentration. Taking the linear relationship above of 0.0073C/1ppmv inferred from the 110ppmv increase in CO2 since 1850 that gives us a generally benign and mild temperature increase of 0.0073Cx170 = 1.2C on a doubling of CO2 by 2080. That’s hardly anything to worry about, is it? And this is on the unproven assumption that CO2 is increasing temperature. This goes against all the existing evidence (i.e. the 800 year time-lag between temperature-changes and corresponding CO2-changes, the non-correlation in the paleo-climate record going back 500 million years, spectroscopy data showing that CO2 only absorbs about 8% of all IR in the IR-electromagnetic spectrum and its heat-catching ability decreases massively after 20ppmv because of its logarithmic nature, inter alia). It seems to me that the IPCC have made a mountain out of a molehill.
10
Unfortunately government eco policies (in the UK at least)are causing our heating bills to spiral upwards.
10
Jo, I’m not sure you fully understand the history of this particular part of climate science.
First, I don’t think this is about warming as such. It’s about extreme weather, mainly catastrophic extreme weather like hurricanes and floods. These may or may not increase if the world warms or cools. I believe you know that and have commented on it.
This “new” IPCC message is the same scientists have been giving all the time, except it’s become clearer since 2007: There is no evidence that catastrophic extreme weather has actually increased so far.
It’s the stuff you documented here. http://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/do-tropical-storms-correlate-with-co2-in-a-word-no/ I’m just saying scientists haven’t been denying that. It’s media, environmental activists and politicians who have been misrepresenting it when they say stuff like “hurricane Irene’s middle name is Global Warming”. Scientifically based organizations like WMO and NOAA have generally been saying the opposite, but politicians, media and activists haven’t listened. Like you, Jo, I don’t worship scientific consensus, but it’s worth being aware that the same folks who claim to worship it ignore it in this case.
That’s today’s weather. Now, if you pretend to believe the climate models are able to predict the future, these extremes will increase in the future. When and how much? Enough to create a detectable increase in losses in about 260 years.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/01/signals-of-anthropogenic-climate-change.html
So even if we pretend to believe the models, it’s modest. If you can’t detect it statistically, it’s not big compared to natural variations. I also consider it a dead giveaway that James Hansen believes sea level rise to be the greatest threat.
Going back in time, in 2007, when the IPCC summarized hurricanes in a misleading way. Not quite false, just misleading and slanted. But the science has grown stronger since then, and it’s now clearer that it’s the opposite of “worse than we thought”. Certainly a lot better than we might have thought if we had believed that the peak in global hurricane activity at that time was a sign that it would keep increasing.
10
Dagfin, our Director of the Climate Institute is Will Steffan (quoted in the article above). James Hansen just came out with an extreme prediction. Many people who call themselves IPCC climate scientists have been “activists”. If the WMO say there’s no evidence and they cared about the scientific truth, they would correct the activists. There are plenty of scientists who deny-by-omission. They’ll admit it if they are cornered, but otherwise happy to let the scaremongering run wild.
Jo
10
Hi
The term “activist” is actually very appropriate to describe most of the warming orientated “scientists”.
Tim Flannery is a highly qualified “plant biologist” who is unqualified to comment on Global Warming because he lacks training in the right skills.
Tim Flannery is an “activist” spruiking out of his area of competence.
Likewise most “Climate Scientists” have qualifications in Environmental Awareness with inappropriate levels of education in even the basic sciences and mathematics let alone the Engineering perspective needed for AGW analysis.
10
Jo
In an organisation you do not dissagree with strongly held beliefs of the organisation. You keep quiet if you can and do not rock the boat otherwise you and your family will suffer. Really I am not wishing to condone it but say that is the way it is.
10
I would consider that a dysfunctional organization in which there is an atmosphere of fear. It’s common though, and clearly so in climate science.
10
From a previous position (which is previous rather than current because I didn’t play the game) I learned that the correct course of action (whether it is correct due to financial, logical, ethical, or whatever reasons) is not as important as the course of action being promoted by someone who is counting on the implementation of that course of action to advance their career.
Generally speaking these types will bask in the glory if it is successful and throw anyone they can under the bus as the reason it failed when it is not. Pointing out the flaws in their plan (while in the company or organizations best interest) will be detrimental to one’s career.
