Naomi Oreskes visited Curtin University in Perth last week. Blessed are those who came to bear witness to the true prophecies! Dr Roberto Soria from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, was there at what he so aptly describes as an evangelistic event. His dry satirical report of that day follows, a very enjoyable read for those who have been at the receiving end of similar sermons. Frankly, I can’t think of a better way to absorb the Oreskes message. Enjoy! — Jo
Naomi Oreskes preaches hatred of sinners
The Parable of Oreskes is epic!
Guest Post Dr Roberto Soria
The glorious banquet is coming to an end. For 150 years hundreds of millions of guests have eaten to their hearts’ content at the Banquet of Gaia. But now, the Son of Man has arrived to deliver the bill. The diners are in shock. Some begin to deny that this is their bill. Others deny that there even is a bill. Still others deny that they partook of the meal, or suggest that they simply ignore the waiter. But there is no way out. The bill is due now, it is time to pay, or we shall be cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping, floods, droughts, acid rain, ozone holes and gnashing of teeth.
“…a chap with a CSIRO badge intervened with the zeal of an evangelic preacher … trying to save me.”
This was the gist of the legend with which The High Priestess Naomi Oreskes, bishop in the holy church of global warming, chose to start her sermon at Curtin University’s Sustainability Policy Institute last Thursday. She had just flown to Perth from the US to warn us against the use of fossil fuels, and to sell her book. As John 1:5 says, “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not”. Rev Oreskes’s book is trying to explain why, precisely, the darkness does not comprehend the Truth of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change (CAGW).
The answer is simple: the forces of evil are at work, day and night, to suppress the Truth, and she is trying to expose all that. The Devil, in this case, is a complex conglomerate of tobacco and fossil fuel industries, run by all-powerful, rich white males, driving Western capitalist economies. They are responsible for the continued existence of Sin in the City of Man. There is no greater Sin, no worse thoughtcrime in the CAGW church than for a scientist to deny or even doubt or discuss the truth of CAGW itself. There are different types of sinners, Rev Oreskes explained, perhaps destined for different circles of hell. There are scientists directly paid by the Devil. Others who are driven by visceral ideological anti-communism. Others (mostly white, old, male) who participated in the Manhattan project and think they are still fighting the cold war. Others who are simply compulsive liars. Others who still think the earth is flat or continents do not move. Others who have such a bloated ego to believe that their own rational judgement can trump the revealed consensus Truth. And others who are sad, lonely weirdos who are just trying to attract attention because nobody talks to them. Hate the sin, love the sinners, Christian theologians say; but the impression left on me by Rev. Oreskes’s acerbic, humourless sermon, delivered in a whiny American twang, is that she hates the sin and hates the sinners even more.
America is, as always, the big Satan, because of its individualism, its “cowboy spirit”, difficult to overcome because it is enshrined in the Constitution. America is where the Devil lives. In the Bible, the Devil manifests itself as a Serpent, tempting humans to Sin. In Medieval culture, the Devil often appeared as a Black Goat. In Rev. Oreskes’s theology, the Devil is mainly represented by the Fox. There is nothing that the evil Fox cannot do to corrupt humankind and bring it away from the Truth, not just in the US but also in Australia. Crushing the head of the Fox appears to be one of the holy priestess’s main obsessions, her “badge of honour”, as she described it.
To be fair, not all of the US is doomed, yet: pockets of New England can still be saved, and above all California, whose “viable economy” should be “a model for other states and nations”. At this point, a treehugger-looking chap in the audience, who had even brought a guitar with him, interjected to say that Australia is not as bad as the US, because, he explained with mellow voice, we are still connected to the land, even though the evil work of the Fox has been detected here, too. Peace, man, that was appreciated.
Apart from California, Europe was the only glimmer of hope, Rev. Oreskes pointed out. The European Union as the New Jerusalem. In particular: France, where “people are not afraid of collective action”; Spain, with its successful solar programme, which on a good day already produces 50% of total power; Germany, with its wind and solar farms and “3/4 million green jobs, more than in the car industry”. And of course the ambitious wind plans in the UK, helping to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land. For the rest of the world, there is some hope, too: Zero Carbon Australia, with no coal use, no coal export, no fossil-fuel cars, and hundreds of thousands of new green jobs, is already achievable by 2020, if only we had faith even as small as a mustard seed. Wind plus solar and wind plus biofuel can power the Third World.
