Climate Coup — The Politics

How the regulating class is using bogus claims

about climate change to entrench and extend their

economic privileges and political control.

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

The Science

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sideshows Instead of the Whole Truth

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

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

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

The Silence of the Mainstream Media

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Regulating Class

Consider the array of forces in the climate argument:

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

 

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

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

They don’t like the market place, basically because the marketplace doesn’t like them. [vii] The marketplace doesn’t reward them as much as they think it should. They prefer a system where people like them form the government and bureaucracy, where they take a large slice of everyone else’s income by threat of force, and then they pay themselves what they think they are worth out of those taxes. This stands in stark contrast to most people, who are generally paid only what the market will allow.

Their shared economic basis makes them a class. Let’s call them the “regulating class”.[viii] [ix] (It seems like a trivial thing, but this argument is bedeviled by the lack of a widely-accepted name for this class. Due to the modern context they are a new phenomenon, but they are similar to coalitions identified in the past—such as the “new class” of Milovan Djilas[x] which is described by George Orwell as “a new aristocracy”,[xi] or the classe politique in France,[xii] or the tradition of Legalism in Imperial China. We chose “regulating class” because regulation is their core action, their standard tactic to advance their interests.)

The regulating class also attracts people who are not part of it for strictly economic reasons, but who identify with it because of similar backgrounds, or culture and beliefs. The regulating class does not try to hide its belief that it is cleverer, and morally superior too. Annoy a member of this class sufficiently to strip away their veneer of politeness, and soon you will be called an “idiot” and eventually a “racist”. Who has not at times felt the siren call and ego boost of feeling superior to one’s fellow man? Viewers can get a very real sense of superiority by watching the mainstream media, especially the government-owned channels, and adopting the trendy beliefs being pushed there. “Oh, I feel so superior to all those idiots and racists out there because I have these shiny new beliefs as validated by the superior regulating class with whom I now identify myself.” Share their beliefs, show them off to your friends, and you too can feel superior and of high status—even though your situation or remuneration may be modest. It is a cheap grab for status that costs almost no effort to earn.

The mainstream media have withheld the data presented in Climate Coup—The Science, which strongly suggests they are part of the regulating class. Most of the larger media organizations are sympathetic to the regulating class and relentlessly promote its views.

On the other side of the argument stand those doubting the theory. The skeptics are overwhelmingly from the private sector. People who work with the real physical world and are not employed by government are usually skeptics. The mainstream media is largely denied to skeptics, so they communicate via the Internet and talkback radio.

Why Global Warming is So Important to the Regulating Class

If human emissions of CO2 are causing a major planetary problem, then there are only two plausible solutions: wait and adapt, or regulate and reduce. Only the second solution interests the regulating class. To regulate CO2 emissions effectively and fairly you must regulate nearly all energy use, and thus most of the economy, in every nation of the world.

The regulating class promotes the dual beliefs that the “problem” of global warming is very scary and that it is caused by human emissions of CO2. The only solution they offer just happens to be complete regulation of the whole world’s economy by … the regulating class, of course. “Enlightened” self-interest doesn’t come any bigger than this.

The theory of manmade global warming is not a conspiracy. It is a confluence of vested interests in increased political regulation of the economy and rejecting market forces. Bureaucrats, academics, government scientists, utilities, renewables manufacturers, bankers, most politicians—all these have a shared financial interest in imposing their solution to “manmade” global warming.

The Copenhagen Treaty was an Attempted Coup

Nearly all the world leaders met in Copenhagen in late 2009, expecting to sign the “Copenhagen Treaty” to limit CO2 emissions. But China and India torpedoed the negotiations, saying more research was needed to establish whether warming is manmade and refusing to commit to any quantified emissions reduction targets.[xiii] The much weaker “Copenhagen Accord” [xiv]was signed instead.

Figure 1: The regulating class at work in Copenhagen. President Obama of the US [Credit: AP/Susan Walsh], Ban Ki-moon the Secretary General of the United Nations [Credit: China Daily], British PM Gordon Brown [Credit: Reuters/Ints Kalnins], presided over by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish climate and energy minister [Credit: EPA].

The draft Copenhagen Treaty is still available in a few corners of the Internet.[xv] It is 181 pages of dense, convoluted, bureaucratic language, slow and difficult to read. The draft contains options and blanks to be filled in. Nonetheless, it is clear enough.

The Treaty would have set up a new bureaucracy with the power to regulate CO2 emissions worldwide, able to regulate any market, over-riding national governments as required.[xvi] It could also fine and tax any signatory government.[xvii] In the hands of a judge from the regulating class, it could be interpreted to give this new global bureaucracy the power to tax every signatory nation and regulate its energy use almost completely—just look at how the US Constitution has been extended by interpretation over the years, and that’s a much clearer document. A hint in the Treaty could become the basis for a full blown mechanism to do almost anything the bureaucrats wished.

From experience with the monotonic growth of centralized power in federations of states, such as the United States or Australia, it is almost inevitable that within a few decades this new body would be parlayed up into a strong global bureaucracy regulating more than just CO2 emissions.

The mainstream media are very talkative when power changes hands in democracies (elections), and extremely interested when outside groups impinge on a nation’s sovereignty (wars), yet were almost entirely silent about the implications of the Treaty for the loss of national sovereignty. If something like the draft Treaty had been signed, it would have been the biggest transfer of sovereign power in recorded human history: nearly all the nations of the world would have ceded much of their sovereign power all at once. Yet the media scarcely raised an eyebrow.

All of that national sovereignty would have been ceded to an unelected group of global bureaucrats: Never in the field of human administration would so much power have been transferred by so many to so few. This was a narrowly averted global coup, an attempt to seize a great deal of power by stealth without the knowledge or explicit consent of the world’s people. It can only have been kept silent with the active support of the world’s media. But because of that silence, the coup has never been acknowledged, so the people of the world are unaware of it and further attempts could be made. Climate “science” is clearly flawed, but it is an excuse for a massive power play.

Figure 2: It is one of the oldest scams in human history: witchdoctors go to the rulers and say “the Gods are angry, there will be (more) catastrophes … we know how to appease the Gods, but it will cost you”. [Credit: CDC]

A Global Bureaucracy Would Be Bad

If a bureaucracy is global, there is nowhere to run to from high taxes, persecution, exploitation, selective enforcement of regulations, and so on. It would bring an end to the competition that keeps sovereign nations in check and makes them treat their productive citizens decently. Furthermore, any global system is prone to tyranny taking over forever, because if it is global there is no possibility of outside help or refuge for those under its yoke—so the tyranny is harder to dislodge.

It is competition in human affairs that keep people and organizations “honest”, that fuels dynamism and progress. Monopolies are bad for customers. Of course we all want to escape from competition for ourselves, to be monopolists in our own little ways. But we all know that we benefit from competition among those who provide us with goods and services, including bureaucratic services.

A global bureaucracy is especially bad for industries, like mining, that have traditionally relied on competition between nations to prevent being exploited. Nations are in competition with each other for the services of miners: if a nation make conditions too hard or is too taxing then the miners move to a different jurisdiction. Currently there is a world marketplace in mining, a system of voluntary agreements between nations and mining companies. A global bureaucracy would end all that by simply imposing conditions on the miners, take it or leave it—and miners would effectively become serfs.

Global Warming: What’s At Stake for You

If you are an economic member of the regulating class, a global bureaucracy instigated by the alleged need to regulate CO2 emissions would be terrific: more jobs, power, and money for bureaucrats and their allies. You would be part of what would effectively become a ruling class, free to tax a captive population whatever they could bear and pay yourselves whatever you “know” you’re worth.

Figure 3: If their “solution” to global warming ushered in a global bureaucracy, people like these would be setting regulations worldwide, with no escape for anyone: The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, [xviii] Chairman of the UN’s IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri [Credit: Mikhail Evstafiev], and David Suzuki, Canadian conservationist [Credit: Rich Frishman].

For everyone else, what’s at stake is freedom from the demands of a hostile ruling class, as well as more disposable income, more choice, less red tape, and a better quality of life. The new regulating class—bureaucrats, academics, greenies—look down on others as stupid and morally inferior, they don’t like people who make real stuff, and they don’t like the private sector or the marketplace. They would be happy for the everyone else to compete in the marketplace to make them stuff, but they themselves won’t have to compete. Their regulations would be global so there would be no escape, and competition between nations vying for our services and taxes would shrivel.

The Trademark Tactics of the Regulating Class

If you oppose the regulating class, you will get called an “extremist”, a “nut”, a “conspiracy theorist”, “right wing”, and every variation of “stupid” and “ignorant”, irrespective of the merits of what you say. Say anything that mentions or might imply race and they will also call you a “racist”. Because they own the mainstream media, they will call you these names in the news and current affairs, newspapers, television, websites, books, movies, and in trendy conversation.

Figure 4: Oppose them, and they call you names. And they own the media. [Credits: Office for the Protection of Children and Youth, Nonprofithub]

Name-calling by members of the regulating class is so rife that it often replaces content entirely. Asked to explain why they believe something, they will often just indulge in name-calling, sometimes sophisticated or cleverly disguised name-calling, but often there will be no actual evidence, argument, or reasoning in their thicket of pejoratives.

Their name-calling frightens most people into submission most of the time: “Ooh, I don’t want to get called names, especially in public, so I won’t say anything.” A second important effect is to make their supporters arrogant and confident to the point of delusion, because they believe their critics really are stupid, ignorant kooks—after all, everyone trendy like them says so!

But above all, they want to shut their critics up—by any means short of violence. Opinions and evidence counter to the interests of the regulating class are “illegitimate”, and are ruthlessly suppressed.[xix]

The regulating class does not debate—why bother, when you have the media on your side to repeat your message and to discredit and block your critics? They hold pretend debates in their media studios with an audience of their supporters or a panel predominately of their supporters, or in an interview where the host is one of theirs, ready to interrupt a critic immediately they start to make a good point or get any momentum—but these are really just exercises in demonizing their non-class guest, educating their supporters on whom to hiss and call names. An honest debate, on the other hand, risks getting past name-calling and exposing their vested interests and defects in evidence or reasoning.

The other main tactic of the regulating class is to appoint themselves the authorities and then play the authority card. They say, on climate change or any issue (and read this in your most patronizing and authoritative voice please):

“Trust us, we are the experts. All the experts agree with us. … Anyone who disagrees with us is a fool, or a nut, or just politically motivated.”

The regulating class enforce solidarity and uniformity of view within their ranks by directing personal attacks, often quite vicious, against anyone who deviates from the current class line. In their world, social relationships are secondary to political solidarity: express a different opinion and you will face unfriendliness or exclusion by class members you thought were your friends. This habit of socially censuring those who disagree with the class view, plus the contempt they feel for others, ensures that social relations between this class and the rest of society tend to be shallow or short-lived. The result is a ruling elite that is increasingly socially isolated. Their opinions are seriously out of synch with wider society—such as on climate change, or government intervention to bail out the executives, shareholders and bondholders of failing banks and to interfere in markets everywhere.

On climate change, the regulating class have won over the leadership of most professional and business organizations by lobbying and pressure. Who would oppose the bureaucrats, knowing their power to selectively enforce a myriad of rules or to award contracts and consultancies? They created a bandwagon effect, manufacturing the appearance of a consensus but having only persuaded or bought a minimum of people. They isolate and exclude their opponents from government-related activity and the media, suppress criticisms by name calling and worse, have opponents fired where possible, and reward and hire only their supporters. The result: professionals and organizations appear to be all on their side. After all, they have all the government power, and all the taxpayers’ money.

The Skeptics Are Winning

The western public was about 20% skeptical in 2008 but is now about 50% skeptical, according to opinion polls. The blogs of the climate alarmists are despairing that they have “lost the public”.[xx]

The regulating class are being defeated by a rag-tag army of mainly disorganized amateurs, because the skeptics have the data on their side. The big lesson here is that the Internet trumps the mainstream media, it just takes a while. The suppressed data gets through eventually. Without the Internet, the meme of manmade global warming would almost certainly be dominant and the coup at Copenhagen would have succeeded.

There is an historical precedent. In Europe several hundred years ago the Church had a monopoly on distributing high quality information—via the pulpit.[xxi] Then along came the printing press, which broke the monopoly. Soon afterwards came the Reformation, and eventually the Enlightenment, and the Church’s status, wealth, and power fell substantially. For the last few decades in western society, the mainstream media have had a monopoly on distributing information. Now the Internet is dissolving that monopoly; climate change is the first major public issue where the Internet affected the outcome.

Figure 5: Getting the information through: printing press (1440), Internet (1990), and the Lobbyist’s briefcase.[xxii]

The skeptics have also won in the legislatures. Governments nearly everywhere are backing off, with only Europe, Australia, and New Zealand imposing regulations to reduce CO2 emissions (only Australia’s are meaningful and punitive, and only because the Greens temporarily hold the balance of power). How did the skeptics win? By walking the data through to the legislators in lobbyist’s briefcases, bypassing the block that is the mainstream media, and in many case penetrating the smears and disinformation intended to inoculate the legislators from anything skeptics say.

When President Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress came to power in 2009, they were all set to “do something about climate change”. The lobbyists went in and showed them the data. In enough cases, when the legislators saw the data they decided they wanted no part of CO2 regulation. They were not going to argue publicly with government climate scientists, but they made it plain that they were not going to legislate to regulate CO2 emissions. President Obama backed off, and the legislation was never introduced. Now everyone knows that the US Congress is not going to act.

Obviously the regulating class will now respond by regulating the Internet and lobbyist’s briefcases.

Why the Regulating Class Cannot Concede It is Wrong

There is no way to spin this for the regulating class. They look stupid or dishonest for supporting “climate change” for so long, and for having so vehemently discredited the critics. They are in a terrible quandary.

They are wordsmiths, and honesty is not their highest value, so they will use words to hide and obfuscate the obvious failure of their theory. Owning the media, they will block contrary data as long as possible. The loss of face should be huge, but with their near-complete control of the media they should be able to minimize the pain: “we don’t talk about that now, how un-cool, I knew something was wrong with it all along”.

Harder for them to hide will be the loss of their presumed qualification to lead society. Their justification for their privileged status and their right to govern, at least in their own eyes, has been contradicted. Remember how often they implied that anyone who didn’t “believe in climate change” was a backward fool? The death of the global warming issue will reverse their claim to being wiser and more capable. They will fight it fiercely and dogmatically, with only feigned respect for evidence. This phase may persist for years.

The Perfect Crime

Fraud is acquiring other people’s property by deception. The coup by the regulating class would have allowed them to tax the world’s wealth as they pleased. There is obviously deception in the pretext of dangerous manmade global warming and the silence around the implications of the Copenhagen Treaty. So has a crime being committed? The definition and prosecution of crimes is done by government and bureaucrats, so no matter what the statute books say, no one will be prosecuted.

Climate criminals almost took control of the whole world by deception, a grand fraud. Money has changed hands on a vast scale due to a bunch of easily-dispelled untruths, yet somehow no one will be found to be at fault. The government climate scientists will say they did the right thing by alerting the world to a possible problem and that they the only made “projections”, not predictions. Bureaucrats, politicians and media will say they were acting on the scientists’ advice. Renewables companies will say they it was not their fault they were subsidized. The regulating class will denigrate anyone who mentions the attempted coup. All the beneficiaries are from the new regulating class, which happens to be in charge of the justice system. So no one will go to jail or even pay back their ill-gotten gains to the taxpayers. The rest of society paid for this nonsense, transferring huge quantities of money to the new class, and almost became serfs on their own planet in the process. But no one will be at fault.

The Planet Will Be OK

While there will be warming due to our emissions of CO2, the climate models exaggerate and the warming will only be mild. In the tropics it will have almost no effect, while elsewhere it will be equivalent to moving a few tens of kilometers closer to the equator. There are much larger natural forces on our climate at play, and it is they and not our puny CO2 that drives the planet’s temperature. Finally, all that extra CO2 in the air is great for the plants: plants are nearly half carbon by dry weight, and they get it all from the air.

Conclusions

The push towards a global bureaucracy, using climate change as an excuse, is a clear and present danger to sovereign nations, to the competition between nations for productive citizens, and to freedom everywhere. The attempted stealthy globalization of bureaucracy is a crime by a new regulating class that demands the privilege of taxing and paying itself whatever it thinks is worth, while the rewards for the rest of society are instead set by competition in the marketplace.

The threat of a bureaucratic coup is perhaps receding, but will be revived if the climate warms, or if it is perceived to warm. For instance, satellites naturally degrade with time but might not be replaced, we could be shown just “global” temperatures from land thermometers in artificially warming locations, the ocean data could be biased by rejecting data from Argo buoys that give colder readings, and there are a myriad of computing tricks that could be employed on the data. It has been well said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

The real issue here is a grab for absolute power by those who already govern. They have grown tired of democracy and would like to do away with it, without ever giving the game away by actually saying so. This is the age-old divide between the totalitarians and libertarians. Coalitions like the current regulating class have always been instinctively totalitarian, desirous of interfering in every tiny detail of our lives—for our own good of course, and prodigiously at our expense. They are now even telling us what kind of light-bulbs we can use. With the rise of democracy, it looked like the regulating class would be subject to the will of the people. The US Constitution explicitly defines the obligations of government to the people, and not of people to the government. However, liberty, democracy, and the free market are now again at grave risk, and “global warming” is the Trojan Horse the regulating class are hoping to ride to victory over the people.

 

 

About the Author

Dr David M.W. Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006, causing Evans to move from being a warmist to a skeptic. The response Evans received for making some obvious points about the evidence in 2007 was overly-strong and dishonest, alerting him that there was more to the global warming issue than just the science.

Inquiries to david.evans@sciencespeak.com.

The sister article of this article, called “Climate Coup—The Science”, is at jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/evans-david/climate-coup-science.pdf

 


[i] As in Climate Coup—The Science, we are using “water vapor feedback” to mean all the feedbacks involving water in any of its forms (ocean water, water vapor, clouds, rain, snow, ice etc.) or the lapse rate.

[ii] See pages 28 and 29, “Most Western Climate Scientists Believe Global Warming is Man-Made: True But Murky”, in jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/corruption/climate-corruption.pdf.

[iii] As far as I know. The Internet skeptics would very likely have noticed and commented if it had occurred.

[iv] see Climate money: Bigger money moves in

[v] see Climate change suspect must be given a fair trial, The Weekend Australian

[vi] see joannenova.com.au/2009/07/massive-climate-funding-exposed. Auditing is left to unpaid volunteers.

[vii] see www.martindurkin.com/blogs/real-global-warming-consensus-or-why-intellectuals-hate-capitalism

[viii] For want of a better or existing name. Maybe a clever acronym would be best (eg PRAM for “Parasitic/Political Regulating Anti-Marketeer”). This designation bears no relationship to the writers on political economy originating in 1970s France, called the “regulationists”.

[ix] If we were to partition society by economic mode it might look something like:

  • Remuneration primarily determined by political means:

– Regulating class.

– Military class (armed forces, police, customs, spies, drug enforcement, etc.)

– Welfare class.

  • Remuneration primarily set by the market:

– Commercial class.

– Criminal class (of course they have their own special ways of avoiding most competition).

Here we are only interested in fleshing out the characteristics of the regulating class, because it is they who are driving the global warming issue.

[x] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_class

[xi] www.mutualist.org/id7.html

[xii] But not “political class”, because many politicians oppose the regulating class—very notably, Ron Paul.