It is what it is, and given human nature something one cannot escape once they enter the “corporate” world. The larger the company or organization the worse it will become. An academic organization would be no different (worse I suspect) as the feeding frenzy involves who will get tenure and who will get funding.
10
Jo, when the factual history is finally written, I believe there will be just one name common to the founding of the IPCC, its kangaroo court inquisition of anthropogenic CO2 and the alarmism of the past 20 years: James Hansen. History will remember him as the man who has done more than anyone else to damage the authority of science. He provides a sober lesson about the foolishness of mixing activism and research. More than anyone else, I hope this this irresponsible clown is eventually disgraced.
10
You’re right, of course. No disagreement, just a difference in emphasis. There is a politically motivated tendency to stay silent when activists exaggerate and misrepresent. Of course the scientists who know better should object. I suppose my point is that the latest from the IPCC is simply consistent with the behavior of most scientists who have actually been working in this particular area. So there is also no reason to assume that their motivation is different from what it has been in the last few years.
10
Scientists who speak out, don’t last long…
http://sppiblog.org/news/rear-mirror-the-epa-vs-ed-krug-over-the-acid-rain-scare
And please note, go and search what Edward Krug is doing today. He has been blackballed.
10
That story is a salutary read.
It seems that the ‘authorities’ have learned through such scares how to manage public perceptions and it is now all coming together in the CAGW scare.
Acid rain, Ozone hole, CAGW; they all have one thing in common. They depend on institutionalised science which is subject to political control.
QED.
Paul
10
I disagree. With the ozone hole and the acid rain and the DDT killing the eagles it all came together.
But with CAGW it is all coming apart, because of the climategate emails, and because they went for ownership of both energy supply and agriculture and land use… in other words “The Big One”, full spectrum dominance of human habitation on Earth.
By the way, tell the story of Ed Krug to as many people as you can, because it really needs to be told.
10
Do you count Tim Flannery in the category of “It’s media, environmental activists and politicians” or do you count him in the category of “scientists” ?
10
To use an old english word: “Twerp”.
10
My question is simply this :- when the media spin things out of whack, where are those scientists correcting the supposed misrepresentations?
Surely, by remaining quiet -as they have often done, it sanctions the distortions?
10
And so they are learning. In the newspek world in which we live, silence is consent, but to do otherwise is professional suicide.
This is a change that has occurred in the past half century, or so. Many of the now eminent scientists still think, “… that sounds wrong to me, but since it isn’t exactly in my field, it would be presumptuous of me to speak out.”
But they have missed the subtle changes in the method of accounting … “Less than 20 senior scientists have publicly disagreed with the fact that … (climate is purple with pink spots, or whatever) … so there is a consensus and the science is settled”.
This is the “genius” of Al Gore, and his ilk: You have three choices: You either agree, or you say nothing and are deemed to agree, or you speak your disagreement and are branded a Denier and probably other things even worse.
No University or Research Centre wants to be known as hiring people who are “of dubious character”, so it is better for an aspiring scientist to say nothing, and be thought a fool with food to put on the table, than it is to appear to be a genius with no food at all.
And it isn’t just restricted to the physical sciences either. It also applies to political science, military science, social science, economics and the other softer sciences. Oh, and the study of history of course, where the whole idea was born in the mid-1930’s in Germany.
10
Rereke,
I agree with you on this one 100%.
10
“uncertainty”, “natural variability”, these IPCC blowhards obviously haven’t visited Skeptical Science, we’re cooking as they speak.
10
And where does the figure of “20 or 30 years time” come from? Astrology? Divine revelation? Computer models? The simple fact remains that there is no observational evidence whatever to connect climate variation to atmosphric CO2 concentrations. Even the term “climate change” is a con implying that climate was once stable and now has changed. Real scientists use terms like “variation” or “variance”.
10
Check out the Schwabe cycle (11 years) and the Hale cycle (two Schwabe’s make one Hale) and the Bruckner cycle (approx 35 years) which is roughly three Schwabe’s but no one has demonstrated a precise phase lock.
10
This “climate has always changed” is just fine – it always has. But it has been pretty stable for the last few thousand years – much to our benefit.
Anyway, much to my delight the first half of November in Perth featured exactly zero days over the monthly average – apparently a 70 year record. I hate hot weather! So there you are, another “isn’t it cold” story to add to your collection. Now if only it would stay cool for the rest of the month….
So, am I to glean, from the post, that you guys will be giving evens on betting that this decade is hotter than the last one?