Alas, Rev Oreskes’s evangelical service ended with a tinge of sadness. Despite knowing the Truth, the AGW faithful still have not managed “to bring the masses along”, as a member of the audience put it in despair. The problem is that the church of AGW preaches the apocalypse but cannot guarantee salvation. There is no City of God, no afterlife for the faithful: we may all be doomed to hellfire, saints and sinners, if the church does not triumph here on Earth, by crushing the sinners in this life. And there is little time left.
Luckily, a more positive note was offered by another Curtin Sustainability professor, Deacon Laura Stocker, who delivered a sermon to the same congregation before the main act. She had just implemented one of Julia Gillard’s bright ideas: the citizens’ assembly. Reading from her First Letter to the Mandurahns, Deacon Stocker described how she hand-picked dozens of pensioners and housewives, divided them into tables and put them in a room for a day, showed them videos of world-wide weather catastrophes due to AGW, invited them to list and discuss all possible horrific consequences that will befall Mandurah when (not if) the sea level suddenly rises by 1m. At the end of this course, she questioned the participants again and found that they had been “better educated”, that they now “supported strong Government intervention against climate change” and “did not trust market forces”. Success. Finally, she took the results of this re-education course to the Mayor of Mandurah, as a “supporting tool for climate action”. As a result, the City of Mandurah has now been converted to the true Faith. What happened if a table remained skeptic, a troublemaker in the audience asked. Well, Deacon Stoker replied, we had “roving experts” who would stop at any recalcitrant table and re-explain them the science, for as long as necessary, until they accepted the facts. Are there any actual direct measurements of how much the sea level is rising in Mandurah, asked another troublemaker. Of course there are real measurements: it will rise 1m by 2100, she replied, as per CSIRO projections (“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”, John 20:29). A fair-skinned Aboriginal academic in the audience pointed out that there are beaches near Mandurah where his indigenous ancestors had walked in the past, that are now under water. This seemed a rather trivial statement to me (my whitefella ancestors used to walk between England and France), but Deacon Stocker found it “profoundly moving”, a sobering thought of tremendous cultural significance; she must have struggled hard to suppress her tears. But that was a day for rejoicing, not for tears. For Mandurah may be a small place, but ce n’est qu’un debut: similar publicly-funded initiatives must be repeated in every Australian town and city, until the masses come along to the Truth. Meanwhile, we can only hope, pray, and keep the funding going.
I put a question in the forum that day at Curtin, which Oreskes dismissed as ignorant and irrelevant, and a chap with a CSIRO badge intervened with the zeal of an evangelic preacher, reached over to me, with fiery eyes and an exalted voice, trying to make me see the error of my ways, my irresponsible and ignorant opinion before it’s too late. I don’t blame him, he was just trying to SAVE me, while I still have time, because tomorrow may be too late. Again, in typical evangelical style, he said that he would provide me with some reading that will open my mind and make me see the truth. If there was an approved exorcism rite for climate skeptics, I am sure he would tried it on me on the spot.
I have received an email from him. He is still trying to save me. [I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and nine just persons, who need no repentance–Luke 15:7]. He was the typical member of the audience at the Curtin Sustainability Dept. He was telling me that the signs of CO2-induced catastrophic climate change are all around me every day, so plain to see (heatwaves-snow-nosnow-droughts-floods-tornadoes-hurricanes-greenlandmelting-sealevelrise-itsworsethanwethought…). But then again, I have been to many evangelicals gatherings where the people were seeing the direct intervention of God in each and every trivial event of their lives. Is it raining? it was God’s decision to make me stay at home today and read the Bible; is it sunny? it was God’s plan to make me walk out on a pilgrimage to the church. Those people were really seeing the hand of God everywhere, in the same way the CSIRO chap sees the hand of CO2 everywhere, and no rational argument will convince them otherwise.
