What does it take to be a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science? Apparently, making wildly exaggerated predictions that are already known to be wrong, calling people names, and having a thin grip on the scientific method is just the stuff the Academy is looking for. Who knew? Science used to be about seeking the truth.
Tim Flannery
The Australian Academy of Science thinks that it can give the besieged Tim Flannery more credibility. Instead, they pour their own credibility down the sink. If making predictions that are wrong and exaggerated, and following fashions of scientific groupthink is “good science”, who next will make the hallowed list of “Fellows” — Cate Blanchett? Clive Hamilton? Charles Manson?
Hailing people who achieve in Science Communication might be fine, but it is not communicating science when their predictions don’t fit the real world and they won’t change the theory. The prophesies of Tim are a religion. (See “Help! How you can tell a scientist from a non-scientist”.)
Now every time Flannery makes a statement like these below, it can carry the AAS logo:
For the first time, this global super-organism, this global intelligence will be able to send a signal, a strong and clear signal to the earth. And what that means in a sense is that we can, we will be a regulating intelligence for the planet, I’m sure, in the future … And lead to a stronger Gaia, if you will, a stronger earth system”. ABC The Drum (No record available?)
Source: IPA Tim Flannery the prophet
‘This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, as a living organism, at some sort of level.’
‘Picture an eight-storey building by a beach, then imagine waves lapping its roof,‘ The Age, 2006
‘It’s hardly surprising that beaches are going to disappear with climate change, National Climate Change Forum, (see here)
‘Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis.‘ 2004
“The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.” March 2008
Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane would ‘need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.’ June 2007
‘dams no longer fill even when it does rain‘ New Scientist 2007, ABC landline
(Melbourne Dams 65% | Sydney Dams 95% | Brisbane Dams 88% | Adelaide Dams 53%)
His grasp of the scientific method is tenuous:
In science, ”a theory is only valid for as long as it has not been disproved“… (The Weather Makers, 2005, p2)
Vincent Gray dryly replied: If I state that Flannery will go to a special monkey heaven when he dies, who could ever disprove that?
How many favors has Flannery done science communication? The reputation of science?
Flannery says we need “a clear and level-headed discussion“, but he calls those who disagree with him “deniers“, and likens Nobel Physics Prize winners to “flat earthers“ who say “the climate isn’t changing“, even though no serious skeptical scientist has ever said such a thing. It’s sloppy thinking based on sloppy research and wrapped in hypocrisy and ideology. Flannery is not a man who is even trying to have a scientific conversation. Is this the AAS “spokesman” for science?
How did it come to this? The downfall of another once-great institution
The Academy needs to move with the times. It’s been caught here, another unwitting victim of the government monopsony that distorts the scientific market free of ideas. While our government (and many others) have poured billions into research to find a crisis due to CO2, none of them have paid anything to find the opposite. The scientists of the Academy have been caught napping. There are around 450 Fellows, and 20 of the 21 new appointments are rigorously done, but it only took 6 in the Special Election Committee to recommend “Tim-Flannery”. The only vote is an email one, and there is no proviso for discussion or dissent before the vote. (There used to be when votes were taken at the AGM.)
There would have been some scientists who were outraged by the suggestion that their prestigious fellowship should be shared and diluted with activists who sound careless hyperbolic alarms, but they had no chance to warn the other fellows. Instead, unless a fellow had the time or interest to seek out information from independent scientists on the internet, they would presumably have relied on 1/the multitude of government scientists who have never tried to disprove the theory that CO2 delivers catastrophes, or 2/ the ABC, who admit they simply repeat what the multitude say.
The Academy needs to have open debates in order to advance science. Credibility needs to be earned, rather than surreptitiously awarded via special committees. Anything less and the AAS becomes just another inadvertent tool of one-sided government funding.
The press release:
Science Academy elects distinguished new Fellows March 26th 2012
An international nanophotonics leader and experts in cancer, plant biology, polymers, sensory ecology, mathematics, space science and science communication are among 21 new Fellows to be admitted to the Australian Academy of Science.
Representing Australia’s leading research scientists, the Australian Academy of Science annually honours a small number of Australian scientists for their outstanding contributions to science, by election to the Academy.
The new Fellows hail from institutions around Australia and have made internationally significant achievements in a broad range of scientific disciplines. The youngest is only 39 years of age.
“I warmly congratulate all of our new Fellows for their outstanding contributions to Australia and the world,” said Academy President, Professor Suzanne Cory.
The new Fellows will be admitted to the Australian Academy of Science and present summaries of the work for which they have been honoured at the Academy’s annual three-day celebration, Science at the Shine Dome, on 2 May in Canberra.
…
Professor Timothy Fridtjof Flannery FAA
Environmental sustainability, Macquarie University
Advancing public awareness and understanding of science.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
More information: A whole book of Flannery errors, contradictions and failed predictions
No one has done more to systematically analyze Tim Flannery’s science than Wes Allen.
The Weather Makers Re-examined is the first comprehensive review and critique of Tim Flannery’s
The Weather Makers – the 2005 best seller that propelled him to become the Australian of the Year (2007) and now the Climate Change Commissioner for the Gillard Government.
The tally?
- 23 misinterpretations,
- 28 contradictory statements,
- 31 untraceable or suspect sources,
- 45 failures to reflect uncertainty,
- 66 over-simplications or factual errors,
- 78 exaggerations and over a hundred unsupported dogmatic statements, many of them quite outlandish.
Get your copy from Irenic Publications
“After diagnosing Gaia with a raging life-threatening fever, The Weather Makers prescribes the equivalent of a homeopathic remedy.”
“Flying over Eurasia, Tim Flannery [says he] looked down on the large network of city lights burning “so bright – with so much energy – as to alarm me.” Would he find the darkness over densely populated North Korea more comforting?”
Thanks to Wes Allen for help and research in preparing this post. Thanks to Wes for publishing an excellent resource book. Every school and library in Australia ought to have a copy of it. Why not request it?
———————————————————————
UPDATE: Rafe Campion at Catallaxy finds an excellent quote regarding our not so honorable Academy and what happened the day the committee went to tell him that the long range forecasts were 50:50 likely to be junk…
Please Tim: Fly over North Korea at night.
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We could club together and raise funds for a one-way ticket!
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When he does fly, i hope it’s in a balloon. Anything else is cant. Or, perhaps he could do an Icarus impersonation. I’d pay to see that.
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‘This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, as a living organism, at some sort of level.’
‘Picture an eight-storey building by a beach, then imagine waves lapping its roof,‘ The Age, 2006
‘dams no longer fill even when it does rain‘ New Scientist 2007, ABC landline
WOW, I thought Al Gore held the prize for Stupid. Tim makes him look like a genius and that’s really hard to do.
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Al Gore and Tim Flannery both own waterside properties they live in.
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Yes, and I believe he’s not to popular at Coba Point. Seems his hypocrisy doesn’t only include flying. Here’s a little discussion that Ray Hadley had about the good professor.
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I’ll try the link again.
http://www.2gb.com/?option=com_content&task=view&id=8135&Itemid=90
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As does Greg Combet apparently Dennis. Sophie Mirabella gave a great speech in Parliament questioning why the Minister for Alarmist bullshit had just purchased a beachfront property, soon after the Carbon Dioxide Tax was passed, when everyone living in site of water is apparently needing to do a Noah and start bunging together a bloody ark for the future.
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More of his weird prognostications here on American TV where interestingly it’s the presenter who uses the “global super-organism” phrase.
I confess with some embarrassment to a sense of excitement when I first read Lovelock. The feeling didn’t last long though.
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Jesus H Christ on a chariot, I didn’t think things in Oz could get more unreal. Hurry on next year’s election …
Pointman
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Until now, the Australian Academy of Science was not associated in the public mind with climate alarmism. Through this single, idiotic decision, it has ensured that it will become the subject of ridicule for the next decade and will be identified by the public as part of a conpromised scientific establishment barracking for the Greens’ highly divisive and punitive carbon tax. As the recent Galaxy survey indicates, the AAS can’t afford to further alienate the public, I’d have thought.
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http://www.science.org.au/news/media/8october07.html
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Is it inhabited by Green Earthians?
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Gold pure gold, thanks for the laugh pointman
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I am afraid Pointman us Aussie’s are screwed our oppositon has swallowed the global warming cool aid the same as the government.