10
Given.
How much?
10
Here’s a good book that takes a long, hard look at the IPCC and, as the title suggests, finds it not all that one might expect of such an important body.
The Delinquent Teenager who was mistaken for the world’s top climate expert
This book brings together many threads to show that the IPCC’s claims to be based on the epitome of science are false. Threadbare in fact, to mix metaphors.
Paul
10
It’s because of scandals like this, ALL ‘scientists’, people I once respected and admired have lost ALL credibility. I no longer trust ANYTHING they say. It’s become obvious to me they all have their own barrow to push with funding to match, and if their ‘results’ don’t quite come up to expectations, i.e. more funding, well let’s just fudge the ‘results’ a bit until they do. I include the once respected CSIRO in this, which, in my opinion has now become nothing more than a propaganda machine toeing the government dictated line. They could defend themselves until the cows come home, but, from what I’ve seen recently, I just wouldn’t believe them. It will be a long, long time before I regain any respect for any of them.
10
Bruce, that you have lost respect for all scientists suggests you have a severe problem making good judgements.
10
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.
And the OBVIOUS logical conclusion….
If natural variability is much larger than man made forcings then how can we be sure any warming we see in the climate record is man made ?
The problem the IPCC faces relates to a well documented 60 year warming/cooling cycle, probably driven by ENSO or PDO/AMO ocean cycles which dipped in 1975 and peaked in 2005. The IPCC scientists know that this means we will have several decades before the temperature will turn upwards again. Since they claim (and modelled) that all warming between 1975 and 2005 was caused by CO2 they have now found themselves in a tricky situation as they know we will have either no warming or perhaps cooling until 2035. The IPCC’s models incorrectly state a climate sensitivity of ~3.5 K, but it is now only a matter of time before we are forced to accept that the earth’s climate sensistivity for a doubling of CO2 is less then 2 K, and most likely to be between 1.0 – 1.5 K. At this level of sensitivity there is no reason to reduce emmission and therefore NO chance of achieving global agreements to reduce emmissions.
But of course we are stuck with a carbon tax emposed by an ignorant government…. 🙁
10
I don’t believe any government is ignorant about the lack of a factual basis for their climate crisis claims and proposed remedies. They simply think they can get away with the massive transfer of wealth into the bottomless pit of totalitarian global governance and the consequence massive destruction of lives, wealth, and political freedom. Given the evidence to date, they are getting away with it.
We keep voting them into office rather than stripping them of all their stolen property and running them out of town. We meekly accept their pretense that they are not doing it for themselves, they are doing it for some indistinct and undefined (fill in the blank). We are afraid to admit their true. Their true motives are not even good enough to be evil just as their so called science is not connected enough to reality to be false.
10
Hit the send button too soon. The last two sentences should read: “We are afraid to admit their true motives are not even good enough to be evil just as their so called science is not connected enough to reality to be false.
10
Lionell,
you never miss hitting the nail directly on the head. You say:
The imposition of new Taxes, and really, that’s all they are, ‘seem’ so incrementally small, but having been imposed upon something so huge, the overall take is stunningly monumental. As with the case in everything associated with this, the ‘tiny’ portions of the data are emphasised, so it seems that at the ordinary singular person level, the actual impost is in fact quire small.
Keeping that ‘small’ part in mind, the overall take, when spread across everyone is huge. Now being so huge, they (governments, renewable entrepreneurs etc) can ‘skim’ off a small part of that huge amount, (handling fee etc) barely noticed in the huge overall take, spend what is a seemingly huge amount on the target, and still have some left to, er, give back to the people, again making the original singular cost even less, if you can see that point.
The ‘small’ is emphasised, while the ‘huge’ barely rates a mention.
Extrapolate that out to Australia’s imposition of the cost on CO2 emissions.
Individually, (the ‘small’) it ‘seems’ such a small imposition, especially when some of it is even given back.
What they have not told you is the ‘huge’, just how much is being raised overall, and how much they are actually keeping from that total.
What they rely upon here is that the ‘huge’ part of the equation consists of data that is actually astronomical, numbers so huge, that doubt is injected in the form of… “I can’t believe that”, and because of that they just get away with it and no one asks the hard questions, (a) because they don’t know what to ask as ‘journalists’ and (b) no one would believe it anyway.
Witness the (literally) Trillions that have been spent on renewable power, and yet, Worldwide, renewables make up only 2.7% of the World’s electrical power, and even that has a false base.