Thanks to Roberto
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Other posts by Dr Soria
Slight typo (I presume) in the second paragraph where it says “…the darkness does not comprehend the Truth of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change (CAGW).” CACC would be the acronym, or perhaps the text should read Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
I had exactly the same feeling when I saw Oreskes at UWA, what was it? About a year ago? The auditorium was filled with the faithful and they lapped up her bile with religious fervor. I must say I dared not question her obviously flawed arguments, for fear of a lynching. I am almost sursprised there wasn’t green Koolaid going around after the lecture.
What astounds me most is that universities around the world promote this stuff as if it has any merit whatsoever.
As an aside, there is an interesting video on TED about a lady who fell into and out of a cult* (Moonies), and her explanation of the mindset while in the cult. There are disturbing similarities to the unthinking arguments you get from followers of the Church of Climatology.
* See http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ex_moonie_diane_benscoter_how_cults_think.html
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I’d go with Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Aggravation, or CACA.
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I’d go with PC = LI. Liberal intolerance, (as in progressive left liberal, although that label is yet another “LI” since what we are witnessing with the so-called progressive agenda is a process which is re-gressive in every way, politically, socially, economically, intellectually, and even environmentally.)
I’d also go with PC = CAGW = The big lie.
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“What astounds me most is that universities around the world promote this stuff as if it has any merit whatsoever.”
No surprise to me. The first Feminist Studies Department was created in the late Sixties. Now there is one in every university or college in the USA.
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Wonderful article by Dr. Soria. It is encouraging to read someone who knows Oreskes inside and out.
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What a frightening thought!
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.
I’m puzzled about what Oreskes and her acolytes think is happening in the world.
I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Steve McIntyre in London yesterday. He commented that China’s GHG emissions will be double US emissions in 2012, that in the past 5 to 6 years China has increased its emissions by an amount equal to the USA’s total emissions (so, even if US emissions were reduced to zero, China’s emissions would be greater than the US’s in 2005) and that the trend in US emissions over the past 20 years is negligible (now maybe close to 1990 levels). Re emissions, the overwhelming issue was what was happening in China and India (etc.): there’s nothing in practice the West can do to avoid the IPCC’s “base case” for global emissions actually happening. (He – no sceptic himself – added, “We must hope the sceptics are right”.)
Does she think China and India are emitting all that ghastly CO2 because a complex and evil conglomerate of tobacco and fossil fuel industries, supported by a strange gang of visceral anti-communists, compulsive liars and lonely weirdos, has persuaded them to do so?
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If they go after persons rather than arguments it means they have no more arguments.
And the good thing is that the more they hate you the more they are harming them self.
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You are wrong. She is just a lay preacher.
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Here was me hoping it was a celibate sect.
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[snip. Everything is beautiful in its own way. They wrote a song about it. mod oggi]
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Not true, mod oggi. I can only guess at the snipped comment. Having guessed, I’d remind you that there are people who are truly ugly, both body and soul. In Madam Oreskes’s case, the ugliness of her soul is revealed in her countenance.
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Fair enough, Oggi.
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“There are scientists directly paid by the Devil. Others who are driven by visceral ideological anti-communism. Others (mostly white, old, male) who participated in the Manhattan project and think they are still fighting the cold war. ”
Take it from me, an American old enough to remember. She was in the Marxist camp. Apologism and projection are natural to them. They were a crypto-religion. Like much of Marxism, CAGW is a Pseudo-scientific religion with dreams of controlling people. But usually the old cranks hang on to Soviet anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. But Naomi has found her new god. Perhaps she is over-compensating because she knows she has been imported to Australia to keep your Greenies distracted from realizing their “carbon tax” is a short term ruse to implement cap and trade. Stocker would be surprised at that, given her comment on the “market.” But Naomi has been hinting she supports “market” solutions.
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Great summary Dr Roberto! Any chance you could tell us the question you put to the forum that day, and the response from the CSIRO chap?
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Oh yes please!
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JB @ 4.1 “Oh yes please”! So there you are John. Now you’ve read the reasonable question asked of Oreskes by Robbo, do you agree with the elitist unscientific demeaningly insulting response she gave? Oh, yes please – do tell us!