[xiii] www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/24/china-climate-change-adviser www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/21/copenhagen-treaty-gordon-brown

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/20/ed-miliband-china-copenhagen-summit

[xiv] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Accord

[xv] www.globalclimatescam.com/documents/un-fccc-copenhagen-2009.pdf, wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/un-fccc-copenhagen-2009.pdf

[xvi] Page 18, paragraphs 36 and 38.

[xvii] Page 135 options 7 and 8, page 145 paragraph 76, page 74 paragraph 38, page 110 paragraph 113, page 134 Option 3. Page 43 paragraph 41 (d), page 173 paragraph 50 (c).

[xviii] Image: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Council

[xix] Recent example: An Australian Government Report appears to recommend regulating political speech, especially regarding climate change: www.stopgillardscarbontax.com/2012/03/urgent-new-govt-report-calls-for-big-brother-regulator-to-silence-climate-skeptics.html and joannenova.com.au/2012/03/finkelstein-yes-please-just-try-it.

[xx] Humorous but informative article about the current unpopularity of climate alarmism with the British public: www.thecommentator.com/article/972/the_high_priests_of_global_warming_have_lost_their_prestige_and_the_realists_are_winning_the_debate

[xxi] The church maintained its monopoly not just through the pulpit but through its control of hand writing of Biblical texts and the writings of the church fathers, in Latin. It was too expensive to write out the Bible in the vernacular. The invention of the printing press changed all that, and within a few years hundreds of thousands of Bibles, in English and German, had been printed and distributed.

[xxii] Printing press image: dstopsky.com/teaching-samples/the-renaissance

Internet image: Credit Svilen.milev, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_wide_web.jpg

Lobbyist image: Credit csmonitor.com, www.heatingoil.com/blog/green-industries-lobby-hard-climate-bills1014

9.4 out of 10 based on 127 ratings

255 comments to Climate Coup — The Politics

  • #
    Fred

    Wow! Great article. Ever Vigilant.

    10

  • #
    FijiDave

    “Arguably they are a class of parasites…”

    Good one!

    That’s a line my grandfather (born 1878) used to use, “Useless bounder! Parasite of the country!”

    Laughed out loud, I did. 🙂

    10

  • #
    Mike Fomerly of Oz

    Very well said!

    10

  • #
    oeman50

    An excellent post, Dr. Evans. It puts in context what I have been telling anyone who will listen, and that is climate change is about politics, not science, even when the scientists speak.

    10

  • #

    The climate realists (formerly skeptics) are winning.

    http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/the-climate-wars/

    Pointman

    10

    • #
      The Black Adder

      Yes, Pointman we will win.

      `It is one of the oldest scams in human history: witchdoctors go to the rulers and say “the Gods are angry, there will be (more) catastrophes … we know how to appease the Gods, but it will cost you”. [Credit: CDC]`

      Does this not explain it in its simplicity!

      It seems Pointman and others, that after 2000 years of Civilisation, we have not improved much!!!

      …ps…I`m off to through a Virgin on the fire.

      10

      • #
        The Black Adder

        ..make that throw a virgin into the flames of retribution!!!

        …Doh!!

        00

        • #
          RichW

          Some time back I read a perfect description of politicians. It compared them to witchdoctors who demanded a “virgin sacrifice” to appease the gods. It pointed out that prior to the sacrifice, the witchdoctor got some “quality” time alone with the “virgin”.

          10

      • #

        No need to apologise M’Lud Edmund. Virgins and finger problems tend to go together.

        Pointman

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    Hawkwood

    Dr. Evan’s description of the Regulating Class is spot on. I rate this a “must read”. Thank you

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      Cookster

      I agree, certainly of Jo’s many informative posts this is compulsory reading for all. But I’m sure it would be painful reading for the ‘anointed’ bureaucratic regulating class, merchant bankers and many western governments. And I never thought I’d be so in debt to the Chinese for helping to avert global political armageddon!

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        Brian H

        They have sufficiently recent painful memories of nearly committing national economic suicide for the sake of ideology (Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’), and know what it looks like.

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    KinkyKeith

    A great summary which covers a lot of important detail.

    The “modelling” issue has the potential to cause confusion and loss of clarity in arguing

    the point that man made CO2 is irrelevant to any real or imaginary Global Temperature

    Change.

    By it’s very definition a model has certain requirements that must be met.

    First a model has one or more input factors which are variable (eg atmospheric CO2 level)

    and when this variable changes the model must register changes in another factor (eg

    atmospheric temperature) which shows conclusively that the two factors, input and output,

    are linked. The most important requirement however is that the output must duplicate

    reality.

    By definition a model successfully duplicates reality in some range of operation and allows extension, and prediction, outside the measured limits used to verify the model.

    A model which does not duplicate reality is by definition NOT A MODEL.

    Global Climate models have NEVER duplicated reality in any way and by definition cannot be claimed to be models.

    They are mind games.

    This is why I feel that great care should be used in discussing “Climate Models” because to do so might give them credibility in the eyes of the uninitiated to which they are not entitled.

    The fact that Models are so abused by the Climate Community Academics is nothing short of an academic scandal of gigantic proportions.

    Deceit knows no bounds.

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      KinkyKeith

      The other truth which anyone with real modelling training knows is that some systems are

      just too complex to model.

      The Earth’s climate is just such a system.

      To pretend that it can be modeled in it’s entirety is either enormous self delusion as

      demonstrated by politicians or cynical deception as exhibited by armies of climate

      academics.

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        Kevin Moore

        It is said that cosmic radiation affects cloud formation, so to my mind, all factors combined, modelling is impossible.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk

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        Sonny

        Kinky Keith,

        My thermodynamics and fluid dynamics lecturer used to say about the power of computer modeling that we cannot even model accurately stirring a cup of tea for more than a fraction of a second. Why? Because we have not solved the fundamental equations of fluid dynamics.

        Long term climate prediction based on underlying theory (eg radiative forcing of CO2) is utter bullshit.
        The best climate predictions simply observe past climatic cycles and project them forward.

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        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Hi Sonny

          Brings back memories.

          My old thermodynamics teacher was amazing.

          That was back in the days of slide rules.

          Powerful computers are not necessary to have good model, at least to start with.

          If the basics are correct and meaningful they are probably also simple.

          🙂

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    • #
      Speedy

      Deceit knows no bounds – and – to paraphrase the old saying,

      Hype springs eternal…

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      Brian H

      G&T called them “video games”.

      And —

      NumberWatch’s Law of Computer Models

      The results from computer models tend towards the desires and expectations of the modellers.

      Corollary

      The larger the model, the closer the convergence.

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    Paul Deacon

    Dr Evans – I believe your table of believers and doubters is somewhat misleading.

    You have omitted the oil majors, who are believers (and funders of NGOs).

    There are almost no independently funded scientists. The sceptic scientists tend to be those older scientists who were given tenure before scientific appointments in academe became largely controlled by warmists. There is also a younger generation of scientists (formerly believers but now “lukewarmers”) who are positioning themselves to become sceptics when the time is ripe.

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    • #

      Paul, all of the Big-Oil funders you mention put more money into renewables research than they ever gave to skeptics. They belong on both sides of the equation, and the risk to their profits is of a percentage order. The renewables industry faces a wipe out if the CO2 theory is junked.

      You don’t understand the “luke-warmer” term at all. It includes people like Lindzen and Spencer.

      Yes, there are almost no independently funded scientists. That rather tells you something doesn’t it?

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        Gee Aye

        Yes, there are almost no independently funded scientists. That rather tells you something doesn’t it?

        This statement needs some background before knowing what you mean by “it tells us something”.

        Who/what are the potential independent sources of money that will fund this science? What do you consider is an example of an independent fund?

        If these independent funds exist why are they not hiring scientists? Are you saying there are actually no such funds and therefore independently thinking scientists are compromising themselves to get money from funders with an agenda?

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        Gee Aye,
        Science used to be done by self-funded people, or was funded by philanthropists, but it has become so expensive that in many research areas government funded science is so dominant it is almost the only player. On topics where governments have an interest (as in a “vested” interest, just like big-oil) they have put their reputations, their policies, and our money on the line. Who pays anyone to find that the policy is junk, the adjustments are unjustified, and that their assumptions were wrong? Who pays independent scientists to audit government science? No one. We just hope that paying thousands of people to find out “how bad a crisis is”, will somehow answer the question: Are the cost-benefits of action worth it? It’s the wrong question.

        Who/what are the potential independent sources of money that will fund this science? What do you consider is an example of an independent fund?

        Answer this yourself. Go find me a job-advert that an astronomer /physicist / climate scientist / oceanographer can apply too, that would employ a sceptical scientist as opposed to an unsceptical one? No one is hiring that kind of scientist.

        Independent means “independent from the government”. But if you found a government funded position to audit the IPCC I’d consider that worthy of note, though I might be sceptical…

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        • #
          Gee Aye

          Hi Jo,

          If you know science history as well as I you’d also know that self funded and philanthropist funded research pretty much followed the vested interest of the funder. e.g. The aim of making gold from other elements was for person wealth not the pursuit of fundamental principals or the betterment of humanity. So much wasted money and lives. On the other hand a self-funded individual with an inordinate interest in the sex lives of snails and other things cam up with a theory of evolution. You could argue that our present funding sources, transported back 175 years, would have given Darwin a grant.

          I don’t think that being independent of government but dependent on some other source is independent. Sorry if that sounds like a purely semantic argument. Who audits these scientists? I’m sceptical that an independent (says who?) source is any better than what we have now, except that what we have now is a near monopoly in certain areas (not all thankfully). I guess this is where I can see your point.

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            Gee Aye

            edit… regarding Darwin I meant to write “would NOT have given”.

            heaps of other typos too.

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          • #

            you’d also know that self funded and philanthropist funded research pretty much followed the vested interest of the funder.

            So Gee Aye, how is it that people funded by governments are not influenced by the vested interests of their funders? IS government money somehow “pure”?

            Most independent commentators (like me) are not funded by another source. Who “audits” me? Let me see… Journalists funded by big-government, bloggers funded by governments (and some who I presume are not funded) plus scientists paid by big-government. A PR Group funded by a money launderer and by renewables clients. Plus probably anonymous astroturfers, paid by who knows who, we can’t tell, they won’t reveal their real names. Makes me wonder what they have to hide?

            Who is paid to audit the UN, the IPCC, NOAA’s science, and NASA’s conclusions?

            Isn’t it more sensible to assume that any writer may or may not be biased (we’re human) and to look at their arguments? Trying to figure out whether the Earth is warming by assessing the “purity” of intentions of climate commentators is what witchdoctors do with rune stones.

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            MattB

            GeeAye has a point… I doubt Heatland funds scientists who believe in AGW…

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            Markus Fitzhenry

            A Gee. “I don’t think that being independent of government but dependent on some other source is independent.”

            What if the source is a passionate interest in science? Science isn’t undertaken at lectures, it is grit and determination like Darwin’s, whose last interest would have been in the sex lives of his experiments,a quest for truth. But I digress.

            Is it not Australin society has legislated in many ares statutory bodies that not only audit but also administer a standard or code in industry. Not when it is IPCC style climate science it seems, there are that many crap papers being presented to journals it beggers belief. Climate science literature has gone from a sensible scientific process to a grubby underhanded manipulation of the literature for commercial vested interests.

            Jo would be right in calling for independent ombudsman during the processing of scientific literature by journals. There should be a right to protest against a scientific papers correctness in a open conciliatory/judicial framework. It is the responsibility of government to ensure the consumers of scientific literature and those that develop social policy are not harmed by suspect science. It should be the right for citizens to question the correctness of scientific propositions.

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          • #

            Joanne,

            I hope you don’t mind if I add something to the comment you made here:

            …..is what witchdoctors do with rune stones.

            As some of you may know, I am a huge fan of Australian Crime Fiction author Arthur W Upfield, who wrote the 29 Bony books.

            I have an Upfield home page at the site I contribute at, where I have added summaries of all 29 novels, as well as commentary from those novels that led to years of research.

            One of those commentaries deals with the role of the tribal witch doctor, shaman, however they may be referred to as.

            Those Shamans would in fact have been pretty good weather forecasters, and I know it might seem to be a long bow to draw in saying that, but in fact, it’s only a matter of logic really. Those stones (churinga stones) would have been, in effect, a prop, enhancing the mystical ability of the Shaman himself.

            I explain it in the following Post, and please gentlemen and ladies, no laughing, because this in fact is something serious, not only in Aboriginal culture, but as something we can all learn from.

            Tony’s Notes From The Bony Novels (Part 17)

            Tony.

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            The Black Adder

            Hi MattB,

            you are funny..

            MattB

            March 13, 2012 at 4:40 pm

            GeeAye has a point… I doubt Heatland funds scientists who believe in AGW…

            matty old son…

            Heatland (Oh dear, you cannot even spell it right, how do you expect to predict temperature correctly?)

            Perhaps Heratland, err hetland, err heartlard, err Heartland wanted to fund scientists that told the TRUTH !!

            `Nuff Said….

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          • #

            MAttb, Heartland keep inviting key believers of AGW to speak at their conferences. If any would, I’m sure Heartland would pay the same honorarium and travel costs as they do for skeptics. OK, Heartland may not want to pay believers to run experiments and edit their articles, but then, believers have plenty of bigger pots to get that support from.

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        Brian H

        I think you misread Paul. He’s not saying what you’re arguing against. He notes the oil majors are paying for “Green” research.

        Here’s my take: they can’t lose. They know AGW theory is bunk. So they get points and tap the subsidies stream by playing the renewables game, while it lasts. When it goes “blooey”, there they are, with reliable fossil fuel energy to save the day.

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    Turnedoutnice

    All of them have their snouts in the trough.

    [Snip… No need to go that far] Yoda

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    Ross

    Among the many valid points made by Dr Evans in the post , I think the key one is that about the power of the Internet and how it has enabled the alternative view , correct data , uncovering of propogaganda etc etc to be put in front of those who want to learn.
    I find it amazing that many politicians ,even though they use the “new” media, don’t seem to understand that the information landscape has changed, dramatically. ( and no proposed media control regulations will have any affect , except provide a challenge to the tech savvy people to get around them ,if they are implimented)

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    • #
      Winston

      Ross,
      It certainly gives one pause to consider what would have happened to the world’s geopolitical landscape in this instance without the internet, and just how easy it was for society at large to succumb to mass hysteria and delusion.

      How difficult it has been for climate realists to overturn faulty scientific assumptions and political consequences of these false conclusions which continue to perpetuate even in the face of indisputable refutation and the revelations of Climategate casting aspersions on the honesty and motivations of those at the heart of the alarmism.

      We are at a dangerous juncture in human history, both if the scam succeeds, and ironically, also possibly even if it fails. There are quite sinister forces at work here, on either side of the fence (some of whom are actually on BOTH- the most dangerous of all!), notwithstanding the generous dedication to principle of Dr Evans and the like attempting to restore integrity in the process. That to me is the key- a return to fundamental scientific principles, intellectual integrity, transparency and honesty. I am pessimistic this can happen without something quite revolutionary or revelatory occurring.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Winston

        “I am pessimistic this can happen without something quite revolutionary or revelatory occurring.””

        I agree.

        There must be a real and public Confrontation with Government because the continued

        acquiescence of Government in this matter is all that gives the Global Warming nightmare

        any credibility at present.

        That support for AGW must be destroyed and it won’t happen easily.

        The only truth that will influence public opinion and hence Government is that Taxpayers

        are carrying a needless burden which creates a benefit to the current ruling classes and to

        no one else.

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        • #
          Brian H

          Class war with the Regulating Class can’t be avoided. Class war in general is unending; it’s what humans do. The drive for status and the right to snoot and boss each other is the most potent and enduring social motivation.

          Sometimes it involves getting The Fix in so that power concentrates in the hands of a few; sometimes it gets bloody. But it never stops.

          One of its main dangers is that it provides plentiful opportunities for sociopaths to “play” the public and acquire official status and authority. They’re good at it, as they were almost literally “born to it”. Hamlet: “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

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        Mark D.

        I’m slightly worse than pessimistic. It seems to me a pretty good chance that the “regulating class” and all the cronies that follow will come up with a way to compromise the internet too. They have done it to all the other media, they artfully control their message. Only by sheer timing did the internet save the day this time.

        Already I can envision whole elections dominated by “social networking”. Politicians adjusting their stance based upon “Tweets”.

        No, these regulators are pretty good at getting what they want. Right now we put up a speed bump for them……They will get over it.

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          Streetcred

          In Australia they have found a way to compromise the Internet … it’s called the NBN and will be managed by Finkelstein et al.

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  • #
    Truthseeker

    David,

    Excellent essay that will not see the light of day in the MSM. However, I think you do not have the data to justify the following comment;

    There is no dispute among serious scientists about the direct effect of CO2.

    I think that you will find that there is a very large number of physicists that will dispute that assertion, which is also not proven by any observable data. Radiation is not heat.

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      Markus Fitzhenry.

      I agree Truthseeker. David’s good with stats but physics are a bit beyond him.

      All atmospheric bodies absorb radiated energy in their emitting/absorbing densities of states but only for the cooler body is their net transfer of part of that absorbed radiant energy to interior heat energy. Colder bodies do nor radiate heat into a warmer body. Co2 ‘backradiation’ is a physical make believe.

      The proof is very simple; when both bodies are at the same temperature, there can be no conversion of the input energy to heat at either body. Climate science imagines that there is hence it claims that the Stephan-Boltzmann constant is double its real value.

      The failure to understand this most basic physics from Arrhenius onwards has ensured that modern climate science remains a pseudo-science, our version of Lysenkoism because of this new version of Phlogiston.

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        Bernard B.

        Markus,

        Off-topic, but have to disagree with you here.

        Every physical body above absolute zero emits radiation, and once emitted, that radiation has no way to ‘know’ it cannot head towards a warmer body.

        In 1965 Penzias and Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation. Its source is a balmy -270C, and yet they detected it with a room-temperature radio-telescope. Not only that, they even won a Nobel prize for it.

        Ever noticed a cloudy night is always warmer than a clear one? That’s ‘back radiation’ at work. Clouds (water vapor, a greenhouse gas), absorb infrared radiation from the ground, and re-emit it randomly. Some of that radiation heads back to the ground; it has no way to know it should not go there. The net flow of energy is still towards space, but at a slower speed.

        There are sufficient weak arguments with CAGW without the need to resort to voodoo science.

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          KinkyKeith

          Hi Bernard B

          You use the term ‘back radiation’ and again I believe we need to be careful with terms that don’t have a clear definition.

          I believe what you call ‘back radiation’ is better described as heat that has not left the atmosphere because there is a temporary cloud “blanket” that is creating a temporary “greenhouse”.

          The ‘back radiation’ via CO2 envisioned by Klimate Science is quite scientifically NUTZ and for that reason it may be better to leave out the term ‘back radiation’ in polite discussion.

          🙂

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          Markus Fitzhenry.

          Bernard B.says:
          There are sufficient weak arguments with CAGW without the need to resort to voodoo science.’

          Hi Bernard,

          How does ‘back radiation’ match up when we look at ‘back radiation’ of light?

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        Markus

        I agree Truthseeker. David’s good with stats but physics are a bit beyond him.

        It should be obvious that explaining the detailed physics is beyond the scope of the article.