They have used the Nameplate Capacity, which seems to give the impression of a huge amount, but because renewables supply power on a limited time basis, that power being consumed is even less than that. They can double that Trillions spent, and still not make 4% of the whole World’s power available for consumption.
No one tells the truth, and even what truth they do tell is ‘rubbery’ at best.
I see that now, even Hydro power has been removed from the list of renewable power.
We have been conned on a scale that is unimaginable.
Tony.
10
So the odds for this decade being warmer than the last have now blown out to maybe 3 – 1?
10
This yet to be revealed IPCC is a moderated version, to get people to finally agree with them.
Probably, they would under the circumstances now available.
I want to see the governments who have already engaged to correct climate change admit, that clean energy will do nothing to stop any climate change, but will make some richer than others. Like others being you and me.
10
Not sure if these have been posted yet but here goes:
EPA Blames Increasing Texas Precipitation On Global Warming, While The IPCC Blames Decreasing Texas Precipitation On Global Warming
http://www.real-science.com/epa-blames-increasing-texas-precipitation-global-warming-global-warming
and
http://www.real-science.com/epa-glacier-fraud
Apparently the glaciers have been shrinking since before the 1940’s but we are told it shrank in 1960’s
10
Sorry forgot the 3rd link
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063488/Climate-Minister-buys-castle-16-bathrooms–massive-carbon-footprint.html
This is beyong the King of geothermia buying a house on the Hawkesbury river.
THIS IS A SCAM
10
almost a year after the Qld Premier lifted the amount of water SE Qlders could use daily (some said to raise more money for the government) – only to find, of course, that people could not afford to use more water given the massive bills they are getting – the Premier tries again, in a most deceitful manner*** due to the necessity of emptying Wivenhoe Dam before the rains come:
14 Nov: SMH: AAP: Larine Statham: SE Qld to get 10 days unrestricted water
Southeast Queensland households will enjoy a 10-day water free-for-all when water restrictions are temporarily suspended.
Residents will be able to use as much water as they like, from Wednesday until the end of next week, to clean the outside of their homes or wash their boats, cars and pets.
Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser said the decision meant people could “go for their lives”.
***But they’ll still have to pay for what water they use…
The lift will coincide with the release of water from Wivenhoe Dam ahead of another predicted wetter than usual, potentially troublesome summer…
“The amount of water to be released is in the order of 50,000 megalitres and if everyone used an extra 20 litres per day it would come to around 1000 megalitres.”
State premier Anna Bligh said the government would use expert advice to manage the release very carefully “so that it doesn’t have a bad effect on downstream homes and businesses”.
Wivenhoe Dam was a major focus of the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry, after many of those affected by the state’s summer of floods claimed that if water had been released sooner, the scale of the damage would not have been so bad.
The commission, in its interim report in August, recommended Wivenhoe Dam be drawn down to 75 per cent when weather worse than, or equal to, last year’s is forecast.
The government decided against lowering dam levels in September, following advice from the Bureau of Meteorology.
“It’s true to say that if we had another massive flood the reduction of dam levels will only make a marginal difference, but for some people it could mean the difference between water going into their home or water staying out in the garden,” Ms Bligh told reporters in Gympie on Monday…
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/se-qld-to-get-10-days-unrestricted-water-20111114-1nf9o.html
meanwhile, back in the real world:
18 Nov: ABC: Kirrin McKechnie: The waterway making Queenslanders sick
Angry residents are demanding action after discovering their local creek is in a sewage spill area
They say spills from a sewage treatment plant are badly polluting a residential waterway, risking the health of its neighbours…
KIRRIN McKECHNIE: The Brisbane City Council has been monitoring the creek’s water quality all year. While some months it’s deemed suitable for recreational purposes, in others the levels of the dangerous bacteria, enterococci, are staggering. In March samples taken from Cabbage Tree Creek recorded enterococci levels nearly three times the level the council says could make people ill. In April the results soared again to nearly ten times the level of expected illness transmission. According to the Council, those statistics indicate the “Waterway contains significant bacterial contamination”. It recommends at those levels, Cabbage Tree Creek is “Not suitable for swimming or any other form of water contact involving immersion. Prevent inhalation or ingestion of water spray and prevent contact between water and any skin wounds”…
KIRRIN McKECHNIE: Cabbage Tree Creek borders the environmentally important Boondall Wetlands, and flows into Moreton Bay. Nestled on the creek is a sewage treatment plant, operated by Queensland Urban Utilities. During heavy rainfall, the plant overflows. Bruce Earle says residents are not being adequately informed about sewage spills.