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Can JB offer any proof of man made GW…. OH YES PLEASE !!!!
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I posted it 2 comments down.
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Oh No! we will have climate botherers knocking on our doors now.
Roberto should post this at “The Drum” it would liven things up.
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If only that were the case!
In case she didn’t realise, in this country, it’s run by a female of insignificant wealth who spent her university years organising a communist group, partnered by an ex-school teacher who thinks the road to economic growth is dismantling industries and replacing them with forests.
If she does find a Western economy run by wealthy people and that has healthy fossil fuel industries, please let us know so we can check the immigration requirements. I suppose Canada is looking pretty good these days. Wherever there is evidence of squealing from Greenies, there are signs of economic growth and rising living standards.
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Dead right. Don’t even try to argue with cult followers. Questioning is heresy. Keep quietly putting the message of sanity out for the agnostic majority.
With apologies to Shaun Micallef- the CAGW religion is like unto a calendar- its days are numbered.
Ken
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I pointed out that when she classified deniers into various categories of liars, corrupt people, blind ideologues, lonely weirdos, Fox-viewing SUV drivers, I felt I didn’t belong to any of them. So, I asked her whether there was also a category of people like me who are simply not convinced the empirical data are consistent with the CAGW model predictions. She replied that there is no such category, because anyone who doesn’t think the models have been conclusively proved is either lying or does not know any physics, cannot call himself a scientist and doesn’t deserve to be heard. Later when she mentioned the money available to deniers, I duly pointed out there’s much more money for believers, but that was met with an “oh shut up” and hisses and groans from the small audience.
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I’m not lying when I say I have never received any money from the “available money”.
A helpful report on the who’s who in denial though.
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“She replied that there is no such category, because anyone who doesn’t think the models have been conclusively proved is either lying or does not know any physics, cannot call himself a scientist and doesn’t deserve to be heard.”
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Hmm, and her scientific credentials are what exactly? Oh right, she is a scientific illiterate.
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Professor of Science Studies isn’t it ? Not to be confused with being Scientific. Sounds rather aspirational that, more than any real Science. Wouldn’t have anything to do with ‘how to build faith with concensus’ and ‘ using appeals to Science to blind the masses with air of Authority’ would it ?
Just wundrin’.
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Probably studied science from a feminist, post modernist perspective conditioned by the writings of Marx, Engles, Lenin, Derida, and Garaudy – from her studies she concluded that science was a white middle class patriarchal, capitalist, ideological construct that “invented knowledge concepts” whose primary purpose was to maintain the power of white anglophone anglo-saxons in a racist, misogynist, attack on the poor, and the oppressed. Now that climate science has broken free of the shackles of patriarchal science to produce post-normal science that is aligned to policy objectives of bringing ecojustice to the world, all will be made whole, and the oppressors will be overthrown by the righteous justice of the self anointed chosen ones – marked by their zealous belief in CAGW.
Welcome to the promised land.
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You took the words right out of my mouth! I know one professor who has published 20 books and all of them argue that maleness is the root of all evil. I kid you not.
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What a wonderful summation of everything that’s wrong with academia and intellectual “elites”!
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Any university department that ends in “Studies” automatically equates to Post-Modernist flummery in my mind. Examples include the abovementioned “Science Studies”, “Gender Studies”, “Peace and Conflict Studies”, “Environmental Studies” …
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I hate to defend Oreskes but she does have a BSc in mining geology from the University of London. I suppose she has forgotten the scientific method.
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I am surprised, and impressed, that you got out of there in one piece.
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When you’re a lone voice in the wilderness,
you’ve got to do whatever it takes to survive.
That’s why he followed Bear Grylls’ famous advice.
He immediately created Plans for Integrated Sustainable Society and drank it.
It may not be pleasant,
but out here,
preserving funding fluidity
can be the difference between life
and death.
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Well done there Robbo.
proved with everything except agreement with the real world that they supposedly model Eh ?
What abject blind faith in Authority.
.
The “oh shut up” response, that indicates you’ve hit a nerve and has the crowd resort to baying like animals in support of their defeated & now evasive idealogue.