Unfortunately no Stephen Harpers in Australia to save us.
Our only hope is that the world comes to realize that global warming is a scam but I am not holding my breath.
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Hi RuKidding.
It’s up to the electorate to get that promise from the Liberals or don’t vote for them.
“Voters in both America and Australia, must force these undertakings out of their respective incoming parties well before election day or they’ll be in danger of voting in another Obama, with a landslide majority. If you don’t make them work for a victory, then they’ll ignore you once they gain power.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/political-fracture-points-and-power-vacuums/
Pointman
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Jesus H Christ on a chariot
…does the H stand for Hansen? 🙂
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G’Day M’Lud. It stands for “Holy”, I’ve always thought. It works best if delivered in the fashion of that immortal cultural icon, Foghorn Leghorn …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE
Pointman
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Aahh! One of history’s great orators.
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Friggin A pointman!
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Cate Blanchett would make an awesome fellow. Her job requires her to pretend and make up crap for a living, too!
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She can stand in front of a smokestack exuding water vapour and scream pollution!
She can do that…
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She can do even better than that. She can stand in front of a picture of a long defunct, hundred or more year old power station with multiple stacks spewing out black smoke, in England, and pretend that it’s in some way linked to what we do here, today, and therefore we need a Carbon-Dioxide Tax. And keep a straight face… Face it, the woman’s brilliant.
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Flannery’s Rules of Bureaucracy? The Climate Scientist’s Mantra
Rule #1: Maintain the problem at all costs! The problem is the basis of power, perks, privileges, and security.
Rule #2: Use crisis and perceived crisis to increase your power and control.
Rule 2a. Force 11th-hour decisions, threaten the loss of options and opportunities, and limit the opposition’s opportunity to review and critique.
Rule #3: If there are not enough crises, manufacture them, even from nature, where none exist.
Rule #4: Control the flow and release of information while feigning openness.
Rule 4a: Deny, delay, obfuscate, spin, and lie.
Rule #5: Maximize public-relations exposure by creating a cover story that appeals to the universal need to help people.
Rule #6: Create vested support groups by distributing concentrated benefits and/or entitlements to these special interests, while distributing the costs broadly to one’s political opponents.
Rule #7: Demonize the truth tellers who have the temerity to say, “The emperor has no clothes.”
Rule 7a: Accuse the truth teller of one’s own defects, deficiencies, crimes, and misdemeanors.
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Well put Peter – you beat me to it, but you are spot on.
But, I would add one more:
Rule #8: Always make definitive pronouncements through a third party, one who acts as an expendable useful idiot.
Thus Flannery defines his own purpose in life.
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I feel I should add Rule#9: Collect mercenary payment.
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Current and past Members/Fellows of AAS, that are proper scientists, must surely be apoplectic at the thought of Fridtjof Flannery being elected a Fellow.
Jo has taken apart his weak, illogical and sometimes laughable pronouncements on more than one occasion.
What does it say about an institution that they would even let him through the front door?
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Barak Obama’s winning of a Nobel Peace price for getting elected president of the USA is the epidemy of prizes to reward a point of view rather than accomplishment. Our own National Academy of Science apparently has its own alternative track for membership so that it too can be populated by the folks with the right point of view. In the world of government beaurocrats where credentials matter more than a body of work showing scientific achievement, Mr. Flannery’s nomination to the Australian Academy of Sciences is just par for the course. Its no wonder technically literate conservatives are more skeptical of big government science than the general public as a whole.
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The advent of the honorary doctorate or other unearned honorariums was one of the most telling harbingers of the death of objective hard science, in favour of advocacy and polemicism. Those of a socialist or communitarian belief system particularly revere celebrity, and are keen to reward themselves for their ideology rather than their often limited accomplishments. Obama’s Nobel Prize was merely the apex of this masturbatory approach to awards for “services” to civil affairs. Flannery’s admission to a supposedly august scientific body merely demeans everything that body purport to stand for, and yet only increases the desire of objective observers to see Flim Flam toppled off his unearned pedestal, landing on his ample and well-fed posterior. Fame whores by any other name.
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Patience people, Flannerys time is yet to come. Just as in Queensland, when the Gillard government is thrown out, Flannery should be made to unwind policies made as a result of his predictions. Following the demolition of Queensland labor Campbell Newman orders Anna Bligh’s husband Greg Withers to kill green schemes
For those in the dark about what happened here, Greg Withers was controversially appointed Director of the Office of Climate Change by his wife when she became Premier.
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Hi Treeman. By Newman not firing him, Withers is not entitled to a large termination bonus. Should he resign however, he gets squat. That saves a lot of taxpayer money in QLD. Clever move really …
Pointman
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Yeah Pointman, a very clever move indeed. There’s more to this with Anna Bligh’s resignation likely to cost Labor $240,000 in electoral funding
Bligh and Queensland labor have been too clever for their own good and we can expect more of the same from the writhing Gillard administration in Canberra.
I used to think that KRudd was the Butterfingers Irving of Australian politics but Bligh and Gillard are gunning themselves down in spades.
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Just on the ECQ payments for votes received, the Labor party must be broke. They spent a fortune on ads during the campaign, and I’m interested to see how broke they really are.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see them come with the begging bowl looking for public sympathy and some funds at some point.
The LNP had big troubles a while back when Beattie was premier due to not getting enough votes and support, I would expect for Labor it is far worse.
I actually think that Bligh quitting before the seat was even declared and counting finished should count as a withdrawal of candidacy rather than the resignation of a sitting MP. As such it should be given to the 2nd place in the votes, or at least redistribute Blighs preference votes.
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On the Labor Party going broke, who’s got Craig Thomson’s credit card?
I don’t think Labor will ever go broke, the union members will pay for everything.
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Actually, it’s priceless. If he fails to resign on a principle, then it was obviously all hyperbowl. If he goes off in, what was it, oh yes, high dungeon then he’ll get nothing. Either way, Newman’s a genius.
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Money
Get away
You get a good job with good pay and you’re okay
Money
It’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team
Money
Well, get back
I’m all right Jack
Keep your hands off of my stack
Money
It’s a hit
Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit
I’m in the high-fidelity first class travelling set
I think I need a Lear jet
Money
It’s a crime
Share it fairly
But don’t take a slice of my pie
Money
So they say
Is the root of all evil today
[ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/p/pink-floyd-lyrics/money-lyrics.html ]
But if you ask for a raise
It’s no surprise that they’re giving none away
“HuHuh! I was in the right!”
“Yes, absolutely in the right!”
“I certainly was in the right!”
“You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising!”
“Yeah!”
“Why does anyone do anything?”
“I don’t know, I was really drunk at the time!”
“I was just telling him, he couldn’t get into number 2. He was asking why he wasn’t coming up on freely, after I was yelling and screaming and telling him why he wasn’t coming up on freely. It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out”
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We don’t need no climate “experts”
We don’t no thought control…….
Pink Floyd may work for a lot of this stuff….
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I’d have thought Brain Damage would suit you and your buddies nicely.
The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me ’till I’m sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There’s someone in my head but it’s not me
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“Source: IPA Tim Flannery the prophet”
You spelt “profit” wrong.
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Clever, I like it!!
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It is now time for the real scientists to stand up and be counted. Several are showing the way but members of these illustrious institutions ought to be revolting, starting with throwing out all current leadership cliques (at least they had a practice run in the Royal Society to have it change it’s previous climate warming nonsense).
Time to remind ourselves of some of the giants of the past who bequeathed us the wonderful knowledge that has allowed us to lift ourselves from drudgery and short lives and who placed science onto it’s (one time) deserved pedestal.
Now the media and politically correct have infiltrated such as the ACS who have now lifted Alchemists whose only skill is in producing luminous bullshit to their (once) hallowed ranks. Enstien, et al. must be rolling in their graves.
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It is now time for the real scientists to stand up and be counted.
They have been….
It`s just the bloody MSM does not report it!
Lindsen, Carter, Plimer, Evans, Choi….
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I saw this written somewhere –
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Its’ from the infamous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion“. Hardly something to cite in polite company!
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Except that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is now widely accepted as a hoax, as will be Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption etc etc etc ad bunkumitum.
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aas@science.org.au
tell them what you think they have done to their reputation.
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I have just send them a science reminder and a quackery alert but I won’t hold my breath with the AAS.
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‘This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, as a living organism, at some sort of level.’
