Showing the intellectual depth we’ve come to expect from progressives, Monbiot argues that the public debate on atmospheric dynamics would be improved by knowing who-funds-those-who dare speak against the government experts.
It’s as if the truth of future tropospheric warming comes not from weather balloons, but from bank accounts and budget papers.
What words do Heartland print that are so dangerous, forthwith, such a public hazard, that we must know who funds the paper they are printed on?
(Dear George, when private citizens choose to speak, it’s none of your business whether they got funding or not, and who paid them if they did. It’s about science, not motivations. Data trumps funding. Debate the message, not the man. If you think Heartland promote lies, just explain what they are. Your megaphone is bigger than theirs, and if you asked to speak at a Heartland Conference to correct their views, I’m sure they would welcome it. It’s called free speech and may the best argument win.)
According to Monbiot, stealing is not just alright, it’s heroic. Your goods are mine, comrade. Too bad if you object.
I see Peter Gleick, the man who obtained and leaked the devastating documents from the Heartland Institute, as a democratic hero. I do not think he should have apologised, nor do I believe that his job should be threatened. He has done something of benefit to society.
I believe we have a right to know who is paying for public advocacy. The groups which call themselves thinktanks but look to me more like lobbying organisations working on behalf of corporations and multi-millionaires, exist to try to change public policy. Yet, with a few exceptions, they operate in a vacuum of accountability.
There are three problems with this (for starters):
1. It works against free speech
In the world of Monbiot, before you are allowed to say what you think you not only need to give us your whole full name you need to declare all your income, and the names and addresses of any sources of income (including donors). Now, that’ll really encourage people to speak up, and donate to causes they believe in, won’t it? I guess if you’ve captured government funding and have all the experts on your side, suppressing free speech seems like a natural fit.
2. It buries the real debate
Life is short, time is precious, and there is only so much room on the public soap-box to solve major public issues. How does it help humanity to fill it with clutter? What public service is gained from loading pages and airwaves with discussions of exactly which person funded another person who is pointing at inconvenient data from NASA satellites? The data is what matters; the emails, addresses, and names do not. Sure, if that person is speaking as an elected representative, or is spending public funds, then yes we need transparency. But if they are private citizens, and take no money from the public purse, any attempt to demand private information is just another way to shut down or distract us from the debate on the points that matter.
3. Who decides what qualifies as a “public benefit”?
Is it just God-Monbiot who can arbitrate on what is or isn’t in a public benefit? There was a man called Breivik who thought his work on Utoya was “for the public benefit” too. That’s why we have laws, and why no one is supposed to be above them.
It’s not “democratic” at all, it’s pro-establishment and anti-citizen
Demanding that private citizens must declare donations for groups and associations they support, hands more power to the bureaucratic rulers and takes it from the people.
Just imagine, purely hypothetically of course, that big-government was funding a class of researchers in an egregious one-sided style that fed confirmation bias and encouraged a whole class of sycophants to bully and namecall any dissenters. Imagine if the government was feeding off the cycle of alarm: using the scare to increase its’ power and tax revenue. Further suppose the government didn’t fund any heretics, auditors or assessors. The volunteers who feel compelled to speak against the falsities and lies generated with public funds have no choice but to ask for some help. They speak at great personal cost, or at best they get organized into small groups, asking larger corporate entities to help them gain any kind of voice — to compete against the journalistic bullies who have tens of thousands of readers, and the government funded programs that have whole PR departments to push their propaganda.
Maybe I missed it, but has Monbiot suggested that hackers would be heroes if they broke into Michael Mann’s office, and did not just release the emails, data and crucial methods (which are all public property anyway) but they took his tax return, superannuation and investments and posted them on the web too? Surely not? Some would consider that a public service. Would Judge Monbiot say that’s heroic, too?
Those who don’t like free speech and debate (because they lose) will do anything to justify techniques to silence or distract opponents. Monbiot is no different.
No George, trickery, deceit, and stealing private documents so bullies can harass private citizens who disagree with you is not OK. Heartland are not journalists and even if they were, you have no right to anyone’s private details.
Presumably Monbiot would be appalled if someone stole all the donor information from Greenpeace and started a concerted campaign to reduce green donations through persecution and intimidation of donors? If Greenpeace donors turned out to be vested interests like owners of wind-farms and traders in carbon credits, would that weaken their case for man-made global warming?
What about the public benefit of privacy?
It’s a simplistic world, reduced to black and white: “Transparency is good, privacy is bad”. But obviously, the real world is shades of grey and a balancing act, sometimes the need for privacy outweighs the need for transparency. The world would not be a better place if Monbiot was forced to publish all his medical and psychological records before he could speak. (Say, what if he had a personality type that meant he could take wild physical risks, but socially, he compulsively followed authority? Perchance, his genetic disposition may leave him prone to groupthink? He might be unable to assess the evidence himself, and instead be forced to ask, most unscientifically, “who can I trust”? If this was the case, should we interpret his views through this prism and can we ask for his DNA too?) That is not a world we want to live in.
In a science debate, the public gain nothing of any scientific value from ad hominem attacks. What matters is the credibility of the data and the strength of the reasoning.
Far from having vested interests, it costs me more than I earn to express my views, and I do it out of a sense of righting wrongs, and professional pride. But that angelic status doesn’t make me right any more than it makes a spokesman of Koch or Soros automatically wrong.
The richest of ironies is that Monbiot relies on models and opinions, while the skeptics that he looks down upon want observations and data, true to the original tenets of the scientific method. Despite not apparently knowing what makes science different from a religion, he calls skeptics “anti-science deniers”.
Monbiot has been known to lament that conservatives have abandoned “any pretense of high-minded conservatism.” This from a man who breaks tenets of science; breaks laws of reason; and lauds those who break laws of the land.
Does the man have any principles he won’t break?
The Guardian has just published an article in which Michael Mann complains of ‘hate’ while accusing global warming sceptics of “a crime against humanity”. And against “the planet”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/03/michael-mann-climate-change-deniers
He claims death threats and so on, but I’m not sure it’s true, and anyway don’t prove anything. If Obama received a death threat, it wouldn’t mean the Republicans are wrong, and vice versa.
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Surely a capable person of some experience and maturity can see that labelling a large swath of the human race as criminals is not going to play well?
I see posters here on this blog use terms like ‘genocide’ too sometimes. It’s not on, no matter who does it. It it is of particular interest when a person of high profile does it.
Mann’s comments are what you’d expect from a 22 year old who watched waaayy too much Captain Planet as a kid. Not a high profile scientist in his 40s well accustomed to conflict and controversy.
Some people just don’t know what they don’t know; in Mann’s case what he clearly doesn’t know is that a “criminal” such as myself may regard him as an immature hot-headed zealot unworthy of serious consideration, and a liability to his own ’cause’. But since I am a “criminal”, my opinion matters little anyway.
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But, but, but………Mann is a ‘battle-hardened climate ninja’. (At least he was happy to be thus described in the Guardian.)
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If Michael Mann had delivered scientific evidence instead of doing it for “the team” he might not have received the alleged death threats and I am in no way condoning this kind of behaviour but he needs to realise you reap what you sow.
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Mann started making these claims shortly after it was demonstrated that a hockeystick shaped graph could be generated from random (pink) noise.
Again, the subject of Mann being victimised, came up shortly after the CRU files were made public.
And now, the Grauniad enters the fray, on behalf of Mann, shortly after some amateurs decided use “a trick” to obtain documents fraudulently from the Heartland Institute.
Now, there might possibly be a pattern here, if some assumptions are made about cause and effect. But on the other hand, the Garnuaid might just have woken up to the first “incident”, and if so we can expect at least two further articles, all in due course.
Mind you, I shouldn’t be unkind. They are probably still excited about the news that Mafeking has been relieved.
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You go Jo.
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Your beach holiday has done you well. Monbiot and the rest of them should be held accountable for the unnecessary costs piled on to the taxpayer, justified by pseudo science. The anti warmist arguement will win. I look forward to it.
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“Those who don’t like free speech and debate (because they lose) will do anything to justify techniques to silence or distract opponents.”
Umm . . . I assume you’ve seen the recommendations of the Finklestein report? Chapter 4 is particularly interesting as it uses opposition to Climate Change as an example of the sort of thing that could be censored! Also, the proposed regulatory body could force removal of material with no right of appeal (11.78) and without having to give reasons (11.70 last dot point). Bob Brown reportedly wants the recommendations made law by the end of the year! I think there should be a much wider concern that expressions of opinion and the publication of facts that expose the frailty of establishment arguments may in the future be censored. I’m sure it would get Monbiot’s approval. 🙁
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Yet Bob Brown said this morning on “Meet the Press” that this no more constricting than what we already have except in his words it now covers the printed press as well as TV media. That doesn’t sound like the the Greens to me and although I haven’t read it any kind of censorship is bad IMHO, point blank !
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Spin, spin, spin, spin,
spin, spin, spin, spin …
Have I ever mentioned that Bob Brown has, on occasion, been inclined towards being economical with the truth?
If I have mentioned it, then he might choose to take umbrage. But since I have only questioned … ?
Newspapers can’t easily do that – they have advertisers they need to appease – but blogs, which are nothing but personal opinion … ?
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It also covers the Internet and blogs that get as few as 40 hits a day. The report can be downloaded from
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry
11.67 states: “The second change arises from the fact that there are many newsletter publishers and bloggers, although no longer part of the ‘lonely pamphleteer’ tradition, who offer up-to-date reflections on current affairs. Quite a number have a very small audience. There are practical reasons for excluding from the definition of ‘news media’ publishers who do not have a sufficiently large audience. If a publisher distributes more than 3000 copies of print per issue or a news internet site has a minimum of 15 000 hits per annum it should be subject to the jurisdiction of the News Media Council, but not otherwise. These numbers are arbitrary, but a line must be drawn somewhere.”