BRUCE EARLE: They report to DERM of major incidents only. I don’t know what major incidents are. They don’t tell us what major incidents are. They’re still trying to blame the bats, and the birds, and everything else. There needs to be a third party to keep a watch on these people that are pumping sewage into our waterways…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-18/the-waterway-making-queenslanders-sick/3681268?section=qld
10
Pat,
you make a really good point about the water behind those dam walls in SEQ.
Back at the time of the floods in January, I made a series of Posts on the situation.
One of those Posts was the following:
Wivenhoe Dam Levels – The Critical Days
It was a (necessarily) very long Post, because it could not be split up, requiring explanation.
That Post contains 3 Updates, and for those of you not wanting to read the whole Post, the relevant Update in question here, and with reference to what pat says, is the last of those Updates, so scroll right to the bottom of the Post for that.
In that Update, I speculate on the immense value of that water to the Queensland Government, not as a water resource, but a revenue resource, because, now having raised the price of water to consumers to huge levels, that water behind the wall at Wivenhoe has a literally astronomical monetary value.
Keep in mind that Somerset is upstream of Wivenhoe, and all releases from Somerset flow directly into Wivenhoe, so any releases from Somerset keep that dam full, but the water is not lost as it flows directly to Wivenhoe.
Also, part of the SEQ Water Grid was the construction of a pipeline from Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast to Wivenhoe, so any water beyond Hinze Stage 3
can beis diverted to Wivenhoe as well, and the Hinze catchment is probably one of the best catchments in all of Australia, the Springbrook Plateau.That water level of Wivenhoe holds no problems, because, and wait for this.
Wivenhoe was at the (so called) drastic days when it was down to a level of barely 17%, what we were told was a tiny amount of water, necessitating the expense of the ‘white elephant’ saltwater recycling plant, never in full operation, problematic even when in operation, and now mothballed.
Wivenhoe at 17% would have seen even further draconian water rationing, beyond even the most draconian levels already in place.
Get this.
At that 17% in Wivenhoe, there was enough water for SEQ ….. if it never rained again for 7 years.
The Government in Queensland is now saying they are doing this to make Brisbane safe.
They are doing it grudgingly, because if they had their way, they’d keep the dam as close to full as possible. They’re not emptying water into the Brisbane River to keep Brisbane safe. They are actually flushing away tens of millions of dollars, and more.
For those of you who want to read the whole Post, I feel sure your eyes might pop, and then refer to the date I wrote it, not after the Inquiry, but in January, during the flood itself, and in the days following those Wivenhoe releases.
Tony.
10
O/T,
While the Euro currency does an impression of a racehorse in the glue factory, the EU has found a whole team of beaurocrats who are threatening Bottled water manufacturers with fine for stating that… wait for it…
Water Hydrates
That’s right, accordng to the EU, you cannot claim that water hydrates….
Do you think that maybe there’s some connection there between the number of beaurocrats and the EUs troubles? Nah, couldn’t be… Surely Not!
10
MadJak,
We can tell you are frustrated – the word is bureaucrats, not beurocrats – gives you away every time 🙂
10
LOL,
Well until Big Oil start paying me something so I can get my comments peer reviewed, we’ll just have to live with it…
BTW : Enron and BP – You are way outstanding on my invoices. In fact I am beginning to wonder if you will ever pay me anything!
10
Um, I thought my comment was a peer review … ?
10
How much longer do we give these IPCC scumbags an even break.
I reckon the next govt of Lib/Nat order a Royal Commission into their dodgy science and into the fools ( such as Combet and Steffen ) who promoted the lies and deceit.
Then as a penalty, they can go and do some hard labour on a fruit property picking Apricots in the Riverland of SA, in the middle of January at 43 degrees, sweating it out like thousands of hard working aussies do every summer. Then they can go to jail.
They preach, yet do not listen.
They falsify the data, yet do not listen.
They promote the lies, yet do not listen to the truth.
They slag JoNova’s site, yet do not read it!
They slag Andrew Bolts site, yet do not read it!
Bob Brown slags anyone against him, yet he gets driven around Canberra in a gas-guzzling limo, burns wood in his hut in tassie and expells untold CO2 emissions with his travel.