How many of our climate experts subscribe to religions such as Gaiaism? What scientific evidence exists for the ideas of James Lovecock?
To me, this is the elephant in the room. The public at large are not aware that the CAGW dogma has pagan earth worship origins.
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The “Gaia hypothesis” is badly misunderstood by both side of the environmental debate.
The shame is that as an idea, Lovelock’s meme actually commends the radical terraforming of planet Earth by humankind and condemns the most popular environmentalist arguments to the dustbin of obsolete conceptualisations.
To start with the Gaia hypothesis isn’t a hypothesis because it’s tautological and therefore offers no implications that can be empirically tested. So it’s not science.
It’s a metaphor about the evolution of complex systems and humankind’s role in nature. Just like Isaac Newton’s metaphor of the universe as a clock animated a whole century of creative invention and scientific advance, Lovelock’s metaphor is new gestalt for imagining humanity’s relationship to nature — one which might well free us from the regressive ecological “creationism” which is now threatening to stall global human development.
The core proposition of the Gaia metaphor is that the Earth’s systems–geophysical, oceanic, biological, atmospheric and even the electromagnetic envelope beyond the atmosphere act as a single meta-system to regulate a highly stable internal state that is almost ridiculously far from equilibrium. This is exactly what the human body does. Your organs from your skin to your heart, lungs, circulatory systems, gut, etc., work together to maintain a constant state far far from thermodynamic equilibrium. The human body is not an object but a complex system in a constant state of evolution, rather more like reverse waterfall than a static rock. Same with our planet.
The Earth can be thought of as a single living organism, but for one small item…. To qualify as a form of “life” an entity must have a mechanism for reproducing itself.
James Lovelock’s Gaia metaphor postulates that we humans are that reproduction mechanism — that our planet with the recent event of human evolution and with it human conscious awareness is about to flower. Earth is going to seed. Human intelligence and with it vast amounts of genetic information originating from this planet’s evolution over the last circa 800 million years is about to begin the process of colonising the solar system.
Having satisfied the biological requirements for the Earth as a living entity, Lovelock’s meme also suggests Humanity’s role is as the conscious awareness of the planet, metaphorically the cerebral cortex, so to speak. For a billion years of evolutionary gestation, our planet has been unable to be holistically aware of itself, but now — through human culture and science — our biosphere is about to take conscious control of the evolutionary process, which to this point in time was guided by nothing more than random walks and natural selection.
So, the Gaia metaphor is in fact an extremely progressive and optimistic redefining of the meaning of “nature” versus “unnatural” which is antithesis to the reactionary Green creationist concept of conserving “nature” by excluding humans and evolution as transgressive.
If we imagine humankind as the conscious awareness of a planet awakening after a billion years of gestation then obviously we are the will and means for the planet to transform itself into whatever we (it, her, us, God?) conceive the future to be. We are nature, we are the rational mind of the planet.
Sure, humanity will robustly, perhaps violently, debate what our planet’s future should be, but the old pre-Gaiatic ecological arguments of humanity equal “unnatural” and “greed” are rendered irrelevant as a kind of conservationist creationism, atheistic adaptions of the Abrahamic traditions of The Fall from Grace, sin, shame and guilt. The Gaia meme properly recognising humankind’s real, integrated relationship with the Earth, which, metaphorically, is more like the role intentional and rational awareness plays in the life of people and society.
Moreover, the Gaia metaphor allows us to recognise the absolutely unique point in the 6 billion years of Earth’s history the emergence of human civilisation represents. The Gaia metaphor puts us firmly in control of our destiny with a limitless horizon of almost infinite possibilities, progress and hope. Quite the opposite of modern reactionary environmentalism, which has adopted a messianic millenarian stance, ie, a future eco-apocalypse will destroy us all unless we sinners repent and mend our ways.
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Thanks Wes.
Definitely an interesting idea. But it sounds like religion and ideology to me.
Gaism would seem to have nothing to do with global warming or climate change other than explain why the high priests of Gaism are prepared to compromise core scientific principals based on a hyper sensitivity to the real or perceived “health” of the earth. Perhaps they imagine that growth of our species will be “unsustainable” if allowed to continue at present rates and that imposing restrictions on growth (through restrictions on our use of energy) will benefit the earth. Maybe CAGW is simply poppulation control and ideological proselytizing to ensure that the Gaia hypothesis will become actualized.
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http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_un_and_one_world_worship.html
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Which is exactly my point.
Almost no one has actually read James Lovelock’s original book, so we reject the idea based on mischaracterisations by Green propagandists – who haven’t read the book either – but have appropriated the Gaia metaphor as their standard. If we simply reject ideas because Tim Flannery and the Greens latched on to a debauched interpretation first, then we would also deny that the climate changes. Or that the Earth has warmed about 0.7c in the last century. Or that evolution is real. That’s not skepticism, but reactionary tribalism.
Ironically, the Greens have appropriated Lovelock’s Gaia meme without understanding that the Gaia hypothesis authorises humanity — as the metaphorical conscious awareness of the Earth — to transform the planet in whatever manner suits our needs because we ARE the mind of the planet. And if we are the rational mind of the Earth, then we are nature. And if we are nature, then nothing we do can be unnatural….therefore, the Greens are left hanging with no logical basis for their moralising (and hypocritical) Wowserism, or grounds to impose their abnegation of progressive evolution upon, well, the very Earth itself.
The Gaia metaphor implies that human cultural, technological and physical evolution also represents the planet giving birth to a kind of panspermic transfer of Earth’s genetic information to the far corners of our solar system and much later, perhaps the whole galaxy. To facilitate this function, the Earth buried eons of stored solar energy in the form of hydrocarbons for us to spend on the transition from a pre-industrial, agrarian civilisation to an information-based space-faring civilisation colonising the solar system. Kind of like a geological trust fund to kick start our cosmic career…mum really worked hard these last billion years to provide for our (her) future.
So not only are we the conscious awareness of the Earth, but we are also its seed, soon to be children. In this context, the environmental movement is nothing more than modern Luddites, albeit better funded, in a futile attempt to thwart Earth’s inevitable plans for its own naturally unfolding future…
The Gaia hypothesis has nothing to do with God or Goddesses other than Lovelock chose the Greek word for Earth Goddess to popularise his idea. Although, it does not exclude the possibility of a Godhead, but instead privileges anthropomorphic metaphor as a way to visualise vast complexities too large to mentally or verbally grasp in a moment of language or contemplation without the cognitive tool of metaphor. Just like the way modern physics has a mythology for the origins of the universe. We all know how to explain the “modern scientific” explanation of how the universe began to children who looking up at a starry sky ask and hard questions. Where are we? What are stars? Where did we come from?
That’s all the Gaia metaphor really is… a contextualising metaphor about how the next few steps in evolution will unfold now that our civilisation has reach a global scale not only economically, but also in the informatic, cybernetic sense that pretty soon almost every point on the surface of the Earth will be a node on the Internet, with some level of sentience to follow soon after.
Finally, the Gaia meme suggests that the stage of techno-cultural evolution humanity is going through today is a universal evolutionary template, at least for Earth-like planets around sun-like stars. It might well be as inevitable that Earth-like planets — as metaphorically living beings — give birth to extra-planetary civilisation as it is that primordial oceans must tend towards creating proto-cellular life that then evolves towards far more complex life forms that ultimately crawl out of the oceans and colonise the dry continents…
The Gaia model illuminates where we are not only in history, but in geological, aye, even cosmic terms, so chin up fellow Earthians and put your shoulder to the wheel. There’s a long ways to go and no turning back.
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Great! But this is all just an impressive way
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Wes, this is the exact same argument I use against my catastrofarian friends. It is mankind’s duty, even mandate, to release C02 into the atmosphere to counteract earth’s atmospheric carbon death spiral. 350ppm should be celebrated as one of man’s most important achievements over the last 10 000 years.
The very notion that 7 billion people is over-population is absurd. The carrying capacity of the planet is more in the order of trillions. We do not face a land shortage problem going forward. It is simply an energy issue.
The greatest threat we face and the real environmental catastrophe looming for both mankind and the biosphere(man being the stewards of the environment) is global declining sperm counts. It would be a disater of evolution if man’s ability to reproduce became forfeit due to the distraction of our scientific and political elite over the increase of a trace gas which is beneficial to all life.