Scary, scary stuff. Don’t be fooled by the summary, which smells sweet as roses. Get into the guts of it (chapters 4 and 5 particularly, but 11 as well).
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We live in the situation ethics era where the end always justifies the means.
Perhaps Moonbat should read the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
What the “ethicist” Gleick did was tantamount to an assault on freedom of speech. He was willing to commit felonies to prevent the lawful exercise of the constitutional rights of those who agree with and support the Heartland Foundation.
Every human being has a right to privacy. Since the Heartland foundation is neither a publicly traded company nor a recipient of taxpayer’s dollars it is nobody’s damn business where they get their money.
I wonder how Monbiot would feel if he was forced to reveal a confidential source of a story he published? I am willing to bet he would sing a different tune then!
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As far as I can tell, according to the Moonbat’s logic and reasoning, the members of The White Rose Movement got exactly what they deserved, and Eugene Grimminger, who financed them, got off lightly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
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This is why I love this site, I am orever learnig, thank you all.
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Sorry folks,forver learning.
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Ge, Bob!
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Bob, Dave, watch the speling, you guys!
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yes well chosen MV.
Bob, I watched a dvd called “The Last Days of Sophie Scholl”. Sophie being the heroin of the White Rose movement (along with her brother)
You may like to locate one from a video store. (it’s in German, but a gripping movie in the same mould as Downfall)
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” To that end I started a register in September, in which I declare my sources of income, gifts and hospitality. “
Hilarious! As if anybody cares who pays moonbat to produce his drivel.
Here is a clue, George, we don’t judge the quality of what you write by who pays you.
We judge the quality of what you write by the quality of what you write.
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The same goes for Andrew Bolt, Jo, Bishop Hill, Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, etc., etc.
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Well said, keith L.
One irony is that Moonbat’s employer, the Grauniad, is not exactly in robust financial health. In fact, probably the only reason that it hasn’t already folded is that its parent company has some very creative tax arrangements, meaning that a paper, which ceaselessly extols the benefits to society of higher taxes, makes considerable efforts to avoid having to pay them. Those efforts are legal, but the hypocrisy is blatant and hypocrisy is King at the Grauniad.
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Tom Harris (T) has the answers to this, when interviewed by Suzanne Goldenberg (S), a colleague of Manbiot’s at The Guardian:
She’s asking about his funding…
Thus, he is saying flatly that questions as to funding are irrelevant — unless you believe that he will sell his opinions for cash, and if you don’t believe him on that, why would you believe him on anything else, such as telling you who his funders were?
The whole interview is a delight; the contrast between Harris’ cheery, open approach and Goldenberg’s mean nitpicking is stark.
The transcript is a fun read; the 30-minute audio a delightful object lesson in how to handle these things.
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It’s quite amazing isn’t. I would also note – with no small measure of irony – that the “who funds you” red herring was one that the real deniers frequently attempted invoke against Ken McVay and the Nizkor Project. For some strange reason, not one of these cretins was ever able to answer the question: ‘How does the funding of Nizkor in any way invalidate the veracity of the facts that can be found on Nizkor?’ [my paraphrase -hro].
As for Goldenberg … she definitely has “form” – as the Brits would say – when attempting to pass off her eyes-wide-shut, creative writing exercises as worthy of being called “news”. [Pls. see: Honest Reporting] Then, as now, her “specialty” seems to be “whitewashing” the actions of those whose “cause” she supports while demonizing and denigrating any and all who do not share her … uh … “views”.
But back to Monbiot …He claims:
Frankly, I can’t think of any group of people who could repeatedly be said to “operate in a vacuum of accountability” than the likes of Monbiot, Goldenberg, Hickman, Black and Revkin – and others of their ilk in the MSM. Their handling of l’affaire Gleick is the epitome of “operating in a vacuum of accountability”.
I shall now have to replace my irony meter 🙂
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This funding question is indeed something that should be investigated, and by that I mean that both sides of the debate need to be checked.
In mid 2009, when Labor had been in Government for around 18 Months, this question was asked in the Senate:
The answer had to be delayed while the Minister placed all the ducks in a row, and it was tabled at a later date.
The upshot of that was that in the previous 5 years, an amount totalling $200 Million, (and keep in mind that this is just for Australia) was distributed in the form of grants for research that was climate change/global warming specific.
There were 470 separate grants, and Grant amounts ranged from $20,000 to $12.5 Million.
Being for the previous 5 years, that entailed 18 Months under Labor, and the remainder under the previous Howard Government.
Of that total of $200 Million, almost half ($95 Million) was given away by Labor, and that translates to around $5 Million a Month ….. a Month.
At the time, I posted a Post at the site I contribute to, and that link I have enclosed at the bottom of this Comment. In that Post, I linked specifically to where those details were in fact listed. That link has since broken, but it was taken directly from The Hansard for The Senate, so it must still be somewhere, and if you have ever been to the Government Hansard site, well, good luck trying to find it, but it is there, as the link I did have was in fact a copy of those pages from Hansard listing all 470 Grants over those five years.
It seems that under Labor, you only had to mention either Climate Change or Global Warming in the proposal, and there was literally no doubt that the Grant would be forthcoming.
So, if there is to be any checking into the allocation of funds from our side of the debate, then there also need to be just as much scrutiny for the other side as well.
That’s on average $5 Million a month, and this was in 2009.
Climate Change Funding Double Standards – Thank Heavens For Democracy
Tony.
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Tony – get into webcitation – you can feed it the link, it caches all the data, and then you can link directly to the webcitation address. That way the original can never get pulled from you, and will always be there.
If there are PDFS or similar always download and store the copy yourself.
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Thanks brc.
I wonder why I never thought of that before now. I’m already doing it with my Music Posts, because You Tube will take them down over time, so I have a similar thing to what you quote here, so those videos will always be there, so thanks for that.
I tried looking through those Senate Hansards for that documentation, but the search facility is pitched at Doctorate level. Smart guys these Gubbmint wonks, you know hiding things in plain sight.
Tony.
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Well said!
In cases of so-called “noble corruption” the question is who decides what is noble, and what isn’t.
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The problem with “noble corruption” is that the more noble the cause the more corruption is justified. Thus, data rigging, decline hiding and opponent villification are all okay.
All those who try to justify wire fraud and identity theft and the rest of it would have a hard time persuading me that any of their”peer reviewed science” was worth tuppence.
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IS THE RELIGION OF AGW CLIMATE SCIENCE INTELLECTUAL ABUSE?
“”The richest of ironies is that Monbiot relies on models and opinions, while the sceptics that he looks down upon want observations and data, true to the original tenets of the scientific method. Despite not apparently knowing what makes science different from a religion, he calls sceptics “anti-science deniers””. – Jo.
George Monbiot practices intellectual abuse. He is projecting punishment for anyone having different intellectual or scientific opinion and would want to prevent anybody sceptical of his views from congregating. It is a religion when a whole group ridicules “deniers’ only for their different views or interests. He is directly from Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.
I happen to share the following view of AGW climate science. Is it a dark age, where I am prevented from having freedom of thought & expression?
THEORIES
How do you explain to somebody your perceptions of reality? Should they already know?
Is it not, we should believe the most what we can doubt the least, after trying to doubt, using experience and consistent reasoning based on empirically supported (so far) best beliefs.
When Newtown invented Non-Relativistic Mechanics we believed it because it works consistently to describe Kepler’s observational laws that work well to describe a lot of quotient experience on a lesser scale than planetary orbits.
After few hundred years, Einstein’s theory ran into trouble in consistency trying to describe blackbody radiation, the spectra of atoms, even the photoelectric effect (which won Einstein the Noble) when Maxwell added to the equations of electricity and magnetism and the understanding of light as an electric wave.
Many other physicists successively invent modifications that make space-time far more complex and interesting in both fields of relativity and mechanics, theories far more complex than Newton could ever have dreamed.
These changes didn’t happen by scientists being active in a political endeavour, they came about because the data could not be explained by classical Eucidean theory. Classical flat-space mechanics was outdated by Maxwell when he wrote the correct equations of electrodynamics. The United Field Theory checked out empirically to phenomena accuracy, and yet when applied to cases where it had to work, certain of its predictions failed. If Maxwell’s Equations and Newton’s Law were both true, the Universe itself should have existed for less than a second before collapsing in a massive heat death as stable atoms based on any sort of orbital model were impossible.
This scientific process continues today. Astronomer’s observed and have corrected previous observations. Careful studies of neutrinos lead to anomalies, places where theory isn’t consistent with observation. Precise measurements of the rates at which the Universe is expanding at very large length scales don’t quite add up to what the simplest theories predict and we expect. Quantum theory and general relativity are fundamentally inconsistent, but nobody knows quite how to make a theory that “both” are in the appropriate limits.
In bridging the scientific gap between what is known and what is unknown people try to come up with better theories, ones that explain everything that is well-explained with the old theories but that embrace new observations that are discovered and explain them as well. Ideally, the new theories predict new phenomena entirely and a careful search reveals it there where the theory predicts.