        The nett heat transfer is always from high temperature to cold temperature.
        Radiative transfer of energy (in this case infra-red radiation) is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature of the emitter. And directly proportional to the emissivity of the emitter (at that temperature) and its area. Those things, all Engineers got to study in their first year at Uni.

        Please look up the emissivity of CO2 gas. Compare that to the emissivity of liquid water and typical soils. Consider the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere; first in comparison to water vapour which absorbs energy on a wider, overlapping band of wavelength and then O2 and N2 which are mainly warmed by convection and conduction.

        All gases are “greenhouse gases” because they are poor emitters. They essentially “store” heat until they can get rid of it (mainly) by kinetic action; collision with other molecules. That process is much slower than radiation. Hence the “insulating” effect or air/atmosphere. Water vapour is another matter; it changes phase over typical temperature ranges, in the process absorbing or releasing vast quantities of heat; vast compared to simply heating/cooling.

        The majority of atmospheric heat transfer is convective. We see that in the weather; in the circulation patterns. Any additional heat gained by a relatively small amount of CO2, raising the notional temperature by an amount much smaller than the natural variation is not going to be measurable as a discernable difference from natural variation. Not in a system that is not stable; has no fixed nor well-measured inputs or constant, well-known internals.

        While we can observe that CO2 heats when irradiated quasi-statically by IR in a laboratory where all the inconvenient convection and conduction can be eliminated substantially, that tells us very little about the behaviour of CO2 in a dynamic atmosphere. The molecule either re-radiates (not heating) or it absorbs (heating). It can’t do both on the one photon. If it heats, then that heat can be lost by collision with other molecules; very probably N2 or O2. If it re-radiates, which occurs in a tiny fraction of a second, then there’s a better than 50% chance, increasing with altitude, that that will be in the direction of space, not the surface. Space-bound re-radiation is in effect “transparency”.

        While I disagree about the magnitude of temperature increase in the atmosphere as a result of anthroprogenic CO2 perturbation; i.e. it’s so small that you couldn’t definitively measure it in the real world amidst natural variation and therefore not attributable; I don’t argue that physics are beyond David.

        David recognizes that the “climate change” is all about politics. About the grasp of power; to impose the will of a few on the many. “Climate change” is an excuse. Not a reason.

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          KinkyKeith

          Nice summary Bernd.

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          Markus Fitzhenry

          Bernd, thanks for your comments.

          I think it is interesting that diagrams of Earth’s energy budget ascribe to the atmosphere a net heat transfer of 14%. If we take this proportion as real, the heat transferred from surface to atmosphere would be 48.4 w/m2. This mistake leads to the invention of wrong greenhouse effects to make the equations balance.

          It is not the emissivity of Co2 that is in confusion but the treatment of its emissivity by a system that has saturated level of absorption relative to its incident insolation. The changes to radiative systems equilibrium can only be effected by its mass.

          The average surface temperature at day and night is 24 °C. The standard ambient temperature of Earth, scientifically correct and accepted, is 298.8 K (25 °C). To argue that the standard ambient temperature of Earth is -18 °C is unscientific because it does not coincide with reality and proper calculations.

          The temperature of air fluctuates according to the temperature of the surface, not the opposite. The load of heat transferred from surface to atmosphere during night time decreases as night advances and is followed by the amount of heat loss transferred by the atmosphere, not the opposite. It is very clear, from Thermodynamics, Plank’s distribution of radiation and Stefan-Boltzmann laws, that heat is transferred exclusively from warmer surfaces towards cooler systems, never the opposite.

          My point about Davis work, of which I am an admirer, is that the politics have grown from incorrect physics and no matter how well argued, the sensitivity of Co2 is always be a blade the warmists will swing. David has taken a road that pushes the envelope to the extent that the debate opens up. It is a hard road if he has to argue from a position within their scientific ‘backradiation’ theory.

          IMHO to release that grasp for power we need to break the hand.

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            Markus,

            You seem to be writing a lot of nonsense.

            Your basic understanding of radiative heat transfer is flawed. Radiation from cold bodies onto hot bodies does transfer heat (photons), but the radiation from the hot body back to the cold is more intense (Th^4 – Tc^4) so the nett heat transfer is still from hot to cold. That’s fundamental radiation physics. It can be demonstrated in a laboratory.

            The photons from a cold object don’t steer around a hotter object. For them not to “heat” the hotter object would violate conservation of energy.

            “Average surface temperature” is irrelevant. The actual, instantaneous, absolute temperature governs the rate of heat transfer from/to a given surface. Radiation is non-linear wrt temperature; as is convection. There are many factors that determine the rate of surface heat transfer depending upon the material’s properties. There is no “average surface” that relates to the real world.

            Your assertion that the air doesn’t heat the surface is also falsified by observations of warm breezes and winds that warm e.g. the polar regions which do not have sufficient insolation to offset the radiative losses to space. Polar regions are the refrigerators of atmospheric and ocean circulations that carry vast amounts of heat collected from mostly the tropics.

            Those of us on the West coast of Australia experience strong winds that have blown over the interior; collecting heat and heading westward. Mediterranean “Föhn” winds cross the Alps into southern Germany, warming the place up quite nicely.

            Your assertion appears to be based on the false assumption that the air remains above the surface that heated the air and/or that the air will cool more quickly than the surface over which it’s moving. It ain’t necessarily so.

            As a micro-experiment; in winter, turn on a fan heater that’s standing on the cold floor and set it to blow over the floor.

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            Markus Fitzhenry

            Bernard,

            You seem to be putting words in my mouth and writing a lot of nonsense. I said ‘heat is transferred exclusively from warmer surfaces towards cooler systems, never the opposite.’ Why is that fundamentally different from;

            ““Radiation from cold bodies onto hot bodies does transfer heat (photons), but the radiation from the hot body back to the cold is more intense (Th^4 – Tc^4) so the nett heat transfer is still from hot to cold. That’s fundamental radiation physics. It can be demonstrated in a laboratory.””

            Who said anything about circulation of air? What has my fundamental understanding of radiative heat transfer got to do with this?

            “”Your assertion that the air doesn’t heat the surface is not falsified by observations of warm breezes and winds.””

            And whats this “Polar regions are the refrigerators of atmospheric and ocean circulations that carry vast amounts of heat collected from mostly the tropics.”

            What’s wind got do with radiation, Planks, thermo, S-B or whatever.

            As a micro-experiment for you; in winter, stand on a previously heated floor and turn the heat off.

            SH.

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            Markus,

            First; you wrote:

            heat is transferred exclusively from warmer surfaces towards cooler systems, never the opposite

            You seem to associate a different meaning to “exclusively” than the norm. The implication is that heat is only transferred in the one direction, not in both directions as defined by radiative theory.

            It is insufficient to deal with only one mode of heat transfer alone if there are other modes of transfer available. They are not separable because they depend on each other. They are coupled. If a surface is cooled by winds, then that reduces the radiative power of the surface. The heat energy in the wind is in part carried as warmer gas and transformed to potential energy as the warmed air rises.

            Heat transfer between the air and surfaces is substantially by convection and conduction; conduction at low temperature differences without external perturbation and convection otherwise. Radiation plays a very minor role. Thermodynamics deals with the flow of heat by any means.

            One cannot rationally ignore convective heat transfer within a system knowing that radiative heat transfer from that system to space depends on the non-uniform temperature of the surface; surface temperature being substantially influenced by convection within the system. The nett radiation spacewards is the integral of radiative power over the surface; for each incremental part of the surface, knowing its temperature and emissivity.

            If you want to know how it behaves for more than that instant you have to know the enthalpy of the surface, its conductivity, vicoscity, etc. to establish temporal behaviour of radiative power. A deterministic model of such is intractible. Of course the model is far from complete; surface insolation is “impossible” to model well enough to produce the meaningful surface heating.

            Ours isn’t a dead planet and we see biological factors having substantial effects on the thermodynamics of the system; e.g. by pumping water vapour into the atmosphere or by altering surface albedo and emissivity according to season and solar azimuth.

            Calculations based on average surface temperature are nonsense.

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      KinkyKeith

      I agree TS.

      That is a very open ended statement which needs to be qualified.

      The original Warmer Version of the Humans “Did It” model was that CO2 was better placed to absorb ground IR than other gases in the atmosphere.

      This implied that CO2 was the gateway to atmospheric warming and that the atmospheric temperature was limited to the amount of heat which could be passed on to Oxygen and Nitrogen by our demon CO2 gas.

      Even using this flawed model it was easy to show quantitatively that Human Origin CO2 was such a small factor that its effect could not be seen, felt or measured in any way in earths atmospheric temperature. This was done by inserting water as an active ingredient in the process.

      The concept of “Back-radiation” due to CO2 was invented by warmers to overcome disbelief on the part of real scientists who were trying to convince the media that AGW was a joke.

      Terms like back radiation and “feedback” or “forcing” are generic media fodder and not real science.

      Using the original supplied model I was able to show that Human CO2 was irrelevant, but for the warmers worse was to come. People with better current physics that I then stated that the composition of the Atmosphere was irrelevant, the only need was that there be a gas present to create temperature flux such as we have on Earth.

      The CO2 AGW meme was always Legless and a product of Politics – not science.

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        KinkyKeith

        The terms “Back-radiation” “Forcing and Feedback” used by Warmers belong alongside terms

        such as ” thought transference, reincarnation and mind reading” in the scientific hierarchy.

        Interesting ideas but not real.

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        Mindert Eiting

        Very interesting what you say here, KinkyKeith, as the concepts like feedback belong to System Theory, popular in the sixties and seventies. I just revisited it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory. Margaret Mead was fond on it. Did this theory invade climate science? If you know more, that would be interesting.

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      jorgekafkazar

      I agree, with reservations. There has been a great deal of pea-under-shell manipulation vis-a-vis water vapor as a feedback only, whereas it may push the greenhouse effect to saturation much of the time, or close to it. I also have some suspicions about the true radiative geometry of convectively heated gases near ground level. Photons do not know which direction is “up.” But no “Greenhouse effect breaks the Second Law,” please.

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        KinkyKeith

        If the Warmers model that CO2 produces more water vapour which absobs more heat etc was correct we would have had a near nuclear explosion from this process.

        The real facts are that any increase in atmospheric water vapour shows up as clouds and reduces future heat intake from solar radiation.

        This is a self limiting system that gives automatic regulation of the worlds air temperature.

        WE HAVE NEVER BEEN IN DANGER.

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          Rohan Baker

          The thing that strikes me as odd in the CAGW case, is that water has a brilliant ability to shed heat as well as gain. Its why its used as the worlds number one heat transfer fluid in the chemical industry. It’s cheap, safe and environementally freindly and takes a relatively large amount of energy to change its temperature between ice point and boiling point then almost as much again to change phase.

          I’m no climate scientist but this has to be the single most important thermal regulatory control on the globes temperatures after the sun itself.

          It’s this single factor that got me interested in this whole debate in the first place: What they were saying about CAGW just didn’t add up.

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            KinkyKeith

            Yep.

            They always hid water!

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            Howie

            Water has the highest heat capacity of any substance except ammonia. Water has 3300 times the heat capacity of CO2. Its absorption bands in the infrared overlap that of CO2 except the 15nm band of CO2. Neither water nor CO2 absorb appreciably in the region 8-14 nm. This infrared window allows radiation to escape back out into space and prevents the Earth from overheating. Water, in both its liquid and gaseous forms, is the great mitigator of climate on our planet. CO2 has to be at best a very minor player in the determination of climate.

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          • #
            Streetcred

            KK, they hid:

            the water, and
            the decline,
            lost the heat (in the ocean), and
            cannot find the hotspot (in the atmosphere).

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            KinkyKeith

            Hi Rohan

            The thing that got me interested in CAGW was the lie about sea levels.

            The claim about sea level constancy and the threat of a one off rise caused by us burning coal and oil.

            Where I live, in Newcastle, we have a fantastic coastline with rock shelves that were carved out by the waves starting about 8,000 years ago.

            It is geologically indisputable that ocean levels later fell back about 1.5.metres to current levels.

            This fall happened about 4,000 years ago and levels have been relatively stable since.

            🙂

            The other lies about CO2 were then weeded out.

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      John Brookes

      Its like a red rag to a bull, saying that no serious scientist disputes the CO2 heating.

      You see, if you are a true denialist, then you must, ipso facto, not agree with anything. Its not getting hotter, CO2 is not increasing (or if it is its nothing to do with us), CO2 doesn’t cause warming, etc etc.

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        Otter

        [Self-snipped, because your IDIOCY is obvious to all, but I can’t express it in the proper terms without being banned for life]

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        Kevin Moore

        http://www.biocab.org/Heat_Transfer.html

        Many authors say that “Greenhouse” gases act as a “blanket” which reflects the heat back to Earth -i.e. “Some re-radiated heat reflected back to Earth” (Ultimate Visual Dictionary – The Atmosphere. DK publishing, Inc. p. 301. 1998) and “The reason is that the atmosphere functions like the crystals of a glasshouse. This is, the properties of absorption and conduction of glass are similar to those of the atmospheric greenhouse gases …” (Wilson, Jerry D. College Physics-2nd Edition; p. 382. Prentice Hall Inc. 1994).

        There are other authors who discuss thermal events similarly as the writers I have quoted in the previous paragraph; I have found the same mistakes written on reports from NASA, NOA, EPA, etc. Those unintentional faults have been inflated by some pseudo-environmentalists and politicians that enforce the erroneous concept of “Greenhouse Gases”, “Anthropogenic Global Warming” and “Manmade Climate Change”, closing their eyes to the Laws of Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, Thermal Expansion, Physics Laws, etc.

        The atmosphere is not a “glass”, nor acts like a glass. It either is a blanket that “reradiates” heat to the surface, or that obstructs convection. Far from impeding convective heat transfer, gases allow convection.

        CO2 is able to absorb the energy emitted by the ground and the oceans and transforms it into kinetic and potential energy. By these transformations from one class of energy into another, the CO2 emits radiant energy (energy in transit or heat), which is transferred by convection to the upper atmosphere layers. After it has been transferred to the upper layers of the atmosphere, the heat is released to the outer space (Heat Sink). However, we have understood that the current concentration of Carbon Dioxide cannot be a source of “Global Warming”. We would need about 560 ppmv for increasing the Earth’s surface temperature up to 0.7 °C.

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          Mortis

          “To claim that the atmosphere acts as a blanket, is to admit that you don’t know how either one of them operates. ” – Alistair B. Fraser Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University

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        Gowest

        I could not get answers (only abuse) when I asked Oz scientists “how does CO2 goes up in the atmosphere to cause global warming when basic chemistry tells us CO2 is heavier than air and should therefore go down to the grass and dissolve in the oceans! JO is correct – real Oz scientists give abuse to difficult questions they dont want to answer.

        Asking them if their CO2 sampling was like poll sampling was the most fun, That drew a stern response – weather balloons idiot!.. was the so last century answer!

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        mobilly1

        Hey JB did you notice the Weather reports here in WA,Over the last three days. The two tropical lows they mentioned as Cyclones , Since when has a tropical low became a Cyclone without any Wind Velocity increase , To actually call it a Cyclone before it has reached Cyclone velocity is just Propaganda .

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        mobilly1

        Go with these facts JB
        Seen the weather forcasts in WA recently , Two tropical lows , Have been called
        Cyclones for over Three Days , Since when have Tropical lows been Cyclones without an increase in windspeed velocity , Why would they name Tropical lows way before they are Cyclones.
        Tropical Depressions (0 to 62kmh)
        Tropical Storm (63 to 117kmh)
        Category 1 cyclone (118 to 153kmh)
        Category 2 cyclone (154 to 177kmh)
        Then you have a developing weather story , All the other rhetoric is designed
        just to alter weather statistics .We now have Tropical lows labelled as Cyclones. Nothing suss their I guess

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      Brian H

      The linear increase of OLR when the planet warms proves that the blankey is all fulla holes, and doesn’t trap so good.

      Also, note Jinan Cao’s analysis showing that the effects of CO2 in facilitating upper atmosphere “dumping” of heat is more potent than its role in “trapping” it lower down. Hence, it is a net cooling influence.

      No need to resort to telepathic photons.

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    jorgekafkazar

    The Copenshaggen draft agreement is an evil beast of many heads. Alternative text is provided for most sections, making it impossible to tell what it would have said in final form, if agreed to. (An early version of “You have to pass it to read it.”) It appears to be open-ended, as well, with multiple occurrences of “as necessary” to allow expansion of financing without limit. It is also made clear that there will be consequences for non-compliance, though these are not spelt out. I suppose those will be “as necessary,” as well. It clearly sets up an Über-government to rule all of this bureaucratic nightmare, along with an implication that an armed force will be established, again, “as necessary.” Only a traitor would have put his/her name on this document.

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    Jo Nova and Dr. Evan’s are to be congratulated on this thorough review of the Climate Change Scam run by the well-named Regulating Class. This posting is a must read.
    We are all in debt to the Russians, Indians and Chinese who have stood outside this appalling maelstrom of muddled thinking about Climate. They alone have addressed the evidence and not their inner fantasies.

    I would just question whether the real effect of CO2 is so well settled as Dr. Evans states. CO2 amounts are still going up but the World temperature is now going down. Let’s have a look at the Sun again. It is the source of 98% of our heat.

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      KinkyKeith

      Hi Nicholas

      Of course.

      The suns input is the only variable to influence word air temps.

      Galactic radiation is there too, but on such a large time scale that predicting its effect will be difficult.

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        Winston

        The suns input is the only variable to influence world(sic) air temps.

        That’s why they were so keen to negate the solar influence by effectively ignoring non-TSI effects (electromagnetic, EUV, etc), and then dividing TSI as forcings among various atmospheric gases all serve to detract from the influence of the only energy input into the system- totally illogocal “can’t see the forest for the trees” approach. One cannot help but think that was deliberate. What happens when the sun goes quiet?- the whole house of cards collapses, that’s what.

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      John Brookes

      We are still waiting for anything other than TSI to be shown to have an effect on temperatures.

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        You must be blind and deaf, John.

        TSI is at the top of the atmosphere.

        There are lots of things between the top of the atmosphere and the surface that determine how much energy is available at the surface.

        Like clouds. And dust. And aerosols.

        TSI doesn’t vary much from one day to the next. Yet temperatures can vary dramatically from day to day under the influence of atmospheric factors.

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        Winston

        That’s a logical fallacy and strawman argument, John
        What you may have meant to say was that EUV, Cosmic Rays, Solar Electromagnetic effects have not been shown in isolation to be solely correlated with atmospheric and surface temperature fluctuations as a principle over-riding driver. However, it is only the Warmists who believe that, in a multivariate climate of incredible complexity such as ours, ANY single factor in either composition of the atmosphere or any other variable can be correlated with temperature consistently and across all time frames. So, you invest Skeptics and Climate Realists with the same level of delusion as Warmists without foundation- nice try! To reiterate, no skeptic I know of has even contended that any single atmospheric factor guides or is the primary driver of temperature. And no, CO2 is also just as poorly correlated with temperature as a cause, but has a reasonable (and superior) correlation (with lag) as an effect of temperature fluctuations, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you. So your sweeping statement shows merely evasion of or attempt to divert the point made, rather than addressing it directly.

        My belief is that no single atmospheric factor will be shown to cause significant temperature fluctuations over and above many others of similar or equal importance, with the sole exception of solar and galactic events, which are almost certain to dramatically exceed the scale of any anthropogenic effects by several orders of magnitude.