Even those who advocate for population reduction need to pay attention to this issue. This is not about the desired number of people on the planet. This is the concern over whether or not people will exist on this planet in future generations.
Research this issue. Become familiar with the literature.
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A couple of quotes from the old testament and god said go forth and subdue the world he also said go forth and replenish the world.
To me this says go forth and make the world a good place for humans to live and the other suggests that the world got hammed and it is our task to repopulate it.
The greens need to read those passages as crocodiles do not make for good neighbours.
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All time favourite Flanneryism comes via CAGW believer Andy Pitman:
Maybe Tim can build himself a house on top of Mt Olympus to be ready for the great event. Or perhaps just visit a car yard. When even people on his own side are saying stop going gaga you know the AAAS is likewise in the market for self hugging jackets.
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Obviously Flannery is not alone with all this PR alarmism and twisting words.
From the ABC website today
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Obviously the good folks at the Global Campaign for Climate Action have not actually tried breathing in a forest fire, or experienced an earthquake above magnitude 6 or 7.
Such dramatic statements may cause the twitterati to pause for a microsecond, with little lasting effect. But by drawing such a long conclusion, they most certainly will alienate all those who have managed to survive severe natural disasters in the past.
They are constantly shooting themselves in the foot. I just wish their aim was a bit higher.
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Kevin, looks like an extract from the Protocols of the Elder Zion. Then again, I think the Club of Rome, and even the Free Mason documents would read similar.
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The IPCC has admitted that extreme events are not the result of ‘climate change’. I read this on WUWT, today.
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With no dirty light pollution and provided he is not scared of the dark he may further his understanding of astronomy.
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Or get blown out of the sky for spying – communist or not.
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He may also get a rocket up his arse which i beleive the previous poster was alluding to.
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Dick Smith can pilot the plane. Two birds; one SAM.
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Reality check time… Paul Ehrlich who has predicted doom for the planet for 40 years now – none of his claims have come true or even look remotely plausible after all this time – and remains unrepentant, still believes he will be vindicated. (Or at least many in the environmental movement remain faithful.) Just that he got the timing wrong. Doom is, apparently, still just around the corner.
And it should be noted he is highly respected in academia and by the media. He regularly receives honours, awards and his opinions and views are still sought out. Being serially wrong is not relevant here. What is important is that you have the “correct” idealogical position.
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And if Mr Ehrlich was found to be incorrect and humanity survives and remains vigourous, he would be shattered at the misfortune of it all. There is something ideologically, not to mention pathologically, wrong with those who not only prophesy doom, but also fervently hope and pray for it as a form of personal vindication! People like this are proof that natural selection doesn’t readily apply to humanity- more’s the pity.
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If humanity in its’ beginning survived the Big Bang, how come it can’t survive this little ptoblem?
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Ah, but the big bang wasn’t really an explosion, for there was nothing to explode.
The maths indicates it was more likely to have been a discontinuity in time.
Sort of like God forgetting when he or she last saw the car keys.
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A nice analogy odd that when we look to the centre of the universe where the big bang happened. Rather than a void where all the stuff from the big bang has been dispersed, it is so noisy and full of action that we can not see in.
This would tend to agree with the opposite that the centre is actively creating new matter in an ever growing creation. I think it started with a wimper.
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Yep just around the corner geologically.. So you heathens prepare to meet your doom in 40k years or so.
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Give them a chance Bob, “they” can get it done much quicker than that.
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If the Academy is handing out Fellowships perhaps they would consider me?
I was incapable of handing in my scientific reports on time, usually because Uni bar night was Thursday & the deadline was Friday. Usually I omitted the either/or abstract, introduction, materials & methods, conclusion because by Friday morning I didn’t give a f*** anyway & was hung over or still high from the night before.
I also once skipped a mid term biochemistry exam to go surfing, but in my defence the surf was epic.
I was also once briefly accused of plagiarism because I put the references at the end of the sentence rather than breaking up the sentence on multiple occasions. I had the last laugh though because the marker wrote “This is plagiarism” in red pen & couldn’t rub it out.
I humbly submit myself for consideration as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
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I take it you passed with honours?
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Good enough for the Academy, no?
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Let’s not forget this classic from a Bolt/Flannery interview. We have to believe Tim ‘cos he’s being paid 180,000 bigones a year of taxpayer’s money for part-time telling us the scientific “truth” about cause and cost of future calamities!
“Bolt: On our own, by cutting our emissions, because it’s a heavy price to pay, by 5 per cent by 2020, what will the world’s temperatures fall by as a consequence?
Flannery: Look, it will be a very, very small increment.
Bolt: Have you got a number? I mean, there must be some numbers.
Flannery: I just need to clarfy in terms of the climate context for you. If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.”
Meanwhile today: Outgoing Future Fund chair David Murray has described the carbon tax as the worst piece of economic reform he had seen in his life, warning it would be very bad for the economy.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/carbon-tax-worst-economic-reform-says-outgoing-future-fund-chief-20120330-1w21p.html
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Whats Flannery’s salary? $300,000 per year?
What a job!!!
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Well if they`re going to admit Tim Flannery , the Prophet of Gaia to their ranks they may as well just change their name to “The Australian Academy of Post-Normal Science” and be done with it . Then they can start admitting Phrenologists , Alchemists and Astrologists to keep Him company . To commemorate the occasion perhaps they should add a new award to their list ? I suggest the “Lysenko Medal”
A sad day for Australian science and the spirit of scientific enquiry
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1) Clicked post headline.
2) Read opening paragraphs with growing horror.
3) Immediately type Ctrl+F
4) Typed “lyse”
5) Found someone had already made the Lysenkoism connection that I was going to say.
Well spotted, comrade.
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I believe their next nomination will be Ronald McDonald !!
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O/T but Malcolm Miller @ 18 raised this and again for those who don’t always have time to follow all the links I felt it important enough to do a C & P. We need to be able to reassure the poor gullible people who write to blogs saying we must “do something” (like impose a carbon dioxide tax)to stop floods, droughts, bushfires, tornadoes, cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis and every other natural disaster one can name! Maybe they’ll take notice of their beloved peer-reviewed UNIPCC!
Thanks and due acknowledgement to Roger Pielke Jr. for the following.
“IPCC Confirms: We Do Not Know If The Climate Is Becoming More Extreme”
“A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change”
“The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC — they have gotten the issue just about right, where “right” means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest — sometimes it just takes a little while.
A few quotable quotes from the report (from Chapter 4):
“There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
“The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
“The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”
The report even takes care of tying up a loose end that has allowed some commentators to avoid the scientific literature:
“Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”
With this post I am creating a handy bullshit button on this subject (pictured above). Anytime that you read claims that invoke disasters loss trends as an indication of human-caused climate change, including the currently popular “billion dollar disasters” meme, you can simply call “bullshit” and point to the IPCC SREX report.”
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html
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Quell surprise. Fellowships have been devalued since the release of the Climategate Emails. These shysters nominate each other in turn.
John P Costellas fine commentary on the emails (Climategate Analysis) sheds a light on how the Fellowship scam works.
December 4, 2007: email 1196872660
Mike Mann feels the need to find an award for his mate, Phil Jones. This episode—and its hilarious aftermath—offers amazing insights into the characters of these two ring-leaders; but it also demonstrates the fallacy of relying on fancy-sounding awards and memberships to denigrate the criticisms of all those who are not “in the club”. First, the menu:
Jones selects his own award:
June 2, 2008: email 1212435868
Mike Mann writes to Phil Jones, reporting his progress in nominating Jones for the award that Jones himself selected:
June 8, 2008: email 1212924720
Mike Mann writes to Phil Jones, on the issue most dear to his heart:
Jones should take the hint: Mann will be wanting the favor to be paid back!
Mann is not wrong: such dubious measures of “worth” really are used for such purposes. Of course, in the corrupted field of climate science, such citations are not just of dubious value, but completely meaningless, as Mann and his colleagues had complete control over what was published (and hence cited) and what was not, and repeatedly cited each other’s papers.
Mann wants to highlight “contributions” of Jones that he himself has never read!
Or is that an incorrect interpretation of his words?
No, it’s not: he has no idea what is in the papers he wants to cite.
June 11, 2008: email 1213201481
Phil Jones replies to Mike Mann, on Mann’s nomination of Jones:
Again, Jones reveals that there is no electronic archiving system at the Climatic Research Unit. Mike Mann:
Mann dishonestly ignores Jones’s own disclaimer that the figure of 62 is completely wrong, and decides to use it regardless. Is there any greater insight into the absolute lack of integrity of this man?