And all along there are new experiments discovering high temperature superconductors, inventing lasers and masers, determining the properties of neutrinos (so elusive they are almost impossible to measure at all, yet a rather huge fraction of what is going on in the Universe). Some experiments yield results that are verified; others yield results that are not reproducible and probably incorrect. A Higgs particle that seems to appear for a moment as a promising bump in an experimental curve and then fades away again, too elusive to be pinned down. Hypotheses of dark matter and dark energy abound that might explain some of the unusual cosmological observations. The “dark” bit basically means that they don’t interact at all with the electromagnetic field, making them nearly impossible to see, so far.
PLAUSIBILITY
Physicists therefore usually know better than to believe the very stuff that they peddle. A good physicist will tell you up front “Everything I’m going to tell you is basically wrong, but it works, and works amazingly well, right up to where it doesn’t work and we have to find a better, broader explanation.” A good physicist will also tell you not to believe anything they tell you just because they are saying it but because it makes sense to you , corresponds at least roughly with your own everyday experience, and because when checked in the labs and by doing computations that can be compared to observations, they seem to work. Physicists also know that they should be believed with a grain of salt, because further experiments and observations will eventually prove it all wrong.
Still, that is not to say you shouldn’t believe in some things strongly, gravity for example, not perfect or consistent with quantum theory, at the smallest and largest scales, but it works so well in between and it is almost certainly at least approximately true, true enough in the right milieu.
Yet, if argument arose that gravitation is otherwise then it is explained as a perfect mutual force attracting two bodies, and deviations are responsible for observed anomalies in galactic rotation, then you would have to listen. What if it could explain unexplained phenomenon whilst still predicting previous evidence, and it explains the anomaly, would you think it could be true? What if it predicted something new and startling, something that was then observed, then it might even be promoted to more probably true than Newton’s Law of Gravitation, no matter how entrenched the theory is.
In the end, it isn’t aesthetics, it isn’t theoretic consistency, it isn’t empirical support, a strong argument should be a blend of all three, something that relies heavily on common sense and human judgement and not so much on a formal rule that tells us truth.
You should be a sceptic in the climate debate. All the particle accelerators in the known Universe would fail miserably in their engineering if relativity weren’t at least approximately correct. Once you believe in relative causality it makes some very profound statements about things that might well make all known physics inconsistent if it they were found to be untrue.
But if a neutrino in European particle accelerator seems to be moving faster than it should ever be able to move then the whole theory might have to be revised.
THE EVIDENCE
The AGW debaters have never really fronted up for a debate. The podium never faces the opposition and are not capable of defending their answers against a knowledgeable and sceptical questioner.
Good science defends itself against its critics and demonstrates consistency, both theoretically and with experiment. Good science admits its limits, and never claims to be “settled” even as it does lead to defensible practice and engineering where it seems to work, for now.
The AGW debate is predicated from the beginning on one thing. We know what the global average temperature has been like for the past N years, where N is nearly anything you like. Whatever times scales it can be any in millennium, megaannum or gigaannum frames.
In truth, we have moderately accurate thermal records that aren’t really global, but are at least sample a lot of the globe’s surface exclusive of the bulk of the ocean for less than one century. We have accurate of the Earth’s surface temperatures on a truly global basis for less than forty years. We have accurate records that include for the first time a glimpse of the thermal profile, in depth, of the ocean, that is less than a decade, even the satellite data is far from controversy, as the instrumentation itself in the several satellites that are making the measurements do not agree on the measured temperatures terribly precisely.
In the end, nobody really knows the global average temperature of the Earth’s surface in 2011 within less than around 1K. Nobody should claim so, it isn’t even clear that we can define the global average temperature in a way that really makes sense It is also unlikely that our current measurements would in any meaningful way correspond to what the instrumentation of the 18th and 19th century.
Then there is the use of tree ring reconstructions in place of the best geological proxy reconstruction. Tree rings are not accurate thermostats and their measurements are biased by their localised environment. Plotting tree ring thicknesses over hundreds of years, there might be a signature thermal in nature, from what is obtainable of a small sample of the territorial surface and not accounting for the 70% of the Earth’s surface that is covered by the ocean.
The twentieth century has experienced warming. From fairly reliable records there are good measurements from roughly 1975 to the present, but there were lots of things that made the 20th century unique. World wars, nuclear bomb testing resulting in radioactive aerosols, deforestation and other events but moreover, the sun appeared to be far more active than it had been at any point in the direct observational record, and possibly for over 10,000 years. It isn’t clear what normal conditions are for the climate something that perpetually is slowly changing, but yet climate science is very clear indeed that the latter 19th through the 20th centuries were far from normal by the standards of the previous ten or twenty centuries.
Climatologists have taken a dogmatic stance by claiming to have found a clear anthropogenic global warming signal. This certainty in their scientific relativity is at the outliers of acceptable principles of critical thinking. The certainty of their hypothesis with precise predictions and conclusions as nonconvertible cannot be sustained.
THE MODELS AND PREDICTABILITY
Their solution to a set of coupled non-Markovian Navier-Stokes equation with a variable external driver and still unknown feedbacks in a chaotic regime with known important variability on multiple decade or longer timescales, uses inaccurate thermal records and dubious dendrochronological proxies.
Certainly the modeled data compares with previous records then it is possible they are correct, but if the modeled data diverges from observed reality, as it has, then their predictions and theory of causation are very likely to be incorrect. Accurately predicting the future isn’t proof that they are right, but failing to predict it is pretty strong evidence that they are wrong.
Such a comparison fails. It actually fails to predict or explain the cooling from 1945 to roughly 1965-1970. It fails to predict the little ice age. It fails to predict the medieval climate optimum, or the other periods when the world was as warm it is today. More so, it fails to explain the years where we have had reliable satellite record, where there has been no statistically significant increase in temperature. January of 2012 was nearly 0.1C below the 33 year baseline.
The models have predicted that the temperature would be considerably warmer, on average, than they appear to be. This is evidence that those models are probably wrong, that some of the variables that are unknown are important, that some incorrect parameters and incorrect feedbacks. How much longer before that their entire model is declared fundamentally wrong, badly wrong.
CATASTROPHE THEORY
A catastrophic story is widely told, to keep people from losing faith in a theory that isn’t working the way that it should. The acceptance of alternatives sources of energy as the only avoidance of a so far imagined catastrophe is a vain and costly exercise of human endeavor.
When the debate has opened up, acknowledging the uncertainties, a welcome contradictory theories, stop believing in a set of theoretical results as if climate science is some sort of religion. At this time in the evolution of knowledge about the climate phenomena does not warrant the policies of minimisation promoted. It is a problem that may well be completely ignorable and utterly destined to take care of itself long before it ever becomes a real problem.
Eventually, sheer economics and the advance of physics and technology and engineering will make fossil-fuel burning electrical generators as obsolete as steam trains. Long before we reach any sort of catastrophe assuming that CAGW is correct the supposed proximate cause of the catastrophe will be reversing itself without anyone doing anything special to bring it about but make sensible economic choices.
In the meantime, one phase of the debate should be lost. Science is never “settled”.
Reference; Why CAGW theory is not “settled science” by Dr. Robert Brown, Duke University Physics Department.
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Very good Markus!
I wonder what Ross James will have to say about this?
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Nearly relevant breaking news…
ABC News Watch is already taking a dim view of this turn of events.
The part about forcing publishers to issue apologies and retractions is relevant to the public interest argument, and that sounds okay, but it’s a sweetener for what overall sounds to me like an attempt to convert every news outlet into Pravda Australia (ie ABC clones). We’ve got 5 TV news channels, several newspapers, barely a handful of choices in radio news scripts (regardless of which station is reading it). Is the “need” for government regulation a sign of too little diversity and a market failure? Or is this another backdoor to censorship?
It’s a mixed blessing for muckraking. There will be no point in using deception to uncover awkward facts about our Dear Leader if their regulatory arm can just prevent anyone from publishing it. We’re going to have to study this move very closely, people.
News says: “Key publishers are planning to meet Communications Minister Stephen Conroy in the coming weeks.”
Hey Jo, how many Australian Blog Of The Year awards do you have to win to get an appointment with Conroy? 🙂
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Fortunately, the people who dream this stuff up don’t operate in the real world, and so have very little knowledge of it.
Some months ago now, the latest restrictions on selling tobacco came into force. Amongst the new rules is one that forbids a shopkeeper from answering the question – “What is the cheapest packet of smokes you have?”
However, there is nothing to stop someone answering the question “What is the second-cheapest packet of smokes you have?”, and when told, replying “Okay, I’ll have whatever’s cheaper than those”.
The more ludicrous a regulation, usually the easier it is to work around it.
If the gubmint gets too heavy-handed with these new media laws, some enterprising soul with relatives in China – like me – will set up a Chinese-based web-hosting service. For a small annual fee – say $10.00 – people like Jo can transfer registration of their website (but not access pass-words) to a Chinese relative, then just carry on.
If the gubmint regulators see something they don’t like, they can send a letter of complaint to my Chinese relative.
Since he can’t read English, it will be of little concern to him.
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Surely, since the Gummint tax-grab on each packet of death-sticks is the same, the price of the packet makes no difference to it? Socialism – we make laws because we can.
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I love this, MV, it gave me a good chuckle. However, what happens if the gubmint decides to filter out such a Chinese site (to better save us from erroneous thought /sarc)thus limiting our contact or ruling out contact altogether?
I don’t think I have ever been more scared of a let’s-slide-this-under-the-noses-of-the-people-before-they-know-what-it-is government proposal.
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At least for the foreseeable future we are safe from direct filtering at the ISP level (meaning one simply can’t access the site at all).
Search engine filtering however, is an entirely different matter, given Google’s propensity to bow to the wishes of dictatorial regimes, and other search-engines’ reliance on Google. But even black-listing – in cases like this – has had its day, I believe.