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          John Brookes

          Well, better do some more research and show that all those things are linked to global temperature. Do it successfully and “skeptics” will no longer be ignored…

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          Winston

          I’ve just seen Baa Humbug saying much the same thing to JB in 40.1 below- trouble with nested comments- I also notice he didn’t mince words like me- good on you, BH. Sorry for the inadvertent duplication of sorts. Mea culpa- I’ll read to the bottom in future.

          I bet London to a bridge on though that it won’t stop John from making exactly the same point again in some future thread. He’s nothing if not consistent.

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    scott

    Dammn and i thought we had finally invented perpetual motion and a free unlimited supply of energy with all that positive feedback.

    All I had to do was stick a clear bottle of nothing but atmosphere out on my lawn and I have free heat to generate unlimited free power. bummer

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      Gee Aye

      Did someone switch off the sun when I was not looking?

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        crakar24

        GA,

        You planted your foot and headed straight for the point but alas at the last second you swerved and hit the pink Unicorn instead……………….Scott is talking about a theory, a flawed theory that only works if you beleive that you can create energy from nothing (a bit like our banks that think by rubbing two peices of paper together we get 5).

        You are talking about the Sun which smashes two Hydrogen atoms together to create Helium and a bit of energy. The two theories are completely different.

        Cheers

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          Gee Aye

          Oh ok so you are saying that energy coming in from the sun is not added to energy already present, in whatever form, on the Earth? And that nothing can ever change in a system as a result of input energy? I get it now.

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            crakar24

            GA,

            Does the heat inside the bottle continue to increase until it reaches the melting point of glass? No of course not that is because the energy that once warmed the glass is no leaving it and thus cooling it.

            Works teh same way for everythere elese and until you can grasp this concept you will never get it…….not now………not ever.

            Cheers

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            Gee Aye

            I know you understand equilibrium, I’ve seen you post on it before, so why is it so hard for a new equilibrium position to be reached where energy out equals energy in with more energy existing in the system.

            It seems to me that the problem is the idea of positive feedback is being mischaracterised as meaning adding itself to itself. If that is how you understand the term, do you also deny all other instances where the term “positive feedback” is used? Your body would stop working without it.

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            John Brookes

            No, no, no! Positive feedback means the earth gets hotter and hotter until we all fry. Don’t you know anything Gee Aye?

            I think the especially clever thing about the climate scam is the way the supposed scientists constructed so many dodgy bits, cleverly positioned to be just out of reach of the intellect of the average skeptic. So its all the bits they don’t quite understand which are wrong….

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            Tom

            I think the especially clever thing about the climate scam is the way the supposed scientists constructed so many dodgy bits, cleverly positioned to be just out of reach of the intellect of the average skeptic. So its all the bits they don’t quite understand which are wrong….

            See, John, when it is all stripped back to the basics, you can’t run your argument without insults and smears. So, once again, run us through the irrefutable causal real-world evidence that establishes that CO2 is the primary driver of global temperature.
            “What else could it be?” doesn’t qualify. You remind me everytime I come here that you’re just an obstructer and a troll on a big fat government salary.

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            John Brookes

            But Tom, insults and smears are what I do! If I’d had time it would have been a work of art…

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            Gee Aye

            MODs and EDa

            can you check on John Brooks 42 thumbs down. Seems very odd to me that so many people in a 5 hour period were so negative to this comment and not commenting to those around them. I think you have a thumb spammer.

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            Catamon

            Seems very odd to me that so many people in a 5 hour period were so negative to this comment and not commenting to those around them.

            As they say in the Young Liberals GA, vote early and vote often. 🙂

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            KinkyKeith

            GA

            I tested the JB thumbometer and it’s working OK.

            🙂

            Probably people are getting sick of his incomprehensible comments – that was one of them.

            If there was a point, could he please explain it to us?

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            Sonny

            I bet John is actually a sceptic playing devils advocate to help illustrate how silly the whole AGW argument is.

            Thanks John!

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            Gee Aye

            I assumed from Craker’s comment that he was doing the same but in the other direction.

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            crakar24

            Ha haahahahahhaaaahhhhhhhahhahahhhahhh…………..(wipes tears from eyes)you are such a funny guy GA such a funny guy.

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    scott

    ha ha nice try

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    Doctor Evans mentions the power of the Internet, and this has its advantages.

    The endless regulations now being introduced are all somewhere or other on that Internet, and what is happening is that ordinary people are seeing for themselves what those regulations are, and in fact finding out that what is being ‘spun’ by those politicians is not quite what they tell us.

    In their attempts to introduce the Political result of what they have latched onto in this Climate Change/Global Warming meme that they are using in an attempt to entrench their own power, there are some unintended consequences.

    Note specifically how this current Labor Government has aimed their CO2 Tax regulation, as they tell us at length, at Big Industry, and Big Power, you know those 500 filthy dirty disgusting polluters, money grubbing blood sucking big Industrialists.

    Well, according to their own legal requirements, they have to publish that list of the 500.

    So far, the list has around 420 or so names, and gee, surprise surprise, fancy seeing that amongst those named BIG polluters, there are 15 hospitals and health groups, and there are 11 Universities, and food producers, and water authorities, and city councils, all major providers of services to the Communities.

    Thank heavens we can go and check for ourselves.

    Tony.

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      Andrew McRae

      Tony, the Internet works both ways. The Smart Grid is coming…
      Arm’s latest processors aim to stretch internet’s reach

      Arm’s director of embedded marketing Gary Atkinson says it could herald a new generation of smart energy systems.

      “Every developed nation country has a graph showing electricity demand is going to outstrip supply at some point in the next 20 years unless we do something different,” he said.

      “What we need to do is something called design response – where all the devices on the network can make a decision as to whether or not to come on in order to smooth out peaks and troughs in electricity demand.

      “So you should add connectivity to things like fridges, washing machines, freezers and dishwashers. If the wider electricity network is being very heavily used and if the element in your dishwasher could go off for two or three minutes to alleviate that – well then that would make a big difference.”

      Next they will probably mandate smart dryers and smart dishwashers that talk to the smart meter and communicate by Ethernet-over-powerline to the central politburo of Australistan to decide if your glowing support of the Dear Leader has been enough to merit dishwashing privileges at peak hour. Dumb machines will be highly prized, and probably illegal.

      I’ve already noticed a lot of new clothes dryers have such a great “energy star rating” that they don’t even dry clothes!

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        Andrew, and all of you,

        I want you to think about this for a minute with respect to Smart Meters, and keep in mind this is just a clever name they have given something that is entirely sinister in nature, and some again may say that this is Tony playing scaremonger again.

        Note very carefully what the article says.

        “So you should add connectivity to things like fridges, washing machines, freezers and dishwashers. If the wider electricity network is being very heavily used and if the element in your dishwasher could go off for two or three minutes to alleviate that – well then that would make a big difference.”

        Note how this is just aimed at the Residential sector of power consumption, that 38% of all power being consumed.

        They call them Smart Meters, catchy, diversionary, but what it really is is a means of disconnecting the power to your HOME, not just a dishwasher for five minutes or so, but the whole power to your home when there are occasions when demand outstrips supply.

        Note that even the Government in their own yearly energy report concentrated on the huge rise in household air conditioning as being the direct cause of reaching the stage where demand has outstripped supply.

        That is an outright fallacy.

        The real cause is the failure of Government at every level to construct new power plants as infrastructure to cope with a rising population, more homes, more commerce needed and more industry, eg more work for those people.

        During the last infrastructure ‘burst’ when NSW constructed those large power plants, the early/mid/late 70’s, there were rolling blackouts, power rationing in NSW.

        Because Industry and Commerce were more important, vast swathes of areas, nearly all residential in nature were blacked out, for hours at a time, and sometimes eight hours or more.

        Now we have reached the stage, in every State where demand will be outstripping supply by as early as 2013, according to the Government’s own reporting on the matter, the same will be happening, rolling blackouts, power rationing.

        Hence the proposal to ‘float’ the idea of smart meters, and note only in the Residential sector.

        This will not be losing your dishwasher for five minutes or so, this will give them the ability to ONLY turn of residences, and again, for hours at a time.

        Queensland is even proposing that large (Residential) consumers will be charged a second connection fee if they consume above a certain amount of power. Along with that they are also proposing that if you consume above a certain amount of power, then you pay extra for every KWH above their set limit, and that’s not humungous amounts but average consumption levels of an average sized home. Then they are also canvassing charging people less (as a bribe) if their largest consumption is outside the peaking power periods of time during the day, those absolutely set in stone times when consumption is greater, like the time when people come home from school and work and cook their dinners etc, from 4PM until 10PM each and every day.

        Again, note specifically how this is the Residential sector only. They will also be introducing higher costs for power consumption in those peak periods, again, aimed only at the Residential sector which already pays the highest price per KWH for power.

        Note how this is aimed directly at a captive target that has NO option but to use power during that period, because all hours outside of that they are at work etc.

        This has absolutely nothing to do with greedy home owners consuming power. We want comfort in our homes, we want to eat our evening meal when we always do. We want to wash and dry clothing when we have the time to do it. We want a fridge we can keep food in. We want hot water to shower when we do shower, not for periods of time during the day when we are at work.

        No, this is because they have failed comprehensively to cater for an increase in population and everything that comes with that, jobs, housing, a certain standard of living.

        They haven’t constructed power plants to cover that, and now it’s too damned late to do that, and they’ve painted themselves into a corner with it. They talk of Solar plants, wind plant, rooftop solar, and NONE of that can fill actual demand.

        While the situation here in Oz is getting pretty desperate, look at the U.S. as an example. An average coal fired power plant has an expected life span of 50 years. The U.S. has more than 600 coal fired power plants. The AVERAGE age of all of them is just over 49 years. That’s not one or two here and there, but all of them.

        It’s not even worthwhile floating the idea of a coal fired power plant, and here they are new technology plants I’m talking about. It wouldn’t get past the thought bubble stage. Governments now know this, and they are caught between Scylla and Charybdis. They have nothing.

        So, the finger of blame gets pointed, and they bring in Smart Meters to cut off power to the Residential sector only.

        These people are not acting on our behalf.

        They are criminals who have failed the very people they say they represent.

        Tony.

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          KinkyKeith

          Hi Tony

          An important and timely reminder of Government abuse of trust.

          Anybody in business knows the frustration of trying to earn a living from your own efforts

          and feeling trapped against a bureaucratic wall with tax gatherers and Semi Public

          Institutions (SPIs) hands rummaging through every pocket for more – always more.

          This pillage has now spread to the average homeowner trapped in the rorts of local councils and water, gas and electricity suppliers.

          As with CAGW, the ONLY weapon we have is political awareness that politicians are

          behind this bad news.

          COMPLAIN Now !!

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          Andrew McRae

          Tony, I agree with your judgement of the situation. Sorry if my sarcasm was insufficiently harsh about this idea.

          The ability to selectively disable some of the devices is guilty on at least two counts:
          A) it’s the Fabian incremental slippery slope to soften acceptance of a total grid cutoff.
          B) it crosses the line from internal control to external control in which the device you purchase no longer serves you but serves another master.

          The generator can’t send electricity to selective customers, it only sees total demand and sells all power to retailers at the same wholesale price, right? So there’s no two-way flow of pricing information on electrons like there would be in markets for other products with premium/basic price differences. It’s only the retailer who can use different customer profiles to decide who gets a slice of the pie, and the distributor is already complicit in that for substation switching to force the blackouts. But if one retailer decides to shed an area and another retailer doesn’t… well is it shed or not? Using this as an argument for having smart grids assumes that household cutoffs are going to be such a regular event that the grid should be redesigned to support it! It should be designed to meet demand! Smart grids are basically an admission of defeat, just as you say.

          Also, as you say, peak time is immovable. As for spreading load to either side of the peak, washing machines that run on a timer are one of the few use cases that support off-peak use, and that’s very small crumbs in the power pie.

          For the broader audience…

          Consider just for a moment the population variable. If the population were stable, we could optimise the generation to match that demand and so no smart grid would be needed. If the population is growing, you inevitably have to expand generation capacity, so smart grids won’t solve supply shortages. In no possible universe is population an excuse for smart grids, so we can be alert to any use of that rhetoric as a justification!

          A power generator has a financial incentive to supply and charge for as much power as they could, and they can’t bill for power they couldn’t deliver. Therefore shedding load at the household level is of no long term value to them whatsoever. Hmmm…there’s not too many other teams on the field! So it’s my assumption that the government would be at the control panel of the smart grid. Under that assumption, the enslavement of the public is not a far-fetched interpretation of the smart grid plan. Regardless of the motives outlined at the beginning of the plan, the true motive is always revealed in the side-effects.

          Where does that slippery smart slope lead? “Well proles, it costs a lot to maintain these power plants, so people really should prepay for their anticipated electricity use….fill out a Form 6022J to apply for extra carbon consumption for planned events, no reasonable request will be refused…. oh and because you’re paying to maintain the power capability we won’t refund the portion of the bill you didn’t use during the month….but not to worry because our Dear Leader can now offer free washing machine power every weekend from now until the election….

          Consider also that because device-level shedding becomes possible, you no longer pay for supply of an electricity product, you pay for a luxury dishwashing service, a luxury clothes drying service, yes even a cooking service. The same coal and the same supply cost creates the same amps in your wall socket but you’re no longer free to do what you wish with the amp-hours you’ve bought because someone externally will decide how much more you pay for those same amp-hours subject to which device you use it in.

          The effect of the smart grid has a close parallel to a recent Greens government deal. It is in effect extending the Mining Tax to the household, because hey, that limited coal resource can only be burned once, so of course the Nation should extract the most market value out of that sale for the greater glory of Australistan. Da comrade!
          It also enables the government electricity tariff committee to decide that rich people should pay more for running their washing machine than low-income households. They just increase the price they charge you until you reduce your use of that service in response. It creates inflation at the individual level because people with a lot of money care less about each dollar than people with less dollars, thus the rich can be taken for a ride further than the poor, so prices rise at the individual level in proportion to personal wealth. The smart grid enables yet another redistribution punishment for being materially successful.
          (Anyone who agrees that’s a change for the worse has also implicitly recognised that it is greedy to price products for as much perceived value as you can get away with instead of pricing based on actual business cost-to-supply. – i.e., your perception is none of my business. Two sides of the same transaction. )

          From enslavement of the individual to the communism of nations, external control leads to oppression and collapse.

          Every organisational unit must have internal control, from the self, to the Family, to the Town, to the Business, to the State, to the Nation. If each unit is comprised of voluntary associations and adequately informed then they will each voluntarily play a role in action toward higher level collective goals they agree with, and to the extent and pace that they feel is merited. We don’t need a Big Brother or a Big Bank to compel people to act on genuine problems.

          Thus we ought to question why the government is even involved at all in electricity supply.
          It may even be that the main electrical power problem we face today is that for some people too much political power is barely enough.

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            Andrew,

            excellently put.

            Nothing I can add to this except that you all should read it.

            What is a pity is that as this Thread fades as new ones go up, not many will actually come back and read what you have to say here, because you’ve hit the nail on the head.

            Tony.

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            Winston

            Well said, Andrew
            Absolutely expanding upon the thin end of this particular wedge that is being driven like a stake right through our collective hearts. Your response deserves a wider audience.

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          Gowest

          On Tuesday morning the central transformer supplying power to the “old” section of the perth rail network caught fire and took down three of our main train lines so your observations are spot on. No report yet, but the age and unstable network perpetuted by pro-green pc governments is most likley the culprit. My theory is all the solar power hitting the network at sun-up. More morning blackouts to come.

          The other government plan to handle this power problem is to get rid of manufacturing power demand, very very successful so far.

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    These are two important documents. They are well written, easy to understand and bring out the main points backed with facts. They should be translated to more langauges and pushed wherever possible. It is also a strength that the scientific and political documents both stand steadily on their own merits.
    At the same time we must all be very vigilant on all attempts that will most certainly come to put regulations on the internet, something if I understand it correctly is currently being tried in Australia. I did not think it would be so obvious as it is in Australia, I had assumed it would come in som disguised form. Putting myself in the chair of a “regulator” I would ask myself “Who is the enemy” and come to the conclusion “The free internet” and plan accordingly.

    In Europe it is the old communist countries that fights back. Poland has coal and shale gas. They put in a veto in EU on commiting to restrictions for 2050. Tjeckien has the well known president, Vaclav Klaus who is a strong opponent to EU plans on curbing emissions. The rest of the politicians seems to be what Lenin labelled “Useful idiots”

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    crakar24

    I read about this in the Moronville Messenger (Adelaide Advertiser) but i can not find a link.

    Interestingly the lying tart is looking at ways to sell her carbon taxes through a series of ads which you will be bombarded with in the very near future however she has hit a snag. Now this may come as a surprise to some but it appears the term “carbon pollution” is very off putting to the general public……….since when has lying to someone been off putting?

    Anyway she is desperately trying to find a new catch phrase to replace carbon pollution so i have a few suggestions for her:

    1) Carbon dioxide tax (go on Juliar give honesty a go)
    2) The most abundant and important element in the universe tax
    3) The plant food tax
    4) The building block of life tax
    5) The i need to keep the only promise i have not broken alive tax
    6) Yes please take control of my country with draconian European laws tax
    7) The communists wet dream tax
    8.0) The Bob Brown memorial tax
    9) The 10% of the peoples tax

    Any further suggestions for our dear leader?

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      Truthseeker

      Crakar,

      I have a problem with number 2 in your list. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and given that it powers all suns (that we know of) it is probably the most important one as well.

      The rest of them work for me.

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        crakar24

        Yes that is correct TS let me revise it to read

        2) *One* of the most abundant and important elements in the universe tax

        Hows that

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      MadJak

      How about

      The “Your money is my money, and I need it to stay in power” Tax
      The “Give me your money you working scumbag” tax
      The “Do as we tell you and give us your money” tax
      The “End of the world” Tax
      The “Erik the Viking” Tax
      The “We blew your money on a gamble, and our train driver is sure he will win this time” Tax
      The “I need this money to stay in power” tax
      The “Means test everyone – its the only way to make everyone own nothing” tax
      The “It’s all Tony Abbotts fault” Tax

      Or my favourite:

      “The Great Big Tax on Everything”

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        crakar24

        Ah some good names in that list Mad Jack, TGBTOE is also one of my favorites now.

        Cheers

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          MadJak

          I must concede that TGBTOE isn’t mine, it was Tony Abbotts,

          But apparently even Guilleards central committees kamakazie nose dive in the polls is his fault as well.

          Not bad really 🙂

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        Truthseeker

        Madjak,

        The first one is the same as the seventh one.

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      scared_but_free

      Small correction: CO2 is not an element, it is a molecule. (unless you mean carbon, which is an element, but that is a bit misleading)

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    cameronH

    It is not just CAGW that is the Trojan Horse, it is the whole of the “Progressive Agenda”. The so called Progressive Movement has been captured by the cultural marxists using the concepts of post modernism. Post modernism is basically an extention of the ends justifies the means thinking where only data and opinions which suit are considered and all opposing data and opininions are discarded and silenced. This type of thinking is a prime charactersitic of socialism and other totalitarian political ideologies and theoloies.

    This type of post modern thinking started in the liberal arts area and has slowly spread. It has since entered such fields as economics and the biological and environmental sciences a few decades ago and is now infecting the hard sciences. This is the “slippery slope” argument that is real but always poo pooed by the sophisticated progressives who make up most of the the regulating class. This way of thinking is extremely useful for providing justification for expanding control through invented crisis such as climate change, or loss of biodivesrsity or racial strife or failing education or robber barons in the mining area subverting our economy and then to have this backed up by pet technical experts in the economic, science and social science areas.