In a later email:
So he doesn’t even feel the need to have a broad understanding of the papers, but will let Jones write his own accolades of himself. Jones replies:
Note that Jones does not take the opportunity of asking Mann to use the correct figure of H = 52 rather than 62. Jones is implicitly going along with Mann’s deception of the American Geophysical Union.
Mann:
Mann assumes that Jones would have scanned in the papers, simply for the purpose of his own nomination for an award—but previously argued against scanning in a paper for the purposes of critical review by a skeptic. It is good to understand the priorities of these “scientists”.
January 29, 2009: email 1233249393
Phil Jones writes to Ben Santer about some delightfully unexpected news:
It is remarkable that Mike Mann has not already booked Jones’s flights and accommodation!
May 16, 2009: email 1242749575
Let us get now some further insight into the fundamental character of Mike Mann. He writes to Phil Jones:
Now we know why he was so adamant about securing Jones’s award!
If he does say so himself.
Does any remnant of doubt remain that awards in this field are absolutely and completely meaningless? Mann may as well pin a gold star on his own chest!
Jones understands the obligation:
Mann:
Later, Jones sends an update:
But that would be impossible!
What with all the work that these fine fellows (and Fellows) were busy with—lining up to award each other in every conceivable combination, with all the paper-work involved—it is no surprise that that they didn’t have enough time to properly document or archive their data or computer programs!
Mann:
==================================================================
Now that we know how these Fellowship thingies work, we should try to find out who nominated the Shaman Flannery. It’s a given that some backs were scratched.
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Baa,
Thank you so much for compiling that hall of shame. It is absolutely clear from the sequence above that these so called scientists display no integrity, no morals and egos the size of Wisconsin.
As I stated above- “Fame whores”, the term is almost not derogatory enough for them. I’ll have to get even more creative- perhaps sending them both a statuette with appropriate plaque inscription confirming their “success” in deserving that particular “award” would be appropo- if anything they are overqualified.
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Hrmmm and this is just the CORRUPTION among climate scientists.
Hate to think what happens among the politicians that back CAGW.
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Egos the size of Wisconsin? That must be an east coast americanism that I’m not familiar with. I would have thought “egos the size of Texas” or “Egos the size of Quebec” would be greater accolades of size. Our WA tops them both in size 🙂 but “Western Australia” has less of a poetic ring to it. The ultimate superlative would be “Egos the size of Sakha”, but the world’s largest province is virtually unknown so the effect is lost.
Calling these scientists “Fame whores” is an insult to whores. I’m assuming whores make testable predictions and can guarantee the results of their work. 😀
But seriously, these climategate emails are proof of the middle link in the chain: means, motive, and opportunity. Surely it’s case closed by now.
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Thanks, BH. The two authors of these emails continue to enjoy the benefits of these awards. Contrast that to the ahtletes who compete in the Olympic games. They will have samples taken that can, and will, be used to strip them of their titles if they were found to have cheated, including tests not yet available at the time of the competition.
This is the level of scrutiny imposed on people who are expected to do nothing more than run, swim, jump, be very bendy, and throw things a long way for the benefit of TV viewers.
That the bodies that bestow awards to such ‘scientists’ respond to these emails with….nothing, speaks volumes!
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Thanks for your work to bring this to us, Baa. Further evidence that Mann and Jones, in particular, are mediocre, unethical try-hards, who probably can’t believe their luck in being able to manipulate the UN bureaucracy to create vast professional empires. The corollary is that they will not give up their privileges willingly.
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Coverage on the IPCC report in the register…
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‘Nice by dim Tim’ was a loveable comedic creature created by the Harry Enfield team some years ago.
This talented group of scriptwriters and actors would have been laughed off the stage but for all the wrong reasons if they’d have invented the newly elected AAS character honoured by a once highly-respected organisation!
‘Deranged and clearly demented’ would be a better description for a man who not only has the views that he has but feels no shame in trumpeting them to all and sundry.
That the AAS endorses such off-the-wall sentiments is totally unbelievable but clearly true!
His madness is unfortunate on a personal level. Their insanity is unforgivable on a much more worrying scenario.
The homonym of the AAS may be unfortunate but now appropriate.
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Silence signifies Acceptance or simple Cowardice! RU a member of the AAS?
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O/T but i like how this opens:
(3 pages) 29 March: Indian Express: Greenhouse gases may have loaded early atmosphere
Ancient Earth may have been warmed by the presence of greenhouse gases, which made life possible on our planet, a new study, including Indian origin scientist, has suggested…
“Because the sun was so much fainter back then, if the atmosphere was the same as it is today the Earth should have been frozen,” said lead author Sanjoy Som, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., who conducted the research as part of his UW doctoral work in Earth and space sciences.
He and his coauthors – David Catling and Roger Buick of UW Earth and space sciences; Jelte Harnmeijer, a UW graduate now at the Edinburgh Centre for Low Carbon Innovation in Scotland; and Peter Polivka, a UW graduate student in civil engineering – set out to determine how the ancient atmosphere differed from that of today…
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/greenhouse-gases-may-have-loaded-early-atmosphere/930037/
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So if greenhouse gases in those days of a fainter sun made earth habitable, what will greenhouse gases do with todays brighter sun?
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You so right, JB. It’s obvious that CO2, at 390 ppm, is the primary driver of global temperature, even if there’s no evidence, and the earth is about to become uninhabitable after 4.5 million years. I mean, what else could have caused a spike in lower troposphere temperature in the past 16 years, as measured by the UAH satellite, the only major aberration since accurate, incorruptible measurement became possible 33 years ago?
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Of course, that should be 4.5 billion years …
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Make it more habitable?
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Could you be any less on topic Troll?
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“So if greenhouse gases in those days of a fainter sun made earth habitable, what will greenhouse gases do with todays brighter sun?”
I can tell you what they won’t do JB and that’s cause runaway Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming!
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rather the early Earth was warmed as it had more water and less land:
http://sciencenordic.com/earth-has-lost-quarter-its-water
the assumption that greenhouse gases define the earth temperature is only a hypothesis not supported by much data. the 33°C warming due to greenhouse the same.
I rather think it is the oceans that do the most and the greenhouse gases only small variations around.
As real data is gathering getting more and more precise we see the more and more invalidation of the “all warming is greenhouse” hypothesis.
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when everyone is receiving bribes, it’s no wonder they don’t protest:
30 March: ABC: Carbon tax windfall for coal-fired power stations
Six Victorian coal-fired power generators will get the bulk of $1 billion of Federal Government funding aimed at helping them deal with the introduction of the carbon tax.
Hazelwood Power Station in the Latrobe Valley will get the largest payment of around $266 million this year.
Yallourn Power Station and Loy Yang A will get almost the same amount…
The conservation group Environment Victoria has criticised the payments.
Spokeswoman Kelly O’Shanassy says the carbon tax was intended to reduce emissions from coal fired power generators.
“Then the same Government provides subsidies to keep those power stations going,” she said…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-30/carbon-tax-windfall-for-coal-fired-power-stations/3923076?section=business
30 March: Reuters: Australian brown coal generators snare bulk of $1 bln carbon grants
“The government is implementing measures to underpin a successful energy market transition,” Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said in a statement.
“Cash payments are part of a broader package designed to ensure secure energy supplies as the nation transforms to a low carbon future…
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/australia-carbon-idUKL3E8EU0CQ20120330
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12 hours and not one comment on this.
I saw it get posted by pat, and thought I had better come and explain it, because it somehow seems odd.
No, I says, wait a bit and see if anyone does comment.
Not a thing.
Doesn’t it strike you as somehow odd that the CO2 tax was supposed to raise money for the Government, and yet here they are giving it away to the very people they are supposed to be taxing in an effort to lower their emissions.
Remember all along, (right from when Ross Garnaut did his taxpayer funded tour to spruik how good his tax was) I have been mentioning that the legislation had in it provisions that if a large coal fired plant operator got into difficulty, then the Government has in place assistance packages.
This is what Garnaut referred to, and I explained as Security of Supply, in other words making sure those plants stayed in operation supplying their vast amounts of power, the Government full in the knowledge that if the operators did get into trouble, and the plant was forced to close, there would be absolute anarchy.