In certain areas – particularly in a case where a specific “community” of interest exists – such as climate skepticism, there really isn’t any need anymore for search engines. Take the following example:
Menzies House has started a petition against the proposed new media laws; Simon over at Australian Climate Madness has done an article on the Menzies petition with a link; The Daily Bayonet has done an article on Simon’s article with links to both ACM and Menzie’s House. The link has also been posted here. I have no doubt someone has, or will post something about it over at WUWT. Ditto for No Tricks Zone.
All this is coming to pass within 48 hours of the original post of the petition. All these sites have blogrolls, and each blogroll has at least two of the other named sites on them. A person going to any one of these sites will automatically be able to find all of the others. And the blog rolls weren’t even set up to counter site-censorship – imagine if they were all tailored like the one at ACM to show the latest headline from each site.
Now look at it from Google’s point of view. Someone searches on “Professor Tim Flannery”. Each of the above-named sites has posted articles on him, plus a dozen more skeptic sites not mentioned. Most, if not all of them eventually link back to here. To block access to a link to this site, Google would have filter out sites in the U.S.A, Canada, Germany, and a whole lot of other places.
I think, at least in the case of “community” sites like skeptical sites, the days of search engine filtering as a useful tool of suppression, are over.
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THANK YOU!
I am learning such a lot. I appreciate your words very much, MV, thank you for easing my mind.
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Sorry for vacuously giving this report the benefit of the doubt on first impression, because it just gets worse the more I hear about it. Turns out ACM and Menzies House are talking about this too. The report is squarely aimed at Murdoch media and
climate change deniersCAGW skeptics, so it is frontrunning for thought police. So how’s our form? Government appoints lefty judge to nail Bolt; Done. Government appoints lefty judge to nail rest of political marginally-right-of-centre people; In progress.I thought I was half joking when I made the comparison with Pravda, but… nyet.
Удачи, товарищи.
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Umm!
Good luck to you too, comrade!
Tony.
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Я ввпью к тому
[Lets not take the Russian too far – keep the conversation inclusive for other people.] – Fly
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Что мы питьевой
Dear Fly, don’t be a party pooper. I no speek the language, took me 30 seconds to find a translator.
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Watch Media Watch on Monday at 9:15 on ABC 1. Jonathon Holmes may well talk about this.
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10 minutes in and here goes Brookes trying to change troll the subject………Enough you irritating little man. You just bore us
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Hi Pete,
I regularly take shots at John, but this time I honestly can’t see anything provoctive with his comment. From what I can see, Andrew McRae, who got 22 thumbs up (so far), raised the matter to which John replied. Apart from seemingly offering a positive response, his reply appeared to allude to Andrew saying that even the ABC is taking a dim view of the Finelstein proposals. Are we shooting the messenger regardless of the massage?
Of course I might have it badly wrong here and might need to apologise. I mean that.
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JB you guessed correctly, in spite of your numerous detractors. I tuned in late, but even so Media Watch seemed to spend less than 5 minutes on the topic at the end of the show and then only to point out that Finkie had in a previous interview agreed that funding Media Watch to be shown for 15 minutes every day instead of once per week would be more effective than starting a National Media Council.
Right, so either give more funding to Media Watch on the government mouthpiece channel or else every other channel and newspaper will be converted into a government mouthpiece. Uh, can I take door number three, Monty?
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Monbiot and co. are clearly getting very desperate. He is condoning illegal activity that he believes helps the “cause”.
Having said that, writing in the Guardian is just preaching to the ” rusted on ” converted ( to use that good Aussie phrase). So it is a point of view that won’t get far.
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Well that’s just perverse. There are more errors in this sentence than there are words. I would say Monboit is actively engaged in a program of weeding out thinking persons from his readership. It’s possible that the Guardian have been complaining that his articles draw too many questioning responses which consume ‘moderating’ resources.
If Monboit was serious about his agenda it would be best to start with an account of how much resources were put into the stories that main stream meia outlets peddle. The recycling of press releases costs pennies on the pound compared to thoroughly researched and verified journalism. Something which this generation has not been exposed to.
Is monboit recycling scientists’ press releases or, is he fact checking the claims he makes? No need to answer this rhetorical.
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I seem to recall, quite some time ago, some people flouting the rule of law, and engaging in rather unsavoury means to achieve a noble end, which they did.
That was the War of Independence.
Funny thing though, is that on QI recently they were talking about the US embassy in London. The US government had asked if it could buy the land, and the current owner suggested a swap – the US government could have the land if they just gave back the state of Virginia which they had stolen from his forebears…
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.
In the interests of fair play and the Aussie tradition of a “fair go”, could some folk resist the urge to give a “thumbs down” to a post simply because of the identity of the poster?
The above post by JB was on topic, true, and even had a “funny” in it.
What on earth it do to deserve a thumbs down?
I appreciate many of JB’s posts do rightly deserve a thumbs down, but this wasn’t one of them.
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I no doubt will also get more than my share of thumbs own, simply because I agree with you, rate the post on it’s merit, not who posted it.
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I never do a thumb down, not even on John Brookes. I don’t think it accomplishes anything useful.
I appreciate what humor there is in what John said. But the war of Independence was not fought over trivial matters and nothing was stolen from anyone, not even the State of Virginia.
To understand the American Revolution it’s best to read The Declaration of Independence where grievances every bit as insufferable as the complaints I see here against the government of Australia were laid out for the world to see. Nothing was hidden. Every attempt to avoid war was made. Nothing worked and British troops were dispatched to try to take control of key points. The colonists were alert and tried to stop their advance.
The resulting war was extremely costly, John. I wonder if there are enough good men willing to take such risk to rid either of our countries of the present bunch of thugs.
Yes, I wonder…
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And the loyalists fled to Canada, in fear of their lives…
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Memoryvault,
I wrote my comment before seeing yours and Andrew’s followup. There might be others I missed. I agree. I also agree with your comment about the inane way thumbs are being assigned. In both directions they seem to be based on the personality rather than content or merit. I would like for Jo to comment on what is happening in this thread. I think it is seriously needed.
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memoryvault,
I wholeheartedly agree here, and in fact this is one place where John and I do share a similar interest, as I quite enjoy QI.
Steven Fry is wonderful in everything he does. Speaking of which, I find it hard to believe the cast gathered for Blackadder Goes Forth, which included Fry, and also, the wonderful Hugh Laurie as George, and a stellar cast, considering this was from 1989.
Such wonderful lines.
I have a cunning plan.
Don’t call me Darling.
So John, I rarely use that thumbs facility, but this time, you get one from me, also.
Tony.
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Blackadder – now you’re bringing back memories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_xfKuDZd98&feature=related
I often use the thumbs-up button, but never the thumbs down.
I see it as a form of moral cowardice – if I don’t like or disagree with something, I say so and why.
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A couple of points about Montbiot.
When he uses the word “democracy” it is in the sense of, “Democratic Socialist Republic”, not,” Liberal Western Democracy”,
He really believes that if the progressive Left does it, then the act cannot be wrong.
Hypocrisy is something that happens to those not signed up to the NWO.
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Actually now you mention it, he does look a little like Kim Jong Un.
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@ 12. if you remember, JB, the War of American Independence was mainly as a result of a breakdown in the Rule of Law, in that the emerging US was subject to taxation without representation, and moreover the rule of an absolute Monarch, (in the US, not in UK), which left UK immigrants to the US, (the majority) as second class citizens.
As far as I am aware there has been no breakdown in the Rule of Law as it appertains to climate activists in the US or elsewhere, except when it comes to ensuring that such people are acting within the Rule of Law.
and before you start, in 2 1/2 years of investigation on both sides of the Pond, there is no evidence that the Climategate files were illegally obtained, only a consensus amongst those adversely affected by the revelations.
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I beg to differ. The U.S. War of Independance was not about tyrrany, it was about money and power. The elitist colonialists just wanted to cut the British out of the money loop.
A perfect example is the Boston Tea Party. Many of the Sons of Liberty were tea smugglers. The British had decided to dump a lot of cheap tea on the market and drive them out of business. The Sons of Liberty dressed as Indians and dumped the tea into the harbor.
Originally, only white, landed gentry were allowed to vote. The true miracle is what the U.S. has evolved into.
Monbiot seems to believe that it is okay to violate the rights of others to further his cause. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that he is out on an ethical limb an sawing away at the branch. He seems to think that if he cuts off his own nose to spite his face that he has the right to cut everyone else’s nose off. Then again, if I had a nose like his….
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Eddy,
Since I’m an honest skeptic, what is your source for that? 🙂
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Roy,
Try this link http://www.osmh.org/osmh_123456789files/BostonTeaPartyBegan.aspx
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Roy,
These links may also be helpful
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/colonialamerica/g/Mercantilism.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representation#cite_note-6
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You might want to read the address given by Patrick Henry to the Virginia legislature, March 23, 1775. Those are not the words of a man worried about money or about the niceties of who had the right to vote at what meeting. That marked him for death and had he been captured he would have been taken to England and executed in the most horrible way the King could come up with. A study of Henry is interesting in its own right.
We spend too much time on the final words, “I know not what path others may take but as for me and my house, give me liberty or give me death!
The rest of his words are very enlightening about his thinking. Give them a try.
And yes I’ve seen arguments along those lines. But Eddy, they don’ stand up next to what those who worked to get relief from the king did or to what they said in the Declaration of Independence. Words by the way, that marked the signers for death as well.
The Boston Tea Party was no more the cause of the war than CO2 is the cause of volcanoes.