    I am unsure how this can be reversed. The control of the purpose and functioning of all government departments is the ultimate goal of this class and this has largely been achieved in such areas as education, the treasury and all of the various environmental departments. We now have regulation for regulations sake in these areas all disguised as needed reform to overcome some manufactured crisis. One wonders how we were so successful for so long if we are all so hopeless that we need to be endlessly reformed and transformed.

    The only response therefore, is to go back to the original constitution and deband all Commonwealth Government functions not specifically mentioned in the constitution. Under the Australian constitution, for example, education is not one on the areas listed in “Powers of the Parliament” in Part V of Chapter 1. This being the case, why do we have five separate commonwealth education ministers and 5000 members of the regulating class occuppying an education department in Canberra. To wind this back an incomming government would need to move out of education altogether and take it back to when there was only a small commonwealth office of education whose main role was to sort out the funding to pass to the state education departments.

    The other issue not covered by this section is the environment. The Federal Government finally broke into this area when the Whitlam government, in a planned attacked on the sovreignty of the people of the State of Tasmania, used the external powers act of the commonwealth to stop the Franklin Dam. The Federal bureaucracy and their control of State environmental issues has been expanding ever since. The lastest bogus use of this power was to stop the Victorian Government from allowing grazing to return to the High Country. The Commonwealth just needs to have some flimsy excuse such as, “gosh we found a blue toed big mouthed frog lizard” and the rights of the citizens of the state have been removed, basically at the behest of some treaty prepared by a foreign entity ie the UN.

    I would not rely on a Coalition government to wind back any of this. They have been involved in setting up bogus “conventions” and specious arguments within the framework of the constitution to expand the federal bureaucracy at the expense of state sovreignty themselves. As an example, the current vegetation mangaement acts which are driving hundreds of farmers from their properties, is a result of the socialist activities of a Coalition government. It is the ready acceptance by the National Party for these attacks on the property rights of Farmers that initialy put Bob Katter and Tony Winsor off side.

    The Coalition is currently putting together their own socialist plan to redistribute the wealth to their mates rather than the Labor Parties mates if they win government in 2013. Their first failure was with Malcolm, I am really a socialist, Fraser. If he had been true to the stated philosophy of the Liberal Party, he would have wound back all of the socialist reforms of the Whitlam government but in 9 years he did nothing. John Howard also did nothing but expand commonwealth power and diminsh State and citizens rights.

    I would urge everybody to download a copy of the constitution. It is a good read and if we could wind back government interference to the level as stated in the constitution we would probably be OK. If not, we will be a UN protectorate within a few decades.

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      Jim Stewart

      Cameron

      Enjoyed your post, thanks.

      It was the Hawke Government in the early 80’s that interfered in the Franklin Dam. I was there but a minnow to the coverage Bob Brown was given.

      Jim Stewart.

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    guthfrith

    I have always liked the name ‘Aristos’ for such a group.

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    Bruce of Newcastle

    I am watching the fight between the EU and China over the carbon tax on flights to Europe. China has done two things:

    Required by law that Chinese airlines not pay it
    – Said that if applied the Chinese airlines will cancel orders from Airbus

    Which suggests they mean it.

    On the EU side they have dug in and said the tax will apply come what may. A sensible government would compromise since the CO2 impact of Chinese planes would be tiny even on the more excitable IPCC climate sensitivity numbers.

    But they are refusing to compromise.

    Which says to me this is a political deathmatch, with the assumption that they dare not compromise without risking the whole control project.

    All this supports Dr Evans’ case. It is not about CO2.

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    Speedy

    David

    As you said – who are we to believe – our climate “scientists” or our own eyes? Here’s a scenario where a prominent warmist comes face to face with absolute truth. It nearly happened…

    If the ABC was Relevant (Part 52)
    (The learned Professor)

    [Scene: A riverside mansion on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, which is running at full FLOOD. BRYAN walks up to JOHN, who is constructing a sandbag LEVEE at a PRODIGIOUS rate of KNOTS.]

    Bryan: Professor Tim Flannery?

    John: Yep.

    Bryan: The Australian Climate Commissioner?

    John: That’s me.

    Bryan: I was wondering if you’d like to provide us with some of your unique insights into the Australian climate?

    John: Kinda busy. [Heaves a sandbag onto the levee.]

    Bryan: Whether, for instance, you would consider that the south-eastern area of Australia is no longer in a state of semi-permanent drought?

    John: Don’t happen to sell flood insurance, do you?

    Bryan: No, why?

    John: Just developing a sudden interest.

    Bryan: You don’t have flood insurance already?

    John: No point, really. No rain, no floods.

    Bryan: In spite of the aqua pura running past your letterbox?

    John: That – that’s just an isolated, localised event.

    Bryan: Like Wagga Wagga?

    John: That’s localised as well.

    Bryan: Like the better part of the south-eastern Australia?

    John: Yep – it’s just an isolated, localised event over a bloody big area.

    Bryan: But would you agree that whatever rainfall we’ve had has make its way into the dams and river systems? As opposed to being absorbed by a hot, dry earth resulting from global warming?

    John: Irrelevant. I’ll bet that this rainfall isn’t even official.

    Bryan: Official?

    John: Has it been peer reviewed ? Has it been approved by a consensus of climate scientists? Has it been computer modeled? I’ll tell you – no!

    Bryan: !!!

    John: And even if it were computer modeled, the models would clearly demonstrate that these flood waters [indicates river] are incontrovertible evidence of global warming and mankind’s adverse influence on the climate.

    Bryan: Are you sure?

    John: Bryan. When shit happens, it’s global warming. Always.

    Bryan: And when does global warming cause both drought AND flood?

    John: Whenever I say so, Bryan.

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      Tel

      Re. Wagga flooding:

      “Yep – it’s just an isolated, localised event over a bloody big area.”

      … just an isolated, localised event over a bloody big area, for the second time in as many years.

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    pat

    well done, david.

    Milwaukee Bob has this post on WUWT Tips & Notes:

    Oh no! THIS is EXACTLY what is wrong with today’s science AND so called education in this country. Under one of the pictures accompening the artical it says, “Science teacher Loris xxxx, left, said teachers should introduce students to the consensus on climate change.”
    And now, various “consensus” groups are developing new science standards including detailed instruction on climate change! THIS HAS GOT TO BE CHALLENGED ACROSS THE COUNTRY!

    School Standards Wade into Climate Debate
    BY TENNILLE TRACY
    The Wall Street Journal, Monday, March 12, 2012
    After many years in which evolution was the most contentious issue in science education, climate change is now the battle du jour in school districts across the country.
    The fight could heat up further in April, when several national bodies are set to release a draft of new science standards that include detailed instruction on climate change.
    The groups preparing the standards include the National Research Council, which is part of the congressionally chartered National Academies.They are working from a document they drew up last year that says climate change is caused in part by man made events, such as the burning of fossil fuels. The document says rising temperatures could have “large consequences” for the planet.
    Most climate experts accept those notions as settled science. But they are still debated by some scientists, helping to fuel conflicts between parents and teachers.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577275401501628534.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

    The article can only be accessed (at this time) by logging-in.

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      Gnome

      There may not be any connection but apparently Christine Milne is a former schoolteacher, and a substantial percentage of schoolchildren think yoghurt grows on trees and cotton comes from animals.

      (Someone is probably protecting children from the awful truth about yoghurt.)

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    Grant (NZ)

    The theory of manmade global warming is not a conspiracy. It is a confluence of vested interests in increased political regulation of the economy and rejecting market forces. Bureaucrats, academics, government scientists, utilities, renewables manufacturers, bankers, most politicians—all these have a shared financial interest in imposing their solution to “manmade” global warming.

    One of the most insightful and concise explanations of the phenomenon we are witnessing.

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    crakar24

    I am having a bit of truble with the “follow up comments via email” thingy again!!!!! So this is just a test comment.

    Cheers

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    crakar24

    Now can someone please make a comment.

    Thanks a bunch.

    Crakar

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      Kevin Moore

      After many years in which evolution was the most contentious issue in science education, climate change is now the battle du jour in school districts across the country.

      Pat@ 22

      Using all means to dumb down society, are they making monkeys out of us?

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    Kevin Moore

    Some point out that Julia has a nose for lying,but is it lying or just plain bullshit?

    A politician is behaving like a bullshit artist when like a shyster or snake oil salesman they travel around the country trying to sell their policies by spruiking with no regard for the truth or falsity of their claims, but are merely trying to baffle their listeners with bullshit to further their agenda.

    It is only a matter of time before they are run out of town.

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    ursus augustus

    Great article. I loved the witchdoctor pic and was reminded of a tale I heard which went to the essence of democracy vs autocracy.

    A certain king in ancient times ( up around the Baltic I gather) was faced with a famine which greatly affected his people. After the first year he held a ceremony and sacrificed a goat to appease the angry spirits. The famine continued and things were getting very dire so the next year he held another ceremony and sacrificed a child. The famine continued, time for the ceremony came – and the people sacrificed the king.

    If we all keep our wits about us and a civil tongue in our heads our chance to get rid of these imbeciles will come in due course. A good drop in global temperature will get the attention of the main stream media, their credit will be destroyed and the MSM will devour them.

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    pat

    u only need to check out the lobby firms to know this has nothing whatsoever to do with CAGW:

    11 March: UK Telegraph: Wind industry’s extensive lobbying to preserve subsidies and defeat local resistance to turbines
    The full extent of lobbying by Britain’s wind industry to preserve subsidies while getting thousands of new turbines built can be revealed
    By Robert Mendick, and Edward Malnick
    RenewableUK, the trade body for the wind industry, said it had a roster of four lobbying firms while appointing a fifth last month to “help with media support”.
    The four main lobbying companies are Bellenden Public Affairs, Four Communications, Edelman and Citigate. A fifth – Hill+Knowlton – works on media strategy.
    RenewableUK has fought to resist attempts to drastically cut the wind energy subsidy, paid out through the Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) scheme that is added on to household bills…
    In October, a flagship Conservative policy, which would have required local referendums on large-scale projects such as wind farms and housing estates, was quietly abandoned after intense lobbying by RenewableUK…
    Energy companies have taken to hiring eco-activists, who run non-corporate, amateur-looking stalls proclaiming the virtues of renewable energy in order to produce hundreds of letters in support of planned wind farms.
    The stalls, typically in provincial towns generate hundreds of identical letters in support of a wind farm, often some distance away.
    One anti-wind farm group, fighting a development in Norfolk, said an analysis of letters of support for a scheme by Renewable Energy Systems (RES), part of the Sir Robert McAlpine Group, showed that not a single letter had come from within a six mile radius. Some letters came from addresses more than 30 miles away…
    A Manchester-based company Pendragon Public Relations runs a pro-wind farm campaigning arm called Yes2Wind, which is hired out to developers seeking to build wind farms…
    Alex Doyle, managing director of Pendragon, said: “We are trying to balance out the opposition. We are pro-wind and we put those arguments forward on behalf of the individual developers…
    Yes2Wind often hires a freelance eco-activist Jeff Rice, from Derbyshire, to manage its stalls. Mr Rice, who was convicted of trespass on the roof of the Palace of Westminster in 2009 as part of a mass Greenpeace protest, is also hired out directly by energy companies, including Renewable Energy Systems. RES is estimated to earn £15 million a year alone through consumer subsidies.
    Mr Rice said people supporting local wind farms were often too intimidated to speak up for a scheme.
    “We do get quite a lot of harassment,” said Mr Rice, “Anti-groups can be quite aggressive.”
    He said letters were often identical because people were in a hurry and had no time to stop and compose their own letters.
    He added: “We are trying out best to make sure the letters are reasonably local within a few miles of a project. We do try and do that. If people are too far away we will stop them doing a support letter.”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9076458/Wind-industrys-extensive-lobbying-to-preserve-subsidies-and-defeat-local-resistance-to-turbines.html#disqus_thread

    once upon a time…

    2008: PR Week: FRONT PAGE: Activists target Edelman in climate change protest
    Green campaigners this week descended on the European headquarters of PR agency Edelman in an attempt to ‘reclaim the PR machine for normal people’…
    http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/832313/FRONT-PAGE-Activists-target-Edelman-climate-change-protest/

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      Streetcred

      Over at Bish, Fighting funding

      Reader Henry Brubaker has been tracking down these ‘lobbyists’ … to a residential address.
      Mar 12, 2012 at 1:40 PM | Henry Brubaker
      Mar 12, 2012 at 2:21 PM | Henry Brubaker

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    crakar24

    Thanks Kevin,

    You comment via email hasnot arrived as yet, i suspect the system is working but there is a long delay. Most likely the problem lies at my end due to stupid firewalls etc.

    Cheers

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    John Smith101

    Great posting David. I suggest contributing an edited version to the ABC Unleashed blog site. In addition I would also suggest a further rewrite bringing in the connections of the COP (Conference of Parties, eg Copenhagen) with the UNFCCC and its connections right through to the UN’s Agenda 21, where much of what you have spelt out (and much more besides) is “ratified” via a number of processes, notably the notion of sustainability, etc. Warning: Agenda 21 and its offshoots are a rabbit warren! Furthermore, a piece on the details contained in the COP Copenhagen Treaty that K Rudd, PM, was going to sign with much fanfare, might be illuminating too.

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    pat

    written without a hint of satire, and published in the Atlantic:

    12 March: The Atlantic: Ross Anderson: How Engineering the Human Body Could Combat Climate Change
    A new paper to be published in Ethics, Policy & Environment proposes a series of biomedical modifications that could help humans, themselves, consume less.
    Some of the proposed modifications are simple and noninvasive. For instance, many people wish to give up meat for ecological reasons, but lack the willpower to do so on their own. The paper suggests that such individuals could take a pill that would trigger mild nausea upon the ingestion of meat, which would then lead to a lasting aversion to meat-eating. Other techniques are bound to be more controversial. For instance, the paper suggests that parents could make use of genetic engineering or hormone therapy in order to birth smaller, less resource-intensive children.
    The lead author of the paper, S. Matthew Liao, is a professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University. Liao is keen to point out that the paper is not meant to advocate for any particular human modifications, or even human engineering generally; rather, it is only meant to introduce human engineering as one possible, partial solution to climate change. He also emphasized the voluntary nature of the proposed modifications. Neither Liao or his co-authors, Anders Sandberg and Rebecca Roache of Oxford, approve of any coercive human engineering; they favor modifications borne of individual choices, not technocratic mandates. What follows is my conversation with Liao about why he thinks human engineering could be the most ethical and effective solution to global climate change…
    http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-engineering-the-human-body-could-combat-climate-change/253981/

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    Kevin Moore

    One may ask what is it of value that backs the Australian Dollar and the answer is nothing because if you take it into a bank it cannot be redeemed for anything.

    So what of that other form of exchange called a carbon credit – can it be redeemed? The answer is yes – for one metric ton of carbon dioxide. This is another example of how Banks create ‘money’ out of thin air.

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    Ross James

    Why was ocean heat content left out?

    Why have you only used only one of many air temperatures sources available?

    This is very selective cherry picked data to make Hansen’s prediction really over stated?

    Yes we know about the present ENSO temperamental cooling of the air for the present monthly trend! This is called variability. All that has done here is a cherry picked variance of short term trended air temperature data to make the scientist look foolish. Not nice at all.

    This graph is simply nonsense with no variance of proper time matching or even error bars.

    This is not empirical science but very selective cherry picking to prove a prejudice.

    Watts Up comparisons are even more accurate then this! Don’t believe me – check it out for yourself.

    The assertions concerning water vapour and its importance on Global Warming are completely incorrect.

    In a PNAS peer reviewed paper we see the water vapour content is consistent with Global Warming and Models:

    This is a Fingerprint study. This seeks to identify the causes of recent climate change, involve rigorous statistical comparisons of modeled and observed climate change patterns (1). Such work has been influential in shaping the ‘discernible human influence’ conclusions of national and international scientific assessments (2–4).

    Most fingerprint studies have focused on temperature changes at the earth’s surface (5, 6), in the free atmosphere (7, 8), or in the oceans (9), or have considered variables whose behavior is directly
    related to changes in atmospheric temperature (10). Despite a growing body of empirical evidence documenting increases in moisture-related variables (11, 12), and climate model evidence of a number of robust hydrological responses to global warming (13, 14), there have been no formal fingerprint studies
    involving changes in the total amount of atmospheric water vapour, Other aspects of moisture changes have received attention in recent fingerprint work, with identification of an anthropogenic
    signal in observed records of continental river runoff (15), zonal mean rainfall (16), and surface specific humidity (17).

    Warming induced by human-caused changes in well mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs) should increase W (11, 12). Under the assumption that relative humidity remains approximately constant, for which there is considerable empirical support (13, 18, 19), the increase in W is estimated to be 6.0–7.5% per degree Celsius warming of the lower troposphere (13, 18). The observed increase in W over the global ocean, as inferred since late 1987 from microwave radiometry measurements made with the satellite-borne Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I), is broadly consistent with theory (12, 18, 20).

    _________________________________

    The amplifying effect of water vapour was observed in the global cooling after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo (Soden 2001). The cooling led to atmospheric drying which amplified the temperature drop.

    A climate sensitivity of around 3°C is also confirmed by numerous empirical studies examining how climate has responded to various forcings in the past (Knutti & Hegerl 2008).

    Satellites have observed an increase in atmospheric water vapour by about 0.41 kg/m² per decade since 1988. A very important detection and attribution study, otherwise known as “fingerprinting”, was employed to identify the cause of the rising water vapour levels (Santer 2007).

    Fingerprinting involves rigorous statistical tests of the different possible explanations for a change in some property of the climate system. Results from 22 different climate models (virtually all of the world’s major climate models) were pooled and found the recent increase in moisture content over the bulk of the world’s oceans is not due to solar forcing or gradual recovery from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The primary driver of ‘atmospheric moistening’ was found to be the increase in CO2 caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

    Science data and empirical evidence is more important to me.

    Ross J.

    ———————————————
    ROSS, what paper are you referring too? Jo
    UPDATE From Ross: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.full.pdf Santer 2007?
    Thanks Ross.

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      Ross James

      Jo

      I could not post the link:

      The paper is titled:

      Identification of human-induced changes in atmospheric moisture content

      B. D. Santer , C. Mears, F. J. Wentz, K. E. Taylor, P. J. Gleckler, T. M. L. Wigley, T. P. Barnett, J. S. Boyle, W. Bru¨ ggemann, N. P. Gillett, S. A. Klein, G. A. Meehl, T. Nozawa, D. W. Pierce, P. A. Stott, W. M. Washington and M. F. Wehner

      Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550;
      Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA 95401;
      National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307;
      Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92037;
      Institut fu¨r Unternehmensforschung, Universita¨t Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany;
      Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom;
      National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba 305-8506, Japan;
      Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, United Kingdom Meteorological Office, Exeter EX1 3PB, United Kingdom; and
      Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720

      Edited by Inez Y. Fung, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved July 27, 2007 (received for review March 27, 2007)

      http://www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.full.pdf

      Ross J.