Now, notice how they give this money out beforehand, so in effect it makes the Government look good.
Now also note how the conservation groups have railed against these payments, referring to them as subsidies, and just wait for The Greens to come in and join them, and then note the wall of silence from the Government not wanting to explain it correctly.
So then let’s look at it shall we.
This is not a subsidy.
This is not a handout.
This is churning in its purest of forms.
So, for Hazelwood, International Power, the Government is giving them that huge amount of $266 Million.
How good is that.
Now, when that CO2 tax comes into force, Hazelwood will have to pay for their CO2 implications at that figure of $23 per tonne.
When you look at NGER, Hazelwood’s implication is $396 Million.
So, in fact, Hazelwood gives that $266 Million straight back, and on top of that, has to throw in an extra $130 Million of their own.
The only winners will be the middle men taking their cuts on both transactions.
So, Labor is not giving anything away at all.
That sweetener slowly disappears away to nothing so that in the end Hazelwood will be sending the Government the full amount, and getting nothing back.
Labor knows what chaos will be caused if a plant closes, so at the start, they will ease the plant into it, so it seems that everything looks like it is working well, without any hitches, so they can artfully say that the World hasn’t ended with the introduction of this huge new tax.
This is just another of those Labor cons.
Green supporters see it as subsidy.
Labor is in effect Baldrick, where he says ….. “I have a cunning plan!”
Tony.
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The sad thing is Tony that Pat posts such a lot of stuff that I pass over it without giving it a second glance unless someone like yourself comments on it and that is of interest to me.
Please don’t get me wrong Pat obviously does a great job bringing things to our attention but instead of having two or more paragraphs before providing the link if he had just a couple of lines then I am sure that I and I don’t know how many others would notice and comment on the issues he raises.
Probably my fault for having such a short attention span.:-)
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Someday I’ll read pat’s posts if and when he bothers to properly format his cut and paste efforts. I never read walls of text on my computer screen. Life is too short to endure that unpleasantness.
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.
A bit late – and will probably go unnoticed:
But Tony – is there no QLD power stations receiving this “GIFT” or are we getting punished for voting LNP and decimating the ALP?
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how true, but the hedge funds and bankster will love it:
30 March: Daily Telegraph: Carbon tax ‘worst piece of economic reform’ says outgoing chairman of the Future Fund, David Murray
Mr Murray, a former chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank as well as chairman of the $73 billion Future Fund until Monday, said this morning the controversial tax was “very, very bad” for the Australian economy.
“In the case of the carbon tax, if you want me to tell you my view, it is the worst piece of economic reform I’ve ever seen in my life in this country,” he told ABC Radio…
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/carbon-tax-worst-piece-of-economic-reform-says-outgoing-chairman-of-the-future-fund-david-murray/story-e6freuy9-1226314254606
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heard a guy from COMMSec or whatever talking on Sky Business last nite how foreign investors and regular aussies are being very conservative, holding their investments and super in bonds and cash, from what i could understand. never know the terminology. said this money would have to get working soon…obviously referring to the stock market. i would have thought people are being prudent by being conservative, cos u never know where your Super might end up:
27 March: Wall St Journal: Kris Hudson: Starwood Goes Shopping for U.S. Malls
Veteran investor Barry Sternlicht is close to making his biggest push to date into the shopping mall industry as his Starwood Capital Group prepares to buy majority stakes in seven U.S. malls from Westfield Group WDC.AU -1.18%for roughly $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter…
In February, Westfield agreed to sell a 45% stake in 11 of its 55 U.S. malls and one mall-development site to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for nearly $2.2 billion.
Other mall owners haven’t had much luck in selling their struggling malls…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304177104577307981828513796.html
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oops, left out this para from the Westfield/WSJ article:
“But this also is a treacherous time to make a big bet on the retail industry, which is battling headwinds from a weak economy, competition from online shopping and overbuilding during the boom years. It also is facing the ongoing closure of hundreds of stores by mall stalwarts such as Sears Holdings Corp., and Abercrombie & Fitch Co.”
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James Lovelock said in 2007 that “Billions of us will die; the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Artic”. Yet late 2010 he conceded “ Everybody might be wrong…”I may be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out…. The skeptics have kept us sane”
Try and keep up, Flannery. Write down 100 times: “I might be wrong; I often am.”
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finally a mention of the cost of the CAGW-inspired Renewable Energy Scheme. every time someone says don’t blame the rises on the carbon tax, remind them we’re already paying for CAGW policies:
30 March: Brisbane Times: Electricity prices set to rise
Queenslanders face electricity price increases up to $122 with the introduction of the carbon tax, the state’s competition authority warns.
Without the federal carbon tax due to take effect on July 1, the typical household electricity bill would have decreased in the 2012-13 financial year by $70, the Queensland Competition Authority said…
The authority, which sets the benchmark retail power price, also warned the federal government’s Renewable Energy Target scheme would push costs up further.
“In addition, the Commonwealth Enhanced Renewable Energy Target Scheme, which has not been removed despite the introduction of the carbon tax, adds $92.80 [5.4 per cent] to a typical residential household’s annual bill,” the report reads.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/electricity-prices-set-to-rise-20120330-1w2w4.html
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Jo, you ask “who is next? Cate Blanchett?”
My next “favourite” Oz calamity clown is Prof Richard Kingsford. What an absolute fruitcake! But I guess in his shoes, he can see big money benefit in emulating Flannery, and favours “opportunities” offered on TV, I guess for that purpose.
BTW, at first I thought that Flannery’s award was an April 1 joke, so checked today’s date, and ended up gobsmacked and sickened.
Obviously the chore Fellows could not have been consulted, and it seems that the AAS is sadly following the course of the UK Royal Society!
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High time that there be a new Government, and that it take steps to outlaw lies and spin at all levels of officialdom, including anyone remotely like Flannery
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this spooky little story is supposed to convince Believers CAGW must be true…
29 March: Detroit Free Press: Brian Dickerson: Global warming biggest threat to U.S. security, retired officer says
Lee Gunn — “Lee” is how he introduces himself, although most people call him Admiral Gunn, in deference to his 35 years as a U.S. Naval officer — does not look like a Prius driver, much less a tree-hugger.
Which is why many people do a double take when the Pontiac-born Gunn tells them that global warming is the most serious national security issue confronting the U.S. — or, as he puts it, ” the existential threat to America and its influence in the world” as humanity’s appetite for energy mushrooms…
But the 70-year-old Gunn is deeply concerned about all these things — which is why he is touring the country with another retired admiral from Britain’s Royal Navy, telling governors, state legislators and editorial boards that they’d better get busy about developing new sources of energy or resign themselves to the end of America’s economic and military supremacy.
Gunn is the president of the Institute for Public Research at CNA, a 70-year-old Virginia-based research organization that also includes the Center for Naval Analyses.
CNA began staking out a prominent role in the renewable energy debate five years ago, when its Military Advisory Board (“mostly retired three- and four-stars or flag officers”) issued a widely circulated report called “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.”…
Gunn and his retired naval colleagues have spent much of this week talking to Republicans in the state Legislature and the Snyder administration, whom they describe as genuinely interested in pushing beyond the partisan gridlock between drill-baby-drill Republicans and tree-hugging Democrats…
Jeremy Kalin, a “recovering state legislator” from Minnesota who accompanied Gunn on his mission to Lansing, said the pair has eschewed diversionary arguments about the causes of climate change or which energy technologies are the most promising to emphasize that Michigan should be aggressively making use of all energy sources, with an eye to reducing environmental and national security risk and averting “bad consequences” in the future…
http://www.freep.com/article/20120329/COL04/203290455/Brian-Dickerson-Global-warming-biggest-threat-to-U-S-security-retired-officer-says
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How did they go with Senator James Inhofe?