And by the way, I do understand that every activity, whatever it is has people in it for numerous different reasons. Our revolution was very personal for everyone involved.
I don’t want to beat this to death. But when the King was disbanding legislatures or negating their legal acts, quartering troops in people’s homes without compensation and a host of other things then I find the cause against that King to be just and honorable.
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Roy,
O/T
The last time I was in Boston, I went into a tourist shop, picked up some genuine boston Tea and took it up to the counter.
“That’ll be $X plus sales tax” I was told
“Tax!” I replied – “do you realise revolutions have started because of taxes on tea. You can keep it”.
She smiled and I walked out.
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Madjak,
No one likes a tax if that’s what you mean. I don’t either. But the thing that starts the unrest is when the tax keeps going up. When I was a kid the sales tax in California was just 4%. Now it’s 8.75% and they want to raise it some more.
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Roy,
I, too, am glad that the American Revolution occurred. As you may have read in the link regarding mercantilism, the British were milking the colonist like a cash cow. In the colonies you could not vote unless you owned land. Slavery was legal and women did not get the right to vote until the 20th century.
You are also right about the courage of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. Most were wealthy and most lost money during the revolution.
I woul love to learn of a popular uprising during times of the relative prosperity of the citizenry. I love my country, but it is almost always about money and power. That is how the world really works.
Have a great week Roy!
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Eddy, I suspect there is some truth in what you say.
Which is not to say that there weren’t legitimate grievances. There were.
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I read the situation completely differently. A group of productive people (the colonists) were tired of the lack of rule of law, and decided to tell the people who were meddling in their affairs to go jump.
Once that was done, the war was won, and the first country ever to be based on the foundation of individual freedom combined with the rule of law to conduct orderly commerce was established. And the world has never been the same since.
Once individual freedoms were unleashed, coupled with a land of great resources, the world changed for the better.
The world changed so much it actually made feeble ideas like socialism possible, simply because there was so much production even the leeches couldn’t suck it all dry.
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Same conclusion, different rationales. We’re both right (ish) 🙂
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I don’t think its that simple brc. As I read it, the poms had to provide the army to defend the frontier against indians. The colonists were supposed to honor the treaties that would have limited their expansion, but, thinking that the ends justified the means, the colonists ignored the treaties and stole the indian land. This annoyed the poms who had to provide the army to defend them etc etc.
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The United States broke every treaty they made with the Native Americans. I am proud to be an American but the truth is the truth. Now, shall we get back on topic?
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http://www.xat.org/xat/moneyhistory.html
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I gave John a thumbs down for the simple reason that the colonists in America wanted freedom from tyranny. The equating it with a very illegal act against private citizens is part of the poison that inflicts the narrow view of those with no original thought or reasoning capabilities.
John I would suggest a year or two in a zen position of contemplation.
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Thankyou John, that was an excellent post. I gave you a thumbs up for demonstrating the point which Jo has made on this post more eloquently than anyone else here can.
You see, John Brookes is a true believer. He is not here to argue the science. That, he has attempted to do in the past, using arguments from RealClimate and SkepticalScience, and failed(was that a Gleikism?). Repeatedly and miserably. Go back through the archives on this site around the time of ClimateGate and read the comedy of John Brookes, MattyB et al trying to make the IPCC’s case. It’s quite enjoyable reading.
No, John Brookes is not here to argue the science. He’s here to save your soul. When he compares arguing on behalf of the IPCC to actual revolutionary acts, he believes in his self-righteousness. He is fighting tyranny on your behalf with missionary zeal.
For him, the enemy at the gates are large multi-national energy companies that have formed a secret pact to rid the world of humanity and all other species by providing man with cheap energy and the biosphere with food. This is a truely horrible situation which will result in a rain of fire and brimstone.
The solution to this holocaust is to wipe out 95% of mankind and bury all the plant food in the atmosphere into the ground in order to ‘stabillize’ the planet for a ‘sustainable’ future. This will save mankind from certain death of billions and the destruction of the biosphere. A win win for all.
Are there really evil mega-corporations who want to see the end of mankind and a purging of the biosphere? Yes. They are called banks and are owned my malthusian eugenicists that won’t rest until every country on this planet is subjugated by a carbon trading scheme. A tax on mankind’s primary energy sources. A tax on the very food which sustains our biosphere. A tax on the air we breathe. And they will save your soul, unbelievers.
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I agree with Waffle–John’s favorable comparison of the actions of modern CAGW advocates with the actions of the American colonists is extraordinarily weak. I’m not a student of history, but I can’t recall ever reading that the “science of anything” was the reason the colonists rebelled against England. To so argue is ludicrous.
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Be fair Waffle. Mostly all I try and do is point out that what is held up as “obviously right” is not obviously right.
As for your reading of the aims of those who would reduce CO2 emissions, it is laughable. The AGW crowd simply believe that that our current course is dangerous, and that we should try and change, for the good of us, and our descendants.
Of course, I’m ignoring the extreme humanity-loathing greens and other weirdos.
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There is nothing dangerous about releasing C02 into the atmosphere, it is good for the planet and if you believe in Gaia then, wouldn’t it make sense that humanity was created to do exactly what we are doing? Unfortunately, we have a society beholden to eugentist propaganda. Whether you are a malthusian or not, you have been convinced to be an enabler for those who would rather see our numbers decline than increase.
Pay particular attention to the references and further reading sections of the wikipedia overpopulation page. Look at sheer weight cynicism toward humanity held by once respected institutions.
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Why are people so stupid as to believe that while standing on a fragile ball spinning around at a 1.000 mph and hurtling through space at 70.000 mph that the system is out of whack because of a tiny amount of gas and needs human involvement to repair it?
They would have us believe that the gas is toxic and non recyclable.They say that for the world to keep spinning and sustaining life, that the processes of private enterprises ticket selling is needed to repair it?
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The start of your quote there, Kevin, put me in mind of a Monty Python song from The Meaning of Life…
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Re,”The Meaning of Life” – is thought provoking.
“Every sperm is sacred” if it follows the Pope I gather is the meaning in that context.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8
I notice that the Pope is pro climate change,one world religion and one world government but for the two competing forces to become one will cause Israhell, unless of course they already are one.
If a million new brainwashed, poor and ignorant believers donated only one dollar a year, then business is pretty good.
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QI is sometimes Quite Inaccurate.
The problem with “establishments” is that they are always susceptable to corruption, especially wrt the rule of law which simply says “All laws apply equally to all” or in the 9th Century Saxon terminology of the domboc: “Doom very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!”
The War of Independence wasn’t strictly about the rule of law. It was one of taxes being extracted from a population that had little to no say in the way that they were governed: “No taxation without representation”.
Somewhat akin to the way in which GST revenue is extracted from Western Australia and going to be redistributed by the Feral government – with only 44 cents in the GST dollar coming back to WA in the future.
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Monbiot may have a case, I for one would love to know exactly who funds the Warmists and to what extent. Perhaps dear old George in an example of good faith will volunteer where his funding comes from and the amount.
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It comes from a bankrupt newspaper and their money cmes from………………………………?
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Sounds tempting until you realize what they do to opponents, their pal review methods and now justifying outright fakery/forgery. Monbiot and Co just want you to contribute even more to their asymmetric warfare advantage, a bit like wanting you to provide the soap and towel as they lead you off to the showers for some bad thoughts cleansing.
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If Monbiot wishes to see fair disclosure of information from publicly traded companies or entities which receive tax payer’s money that is fine.
Monitor has no business trying to violate the rights of others to associate and he certainly has no basis for wanting to violating anyone’s right to privacy.
There are already plenty of laws on the books to address any legitimate concerns Moonbat may have.
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JB, You mentioned the American War of Independence which a group of upstarts fomented and by rights should have lost. But I recall something similar that was started by a fellow named Cromwell. Any similarities or parallels there?
BTW, I didn’t give the thumbs down.
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Now you mentioned it..dates of interest (a little off topic though), 1649, 1776, 1789 (ouch my head went somewhere), 1911, 1917 (bang bang).
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Monbiot is just another peddling little jerk from the extremist lefty claptrap peddlers in the MSM. IGNORE IT/HIM/THEM.
They’ll all catch the black death in the next LIA (Little Ice Age) coming to a place near you in a few years.
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Tony,
The Commonwealth Parliamentary Library are often quite efficient and invariabley coureteous (to me at least) in supplying a reference like yours in #6 if you can define it well enough.
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Geoff,
I tried the Search facility at The Senate Hansard site, using ‘Australian Research Council research grants’ as the input for the Search, with no luck. Tried for hours. Nothing.
Tony.
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February SST is in, if anybody is interested.
.3C less than 2010, level pegging with 2011.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/monthly-nino1.png
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I’m a skeptic and an anti-science denier and if I can deny these anti-science crooks their taxeating podium for a moment longer I’ll be damn proud of it.
You forgot to mention the words forgery and fake in all that democratic hero stuff Monbiot and as for anyone in Big Climate being so lunar as to start casting aspersions about ‘pay for say’ with a piddling small skeptic Heartland Institute, all I can say is complete victory over post-normal science and its caravan of flunkies is close at hand.
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This shows that these guys are close to being looney literally, so let them rant they (Gleick, Montbiot Romm) are destroying the AGW religion and belief in it. Unfortunately AGW is now truly dead
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
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Ancient Arabic Manuscripts Help Scientists Reconstruct Past Climate
All climatic events listed above (my emphasis), are today held as evidence by ‘the settled climate science‘ of Man Made Global Warming supposedly from relentlessly rising man made carbon dioxide (cO2) emissions.