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      jiminy

      Ross. The Mean Lower Troposphere Anomaly is computed (by some fairly heavy modelling) from estimates of the average atmospheric temperature between 500 and 1000 HPa. That is, it is an estimate of the temperature of the a large slice of turbulent air with little buffering capacity. Trends in GCM estimates of MLTA that I have seen come in within 0.02 degrees per decade of observed I believe (I was reading some of the UAH publications on this).
      Evans has been criticised roundly in blog space for this comparison, but it’s not been published in peer space.
      The Hansen plots are of course plots of the estimated
      You’ll also note that the trends on the Hansen derived plot have been moved together to coincide at 1988. If you move them back you’ll find that the mid range plot is not so way off the (wildly noisy) line it’s being allegedly (and irrelevantly) compared to.
      Comparing the two trends is more than somewhat flawed. It’s akin to lighting a fire and estimating the fur temperature of the cat in front of it by holding a thermometer in the doorway.
      People need to be aware that the valid comparisons have been done.

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        jiminy

        And to clarify last point, “…have been done and published in the literature.”

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        jiminy

        Ye ghods – so many typos.
        “The Hansen plots are of course plots of the estimated” [continues] surface temperatures (nominally at two metres) – a quite different quantity.

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    MattB

    David Evans… just how can you keep a straight face when you publish all those graphs in “The Science” paper that show the start of the prediction trends always impreccably starting exactly on a data point. Its rubbish and you know it. No one ever said “here is what will happen taking conditions today as the exact starting point”. Is it even work trolling through the trashy article when jsut a cursory glance at the graphs show them to be bogus? oh dear.

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      memoryvault

      .

      Errrh, let’s see.

      The Hansen “Climate Scenario” graph starts in 1988 when Hansen outlined the three scenarios to Congress and said “this is what’s going to happen from now if you do A, B or C”.

      The IPCC graph of IPCC “Climate Prediction” starts in 1990 when the IPCC made the predictions of what was going to happen from 1990.

      The ARGO ocean temperature graph starts in 2003 when the ARGO system started providing ocean temperatures.

      Yeah – bloody misleading, that – talk about “cherry-picking”.
      Shame on you David.

      .
      Got yer Plan B Matt?

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        MattB

        But MV that assumes that the starting points of data in 1988, or 1990, or 2003 were not influenced by other short term forcings/natural cycles. eg El Nino year?

        Great graphs if you want idiots to believe their lying eyes I guess. Which is the whole point.

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          crakar24

          The funny thing about your incoherent comments Matt is that for all the points you raise in opposition can also be directly applied to your theory/thoughts.

          Can you share with us any graphs that you consider to be worthy of further investigation or are they all to be deemed suspect through forcings/natural cycles?

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            BobC

            Interesting bit of John Cook “reasoning” there, MattB.

            Cook’s ‘argument’ goes like this: If Hansen hadn’t been wrong about climate sensitivity, wrong about increasing greenhouse gas forcing, wrong about the assuming the anthropogenic emissions would lead to accelerating CO2 concentrations, THEN he would have been ALMOST right.

            So, since he was wrong about all those things, I guess it’s Problem Solved! We can all forget about it.

            Well, actually, that’s not Cook’s conclusion. Somehow he concludes that, even though Hansen was completely wrong about the effect of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, we still need to curb anthropogenic CO2 emissions, because …???

            Well, Skeptical Science has never been skeptical, scientific, or logical.

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          Markus Fitzhenry

          Every day a warmist goes out into the big wide cyrosphere they have the lying eyes. Flannery eyes lie when he believes that the Australian droughts he witnesses won’t break. Your eyes lie when you believe sea levels have risen.

          Ross James has permanent eye damage because of his beliefs. So stop it.

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          memoryvault

          .
          Okay Matt – let’s play your silly bloody game:

          In 1988 Hansen outline three scenarios in a paper (link below), in which he said:

          “The greenhouse warming should be clearly identifiable in the 1990’s”

          http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf

          Now, according to you, when should a graph based on those predictions start from? What period should it depict?

          Hansen’s own graph (from which the current one is derived) ranges temperatures from 1958 to 2020, with observed data from 1958 to 1988 included. In other words, the graph shows EVERYTHING that Hansen’s graph does, from the point where observed data at the time, ended.

          In 1990 the IPCC released a prediction in its assessment report, including three likely scenarios. The second graph used by David is simply those predictions with subsequent observed temperature superimposed from when the predictions were made, to the current date.

          What time period do YOU believe should have been depicted?

          The third graph depicts the ARGO data in its entirety. To have displayed anything less would rightly have led to accusations of cherry-picking.

          So which “bit” of the ARGO data do you think should have been displayed?

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            MattB

            wow you really did ask a Q in 3.1.1.3.whatever

            you’d put a trend line through the data points, including going back a few years, and you’d compare the gradients of the trendline with the prediction.

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          memoryvault

          .
          MattB

          Crakar have a read of this: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-advanced

          No thanks MattB – went down this exact same road with Ross James last week. One does not get to make predictions, and then “adjust” them to take account of what has subsequently happened, and then claim the original prediction was correct because the “adjusted” prediction now fits observed results.

          I’ll give you the same example I gave Ross: I confidently predict global temperatures will DROP 10 degrees over the next ten years. Furthermore I am prepared to bet you a million dollars that my prediction turns out to be correct, PROVIDED I can adjust my original prediction every six months in the light of what is actually observed to happen.

          So, is it a bet, MattB?

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            crakar24

            MV,

            Is this the first ever recorded case of a religious faith being exposed as a fraud? We should probably feel sorry for MattB as each and every one of the prophicies he has lived his life by fall over right before his very eyes. Even the Arctic ice prophecy has gone pear shaped and that was the only one that looked like having a chance of coming to fruition (pardon the pun).

            Even now he is thrashing around like an out of balance washing machine desperately clinging to brittle scientific refuges like Hansens predictions, next he will start quoting Al Gore and when he does you know he has hit rock bottom. I think we should go easy on him as he makes the transition from “believer” to “realist”.

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            memoryvault

            I think we should go easy on him as he makes the transition from “believer” to “realist”.

            Unfortunately I have never witnessed this happening. Truth is, right from the beginning, there were never that many “true believers”. What there was, was a handful of “believers”, and handful of “skeptics” with a vast majority of “I never really stopped to think about it” in the middle.

            Virtually all of the conversions I have been privy to over the quarter of a century that I have been involved, have been from the middle group to the skeptic camp. I believe Jo and Dr Evans are prime examples of this.

            I have had three up close and personal experiences with true believers, and my observation in all three cases is you can push them to the point of a nervous breakdown and still their faith will not crack.

            I have had similar dealings with Fundamental Christian groups. The behaviour patterns are almost identical.

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            BobC

            MV,
            MattB has already opined, in a previous thread, that it’s not fair to hold old predictions to account — to be fair, we must use the current predictions (anything else would be cherry-picking predictions). I asked him how you evaluate the accuracy of current predictions — I suggested a crystal ball — but he declined to answer.

            So, to be consistent, he should take your bet. It will be a tie, however, because while you have cooling “predictions” that are continually adjusted, he will have warming “predictions” that are also continually adjusted to match reality, and at the end, both “predictions” will be correct.

            I propose to short-circuit this tedious methodology by proposing the following format for future IPCC “predictions”:

            In 10 years time, the temperature will be what it is then.

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      Ross James

      The analysis is simply a dog wag tail climate variability analysis. A few good climate scientists will tear this thing a apart easily. We will get out a refutation on this very poor paper ASAP.

      In fairness to Dr David Evans, at least he accepts the RAW radiative forcing of CO2 as good science to start with, unlike some here.

      Ross J.

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        BobC

        Ross James
        March 13, 2012 at 3:56 pm · Reply
        The analysis is simply a dog wag tail climate variability analysis.

        Well, that clears that up! I was wondering what it was.

        A few good climate scientists will tear this thing a apart easily.

        How unfortunate, then, that all the good ones are on the skeptic side.

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      agfox

      Hi Matt,

      Surely it is entirely reasonable to compare the predictions of the climate models with the actual outcome shown by the data?

      The models are either accurate or not, if they do not take into account other influences, short term, cyclical or otherwise, as you suggest, then what is their worth?

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        MattB

        Agfox lets say I told you that summer was going to be hotter than winter… but I told you this on a hot day in winter. If we met again on a cold day in summer would that make my predictions wrong?

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        MattB

        Also you have to look at what the predictions actually were. For example Hansen’s Senario A I think was what would happen IF carbon emissions were emitted at a certain rate. As it turns out the carbon emissions were not so high… so you can;t say the predicted temperated response was wrong.

        That would be like me telling you that you’ll die if you get shot. And then you telling me I was wrong because you are not dead, even though you didn’t get shot.

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          memoryvault

          .
          Hansen’s paper of 1988 assumed a CO2 level of 392 ppm by 2010 in his “do nothing” Scenario A.
          Official average CO2 level for 2010 was 389.78 ppm.
          That’s a difference of just over 2 ppm.

          By 2010 Hansen’s Scenario A was over half a degree out, and continues to diverge at an accelerating rate.

          And your line of argument is that this is accounted for by the absence of two parts per million of CO2?

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          manalive

          Hansen’s 1988 three scenarios were:
          1. Scenario A: Continued growth rate in emissions at 1.5% / year.
          2. Scenario B: Emissions frozen at 1988 rates.
          3. Scenario C: Drastic reductions in emissions in 1990.

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          jiminy

          Actually many people would demand to be shot.

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        MattB

        Also Agfox my understanding is that Hansen himself and other produced revised models in 1990… simply based on them refining the models clearly not to do with fudging the models after the fact as the 2 years of extra data would not really have shown anything.

        you guys really should read the skeptical science link.. the words under the heading “Hansen’s Assumptions” are excellent, explaining how his early model only looked at CO2 or something, and how it did not account for the upcoming drop in CFC usage.

        With the conclusion – despite MV’s smoke and mirrors about CO2 levels in 1998 compared to the modelled levels, being that:
        “Both the GHG-only and net anthropogenic forcing changes between 1988 and 1998 were very close to Hansen’s Scenario C, consistent with Figure 1 above, primarily due to the CFC emissions reductions as a result of the Montreal Protocol.”

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          memoryvault

          “Both the GHG-only and net anthropogenic forcing changes between 1988 and 1998 were very close to Hansen’s Scenario C, consistent with Figure 1 above, primarily due to the CFC emissions reductions as a result of the Montreal Protocol.”

          Thank you for confirming:

          A) – that you don’t actually read the actual scientific papers,
          B) – that John Crook Cook at Septic Science tends to be fast and furious with the truth, and
          C) – that your “scientific opinion” amounts to nothing more than going to sites like Septic Science and repeating verbatim whatever tripe happens to be there.

          You see MattB, CFC’s are assumed to be a greenhouse gas; the more of them, the greater the greenhouse effect. To quote Hansen:

          Scenario C is a more drastic curtailment of emissions than has generally been imagined; it represents the (complete) elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by 2000 . . .

          Now we all know CFC’s weren’t “eliminated” by 2000. So, we actually had MORE GHG than the model accounted for even at Scenario C. So we should have had even MORE global warming than that shown even in Scenario C.

          But we had even less. And you, and John Crook Cook want to somehow explain it all away with the partial reduction in CFC’s under the Montreal Protocol?

          .
          MEMO TO CASUAL READERS

          This thread started with MattB claiming Dr David Evans inappropriately used some graphs. At post 31.1.1.3 I asked MattB to explain to us a more appropriate quotation of the information in the graphs.

          There have now been seventeen posts on this thread, and MattB is further away than ever from addressing the question.

          Apparently we are all supposed to have forgotten where, how and why all this got started.

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    crakar24

    No i have not but i asked you a question and you failed to answer

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      John Brookes

      How is that a cherry pick, crakar? What is your point?

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      Mark D.

      I’ve seen arctic ice “anomaly” based on 1979-2000 measurement. But warmists always cite <40 = years weather, >40 years = climate. So why don’t they show 1979-2011 (31 years instead of 20) and then show the current year plot?

      Oh I know why, it wouldn’t be so alarming.

      Cherry pickers…….

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    Paul Wescott

    The Regulators have a back-up plan simmering on a back burner: The Law of the Sea Treaty (Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). It grants power over more than half the earth’s heretofore unclaimed crust to a UN-created body and sets up a financial scheme to support itself in style while funding any number of giveaways to buddies in undeveloped nations. It has extensive environmental provisions, of particular concern those addressing pollution (Now including Extra CO2!) carried through the atmosphere, that rely in part on a supra-national climate consensus conveniently supplied by the IPCC for guidance in developing, evaluating and enforcing regulations. If I recall, a Greenpeace spokesperson considered the treaty the best thing since sliced tofu.

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    catamon

    Well that was [snip]??

    [If you’ve got nothing constructive to say, you get to say nothing. Mod oggi]

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      Catamon

      ooh! Snipy mod doesn’t like literary reference??

      I thought it was actually fairly pertinent considering the lines:

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

      Which i still think are a hoot! 🙂

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    John Brookes

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

    Well, I guess the problem is that maybe they are looking for a competing theory, one which makes sense and does better. And “skeptics” keep coming up with competing theories. But it turns out these theories are rubbish, and their predictions are far worse than those of the climate models, so those poor old hard-bitten journalists are just sticking with something that partly works, and not jettisoning it for something that doesn’t work at all – because unlike some “skeptics”, they would actually be embarrassed if they touted the latest “skeptic” revelations.

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      Well, I guess the problem is that maybe they are looking for a competing theory, one which makes sense and does better.

      There is NO competing theory John. It’s not a case of Mr Moron in the kitchen with a knife versus Mrs Boofhead in the study with a gun.
      THE WORLDS CLIMATE IS NOT CONTROLLED BY A SINGLE PHENOMENON. IT IS NOT CONTROLLED BY CO2.

      You know this, you’ve been told this many times, yet you keep repeating the same meme over and over again.

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        John Brookes

        Baa, don’t be contrary. You know full well I think CO2, the sun, aerosols, the earth’s albedo, orbital factors, and other things all contribute to global temperature. And also that heat going in and out of the oceans is important.

        Its just that I don’t think a lot of other things matter. And your mob, because they don’t want CO2 to matter, keep looking for the “other things”.

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          Sonny

          we don’t want CO2 to matter because all evidence of the real world says that basically it doesn’t.

          You are in denial John.

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      Markus Fitzhenry

      There doesn’t have to be a competing theory jonnyboy, AGW theory is wrong theory, all the other known and trusted physical laws say so, so up yours. It’s not rocket science you know. What part of AGW works? How do you determine a atmospheric radiative surface when radiation moves at the speed of light? What radiation hangs around until everybody else has left? Why does the surface at night cool slower than the atmosphere at night? Wouldn’t ‘backradiation’ keep the loss of heat, from the atmosphere, at a lesser rate than the surface? , again?

      The particles of Earths land, oceans and atmosphere are radiated to their maximum entopic state relative to Earths distance from the sun and the incidence of radiation upon them, that is to say, the system at any time is in a relative function of state. This means the Earths thermal system cannot acquire more entropy by its own composition, to do so would be impossible in time as radiation does not wait to be introduced to a newly created function of state. At the speed of light radiation is emitted or absorbed, following this is a change to the entropic capacity of particles. The horse has to be in front of the cart and radiation doesn’t wait for advection, it’s gone. Heat is not radiation. Heat moves by convection/conduction, radiation moves at the speed of light.

      The manifestation of thermal energy is equally partitioned by the force of pressure between all available quadratic dimensions of the particles. See the uniform atmospheric heat distribution by pressure here:

      http://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/temperature-vs-pressure-vs-latitude-mp2008.png

      Moreover, the force of pressure determines the enhancement amplitude capacity of atmospheric particles, whatever their incidental function. More particles more heat. Changes to insolation and mass of atmosphere cause climate change not atmospheric composition.

      A system perpetually enhanced up to its amount of insolation means what goes in always comes out at the speed of light. Co2 changes affect opacity, not a meaningful change to atmospheric absorption; it doesn’t cause a delay of radiation through it, or cause more radiation to be absorbed by other particles because of it.

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      Turnedoutnice

      My mate Mydogsgotnonose has put an interesting new theory on Tallbloke’s blog. The GHG warming is heterogeneous, mostly at cloud droplets, and is part of the control system that ensures there is no net change in IR optical depth. The GHGs are a heat transfer medium with no direct thermalisation.

      Also discussed is his soon to be published work that shows there is no cooling by polluted clouds to hide the imaginary warming. If I were you, I’d find another bandwagon The Copenhagen Coup d’Etats failed and the grants will be slashed for all the conmen who jumped on the CAGW bandwagon.

      As for the politicos, I have suggested we string them up until dead and allow the bodies to decay to show what happens to people who lie in politics; just joking of course.

      The alternative will have to be the stocks and rotten vegetables for 28 days then labouring in the mines.

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      GetDown

      Hi John,
      I do not profess to be an expert but I would sincerely appreciate your explanation as to why the BOM (who appear to be ardent believers in AGW) show on their maps that the average temperature for the Australian continent to be less than the period 1961 to 1990?
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=meananom&period=12month&area=nat

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    […] From Jo Nova Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Data. Bookmark the permalink. ← Previous Post […]

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    fenbeagleblog

    The Green Treens continue to make progress. The grip tightens on Britain where the population have largely lost their hearts and minds. Dogby investigates…..

    http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/

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    Faustino

    David, your article accords with my long experience as a government economic policy adviser and sometime journalist, who at times worked extensively with academics. Well said.

    It does seem to me that things have got much worse in the last 25 years. When I worked for the Hawke government from Jan 85, there was a genuine interest in good policy in the broad public interest, and many good public service and academic economists contributed to policy development. Since then, self-serving political and bureaucratic insiders have become dominant, those who won’t play the game are marginalised at best.

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      John Brookes

      You’d recall Ross Garnaut then? He seems to think that climate change is an important problem, and he has put in a lot of work designing a system so that Australia can do our bit as efficiently as possible.

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        Juliar

        Good ole Ross Garnaut! Guess who he worked for and is still a current stakeholder at? I remember now! Investment Bank WESTPAC!!!

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        Sonny

        Hahahahahahahahaha
        You lost me at Ross Garnaut.
        Didn’t he write reports about how a carbon tax would benefit ordinary Australians?
        Just won of Gillards team of highly paid muppets.

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    Joe's World

    Jo,

    Our current scientists DO NOT study the planet. They are statisticians focused solely on temperature data to the exclusion of ALL other factors. Ignore everything else and proclaim being an expert who should NEVER be questioned.

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    John M

    Nicely written article, and to add…

    If you look back over the years it’s interesting to note the many failed attempts at creating the socialist state down-under. Old Gough Whitlam ran the same anti-‘big corporation’ line, and wanted to nationalise overseas owned mining companies rather than tax them to death. Along with all the social handouts, we ended up with big debt, rampant inflation, a hostile media and finally “The Dismissal”.

    Of course, nationalisation and big government is the key to socialism, as he who controls the money, controls the power, and thus the vote.

    The big differences this time around is that the GG is a family member, the mainstream media are all converts to the faith, the push to big government is seen as part of the moral cause, and this new push to socialism is a global affair, with the chance to lock in a new form of global-regime for the perceived eternity. These guys can see the prize and nothing will get in their way.

    I guess the next election is the key. If Gillard gets one more bite of the cherry it will probably be enough time to create the new “big-government controlled” economy that is needed to lock in power and voter support.

    The irony is that the Liberal’s big surpluses and repayment of the former Labor debt in 2007 has been a catalyst in Labor’s push to socialism. Without this they could not have kick started “BIG government” by borrowing $250 Billion. Perhaps the Libs need to make sure not to leave too in the kitty if they get a ‘next time’.