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At least she didn’t resort to:
“Oh pull yourself together”,
in her lecture to Curtins, did she ?
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Ross James believes in the models – he would have fitted in well.
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…when she classified deniers into various categories of liars, corrupt people, blind ideologues, lonely weirdos, Fox-viewing SUV drivers…
..This is so wrong!!!
I am a Father of 3 kids.
I am a husband of a beautiful wife!
I am a person of this planet which wants survival and comfort.
My electricity and my 3 Chooks keep my kids happy and my belly full in the morning 🙂
I am a person who does not want the wool pulled over their eyes…
I am a parent which wants the best for my little buggers errr. i mean angels.
I do not want preaching from the government.
I do not want preaching from the govt. funded science organisations (which used to be neutral!)
I do not want preaching from the high priestess , the almighty oracle, the great witch..Oreskes…
I do not want too spend any time with her alone…shudder..double shudder…
Well said Robbo.. I reckon you Rock!
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Thanks for the absorbing and entertaining critique, Robbo.
In my town, we had the gravy train arrive in Wagga with the pseudo intention of “communicating science” to the masses. The audience was tiny, about 20, and was composed mainly of the true believers and university idealogues. The very first statement from the audience was from an organic farmer who made the worn out claim about sceptics being financed by big oil. That statement infuriated me and set the tone for the rest of the seminar. I then challenged them on points where I saw the opportunity. There were so many opportunities that I had to “back off”; as I was in effect taking the floor. I wanted them to provide some entertainment.
There was a comment from a retired BOM manager who claimed that he could see the fingerprint of human activity in the climate statistics. I suggested that his comment was silly, as the records were too short to be able to account for both the natural and long term variability. He did not have much more to say!
I spent most of the 3 hours challenging their statements and I suspect probably ruined their seminar, but I had a wonderful time of it.
Interesting to note that these were so called experts, and not once did they take me on in debate. The only challenge I got was one disapproving grunt. Just proves that they do not like debate, but prefer to prefer to hide behind an harangue.
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Watch out for libel when using expressions like …the Mayor of Mandurah, as a “supporting tool for climate action”.
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Don’t worry Sherro, as Pickering has shown, these gobs will not go near a court where, still, some objective appraisal of evidence will take place, so say what you want within the terms of comment on this fine site.
More seriously, while this is a wonderful spoof it is still true; these people are fanatics, they are weird and implacable; they genuinely believe [there are others who are merely in it for the money] that they are the only thing standing between the forces of destruction and the end of the world; their egotism is monstrous.
[snip – critize her for anything she can change. OK? – Jo]
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[snip. There is plenty to criticize about her professional work… – Jo]
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Cohenite and particularly Sean, you both need to lift your standards. I couldn’t care less about whether something is PC or not, but commenting on a person’s appearance is demeaning and pointless. It adds precisely nothing to the debate and can in fact be counter-productive. Please stop it.
And Sean, FYI Oreskes has a degree in geology from Imperial College in London (one of the world’s premier geoscience institutes) and a PhD in science history – so yes, she does have some training in science. That doesn’t make her right, of course, but it does suggest that she is not stupid as you suggest. As I wrote on another thread, she is a formidable opponent who gets a free run on the ABC etc. She needs to be argued with, not insulted.
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I take your point, but I think of the double standards when it comes to people like Lord Monckton.
This article sums up how duplicitous Oreskes can be when it comes to presenting her message; she has come out defending Santer who infamously said in his email that he wanted to “punch the c..p out of Pat Michaels”.
[The double standards are theirs. We must not stoop to their level of debate – Fly]
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Hello …. CSIRO has popped up again.
Trouble is, the CSIRO Funnies are certainly amusing, but just a bit too close to home for my taste.
Copying my comments on the subject from ACM:
Hey people,
I make no apology for labouring this point.
CSIRO may be running a sausage factory of alarmism, but they are in pole position for transferring their sausages into measures that can affect everyone in this country.
The Australian Building Code Board’s Bulletin:
http://goo.gl/lnC8F
“THE CLIMATE IS CHANGING – HOW IS THE NCC ADAPTING?”
Plenty of unsupported alarmism in this.