What does Skeptical Science say about comparing CO2 emissions to CO2 levels a 1000 years ago?
Carbon dioxide levels were way below ‘catastrophic’.
Maybe George can steal the ancient manuscripts and make this right.
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Like the Grantham Institute, George?
P.S. I apologise for sharing the same surname as that organisations odious “spokesman”….
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O/T, a bit, but its all related to the scam though!
I need some help please from my friends out there on Nova space….
I had a interesting Q & A with our newly named `Living Treasure` Dr Karl Kruzelnicki on ABC local radio the other day. Throughout Far North Qld, ABC broadcasts to approx. 250,000 in population.
He Claimed the Artic had effectively halved its total ice mass from 8 million sq. km to 4 mill.
He also claimed that the depth of the ice had decreased dramatically on average. And of course, we were to blame along with that evil CO2….
He cited US and Russian Defence Force satelite figures and another I did not catch.
He believes CO2 is the main cause of so called Man Made Global Warming. He said so to me, last year.
I rang up and disagreed vehemently with him, and that got his goat going!!
He accused me off reading dodgy internet sites and not knowing anything!! For all he knows I might not know anything, however, Jo and Anthony have fixed that problem.
Believe it! He is now a Living Treasure of the Australian Trust. Who voted him in! May as well have voted in Flim Flannery!!
What I want to know is;
Surely the Artic is not going backwards after this last 3 winters. I cannot myself find a definitive site that shows me this as a comparison between centuries. 🙁
Anyone got a clue? I cant let Dr Karl get away with this propaganda.
I look forward to the suggestions…. this site is a powerful medium.
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I studied Medicine with Dr Karl, and while I quite liked him personally, he was and still is IMHO a delightful eccentric but a complete numbskull, quite frankly. Studied 3 university degrees, Science then Engineering then Medicine, I believe, all at the taxpayer’s expense and free from HEX fees. I think he might have remained a professional student if it weren’t for his media profile. Good luck to him, but one does have to wonder whether we got our money’s worth out of all that subsidized tuition. Same year as Phillip Nitschke, who was also a mature aged student, and whom I couldn’t stand. Still can’t! The man is a walking soap box and possibly the most arrogant man I have ever encountered.
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It’s like this BA. Ask Dr Karl if he knows that statistically it can be shown brighter kids come from homes with 2 toilets and when he answers yes as he should, ask him does that mean we should all be in the market for a third toilet to have brighter kids, particularly if the Govt funded Third Toilet Association keeps knocking on our doors, as well as at school with the teachers and the kiddies.
Then you might ask him about what’s happened with Antarctic ice and what it all means.
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Mind you BA you could cut to the chase and say you understand that if you took a bronze replica of Dr Karl and stuck it knee deep in a tub of hot water you understand High School physics will predict the outcome repeatedly. However which field of science and which scientist would be best able to predict and descibe the outcome if repeated with the real Dr Karl? Humanology and a the head Humanologist?
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Don’t mind the article BA, but there is some good narrative and charts.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/04/sea-ice-news-volume-3-1-the-arctic-institute-pawns-itself/#more-58304
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Yes, Arctic sea ice has plainly been shown doing a big upstroke in the last few weeks even in spite of above average Arctic temperatures- so much for Dr Karl’s claims to the contrary. The first casualty of war is the truth- so very true.
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Thanks Streetcred and all comments.
God, I love this site…..
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I heard “Big Karl” having an interview once (I think it was a Conversations with Richard Fiedler) where he described belatedly discovering his parents persecution & escape from the Holocaust.
I really would love to hear him defend his position on CAGW in light of the number of people the UN has booked in to starve in face of the bio-fuel programs & green power in Africa.
A debate between KK & Carter would be an appropriate curtain raiser.
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I think Karl belongs to the “they know not what they do” category. Don’t think he has a nasty bone in his body, and he would be mortified to think his ethos was “inadvertently” propagating third world death and suffering. Unfortunately, this little black duck agrees with you, pattoh, about the real consequences of the UN hidden agendas. However, in the wash up, it really won’t matter what your intentions were, if that is the result then ignorance should be no defense, especially when you’re arguing from a perspective of alleged authority.
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So what then is the difference between (KK) being used as a high profile entertainer posing as a font of knowledge & the Fibreglass Clowns sitting on the benches under the Twin Golden Arches? They both trade on their noble causes.
When the public (market) can’t afford to pay their power & grocery bills let alone the mortgage on the McMansions, they will be more interested in Western Sydney Street Parties than happy meals.
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Kind of funny. On the one hand its a scam to take from the rich and give to the poor, but on the other hand its going to make the poor starve. Which one is it?
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So why do the warmiztas hide behind anonymity and censoring if they’re so pro-transperancy come opinion, lobbyism, financials by both private and government funding?
Rights to anonymity and privacy is only ok for Libbyan freedom fighters, it seem, but not for western democracies according to the western world green left overs and their backers that are the major news media outlets.
Even now, in OZ land, the lefties want to control communication by regulation of blogs and more. They’ve tried it in EU for years, all cheered on by the main news media. But for all transperancy their reasons and the funding are still not known.
When the wall fell, people said: Never again! Yet I don’t think it took even ten years before the lefties started plotting and scheeming by their propaganda again.
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“When the Berlin wall came down, and all of the Communists escaped …”
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I think you, Mr Dandy Troll, hide behind anonymity more than me…
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Interesting all the warmists coming the Mr Gleick’s defence.
I was thinking what Mr Gleick would be doing now had he used his impersonation to obtain confidential information from the Pentagon and spread it around the internet.I think he would have a nice room in
the big house and anxious about how his first date with Big Bubba was going to go.:-)
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safest thing is for the governments to fund both sides of the argument at a certain level for ever and then see who switches sides, even though this would not work, if both sides suddenly said there was no problem the government would withdraw the funding which in itself shows why the alarmists keep the scare going.
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Please leave Monbiot alone. He’s a complete cretin and I think we should show compassion to such people rather than vilify and criticise them.
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He is a criminal and he should be prosecuted. No man is above the law!
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Monbiot and other journalists together with the “scientists” who feed them are looking to their legacy. It seems likely that for many history will judge them in their own lifetime. Can’t wait
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They get whackier as they get more desperate.
I don’t want anyone to feel alone about people advocating stealing. So here’s a good indicator of how honest our election next november will be. We have no voter fraud problem.
Right!
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George Monbiot believes that mankind is doing irreparable harm to the planet because he believes mankind’s actions are responsible for global warming and global warming is really, really bad. Furthermore, as Mr. Monbiot sees it, a large portion of the scientific community has not only identified the problem, it has identified the solution to the problem–cut our carbon dioxide emissions by a significant amount. Based on these beliefs, Mr. Monbiot states that because Dr. Peter Gleick “obtained and leaked” Heartland documents (an organization that is trying to thwart the CAGW hysteria), Dr. Gleick should be treated as a hero, not as someone who behaved immorally and possibly broke federal and state laws. I’d like to analyze Mr. Monbiot’s position as I see it.
Why Mr. Monbiot believe global warming (a) exists, (b) is bad, (c) is manmade and (d) significantly cutting anthropogenic CO2 emissions is THE solution? To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Monbiot is not a scientist. As such, I wonder on what basis Mr. Monbiot concludes that global warming exists, is manmade, and reducing our anthropogenic CO2 emissions will have any appreciable effect. Furthermore, I have no idea why he thinks global warming is bad. Sure, if the Earth’s temperature increased by 100 degrees, that would be bad–at least for mankind. But it isn’t obvious to me why a one or two degree increase in the temperature of the Earth would be all that disastrous. Like all of us, Mr. Monbiot is entitled to his opinions and to act on those opinions within the rules established by society.
In my opinion, the source of Mr. Monbiot’s beliefs are not personal knowledge, but rather listening to the arguments of others and based on those arguments forming an OPINION. Because no one can know everything, this is as it should be–even admirable. However, to then condone immoral and possibly illegal actions of likeminded people is anything but admirable. In essence, Mr. Monbiot is saying: “I personally don’t know if my position is valid; but I believe a subset of society does know, and therefore any position and/or actions taken by that subset overrides the rules of behavior set up by society in general. Not only do I (Mr. Monbiot) tolerate such behavior, I applaud and deify that behavior.”
Oh, if only all of us had Mr. Monbiot’s wisdom. I disagree that because an action happens to be consistent with my opinion, I should automatically condone anti-societal actions that are consistent with my beliefs. [Note: I am aware that I am about to invoke Godwin’s Law, but in this case I believe it is appropriate.] As I recall, a group of people formed the OPINION that Aryans were a master race and that Slavs and other races were “Untermenschen” (subhumans). In part, that group of people employed the “science” of phrenology to justify their beliefs. They became so fervent in their ideology that they convinced themselves that the problem of limited Aryan land existed and something had damn well be done about it. They looked to the East and saw an answer: all that land inhabited only by untermenschen. What right did untermenschen have living on Aryan land? Their solution to the problem was to invade the land, kill the untermenschen leaders and enslave the untermenschen masses. If successful, they argued, the world would be better off for the master race, and although there would be a few less untermenschen, who cared? And, maybe most important of all, they had SCIENCE on their side. We all know how well that worked out. It turned out that a few million untermenschen (the Russians) along with a large part of the western world, including a few Aryans, did care. Bottom line, the problem of limited Aryan land existed only in the minds of a particular subset of Aryans. This didn’t, however, stop that group from bringing on World War II resulting in a wee bit more damage than good.