God they are hypocrites and us aussies are a docile bunch, yet come next election, we will not be so docile on these scumbags who have made it so much harder and expensive to live in this great country.
Election Now please PM Juliar.
10
Your first point is the only one I’ve read so far and I like that point + it’s interesting!
10
I gave you a tick Black Adder.
10
TonyfromOz –
i well remember your posts. of course, there is so much to say about this whole affair of water in s-e qld, but who has time and who would listen?
it’s like the NBN – which some say could end up costing between $60- and $80-billion. there is no way this is a cost effective way to bring fast speed internet to ordinary aussies. an ex-Navy friend told me the NBN is really for the Military, and i think he may be right.
19 Nov: Business Spectator: NBN struggling to sign-up customers: report
The lowest pick-up rates have been seen in Independent MP Tony Windsor’s rural seat, where only two per cent of households have subscribed.
In all, about 18,000 homes now have access to the NBN, but only about 2,000 paying subscribers have been registered by the NBN Co, making for an 11 per cent connection rate…
The schedule for the roll-out was heavily influenced by government efforts to win over key independent MPs Mr Windsor and Rob Oakeshott. The opposition has said that instead the roll-out should have focused on regions with the poorest connection speeds, who would be most likely to upgrade to the new NBN network, according to The Australian.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/NBN-struggling-to-sign-up-customers-report-pd20111118-NQQYU?OpenDocument
10
the problem with the NBN is that it has distracted anyone from updating the current system – It will be OK under the NBN they say – meanwhile – I’m on ADSL1 and no one wants to update my local server to ADSL2 because they are all hanging out for the NBN.
Thanks Julia for nothing and thank you Malcolm for being a shit opposition communications rep. Why anyone would wish for you as an alternative opposition leader is amazing.
10
Ian Mott #11
Also, every dramatic moments are looped or shown over and over and over again during all news broadcasts. How many times have we seen that blue car being rushed along the torrent in Toowoomba, January 2011?
In the old days an event would be reported once in a newspaper article with perhaps a couple of still B&W photos. If you went to the movies the great floods in Europe of 1953 were shown once in the newsreels before the movie.
Even when TV started old type newsreels were only available sometimes very late after being flown in from somewhere. But with satellite and digital technology a disaster like the Japan tsunami can be almost ‘live’ and we see it repeated virtually endlessly.
Young kids who saw 9/11 on TV were traumatised because every repeated shot gave them the impression MORE buildings and cities were being attacked. Thus, the news cycle has made disasters seem ‘normal’.
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Off topic I know but just had to share this..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8901431/Switch-off-for-noisy-wind-farms.html
Following complaints about the noise of rotating blades from nearby residents, operators have agreed to switch off the machines or reduce their speed when the wind is blowing too strongly.
The agreements, which mean the turbines generate less electricity, have been revealed in dossiers from local authorities about their investigations into noise pollution complaints.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063737/BBCs-Mr-Climate-Change-accepted-15-000-grants-university-rocked-global-warning-scandal.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Could this be the start of a “real” investigation?
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From the Daily Mail? Not so much … it will be forgotten by lunchtime today.
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The IPCC has been standing on the political gallows with the noose around their neck for a long time. With a statement like this I think they just sprang the trapdoor on themselves.
Poor IPCC!
Unfortunately it’s too late. The lie has been recognized as a good business buzzword. I can’t watch TV anymore without being bombarded by someone pushing “green”.
The worst of it is that this stuff is now taught in our schools. In two more generations the lie will be universally accepted and skeptics — if there are any — will be like Galileo under the Pope’s thumb.
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Listening to the radio this morning some squealing pig was saying that if we reduce or emissions (globally) to zero NOW then we will only see 2 degrees rise in temp if we dont then we will have to start reducing CO2 in the atmosphere.
Have computer model will travel.
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“…if we reduce or emissions (globally) to zero NOW then we will only see 2 degrees rise in temp…”. By that logic it is too late to stop it. The damage and death caused by trying to rapidly cut our emissions to “zero” would outway any of the benefits. Therefore, if CAGW is true, we need to ADAPT.
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Global Warming then Climate Change and now Climate Vulnerable. Sweet Jesus! Do these people have no shame?
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Send this to all Western governments, will you, Jo..?