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David Murray, the outgoing chairman of the Australia Future Fund (a pension scheme set up to fund retirement of Federal public servants) has gone on record as stating the Carbon Tax is the worst economic reform he has seen in Australia in his life. While his comments are heartening, the response fom the Australian Government and the Greens is a big worry. Once again they fall back to corrupted science as their primary defence.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/outgoing-future-fund-chairman-david-murray-says-carbon-tax-will-be-veryvery-bad-for-economy/story-e6frg6xf-1226314215514
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http://barnabyisright.com/2012/03/30/too-little-too-late/#comments
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Video of Bob Browns advocacy of a one world government –
http://www.wakeup2thelies.com/2012/03/26/video-senator-bob-brown-calls-for-a-global-parliament-in-his-2012-green-oration/
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[…] Jo Nova Share this:PrintEmailMoreStumbleUponTwitterFacebookDiggRedditLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Climate Change, Junk scientists and tagged climate hysteria, hot air scam, weather superstition. Bookmark the permalink. ← Luboš Motl: Record temperatures and female Fields medalists […]
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@Ross
March 30, 2012 at 8:36 am · Reply
Depoends how you read the IPCC report.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/29/ipcc_srex_thermageddon/
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And Perth dams?
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John being contrary oft times makes you seem a total village idiot.
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village idiot — nah, he’s just a hard case who keeps the threads interesting. Thankfully he’s not part of the Australian Academy of Science, or is he?
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Perth dams John as you well know are somewhere under half full like they always are.If Perth depended on its dams for its water supply then maybe it would be a ghost metropolis.But its not and it is not because we have a desal plant.
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No, its because we use groundwater unsustainably.
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.
John
Perth Dams – which ones – Inner City, Metropolitan, South West, Agricultural belt? etc etc – you should really try to look it up yourself John!
Looking pretty healthy over WA – but since you asked – here’s the Data:
What you can do is google WA Dams and this comes up! Easy.
Argyle Dam (Ord River) 11,844,570 ML 27/03/2012 10,763,000 ML 110.05%
Harding Dam 42,477 ML 09/03/2012 63,800 ML 66.58%
Bootenal Storage Complex 17 ML 29/02/2012 25 ML 67.92%
Bolganup Dam 191 ML 29/03/2012 224 ML 85.42%
Borden No 1 Dam 3 ML 27/03/2012 5 ML 55.90%
Borden No 2 Dam 11 ML 27/03/2012 15 ML 70.53%
Bottle Creek Dam 227 ML 28/03/2012 350 ML 64.86%
Brookton Dam 35 ML 28/03/2012 136 ML 25.78%
Cranbrook Dam 1 29 ML 29/03/2012 35 ML 83.91%
Cranbrook Dam 2 3 ML 29/03/2012 21 ML 13.14%
Cranbrook Dam 3 30 ML 29/03/2012 54 ML 55.17%
Frankland Dam 21 ML 29/03/2012 32 ML 66.47%
Gnowangerup No 1 Dam 36 ML 27/03/2012 45 ML 80.13%
Gnowangerup No 2 Dam 29 ML 27/03/2012 29 ML 99.35%
Hyden Humps Dam 24 ML 27/03/2012 47 ML 51.40%
Jerramungup No 1 Dam 13 ML 27/03/2012 14 ML 93.21%
Jerramungup No 2 Dam 41 ML 27/03/2012 55 ML 74.03%
Kondinin/Yeerakine Dam 35 ML 27/03/2012 41 ML 86.39%
Kukerin (Reservoir) 28 ML 27/03/2012 36 ML 78.98%
Lake Grace No 1 Dam 48 ML 21/03/2012 55 ML 86.51%
Lake King Dam 13 ML 27/03/2012 12 ML 105.52%
Munglinup Dam 16 ML 29/03/2012 20 ML 82.36%
Newdegate Turkey Nest Dam 38 ML 27/03/2012 47 ML 81.85%
Nyabing Dam 25 ML 20/03/2012 29 ML 86.46%
Ongerup No 1 Dam 11 ML 27/03/2012 22 ML 49.57%
Ongerup No 3 Dam 6 ML 27/03/2012 4 ML 143.35%
Pingrup Dam 25 ML 20/03/2012 27 ML 92.15%
Pinwernying Dam 177 ML 30/03/2012 251 ML 70.39%
Quickup Dam 739 ML 20/03/2012 1,189 ML 62.14%
Ravensthorpe Dam 1 16 ML 29/03/2012 40 ML 39.13%
Ravensthorpe Dam 2 0 ML 29/03/2012 15 ML 0.09%
Ravensthorpe Dam 3 18 ML 29/03/2012 104 ML 17.12%
Ravensthorpe Dam 4 0 ML 29/03/2012 56 ML 0.04%
Rocky Gully 42 ML 29/03/2012 46 ML 90.43%
Tambellup No 1 Dam 22 ML 21/03/2012 45 ML 49.67%
Varley Dam 8 ML 27/03/2012 12 ML 67.75%
Balingup Dam 8 ML 26/03/2012 61 ML 12.79%
Big Brook Dam 372 ML 26/03/2012 627 ML 59.33%
Boyup Brook Dam 68 ML 21/03/2012 129 ML 52.64%
Drakes Brook Dam 1,631 ML 27/03/2012 2,290 ML 71.24%
Dumpling Gully Dam 1 56 ML 26/03/2012 95 ML 58.53%
Dumpling Gully Dam 2 22 ML 26/03/2012 98 ML 22.45%
Glen Mervyn Dam 1,101 ML 26/03/2012 2,054 ML 53.58%
Harris Dam 32,183 ML 29/03/2012 72,000 ML 44.70%
Harvey Dam 20,405 ML 29/03/2012 56,441 ML 36.15%
Hester Dam 64 ML 26/03/2012 124 ML 51.70%
Kirup Dam 12 ML 19/03/2012 60 ML 19.22%
Logue Brook Dam 3,565 ML 26/03/2012 24,321 ML 14.66%
Manjimup Dam 451 ML 27/03/2012 1,581 ML 28.50%
Mungalup Dam 406 ML 26/03/2012 681 ML 59.60%
Nannup (Tanjannerup) Dam 53 ML 21/03/2012 156 ML 33.89%
Philips Creek Dam 97 ML 27/03/2012 269 ML 36.06%
Quinninup Dam 353 ML 20/03/2012 535 ML 65.89%
Samson Brook Dam 1,079 ML 09/01/2012 7,993 ML 13.50%
Stirling Dam 21,094 ML 30/03/2012 53,769 ML 39.23%
Ten Mile Brook Dam 508 ML 21/03/2012 1,691 ML 30.06%
Waroona Dam 2,567 ML 26/03/2012 15,173 ML 16.92%
Wellington Dam 105,612 ML 26/03/2012 184,916 ML 57.11%
Bickley Pumpback Dam 60 ML 30/03/2012 60 ML 100.00%
Canning Dam 32,030 ML 30/03/2012 90,353 ML 35.45%
Churchman Brook Dam 980 ML 30/03/2012 2,241 ML 43.73%
Conjurunup Pipe Head Dam 8 ML 30/03/2012 180 ML 4.44%
Lower Helena Pumpback Dam 11 ML 04/03/2012 133 ML 8.58%
Mundaring Dam 24,016 ML 30/03/2012 63,597 ML 37.76%
North Dandalup Dam 22,538 ML 30/03/2012 60,791 ML 37.07%
Serpentine Main Dam 32,996 ML 30/03/2012 137,667 ML 23.97%
Serpentine Pipehead Dam 1,450 ML 30/03/2012 2,625 ML 55.24%
South Dandalup Dam 12,019 ML 30/03/2012 138,000 ML 8.71%
Stirling Dam (Metro Supply) 21,094 ML 30/03/2012 36,563 ML 57.69%
Victoria Dam 2,711 ML 30/03/2012 9,463 ML 28.65%
Wungong Dam 25,863 ML 30/03/2012 59,796 ML 43.25%
Just working out total capacity versus total holding! Do you want me to post the answer John? Just use Excel!
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Oh John,
Also meant to add – per capita we spend approx $40/capita on water security!
Yet Mr. Conroy is spending over $3,500 on NBN/capita to ensure IPCC reports come through to you quickly on your electricity driven computer!
WORK that one out?
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Yea, but just look at Ravensthorpe 2 0, mate. The harbinger of doom that will surely come to us all is clear to see.
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Ravensthorpe 4 Current Storage as at 29/03/2012 0 ML ( 0.04%) Storage Capacity 56 ML
Type of Construction Clay lined
Year Built 1964
Catchment Area 21 km2 (2,100 hectares)
.
Ravensthorpe Dam 3 Current Storage as at 29/03/2012 18 ML ( 17.12%) Storage Capacity 104ML
Type of Construction Earth wall
Year Built 1910
.