I believe Mr. Monbiot and others are entitled to their opinions and to act accordingly within the framework of society–that framework being essentially defined by the rule of law. However, when to advance their goals they start not just advocating but applauding the breaking of society’s rules, then they get my attention. I don’t want to see the equivalent of World War II just because a vocal segment of society “thinks” we have a problem and “knows” it has the solution.
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In the toxin CO2, O is twice the content of C … therefore plainly more toxic than C … on that basis I recommend that Moonbat be deprived of O. Thankyou … thankyou 😉
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I just read Monbiot’s article. The comments were closed so I sent Monbiot th following email.
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Please excuse the typo. The first sentence in the second paragraph of my above rant should read: “Why does Mr. Monbiot believe…”
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Things are getting very scary in Oz. Jo, you might have to continue blogging from offshore, if this lot of legislation passes into law.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/03/censorship-comes-to-australia/
Pointman
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Spot on Pointman. I’m in my late 60’s and never thought I’d live to see the day when my beloved Australia would be even thinking of going down this path. It scares the living daylights out of me.
I’m reminded of that famous quote by Thomas Jefferson – ” OUR LIBERTY DEPENDS ON THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED WITHOUT BEING LOST”
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This is not what two generations went OS to defend.
WHERE IS THE RSL??
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ABC RN still has this New Age nonsnese program, that is unbearable to listen to. last nite, a whole hour on evil “climate change”. Maldives sinking, population will need to be relocated to Sri Lanka, India or Australia. oceans rising, stand up to deniers, etc etc. talk of Maldives’ president’s scuba stunt makes one feel this program was made a couple of years ago. full of disinfo:
5 March: ABC Radio National: New Dimensions: Nature As Guide in Perilous Times with Osprey Orielle Lake #3424
Lake shows us that lasting changes in our way of life will arise and find broad support only when nature in all its transformative beauty and power, is once again front and centre in our everyday consciousness.
She offers a frank inquiry into the causes that have led to our current global peril and provides a deep well of hope and profound insight…
She is an advisor to the International Eco-Cities Framework and Standards Initiative; an international advocate for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature;
and has travelled to five continents studying ancient and modern cultures while making presentations at international conferences and universities.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/newdimensions/new-document/3854074
this was repeated an hour after the above (repeated from 4 March. Hagar interposes “climate change” and gets someone to agree it’s the cause, but the locals know it’s an historical problem blah blah. Hegar on mosquitos/malaria is pretty funny as she tries to make it scary:
ABC RN: A sinking feeling in the Torres Strait
There are six islands in the Torres Strait facing inundation from tidal flooding…
There is a temporary solution—building seawalls—but the federal and state governments are showing little interest in paying for that, and in the meantime these island communities have a sinking feeling that relocation may be the only option left for them. Reporter, Hagar Cohen.
comment by Once Bitten:
Around 1950 the hundred or so inhabitants of Saibal were permanently relocated to Cape York at government expense when the island was submerged by the tides. Why are there 300 people again living permanently on this tiny sand deposit? I don’t really have a problem if $22 million one-off will solve the problem, but this seems to be a perennial issue if we are seeing 1950s tides again. We might be up for the same money every five years.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-03-04/3857272
Hagar pushing CAGW on taxpayer-funded ABC is no problem, but she was upset about this:
April 2011: ABC Background Briefing: Hagar Cohen: Chaplains accused of pushing religion in schools
Some parents say they have evidence the federally-funded National School Chaplaincy program is being used to push religion to public school students.
The controversy is now headed for the High Court, and there is also a Federal Government review and an ombudsman’s investigation…
“[It is] basically to make people become of his religion. That’s it really. To convert children to their religion,” said Max, a Year 8 student.
Nick, a maths teacher at the primary school nearby, was shocked when the chaplain came to his school and invited the children to pray…
The chaplaincy provider refused an interview invitation and the school principal confirmed one allegation of proselytising was investigated and the chaplain was reminded about his code of conduct. The chaplain says he does not proselytise at the school.
Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett says his department takes these matters seriously…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-08/chaplains-accused-of-pushing-religion-in-schools/2625218
plus i posted this on Bolt the other day:
“meanwhile SBS is showing a series “hot cities” which has each city vying for having the biggest, mostest global warming in the world, no matter how dishonest or untrue the examples presented have proven to be in the time since the programs were made. how do we get this trash off the TV?”
beyond time for ABC/SBS CAGW proselytising to be taken to Court???
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Jo, you might wish to alert readers to this piece of promising news: Premier O’Farrell yesterday gave me a public undertaking that he will consult with the State A-G with a view to a High Court challenge to the constitutionality of the carbon tax under s.114, per legal advice first publicised by constitutional barrister Bryan Pape in October 2011. More here – “No Excuses, Mr O’Farrell”.
Readers might wish to add the weight of their own voice by contacting Mr O’Farrell (and their State MP) to urge him to make good on his pre-election pledge, that he would “go to Canberra to argue” the case against the carbon tax “if I’m elected premier”. Contact details and Sample letter at the link.
The same applies for other states too, so I would urge readers in Victoria to contact Premier Baillieu, in WA to contact Premier Barnett, in QLD, likely soon-to-be Premier Newman, etc.
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Hi Barnaby; good site and very interestiong about the constitutional advice about the carbon tax. You probably know the NGER list has been removed from the Dept of Climate Change website; this list showed the CO2 emissions from all the threshold companies in Australia up to 2009; I suspect it was taken down because it showed the enormous amounts the tax would have taken from these companies, especially the energy companies like Macquarie Generation.
It is another example of the despicable hypocrisy of this government which wants to muzzle criticism of it through its Brown sponsored new ‘press’ laws while at the same being completely lacking in transparency about its nefarious programs.
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No problem Cohenite .. I have copies, including detailed research into what each of the “biggest polluter” companies listed by the NGER (as at 2011) actually is/does – see The “500 Biggest Polluters” Exposed – Everything The Government Is Not Telling You.
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Thanks Barnaby for this link. Being fairly new to this whole debate, there is a lot I don’t know. But Boy! Am I learning! That truckies feature second on this list of 500 “biggest polluters” and Food Industries features third is terrifying. EVERYTHING will go up in price, and hugely.
No wonder this government wants to silence and discredit all those who look closely and report!
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Thanks Barnaby; I take it back; the government is not lacking in transparency, it is shamelessly indifferent to who knows about its nefarious plans! [that is a bit of back-sliding there!]
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Yikes!
cohenite, at Barnaby’s second provided Post link, there is a link to an XL Spreadsheet, which I too have now saved.
As mentioned by Barnaby, it is NGER current to 2011.
It only lists 300 entities there, and when you add Scope 1 emissions, and Scope 2 emissions, just for those 300, and then multiply by the $23 per Tonne, the total comes in at just a tick over $10 Billion.
No wonder they took it down.
Can’t have the plebs knowing how much they will be raking in. The people might begin to wonder where it’s all going to, and for those of you who support this iniquitous new tax, please don’t try to tell me that it is all being given back to, er, Working Families.
Tony.
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So have I Tony, and look at MacGen; total Scope 1 and 2 emissions are [in tonnes] for 2011:
Multiply that be the $23 tax and you get an annual carbon tax bill of:
$472,056,071
MacGen makes about $200 million PA profit.
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Hey, that’s really odd.
Are we looking at the same document.
I have this XL document, and this is the direct link to that at 1.6MB.
http://barnabyisright.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/nger_register_report_combined_polluters.xls
That is as of APR 20111, and I see MacGen as 23408791 Tonnes CO2 Scope 1, and 175836 Tonnes Scope 2.
Tony.
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Tony & Cohenite
I have copied data from two lists in early February 2012 onto an XL spreadsheet
One has 300 companies on it with 3 columns for different CO2 Tax rates for 3 years
and a second one with 426 companies on with the same columns. Also has the 2 colums on each for Scope 1 emmissions and Scope 2 Emissions. They came from a cached copy of a PDF from the internet. There is about 40 million tonnes CO2 (total of S1 & S2) difference between the lists? Which is only nearly $1 Billion?
Can I send this to Jo – and she can pass the spreadsheet on to you guys?
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Hey Dave,
OK with me.
I have contacted MacGen by email, and asked ‘general’ questions wrt to a Post I am thinking of running with.
I understand that some info may actually be confidential, but gee, I’m wondering why the Government is so ‘touchy’ on how much this whole ‘scheme’ is going to raise, if the average person can look at some data for themselves and work it out.
The part that concerns me most is why we are being told that the Government is giving it ‘ALL’ back, when patently that will not be happening.
Tony.
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Readers might like to review this Feb 11th blog also – An OSCAR For The Clean Energy Future.
On 7 February the Auditor-General released the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) “independent performance audit” of the National Greenhouse and Energy Register’s preparedness for the introduction of the carbon tax. It makes for
interestingastonishing reading.A few highlights:
* “Currently, the department does not verify the reported data”
* “Of the 545 reports analysed, 72 per cent contained errors with 17 per cent including significant errors” – a “significant error” is defined as one where the figure is more than 40 per cent of the facility emission threshold (!?!)
* “..late reporting remains a challenge with 23 per cent of registered corporations submitting late reports from 2009-10”
* Errors in submissions by corporations in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 reporting years requiring resubmission, amounted to 22% and 9% of total reported emissions respectively (about 77 million and 30 million tonnes of CO2-e)
* “The ANAO’s IT security testing found that the design of OSCAR exposed the system to significant security risks. The ANAO made 40 specific recommendations to DCEE to improve the security of OSCAR, with eight recommendations classified as high priority”
* Corporations reported cost-of-compliance estimates “significantly exceed the original cost estimate of $10,000 for annual entity costs at the time the legislation was passed by the Parliament”
* The Auditor-General report showing that NGER and its reporting systems are a farce, cost the taxpayer $472,569
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Tony, this is the list I’m using, which gives:
20,330,773 + 193,404 = 20524177
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I would urge all to sign this petition about the new censorship laws in Australia:
http://www.freespeechaustralia.com/
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I agree. We’ve signed it and also written to our MP about our concerns.