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    pat

    13 March: Bigpond: Climate changing despite cool years
    The past two years have been Australia’s coolest since 2001.
    Similarly, the years 2010 and 2011 produced the most rain the country has experienced over a two-year period on record.
    But according to some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists, a couple of years of cooler temperatures and good rains do nothing to defeat the assurances that the world is getting warmer and that droughts, particularly in southern Australia, are bound to become more common and more severe.
    In their latest State of the Climate report to be released on Wednesday, researchers from the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) agree Australia’s recent weather phenomena shouldn’t cause any revision of the belief that atmospheric environment is in a perilous state and that humanity is the major cause.
    ‘Communicating climate change science is an extremely difficult thing to do,’ said the BoM’s climate monitoring manager Dr Karl Braganza.
    ‘People are looking for the wow factor – they want to see the things we are talking about occurring now.
    ‘If they don’t see it, they have trouble accepting the science.
    ‘That’s the hard thing to get around.’…
    Despite the recent aberrations, the climate statement points out that the world’s 13 warmest years have all occurred since 1997; that sea levels are rising by about 2mm a year; that sea surface temperatures around Australia have increased more quickly than the global average; and, concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new, ever-increasing high in 2011.
    Among the most concerning observations contained in the climate statement is the observation that fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions grew by 5.9 per cent during 12 months of 2009-10, drastically reversing the small decline due to the global financial crisis of 2008-09.
    The report also reasserts that:
    each decade since the 1950s has been warmer than the previous;
    Australian maximum temperatures have increased by 0.75C since 1910;
    Australian minimum temperatures have risen by more than 1.1C in the same period;
    global sea level is 210mm above the level of 1880 and grew almost twice as fast between 1993 and 2011 than during the entire 20th century; and,
    rainfall patterns in south-western Australia since 1997, particularly in the WA wheatbelt, are the lowest on record with 2010 producing the lowest rainfall on record…
    http://bigpondnews.com/articles/Environment/2012/03/13/Climate_changing_despite_cool_years_728556.html

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      Sonny

      As Lisa Simpson has said in the face of a snowstorm,
      “Global warming can cause weather on both ends of the extreme, hot and cold”.

      There are only three certainties in life – death, taxes, and excuses to impose more taxes.

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    Tim

    Dr Evans has summarised the whole scam very succinctly from all angles. He reaches the scientific as well as the non-scientific reader. This article is easily digestible and worth sending on to any in the MSM that has an audience with half a brain. Why not send a link to the editors? You’ll find the contacts at sites like MediaBay.

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      Catamon

      This article is easily digestible and worth sending on to any in the MSM that has an audience with half a brain.

      Good thought. I’ll send it to Andrew Bolt as most of his audience (at least on his blog) only seems to have half a brain….between them.

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    Juliar

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

    They are an intellectual upper class of wordsmiths, who regulate and pontificate rather than produce real stuff.

    Meh, a lot of politicians have degrees and doesn’t mean any of them are smart in terms of how to run the country, especially the Greens. Many of their philosophies show that they are dumb as a doornails and are crazy scumbags!

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    Michael

    Some silly statements- we already have a global bucreacracy- in deed several WHO, World Food… (they compile health records, food production) It doesn’t matter how wide ranging the organisation is, what matters is what are the rules and how they are enforced that matters. Bucreascracy is all about rules and following them- e.g. the IPCC is not a bucreacracy, its not even a committee- its vague group.

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    Sonny

    Why are there only three resident warmists on this site?
    John, Matt and Catamon?
    If the evidence of AGW or ACC were so convincing wouldn’t we have a lot more?

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    Andrew McRae

    More outrageous ocean acidification headlines today.
    Ocean acidification worst for 300 million years
    Every alarmist buzzword and catchphrase gets used. It’s like they all go to the same Green Death School of Journalism or something. Never mind the dodgy pH doom formulas and the fact the pH goes up and down more than 0.15 pH in a month in some places. The article tacitly admits that just before the alleged ancient extinction happened that the CO2 was over 900ppm, not a level we are likely to reach this century. Those well-versed in doublethink will studiously ignore the implications.

    Meanwhile Saint Al of Gore calls for the creation and implementation of digital tools and social media to “change the democratic conversation” and to improve government. Presumably this system would be filled with stories like the above, thus helping everyone to believe the scare stories were coming true (regardless of what you see out your window??) He even wants to use flashmobs against… targets unknown.

    Halt, citizen, the climate coup has you surrounded!
    If you can read JoNova, you are the resistance. 🙂

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

    Pay attention folks this David Evans worked on climate models for the federal government.

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

    Their shared economic basis makes them a class. Let’s call them the “regulating class”.

    Let’s call a spade a spade. They are professional students. They never grew up. The are the a$$holes in the debating club. They are the d!@#heads who ran for class president. They would be in the principal’s office snitching on the rest of the grade when a fight broke out. And they have never been in a single fight in their entire lives.

    They have theory about mankind’s utopia but, are too immature to understand that every man has their own vision of it. They see themselves as godheads, who can create that ideal society, given enough resources and time. They do not understand that every organisation is ruled by chaos.

    Higher up the rung are they from the professional beggars you see on the streets and in shopping centers today. They too hold the creed of dependance and indoctrination. Do not step outside the mandate, do not seek contradictory experience. There is but one truth, we just need more time…

    On the other side of the argument stand those doubting the theory. The skeptics are overwhelmingly from the private sector.

    In other words, the sceptics are adults who figured out what the real world is about. They stopped being student and became their own teachers.

    The theory of manmade global warming is not a conspiracy. It is a confluence of vested interests in increased political regulation of the economy and rejecting market forces. Bureaucrats, academics, government scientists, utilities, renewables manufacturers, bankers, most politicians—all these have a shared financial interest in imposing their solution to “manmade” global warming.

    All ‘conspiracies’ are just a confluence of vested interests which are not satisfied through proper channels. That I agree to this statement creates, in the true believer’s mind, a conspiracy. Should we not engage in this debate through the proper channels of the IPCC?

    The new regulating class—bureaucrats, academics, greenies—look down on others as stupid and morally inferior, they don’t like people who ‘have their own ideas’, and they don’t like the private sector or the marketplace.

    It comes back to an adolescent desire to be popular which, most of the population grow out of but, these professional students never got the point. Life moves on. If your weren’t all you wanted to be when you were a kid, try to be all you can be as an adult. If that was not successful, try to be a powerhouse in your middle age, or, graceful in your twilight years. Don’t get stuck on one stage of your personal journey. Every day should be a new opportunity to grow and evolve.

    – End rant!

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      MattB

      “The are the a$$holes in the debating club. They are the d!@#heads who ran for class president. They would be in the principal’s office snitching on the rest of the grade when a fight broke out. And they have never been in a single fight in their entire lives.”

      Wow Waffle – you obviously have some issues relating to your school years. I’m sorry if being stupid has scarred you so.

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        Mark D.

        And I’m sorry that you were bullied Matt.

        But I CAN understand it……..

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        Being stupid? I went to selective high school friend. I was vice-captain of the chess team(played against the Russian junior world champion) and earned two full blues and half blue in sport. I captained our team to third place in the state. So, no issues about high school. Didn’t enjoy primary school so much but, that’s a different story.

        My fondest memories of the idiots in the debating club was a time when one got snippy at me and thought it a good idea to insult me. I physically threatened him as a matter of course and his response was, “My father is a lawyer and if you hit me he’ll sue you.” These are the same self-entitled fools who now run our country. They hide behind pieces of paper with gibberish written on them thinking that those artifacts will protect them in the real world. Life doesn’t work like that.

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          MattB

          “I was vice-captain of the chess team” lol it’s a fine line to claim superiority over the prats in the debating team!

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            Everyone at school was smart, there was no jocks and geeks, as is portrayed in American movies. Everyone at my school was geeky and interesting with their own flavour of intelligence. There were however, douchebags. And most of them enaged in political activities to practice being ‘likable’ because that didn’t come naturally for them.

            While they focused on solving a logic problem through the force of their personality, I focused on using strategic thinking to do the same. I’m not saying using your personality to solve problems is not useful, quite the contrary. But, having the ability to adapt to new information to adjust your plan and thn having the fortitude and patience to see your work come to fruition is a far more important life skill.

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    Michael Urry

    The reason that the BBC is biased is because they have £8billion of their over inflated Pension Fund invested in Carbon trading. Since,like everything else in this scam,this makes a lot of money for someone it is probable that the rest of the media has followed suit. In fact it is most likely that a similar reason is preventing the repeal of our stupid Climate Act.

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    On the other hand

    Dad always said be wary of reformed drunks. So Dr Evans was happy to take the guvmint’s shilling in that good old free market when it suited him. Developing FULLCAM, a process that summarily ignored all input by the states. A flawed totalitarian project full of northern hemisphere assumptions and now the good doctor presumes to lecture us on the big conspiracy …. hmmmm

    Has Dr Evans refunded his earnings to the Dept of Climate Change? of course not

    ————————————–
    REPLY: As David has said many times – he used to think CO2 was a problem – then he looked into the evidence. What part of “he changed his mind” don’t you get? — Jo

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    Lynn Clark

    In the section titled “The planet will be OK”, the second sentence, “In the tropics it will have almost no effect, while elsewhere it will be equivalent to moving a few tens of kilometers closer to the equator”, should probably say “farther from” or “further from”, not “closer to”.

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    Ross James

    I know and recognise that some of the references and links in support of a sound reasoned argument are often looked upon with scorn around here. That’s one of the reasons why I put my identity up. You are conversing with a fellow Australian and one with a human face.

    In my post further up (finally released courtesy of Jo) is the paper comparing models to reality (Fingerprint study of increasing moisture content). I clearly presented evidence that increasing moisture content in the atmosphere are in line with model inter-decade predictions.

    CO2 as in the RAW physics of radiative forcing is supported by Dr David Evans. Where we diverge is over the issue of water vapour and its increase. In a warming world these feedbacks are positive (water vapour). It amplifies the RAW CO2 estimates of increase (.5 degree Celsius at present ppm of 390/395ppm). By itself in a dry atmosphere CO2 radiative feedbacks does not increase temperature much at all. The process of warming even further is subject to CO2 concentration and over longer time scales.

    When rain falls over a time duration – heat is returned to ecosystems on the land. This causes further holding in the day temperatures over the night periods. This increased water vapour is a powerful greenhouse effect amplifying the forcing of CO2.

    Anyone in Australia has sighted the increased hydrological activity. The models predicted that increased activity would push further south the tropical MOISTURE band from the North to more Southern locations. Some models predict a slide off effect whereas the increased rains would be more located off the Eastern sea boards of NSW and South-Eastern VIC particularly in Winter.

    With the La Nina (in its death throws at the moment) the recent rains over the last two years have greened Australia as a blessing and curse (floods). On the North Eastern side of Australia the moisture is being fed by cooler seas to the North mixing with the super heated Coral Seas. This cycle of La Nina will end eventually- weakening right now. This is where the cooler state of the ocean mixes with the warmer seas. New evidence shows this is a heat pump whereby the ocean sequesters much of the higher warmer temperatures into our oceans.

    Some Facts:

    This double dip La Nina has been the warmest on record.
    The Coral Sea was the warmest on Record.
    QLD when faced with such former La Nina situations (60s and 70s) brought temperatures down to record cold spells often – drying out the air – drought and little rain over Winter.
    QLD is experiencing the mildest Winters on record.

    Australia has experienced record rains in the last two years. The above mentioned combined then with empirical evidence, models that show these trends and close hand experience of this changing weather pattern affecting our climate at present is what one would expect on a warming earth.

    QLD is unique in the world as we are at the sway and impacts of both La Nina and EL Ninos most likely more then any other part of the globe. Our rains seem to dependent on these events in climate.

    All the above proves the theory yet again – the planet is warming when coupled to the above listed facts as evidence. The sad part is thus: When EL Ninos return QLD may return to the dryer conditions as we all know well. These forces of earth’s great heat pumps (oceanic and air currents) increases and decreases the hydrological cycles, regional cooling and warming. However heat pumps require extra energy – the impact of CO2s increasing ppm (just a little extra year by year) is priming those pumps – remember Australia has had RECORD rains in two short years. No other precedent exists in our records since European habitation began. I did not say we have never had record flooding in LIMITED regional areas. It is the level of rains over the two period that breaks all records!

    Anyone who has sense of reality beyond the politics and conspiracy theories can see this. It is a brave new world we all face.

    That lends to the next question: What do we do about it? The best path for us is to finally reach agreement that something’s are a miss with the events we see. Perhaps only then we can work together to overcome the obstacles for a better tomorrow rather then fight each other over the validity of certain graphs.

    Ross J.

    —————

    [ROSS, it helps if you refer to papers by their name (so we can remember and not have to hunt them in past comments). It also helps if you post abstracts like this – because it appears you did not read the abstract.

    Santer et al 2007 Identification of human-induced changes in atmospheric moisture content
    Data from the satellite-based Special Sensor Microwave Imager
    (SSM/I) show that the total atmospheric moisture content over
    oceans has increased by 0.41 kg/m2 per decade since 1988.
    Results
    from current climate models indicate that water vapor increases of
    this magnitude cannot be explained by climate noise alone. In a
    formal detection and attribution analysis using the pooled results
    from 22 different climate models, the simulated ‘‘fingerprint’’
    pattern of anthropogenically caused changes in water vapor is
    identifiable with high statistical confidence in the SSM/I data.
    Experiments in which forcing factors are varied individually suggest
    that this fingerprint ‘‘match’’ is primarily due to humancaused
    increases in greenhouse gases and not to solar forcing or
    recovery from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Our findings
    provide preliminary evidence of an emerging anthropogenic signal
    in the moisture content of earth’s atmosphere.

    Santer did not find an increase in moisture where it matters – which is 10km up above the tropics. He was looking over the oceans and at the total column of water vapor, not the water vapor from 8 – 12km up. They argue from ignorance as well “we can’t explain it except with CO2”.
    This paper is irrelevant and poorly thought out. the models get their main predictions wrong. Who cares if they get some other irrelevant things sort of right, in a “pooled sense”. If the extra water vapor is below 8km, it doesn’t increase the greenhouse effect, and it doesn’t fit the fingerprint they predicted in 2006. – Jo]

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      Ross James

      You have the statement in this post: DO Not Approve – why?

      The entire thing is not a cut and paste from a CSIRO or BOM report about the state of climate.

      These are all my own words. However the latest climate statement concur as support of that post.

      These are patterns observed in QLD over 50 years (from child to adult).

      They support the fact: Climate Change is real is not of necessity always proven by some rudimentary graph. Our Climate has shifted to EXTREMES of wet and dry severe events in line with Climate Change models and a warming world.

      As I’ve said: “Only a fool would deny we do not have higher moisture content in the atmosphere in a warming world”

      Ross J.

      ———————–

      REPLY: Ross, one of the mods wrote “do not approve” in order to hold that comment so I would notice it. It’s approved with my inline reply. –– Jo

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      Mark D.

      Ross says:

      When rain falls over a time duration – heat is returned to ecosystems on the land. This causes further holding in the day temperatures over the night periods. This increased water vapour is a powerful greenhouse effect amplifying the forcing of CO2.

      By what process is this “heat returned to the ecosystems on the land”?

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    Ross James

    Hansen Predictions featured predominately under this thread:

    Download the GHCN raw data used (but not owned, controlled, or manipulated) by Hansen/GISS and run it through even a crude hand-rolled temperature anomaly gridding/averaging program, you will get results surprisingly close to the results published by NASA/GISS.

    No manipulation, homogenation, or adjustments required — just run the raw data through what is basically a glorified averaging procedure and you get Hansen’s results.

    Try all of them against Hansen:

    http://www.moyhu.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/hansens-1988-predictions-js-explorer.html

    This should bury once and for all the “urban-myths” concerning his predictions.

    Ross J.

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    cwon14

    This was to my estimation the best summary article describing AGW politcal motivations that I have ever read. I’ve followed the topic and related since the 1970’s while at University.

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    Paul R

    That was a really good article and described the regulating class perfectly, I prefer to call them the masters of the universe myself.

    Here’s an article where a master regulator is talking up the man flavoured profile of CO2, from the fair and balanced SMH.
    I hope Julia see’s this and puts a price on this light carbon stuff.

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/carbon-emissions-hit-a-new-record-20120313-1uyk8.html

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

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

    Right on!

    Now, in respect of the situation here in Australia (highest ‘performing’ of the OECD countries 😉 let’s just add a little modern demographic context to the aforesaid:

    “Since the election of Rudd in November 2007, public administration, education, and health sector jobs have accounted for nearly six out of 10 of the 760,000 jobs created, instead of the longer-term two out of 10. This is why unemployment is not running at 7 per cent. ”

    http://afr.com/p/opinion/labor_votes_leaking_away_GDPOP0lPqL9318TQWsoHhN

    And so, Hey Presto, now you all know precisely where all that ‘support’ for the Greens, a carbon tax and Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is coming from……

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    gai

    Dr Evans,

    Very nicely put together. However the “regulating class” has been around for a long long time and we are seeing the culmination of their long term plans. They are called Milner’s Kindergarten, the Round Table Group, the Fabien Society, The London School of Economics, the Rhodes Scholars…. None of this “just evolved” It got a good boot in the rear from these groups intent on world dominance.

    Today you find ex-President Bill Clinton, ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and World Trade Organization director Pascal Lamy all giving seminars at the London School of Economics, a school founded by the Webbs who also founded the Fabian Society. George Bernard Shaw another co-founder, has quite a bit to say about their philosophy: SEE: http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=7948

    The Fabian stained glass window recently installed at the London School of Economics also tells you about this group and their long term agenda. It is telling that the window was “lost” for years and just recently was “found” See: http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/freedomcontent.cfm?fuseaction=fabianwindow&refpage=issues

    Pascal Lamy launches new LSE programme: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2001/pascal_lamy.aspx

    Pascal Lamy on Global Governance:
    http://theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=5740
    http://theglobaljournal.net/article/view/56/

    Bill earns an ovation at LSE: “… Bill Clinton, received a standing ovation when he spoke about the philosophy….” http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2001/clinton.aspx

    So where did Bill Clinton get that philosophy???
    “…Clinton named Quigley as an important influence on his aspirations and political philosophy in 1991…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley

    Carroll Quigley

    “….For years I have told my students that I have been trying to train executives rather than clerks…. executive capacity can be taught, but it cannot be taught by an educational program that emphasizes knowledge and only knowledge. Knowledge must be assumed as given, and if it is not sufficient the candidate must be eliminated. But the vital thing is understanding. This requires possession of techniques that, fortunately, can be taught…..” From The Evolution of Civilizations http://www.carrollquigley.net/

    Just the name of that book sends shivers down my spine especially when you link it to the LSE promoted “Third Way” (just do a search, you will get an eye full!)

    The following from WIKI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley

    In The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden (1981), Quigley traces the history of a secret society founded in 1891 by Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Milner.

    “..This society has been known at various times as Milner’s Kindergarten, as the Round Table Group, as the Rhodes crowd, as The Times crowd, as the All Souls group, and as the Cliveden set. … Those persons who have used the other terms, or heard them used, have not generally been aware that all these various terms referred to the same Group. It is not easy for an outsider to write the history of a secret group of this kind, but, since no insider is going to do it, an outsider must attempt it. It should be done, for this Group is, as I shall show, one of the most important historical facts of the twentieth century….” The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden (1981)

    From Quigley’s one-volume history of the twentieth century entitled Tragedy and Hope (1966}

    “….There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the Radical right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other group, and frequently does so. I know of the operation of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records…..