Especially the UK – and its ‘greenest government EVAH…’
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I am absolutely amazed at the current temperatures at Fairbanks Alaska. Incredibly low temperature records for this early (November 21, 2011). These minus 41C and thereabouts temperatures, for FIVE days in row and more coming should not be happening until later in December and January. Where is the CO2 when it is needed. This situation has never happened there in recorded history. It makes no sense. At some point, these record lows should stop happening entirely. These warming theories have been around since the 1970’s.
I refuse to accept that these record low temperatures are somehow indicative of a warming trend. I have not reached the “denier” stage, but I can certainly be classified as an temperature “agnostic” at this point.
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It may be cold where you live now but trust us it is warmer everywhere else
Saint Al of the Gore
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Joanne
This is my first post on your site, the reason the natural climate variability will over power the CO2 signal, is due to the driving forces that regulate the weather are all natural and totally out of human control, so are there fore not taxable. The real drivers of climate and weather will not be investigated by the “powers that be” as there is no massive tax money to be had from reality.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/richard-holle-the-big-picture/
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The Australian calls the alarmists to account
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/climate-change-science-highlights-uncertainties/story-e6frg71x-1226201768869
All the big names get a stitch up
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The Age is continuing the AGW alarmism…
I seem to suck at linking sites so I will just copy the address if my original attempt at linking doesn’t work.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/rich-nations-give-up-on-climate-treaty-20111121-1nr1r.html
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The Australian still views the “Science” (ists) as holy. Rather than corrupt, unprincipled, data fiddling cheats. (err.. what result would like boss?)
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This is an interesting last gasp attempt to save the new IPCC report but remember no matter how much you polish a turd it is still a turd.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/going-under-20111121-1nr2k.html
For some you may find this a bit hard to follow so i have taken the liberty to translate some of it for you, i stop short of the end as i feel by the you could translate the rest your self.
Enjoy
Translation: – We think the temps might go up a bit and we might have a few more heat waves anything more than this and we have no idea and after 5 years of tweaking our computer models we are no closer.
Translation:- We really don’t understand what happened in the past as good as the previous report claimed, we believe cyclone intensity may get stronger but the frequency might stay the same or the frequency might decrease we really have no idea at this stage. This new guess is just a guess like the previous guess so therefore this new guess is inline with all previous guesses.
Translation: – Ok you got us everything up to now about droughts was a guess, as we have now idea we are now seeking advice from farmers and water resource managers however as these people from these diverse fields do not speak the same lingo we are even more confused than we were before. In short we have no idea about droughts (there I said it).
Translation:- We believe there have been more warm than cold days now than before and if our AGW theory holds water we expect this to continue, however as we have no idea about droughts and cyclones there is a small chance that we may be wrong about this one as well so we will say “virtually certain” as an arse covering exercise.
Translation:- The smart ones may have noticed that we changed from “virtually certain” to “very likely” in regards to warmer weather and we now contradict ourselves by claiming it is “likely” there will be heavy rain as opposed to droughts but only the smart ones will notice this and there aint many of them left.
Translation: – We have no idea when/where or how large a drought will be as explained earlier……no before we said there is going to be floods, what’s that Al?……. oh yes and there will be floods……when there are no droughts of course. Oh and remember on a global scale we have no idea.
Read the rest of this stomach churning, bile generating bovine excrement by following the link above
Cheers
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[…] should help to prepare the ground for the retreat from alarming forecasts that the IPCC has […]
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to quote just one of the e-mails;
“What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably […]”
No, we (the skeptics) do not think that way, but you might save yourselves some jail time by just admitting “We do not know” what causes the climate to vary with time.
And then admit that we have WASTED BILLIONS of DOLLARS (US/AUSSIE/etc) based on your MALFEASANCE…………
Cheers, Kevin.
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Unfortunately it will be a long time for climate reality to sink in.
People underestimate the power of denial and the effectiveness of the propoganda machine.
Consider the personality of your average sceptic. These are the very few people who can resist peer pressure and groupthink. The vast majority of people will continue to believe what they are told irrespective of whether it makes sense or not. Perhaps people are beginning to see the flaws in the doctrin of human induced climate change. However they shift the goal posts to the apparent desirability of “clean renewable energy”. The environmentalist movement has been so affective because it understands how to appeal to peoples passion rather than logic. No amount of evidence, or lack of evidence can persuade someone who has had their entire ideology constructed from years of social conditioning.
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