Read chapter four of the Report Of The Independent Inquiry Into The Media And Media Regulation which can be downloaded from here:
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry
Because she doesn’t look good in the polls, Gillard has decided that the Australian public is being led astray by discussions such as the one we are currently enjoying. Blogs much smaller than this one will be blocked and told what to write. Any blog getting so much as 40 hits a day is big enough to fall under this new regulation.
I mean, c’mon! 40 hits a DAY??? That’s the equivalent of five or more people getting together.
Dissident books will be next. Then there will be that knock on the door in the middle of the night…
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Been there, done that on Saturday. also left a link at an earlier post.
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Had a look at that site. Then had a read of the Exec Summary of the Finkelstein Report.
Unless there are nasties buried in the bits i haven’t read as yet its all very ho-hum from a freedom of speech perspective. Pretty much based around getting journo’s / publications to do what they already reckon they do, and yup covering online media.
Shouldn’t have any problems if you don’t write crap and keep a relatively civil discourse going people.
Hey and if the IPA are against it, then it’s probably worthwhile. 🙂
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Catamon
While I don’t agree with almost every opinion you have ever espoused on this blog, I would nonetheless be very concerned if a Liberal or other conservative government came to power and used legislation like this to gag your legitimate rights, Cat, to express your opinion here, no matter how wrong headed, nonsensical or lacking in logic any such opinion might be.
If your arguments are weak or make no sense, then it will only ring true to 1 or 2 leftist nutjobs and the rest of us will quietly ignore you and that will be that, so where’s the harm in that? By promoting an agenda like that which is being proposed, it is open for abuse by any government of any persuasion immoral enough to exploit it to suppress any dissent or even honest appraisal of its failings.
Surely you can see that this sword has two edges and could easily be used against you or those of your belief, or are you so myopic that you cannot detect the potential danger in this sort of proposal? If George W Bush was running this country right now, you would be bleating to high heaven about the moral injustice of it all. Fortunately for you, most of the conservatives on the other hand would vigorously defend your right to free speech regardless of your ideology, realising that the opposition of competing ideas is an important factor in providing a vital and energised society.
Did the society of Orwell’s “1984” seem to you to be a paradise where humanity was able to fulfill it’s best expectations and promise? To my reading it was the death of everything I hold dear in the human condition, and the end game for us as a viable species. So, as much as your opinions may annoy me, and while some “harm” may come from you expressing them, it pales into insignificance compared to the harm of not allowing you to say it. So do you really think it is intelligent to be so flippant about an issue so potentially important and frought with potential pitfalls. I look forward to hearing your opinion……..
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OT: UEA defends its record on cheating:
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/uea_defends_its_record_on_cheating_1_1227357
Fish rots from the head.
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That takes care of the student body, now for a similar survey of the faculty!
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I don’t read Dr. Monbiot’s writings on a regular basis, but his position is typical of many journalists. Journalists today have an agenda when they write that fits their own templates, either liberal or conservative political agendas. AGW is a political agenda as a topic of public discourse. He is supporting a deceitful act by Dr. Peter Gleick because it adds fuel to his fire to destroy ideas that oppose a manmade global climate change, his agenda.
So why have so many journalists come out to support Gleick’s actions to use deceit to obtain and distribute private proprietary information from the Heartland Institute? Because the embarrassment of nonpublic think tank would further the agenda to dismiss nonsupport of AGW. Mr. Monbiot’s choice of which side to support is probably based on what he thinks his readers want to read. His motivations are clear.
But is this true of all journalists? The answer is yes. Journalism is an occupation that requires journalists to get a story even if they have to use deceit to get the facts from a source that is unwilling to cooperate. Some of the great journalist triumphs have been the direct result of using deceit. It is part of the occupational requirements. This not to say that journalists are bad people or that they run their lives using deceit.
The frame of reference used by journalists is a moral code that is based on “Plato’s Noble Cause” which is interpreted today to mean that deceit is acceptable provided the act is conducted to benefit the majority. Some call this “the ends justify the means” ethical code. So Monbiot’s apology for Gleick is no surprise.
However, Monbiot and others of his ilk do not appear to understand that there is another moral standard that is applied today by society which states that deceit is always wrong, an Absolute moral code. Does this code apply to Gleick? There are people in our societies that are held to a different moral standard than journalism, viz. doctors, scientists, law enforcement personnel, and members of government safety organizations such as the FDA, DOE, ASTM, and the EPA. That standard is Absolute moral Code. Dr. Gleick as a member of the climate scientific community is not excused from being condemned for deceit against Heartland Institute because the absolute standard for morality says deceit is always wrong. Maybe the majority would benefit, but Dr. Gleick should have found another way to save the planet. Undoubtedly, the wire fraud law will support this contention.
Nevertheless, Mr. Monbiot is true to his colors in supporting deceit and it is for the reader to discern whether what he writes is believable. For him, Gleick is a hero to the throw away his scientific career to destroy people that do not share his beliefs on global warming. For Dr. Gleick, the die is cast. He is free to deceive all he wants, but it is doubtful that his positions on climate science will be believed again. Maybe he can take up journalism.
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I’m reminded of this wonderful letter to the editor in the SMH
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Very nice.
“A case in point: one of the institutions we have funded for many years is McKnight’s employer.”
Laugh till you drop.
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Touché, Davo!
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What can I say, except that you are totally correct Jo, which is becoming a habit.
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OT but the latest from spencer is -0.12C for Feb, as my wife would say “brrrr is it cold in here or is it just me?”.
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What I want to see:
Out of the UN.
Out of IPCC.
Aussie election NOW.
Not necessarily in that order…
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OT again but i was wondering if anyone can tell me what the fuzzy black thing is in this video?
http://www.climateworksaustralia.com/empower/
TIA
Crakar
PS they claim they are called a “carbon particle” can anyone explain to me what a carbon particle has to do with an economy crippling tax?
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Cracker, its all about scaring the little people, then, just like a maccas add pester power.
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I saw that yesterday.
Absolutely disgusting.
Tony.
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Bob,
I am a little confused with the name change at such a late hour, why not just stick with carbon pollution? It looks like they tried to throw in a bit of honesty on this one as i assume a carbon particle could be construed as a piece of soot ie a little fluffy black thing.
Of course a carbon particle could also be construed as a diamond but a talking diamond as opposed to a talking fluffy black thing would look silly right?
Still you dont change the name of something you are trying to sell unless of course you cant sell it, so you repackage and try again. So now CO2 is not causing global warming it is carbon particles in whatever form the most abundant element in the universe takes.
In fact the video fails on so many levels that i would not know where to begin, i am sure JB, Ross et al think it is a masterpeice and something that will certainly turn the tide in the court of public opinion just like all the other hare brained ideas that have gone off in their faces like a bad trick cigar.
The fact that the fluffy thing has eyes and a mouth suggests this indoctrination program is once again aimed at the young which creates two problems. Firstly this is the group that should be most protected by our government not tagetted in such a monstrous way and secondly if you cross them you lose them. So what happens when these young minds look to the sky and they dont see any fluffy talking things?
All in all another complete waste of my tax dollars brought to you by the most incompetent government in the history of this nation.
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Well if Enid Blyton’s Golliwogs had to go, then the carbon particle is clearly going to have the same effect on our children. Why aren’t the usual suspects all over this flagrant racist association of black with the bogeyman?
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Compare and contrast –Monbiot’s drivel with this excellent blog by Pointman
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/the-climate-wars/
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O/T: Essential research 2PP 4/3/12
2010 Now Movement
Total Lib/Nat 43.6% 49.0% + 12.38%
Labor 38.0% 32.0% – 15.78%
Greens 11.8% 10.0% – 15.25%
Other/Independent 6.6% 9.0% + 36.36%
I hope those that have left the Greens & Labor and gone to the independents don’t leave us hung again.
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Does the Kat in the Hat come under “independents”?
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Witha “after preferences” tally of 44-56 the only thing hanging come next election will be (insert most hated PM name here).
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A quote from the play “A Man For All Seasons” by Robert Bolt seems apt.
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Article in Washington Post about the climate information war (Gleick etc). Prepare seasickness tablets since the headline is the most skeptical statement in the article and it only gets worse.
==>In climate wars, advocacy by some researchers brings risks
Money shot from High Priest Hansen:
> “Scientists ought to connect the dots all the way to the very end,” he said, adding that scientific training often hampers researchers because they are taught to include caveats when they report their findings. “They’re pitted against people who use the talk show method — you just quote these bits of information which support your cause.”
I hardly need to remind frequent readers here that the IPCC Team is more guilty of selection bias and glossing over uncertainties than the truly climate-curious.
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The warmist at this time has a “Houston we have a problem” moment.
The space travelers were backed by real scientists and engineers and survived.
This mob have political spin, advocacy and deception, I for one would not like to be in their space capsule. They would spin your death as a necessary outcome for the betterment of the planet, rather than take responsibility for their failings.
Doctors take a hippocratic oath, these people must take a hippocritic oath.
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[…] a dominant, untenable, ideological position, then democracy is endangered not served by those who seek to confront the dominancy, but by those who seek to obliterate criticism. If the vast majority are on the side […]
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