    ….It was this group of people, whose wealth and influence so exceeded their experience and understanding, who provided much of the framework of influence which the Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers took over in the United States in the 1930s. It must be recognized that the power of these energetic Left wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie…..

    ….The Eighty-third Congress set up in 1953 a Special Reece Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the “most respected” newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worthwhile. An interesting report showing the Left-wing associations of interlocking nexus of tax-exempt foundations was issued in 1954 rather quietly. Four years later, the Reece Committee’s general counsel, Rene A Wormser, wrote a shocked, but not shocking, book on the subject called Foundations: Their Power and Influence.

    ….The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole….. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds’ central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups….” Tragedy and Hope 1966

    Note: Anyone who wants to take this info and flesh it out into an article has my blessings.

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    Ross James

    Moisture and the Hot Spot Issue.

    This maybe buried here but I do hope some will at least take the time to get over their wild over the top conspiracies and investigate good science. It is a solid argument in support of the Hot Spots existence. Clearly some are not keeping up with the science and investigating thoroughly the trends in science. The single argument that we may not see a 2 to 3 degrees Celsius increase by the end of this century is getting weaker and weaker as valid science argument.

    Santer did not find an increase in moisture where it matters – which is 10km up above the tropics. He was looking over the oceans and at the total column of water vapor, not the water vapor from 8 – 12km up. They argue from ignorance as well “we can’t explain it except with CO2”. This paper is irrelevant and poorly thought out. the models get their main predictions wrong. Who cares if they get some other irrelevant things sort of right, in a “pooled sense”. If the extra water vapor is below 8km, it doesn’t increase the greenhouse effect, and it doesn’t fit the fingerprint they predicted in 2006. – Jo]

    This 8km – 12 km limit – I think you mean high altitude cloud structures in the upper atmosphere which is indeed water vapour.

    [No. I mean water vapor. If I meant clouds, I would say “clouds” – Jo]

    This paper concerning increasing water vapour is not irrelevant at all. Water vapour is the most dominant greenhouse gas. The greenhouse effect or radiative flux for water is around 75 W/m2 while carbon dioxide contributes 32 W/m2 (Kiehl 1997). These proportions are confirmed by measurements of infrared radiation returning to the Earth’s surface (Evans 2006). Water vapour is also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and a major reason why temperature is so sensitive to changes in CO2.

    [Tell me something I don’t know? – Jo]

    Unlike external forcings such as CO2 which can be added to the atmosphere, the level of water vapour in the atmosphere is a function of temperature. It being governed by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. The following are all signs of increased water vapour and some appear to be counter intuitive to global warming. The hydrological cycle goes on steriods in a warming world: Extra water is added to the atmosphere, it condenses and falls as rain or snow within a week or two. If moisture was sucked out of the atmosphere, evaporation would restore water vapour levels to ‘normal levels’ in a short time.

    [Not to the whole water column equally. The IPCC assume relative humidity would remain constant at all altitudes. There is no evidence to back up that assumption. Evaporation does not mean H2O gets all the way up to 10km – Jo]

    Water Vapour as a positive feedback

    As water vapour is directly related to temperature, it’s also a positive feedback – in fact, the largest positive feedback in the climate system (Soden 2005). As temperature rises, evaporation increases and more water vapour accumulates in the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, the water absorbs more heat, further warming the air and causing more evaporation. When CO2 is added to the atmosphere, as a greenhouse gas it has a warming effect. This causes more water to evaporate and warm the air to a higher, stabilized level. So the warming from CO2 has an amplified effect.

    How much does water vapour amplify CO2 warming? Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 would warm the globe around 1°C. Taken on its own, water vapour feedback roughly doubles the amount of CO2 warming. When other feedbacks are included (eg – loss of albedo due to melting ice), the total warming from a doubling of CO2 is around 3°C (Held 2000).

    [That’s good Ross, you’ve been reading my blog posts finally? – Jo]

    Back to this this hot spot you say is not found and does not exist. Clearly after wading through some 50 papers on this subject I find it rather disconcerting and a disservice to science when it is stated this is a AGW (some implied CO2 forcing) signal showing up at the Tropics. It is NOT! It is simply a feedback that we see in warming world at the Tropics.

    [That sentence was not coherent. Try again. – Jo]

    A great deal of the confusion surrounding the issue of temperature trends in the upper troposphere comes from the mistaken belief that the presence or lack of amplification of surface warming in the upper troposphere has some bearing on the attribution of global warming to man-made causes.

    Increasing solar influence, we would not expect the lower atmosphere to warm through at all levels. Increasing the greenhouse effect should warm the surface and troposphere, but cool the lower stratosphere.

    In the doubled CO2 scenario, there is a pronounced cooling of higher altitudes, i.e. the stratosphere, and this feature is entirely absent in the +2% solar scenario.

    http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/04/18/stratospheric-cooling/

    Bring on the IPCC AR4 WG1

    Climate “skeptics” along with Dr David Evans apparently became convinced that the “hot spot” in Figure 9.1c was the fingerprint of anthropogenic warming the IPCC was referring to, rather than stratospheric cooling coupled with tropospheric warming.

    The mistaken belief in “skeptic” circles is that the existence of anthropogenic warming somehow hinges on the existence of the tropospheric “hot spot”- it does not. Period. Tropospheric amplification of warming with altitude is the predicted response to increasing radiative forcing from natural sources, such as an increase in solar irradiance, as well. Stratospheric cooling is the real “fingerprint” of enhanced greenhouse vs. natural (e.g. increased solar) warming.

    [You said it yourself. The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, the most important feedback is water vapor. Now you want me to believe it isn’t important if the water vapor is not rising in the upper troposphere — the only place where it would matter? As for the rest … We didn’t “become convinced of anything” – we just quoted the CCSP Report. They said “fingerprint” over and over. On the hot spot prediction graphs they said “Well mixed Greenhouse Gases” I’m quoting exactly. — Jo]

    REPEAT: This diagram is NOT a fingerprint of AGW (This is not to be confused with fingerprint data studies. I think this is where some confusion arises. SEE Wikipedia for the real meaning of fingerprint studies – these studies ocurr in all science based based bands of endeavour. This is all about stratospheric cooling coupled with tropospheric warming.

    Monckton serves as a useful example of getting things wrong, claiming:

    “the models predict that if and only if Man is the cause of warming, the tropical upper air, six miles above the ground, should warm up to thrice as fast as the surface, but this tropical upper-troposphere “hot-spot” has not been observed…”

    This claim was also made in the NIPCC “skeptic” report (Section 3.4), which was signed off on by such supposedly “serious” contrarians as Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer.

    [Thanks. They are all right. Good scholars. – Jo]

    (Randel 2006, Sherwood 2008). Although these attempts have managed to reconcile the observational data with theoretical and model expectations within overlapping uncertainty intervals, the real world behavior of the troposphere is still unclear (Bengtsson 2009, Thorne 2010).

    NOTE: REAL TIME DATA READING on a contigious basis of the Hot Spot is PROVING difficult. YOU CANNOT imply because we do have contigious data the hot spot cannot be found. It has been found!

    Allen and Sherwood sought to side step the problems associated with the radiosonde data entirely, and examined the “dynamical relationship known as the thermal-wind equation, which relates horizontal temperature gradients to wind shear”. Thermal wind speed data, in contrast to the temperature data, lacked many of the systematic adjustment issues and other errors, and were used as a proxy for temperature. Allen and Sherwood found that the troposphere appeared to be warming in reasonable agreement to theoretical and modeling expectations.

    http://i51.tinypic.com/35mgjr6.png

    [Oh yes. And we all think we should throw out the flat thermometer readings and use wind shear measurements to measure the temperatures. Oh yes Ross, we believe you. We do. Who wouldn’t? /sarc – Jo]

    The above is the Vertical profile of tropical mean temperature trends. Trends reflect the mean change in temperature (in K per decade) between 20° N and 20° S for the period 1979–2005, obtained from radiosonde temperature measurements5 (blue and green colours), climate models8 (dashed orange, with grey shading indicating 2-sigma range) and the new reconstructions from radiosonde winds4 (pink, with error bars indicating 2-sigma range). The surface temperature change11 from 1979–2005 (grey asterisk) and the vertical profile inferred from the moist adiabatic lapse rate (dashed yellow) are also shown. The model range was derived by scaling the model vertical trend behaviour (which has been shown to be tightly constrained8) and its uncertainties by the surface trend. Prior to 2007, only the HadAT and RATPAC estimates existed, and a case could be made for a fundamental discrepancy between modelled and radiosonde observed behaviour. (Thorne 2008)

    Changes in the sea surface temperature threshold for tropical convection:

    Nathaniel C. Johnson & Shang-Ping Xie

    Nature Geoscience 3, 842–845 (2010) doi:10.1038/ngeo1008

    Received 09 August 2010 Accepted 11 October 2010 Published online 07 November 2010

    They examined trends in tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and precipitation, which have direct implications for the behavior of the vertical tropical tropospheric temperature profile:

    As the SST threshold for convection is tied to convective instability, this threshold must be strongly related to the tropical upper-tropospheric temperature. Observations show that tropospheric temperatures in the tropics approximately follow a moist-adiabatic temperature profile, which suggests an adjustment of upper-tropospheric temperatures in response to surface temperatures in the tropics. This hypothesis of moist-adiabatic lapse rate (MALR) adjustment predicts a close covariability between the SST threshold and tropical mean SST. If true, the variability and long-term trend of the SST threshold may reveal important information about the variability and trends in the tropical troposphere.

    As a result of warming at the sea surface, air temperatures rise most at high altitudes. (Sobel 2010) Tropical convection and thus precipitation is heavily dependent on sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Thus the absence of increased precipitation is indicative of stability upwards through the troposphere, which suggests that the upper tropical troposphere is indeed warming faster than surface temperatures.

    The similarity between the trends of SST and the SST threshold for convection in [the following figure] is consistent with approximate MALR adjustment in observations and inconsistent with reduced upper tropospheric warming relative to the surface, as indicated in some observational data sets. Although the statistical uncertainty of 30-year trends is rather high, the clean relationship between the SST threshold and tropical mean SST at all timescales in both observations and models increases confidence that the tropical atmosphere is warming in a manner that is broadly consistent with theoretical MALR expectations.

    http://i53.tinypic.com/68g2vc.png

    The effective degrees of freedom in the 95% confidence interval calculations account for the lag-1 autocorrelation in the residual time series. (Johnson 2010)

    Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere in which mildest J.R. Christy participated.

    Convening Lead Author: Tom M. L. Wigley, NSF NCAR
    Lead Authors: V. Ramaswamy, NOAA; J.R. Christy, Univ. of AL
    in Huntsville; J.R. Lanzante, NOAA; C.A. Mears, Remote Sensing
    Systems; B.D. Santer, DOE LLNL; C.K. Folland, U.K. Met Office

    Thorne et al. (2011). They conclude that:

    “It is concluded that there is no reasonable evidence of a fundamental disagreement between tropospheric temperature trends from models and observations when uncertainties in both are treated comprehensively.”

    [Oh Right. And that is conclusive eh? That’s “90% certain” were headed to hell in a handbasket remember. Which part of “we can’t not-find the hot spot if we include all the uncertainties” is convincing for you Ross? It’s very convincing for me. It tells me they are not even clutching at straws. They have less than nothing and are crawling desperately through convoluted vague sentences looking for an escape –Jo ]

    Is this the “final word” on amplified tropospheric warming? Of course not. [Ross! I didn’t know you did satire? Bravo – Jo] When there is an apparent discrepancy between “models” and observations, that often (but not always) means there is a discrepancy between general, theoretical meteorological expectations and the observational data. It’s not a case of trying to reconcile the observations with climate models, but rather trying to reconcile observational data (which often have well known biases) with our physics-based understanding of the climate system.

    Portions and Refs: The Way Things Break.

    Ross J.

    ——————-
    Ross, which part of physics says that water that evaporates from the ocean has to rise all the way up to 10km? – Jo

    PS: Dear Ross, you’ve been reading all these papers, it’s very dedicated, thanks. You don’t happen to be part of a university or CSIRO climate division do you? Just curious?

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      Ross James,

      have you ever considered the bathtub heat effect?

      I have been very sick the last few days therefore have made me unusually sensitive to room temperature changes.

      When i take a very warm bath I close the door and window and not use the exhaust fan the last few days because the moisture laden air in the room came from the water in the bathtub.In the the effort to keep the temperature difference between the water I was in to the air i moved into.

      This allows me to dry up and dress before I open the door.If I had not done this and used the exhaust fan i would be miserable and possibly shaking violently before I dressed up or dive under the beds blanket in the effort to warm up.

      Do you understand why having a high warm room humidity works so well? Have you even been in the tropics in your lifetime and in dry deserts to be able to see the difference between the awesome heat absorbing water vapor has over feeble CO2? The very slight changes in the water vapor amount in the atmosphere is far greater than even the suggested capability of CO2 molecular warming as considered by the IPCC.

      Water Vapor “average” concentration is between 10,000 to 40,000 ppm while CO2 is he he he… 400 ppm.

      I keep wondering why you miss the vast gulf between the two?

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    sophocles

    Dr Evans said:

    The threat of a bureaucratic coup is perhaps receding, but will be revived if the climate warms, or if it is perceived to warm.

    ===========================================================
    … to which I would add: or if it cools or is perceived to cool. They
    won’t go away and any change will be an excuse to be seized upon.

    The solar physicists are sure the sun is going into another solar minimum.
    So far they think it will be about the same as Dalton Minimum of 1790-1830,
    which coincided with noticable cooling. Significant cooling has accompanied
    all solar minima from the Wolf, Sporer, and Maunder to the Dalton.

    If the cooling is strong and the astronomers are correct, then it will become quite cold by 2030-2040. One thing we can rely on is the reappearance of the Regulating Class—to “save the planet” once again. Only it will be to prevent the advent of another ice age—the same as it was in 1975. The cure will remain the same.

    As Dr Evans quoted: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

    It has been well said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

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    Pooh, Dixie

    “a confluence of vested interests.” The Politics of AGW, October 28, 2008
    “More likely a convergence (or confluence) of Interests that has the same message.”
    http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=globalwarming&thread=192&post=3868

    “…a new bureaucracy…”: See “Diktat”; recommended neologism, “Diktatorship”. (Neologism, other than in the sense of psychiatry.)

    “…unelected group of global bureaucrats”: Scope Creep

    “Name-calling by members of the regulating class is so rife that it often replaces content entirely.” Get with the program! Alinsky, Saul. Rules for Radicals. Vintage, 1989. Ridicule. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

    “The Skeptics Are Winning” A replacement is in progress under the guise of “Sustainability”: UNEP: Agenda 21

    “…the Internet trumps the mainstream media.” Hoist by one’s own petard: Extended Peer Community, Ravetz

    “The coup by the regulating class would have allowed them to tax the world’s wealth as they pleased.” Re: The Politics of “AGW” ; The Command Economy, Oct 28, 2008
    http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=globalwarming&thread=192&post=3867

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    The question that I have not resoleved, at least in my head, is “who benefits”. The petty interests of government-funded scientists, the interests of the wind and p/v lobby, the interests of the carbontaxmongers, are just not enough.

    Plus, I find it quite bizarre that the US is effectively split along partisan lines, the Democrats masquerading under a “European” approach. Or, for that matter that coal exporting Australia voted to shoot itself in the foot. Or that the UK decided to sink under the weight of quasi worthless windmills. I am quite familiar in my bankrupt country with the many methods polticians can be “influenced”, and I don’t think Greek polticians are the exception in this matter.

    There appears to be central coordination in the new religion in the making and while neither Al Gore nor Pachauri are …German, I suspect the very same crowd behind the Potsdam Climate Institute, along with whoever has an interest in giving the West, the English speaking West, a competitive disadvantage.

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    gai

    This is a good video with a very simple illustration of how the regulating class works in the USA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su4PwZCWUdg&feature=relmfu

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    BigWaveDave

    Great article. FYI I just noticed your last sentence of second paragraph under “The Sceptics are Winning”; “Without the Internet, the meme of manmade global warming almost certainly be dominant and the coup at Copenhagen would have succeeded.”, seems to be missing a “would”.

    Dave

    —————————————————————
    Fixed thanks Dave – Mod

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    […] http://www.sintef.no/upload/Teknologi_og_samfunn/Teknologiledelse/SINTEF%20Report%20A24071,%20Consensus%20and%20Controversy.pdf&nbsp;   Global Warming: A Critique of the Anthropogenic Model and its Consequences  (Geoscience Canada, Volume 38, Number 1, pp. 41-48, March 2011) – Norman R. Paterson    The paper states that: “According to popular belief, recent global warming has been caused largely by greenhouse gases, primarily CO2, accruing in the atmosphere, and man is responsible for most of the ~120 ppm increase in CO2 over the last 100 years. This article cites a number of recent peer- reviewed scientific papers, and finds that contrary arguments by a growing body of scientists are generally supported by better empirical data than those that favour the ‘anthropogenic warming’ hypothesis. These arguments invoke the effects of solar irradiance and ocean–atmosphere interactions, both of which have been shown to have warming effects at least as great as those claimed for CO2, and to be based on sound, well-understood scientific theory. Furthermore, the global warming models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others have in some cases been shown to be incorrect and contrary to current temperature statistics. For  PROJECT’NO.’ REPORT’NO.’ VERSION’    The paper concludes by stating:     “As a preliminary conclusion of this chapter we simply note that there are strong scientific currents of dissent and continuing questioning on most aspects of climate change and anthropogenic global warming, and it happens also to a large extent in the peer-reviewed mainstream journals of “normal science.” Thus the claim of a near 100 % consensus and lack of dissent on key aspects of AGW is simply not true, and likewise, the claim that “mainstream science” is closed off to dissenting voices is also not true.”    The truth is their is no scientific consensus that co2 is the primary cause of catastrophic climate change. Over a 1000 scientific papers cite the sun and ocean currents as having an equal or greater impact on the climate than co2 does. Moreover, over the past 16 years or more there has been no rise in global temperatures despite the rise in co2. Condemning humans to a slow motion economic suicide and genocide by denying them access to affordable and reliable energy from the abundant fossil fuel resources is despicable. Power to the people not the powerful politicians, their crony green capitalists and environmental movement friends and so called climate change “scientists” whose catastrophic climate change predictions have been proven by reality to be false.     http://joannenova.com.au/2012/03/climate-coup-the-&#8230; […]

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    DirkH

    archaeopteryx
    March 25, 2012 at 6:58 pm · Reply
    “There appears to be central coordination in the new religion in the making and while neither Al Gore nor Pachauri are …German, I suspect the very same crowd behind the Potsdam Climate Institute, along with whoever has an interest in giving the West, the English speaking West, a competitive disadvantage.”

    GLOBE.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLOBE
    (headquartered in the same building as The Fabian Society)
    GLOBE is trilateral and made up of parliamentarians from US, EU, Japan , of all parties.

    GLOBE == SPECTRE

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    […] the importance of the Internet in really saving the planet and helping to disseminate the truth, read Climate Coup-The Politics (How the regulating class is using bogus claims about climate change to […]

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