Ravensthorpe Dam 2 Current Storage as at 29/03/2012 0 ML ( 0.09%) Storage Capacity 15 ML
Type of Construction Clay lined
Year Built 1906
.
Ravensthorpe Dam 1 Current Storage as at 29/03/2012 16 ML ( 39.13%) Storage Capacity 40 ML
Type of Construction Clay lined
Year Built 1906
Catchment Area 5 km2 (500 hectares)
Spillway Type Reinforced concrete
If they only had a DAM Expert to check out the leakage????
Not in any of the Ravensthorpe Dams! Three clay and one earth! Leakage, leakage, leakage
Have a look at 2,3 and 4 – how levels just emptied in 2012 (this year YES) to nothing! The graphs are telling us how close to the BOM these guys really are!
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(Snipped out the baseless namecalling) CTS
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‘
John,
I forgot to add that WA only has two hydro-electricity plants (good renewable energy sources)
Wellington Dam 2 MW
Ord River Dam 30 MW
Shouldn’t there be more?
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Building a dam isn’t acceptable to environmentalists.
More significantly, WA is pretty flat. You need rapid changes in altitude for effective hydro-power. There aren’t many places where it’d be feasible to provide a large catchment at altitude with the necessary fall in height for worthwhile generation. The Darling scarp is convenient, but a reservoir of sufficient capacity isn’t going to be built.
Hydro-electric isn’t useful for providing the bulk of electricity in a modern, industrial nation; unless you’re blessed with “crinkly bits” of topography and precipitation like Norway.
Nuclear power is IMHO the best option for WA. Using small, modular, molten-salt reactors which facilitate installation close to larger consumers (towns, etc totalling more than 200MWe+) without grid connections over thousands of km. Smaller, molten-salt thorium reactors are more thermodynamically efficient so they need a smaller “heat sink” to reject heat to generate electricity. That heat sink could be air … so no large body of water required nearby. Of course if water is available, then a cooling tower is the best way to provide a cold place for the heat to go to make the generating turbines run.
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What the hell is going on? The Royal Society and now the AAS – throwing away their reputations and credibility over a pseudo-religion. I say pseudo-religion because the ‘dangerous climate change’ movement clearly doesn’t surpass the heady heights of superstition. That the AAS must be content to award its once-esteemed membership to individuals who hold views that are contrary to the empirical evidence that the Earth is not warming dangerously is frankly at once sad and dsiturbing. We really must be entering a new dark age. What the hell happended to scientific integrity?
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I used to think the same. Now, I am convinced we are in the new dark age.
We punish the truth and men/women of science. We reward charlatans.
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Amen to that brother.
I barely scraped through matriculation physics at the end of senior high school in 1968, yet today I read “peer-reviewed, published, scientific papers” that would have been considered April Fools Joke material back then, and yet are considered “cutting edge science” today.
How the mighty have fallen.
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Is this somehow new down under? In these United States I would suspect most scientific congregations have been corrupted for 50 years atleast. That corresponds to the push for mass university ‘education’. Thence a strata was added to the castes, Academe.
One cannot read President Eisenhower’s farewell address enough; truely amazing, the prophecy.
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What I think would be good is for Campbell Newman to hold an inquiry
into the Queensland desal plant and if it can be shown that the desal plant was constructed on Mr Flannery’s scare mongering then maybe Mr Flannery should be investigated.
In any case the Queensland desal plant should be held up as a great example of what happens when we try to mitigate against the weather.
What Queensland needed was flood mitigation not drought mitigation.
How many people would not have lost their lives and/or possessions if money had been spent on flood mitigation and not on a desal plant.
So when people in future start banging on about mitigation they just need to be reminded that before you can mitigate against something you need to know what that something is
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have a look at Standards Australia and their connection with the greened Austrade…
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I have the utmost respect for the Australian Academy of Scienceology.
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“Sciolist” is a good word therefore Australian Academy of Sciology.
For those who don’t like clicking links “a pretender to science” “one who pretends to have knowledge”.
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1. Barak Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by a committee that later admitted that, no, he’d not actually done anything yet, but he advocated in the right direction, and so they felt the Nobel would provide him with the incentive to proceed to work his obvious magic and bring us World Peace. Perhaps your Academy had similar thoughts, and awarded TF the fellowship hoping it would cause him to pick up a book.
2. “This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, as a living organism, at some sort of level.”
If the earth had a brain, it would have spun up its rotational speed and flung all of us humans off into space eons ago. It would have no need for ego-ridden flea-like skin parasites working hard to “save” it. In fact, it might welcome a planet-searing, life-ending nuclear fire the way we might welcome an athlete’s foot spray.
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“How Does it come to this?”
I’m sure it has something to do with money.
If Al Gore can get an Academy award for his “Crockumentary” An Inconvenient Truth, then I suppose anything is possible.
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Jo, the position of Engineers Australia on this issue is also astonishing. I did not renew my membership.
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Two words: Burt Rutan.
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
Tell your fellow sparkies. He’s got all the data and he’s not backwards about going forward.
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Let’s not forget the time this genius (sorry, I don’t have citation details) made two fundamental errors in a statement comparing average global temperature in the 18th century and now. He made a basic arithmetical error in calculating a percentage increase, and secondly he based the calculation on a comparison of two celsius values, rather than Kelvin. That will get you an F in high school maths/physics, but it’s apparently no impediment to Academician status.
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[…] Australia, a scientist is honoured when he’s out by millions of […]
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IMHO, Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Annie Wilson in The Gift clearly shows she should be offered a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, since she demonstrates clairvoyance that goes beyond even the best Climate Modeller
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And of course Cate’s work was tested and validated, which is more than can be said for the Climate Modellers
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Let me give you some good news about the Australian Academy of Science. I have just been reading an excellent report called Report of a Committee on Climatic Change. It introduces the topic thus:
The rest of the report reads like it should have been called The Sceptics Handbook on the Ice Age Scare. It concludes:
[AAS #21, Mar, 1976]
Ahh yes, 1976, those were the days when idle scaremongerers were the opponents not the fellows of science.
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Pat and Tony, those who sup with the devil need lomg spoons.
(for ‘devil’, substitute ‘government’)
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Isn’t this whole story just another example of the trouble with Academies though. They all seem to end up suffering from some sort of aemia.
Acadaemia comes to represents one of the worst sorts of rot that can afflict a society and one of which Eisenhower warnded us in his departing address, on the dangers of becoming hostage to a politico-acadaemic elite.
Such Academies are very much about the establishment, existing to protect and promote established views, by ensuring their members conform to their line if they want to remain part of the club, while paying lip service to such grand sounding things as freedom of thought and such.
While attracting all the resources, rather than promoting it, such Academies are generally a constriction on the freedom of enquiry that is necessary to make truly world changing discoveries.
Succumb to the temptations of Academies at your intellectual peril.
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I have been reading some biographies of Nobel Prize winners lately. For example, Linus Pauling and Richard Feynman. It is very interesting to note that they had to work long and hard after their graduate days even to start publishing papers. They had a long period of being mentored by older professors in their specialties.
It was ages before they gained a PhD and more long years to be maybe called an associate professor. Only after years of scrutiny by peers and testing their observations did the notion of receiving a Nobel prize arise. And only then did they have honours from well trusted Universities given to them.
Poor old Einstein had to beg and plead before he was even admitted to teach in a university. That is why he was only working as a second rate patent clerk in Switzerland when he developed his Theory of Relativity. Even then, he did not gain admission straight away to an academic institution.
Even so, he did not receive his Nobel Prize until years later, but it was for the photoelectric effect. His theory is still being tested to see if it is a ‘fact’. It has been proved time after time even in quantum mechanics (Feynman). A recent NASA satellite again confirmed his theory. But, as he once said, if a single instance refutes a theory then it is no longer valid.
To my mind Flannery et al should not be awarded ad hoc honours for such vague theories as AGW.
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[…] who will happily spin a story on any finding way beyond its original significance; Tim Flannery for PR and wild statements; the late Stephen Schneider for his encouragement of climate science to oversell the science […]
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[…] who will happily spin a story on any finding way beyond its original significance; Tim Flannery for PR and wild statements; the late Stephen Schneider for his encouragement of climate science to oversell the science “So […]
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[…] who will happily spin a story on any finding way beyond its original significance; Tim Flannery for PR and wild statements; the late Stephen Schneider for his encouragement of climate science to oversell the science “So […]
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