[NCC = National Construction Code]
First step?
http://www.abcb.gov.au/major-initiatives/building-in-flood-prone-areas
Ok. A bit more reasonable. Obviously, there are existing problem areas.
On the other hand, we are all aware of the possibility of a “switch” occurring, having witnessed the transformation of real-world data and associated research into “Advice for Policy Makers” by the IPCC.
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Martin,
Australian Geographic are also at it again (I believe this it might be from a CSIRO report).
See here for the full scare story.
I like the little piece headed “Adapt, migrate, or die” – since 99.9% of all lifeforms are now extinct one would think that’s what we humans should also do – adapt or die NOT try and change what we have no ability to control.
These people have no SHAME!!
Cheers,
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Hi Popeye. I cancelled my subscription to Australian Geographic some time ago because of their partisan stories.
I have had to laugh when I saw a recent report about tropical fish migrating to Tasmanians waters. I tried once to have a swim in the waters of Bass Strait, off Flinders Island on a day of extreme heat(it was about 35C). I was unable to enter the water fully as the water was freezing, it immediately chilled me to the bone. I only managed to submerge up to my knees.
The idea that tropical fish are about to enjoy the balmy climate of Tasmania is a story, from the scaremongers, with nothing but entertainment value.
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This would be funny if it did not have a serious side. I have a daughter-in-law who, despite being well-educated and intelligent, worries incessantly about climate change to, I believe, the detriment of her health. I have tried to reason with her but anything I suggest is dismissed as not peer reviewed, big oil, you don’t care about your grandchildren’s future blah blah blah etc.
So I would put the likes of Oreskes in the same category as infamous and dangerous cult leaders who should be treated with a great deal of suspicion.
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It was inevitable that as religion and people`s perception of it lost it`s domination of people`s lives that the frothing-at-the-mouth neo-puritan zealots that humanity seems to generate would have to find a new home for their blind faith belief that humans are evil and need to be punished for something or converted to something , or preferably both while having every aspect of their lives controled in minute detail.
It is both ironic and unfortunate that they would subvert a system based on observation , sceptisism and the challenging of ideas with reasoned debate to Their faith based misanthropy.
John Brignell`s essay on Global Warming as a Religion nails it perfectly
( I`ve posted the link to it before here but it`s well worth a re-read )
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Well said Byron. You nailed it and I couldn’t agree more with your second paragraph! My feelings precisley!
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Even atheistic communists need some form of spiritual belief system.
Ironic, isn’t it?
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The Brignell article from 2007 is brilliant.
KK
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Thanks for the link Byron, Brignall’s essay is spot on.
Let me return the compliment with a link to Michael Crichton’s 2003 Caltech Michelin Lecture, “Aliens Cause Global Warming” I think you’ll like it!
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html
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I notice Crichton’s lecture is hosted on Dr Cranmer’s web page at the CfA… a brave man for displaying his heretical thoughts in that warmist stronghold. One of his ancestors already got burnt for doing that.
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It is oft-said that you cannot convince (an individual) of something when his/her paycheck depends upon him/her believing the exact opposite.
These souls are facing a shattering of their core belief systems, when their apocalypse fails to materialize. Even then, the faithful may continue to believe, and nothing will change their minds. It is pointless to attempt to reason with those who choose such a prejudice.
Always remember, Truth exists independently of our knowledge of it. Just because we did not know that the continents had been drifting around the Earth since the Early Archean, didn’t change the fact that they were in motion. Similarly, the fact that Earth climate has always changed, and will continue to change, despite what puny Man does, will eventually show the populace how wrong the current crop of doom-sayers has been.
We have only to be patient.
My best to all,
Mark H.
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“not all of the US is doomed, yet:…… above all California, whose “viable economy” should be “a model for other states and nations”. “Apart from California, Europe was the only glimmer of hope”, Rev. Oreskes pointed out.
Really? A visit to the website of Californis resident and expert in many fields,E.M.Smith (chiefio) should tell us whether this is true or not! Some of his thoughts:
“If one State, such as California today, has a crazy high budget deficit, is raising taxes, and promising benefits that can never be sustained; the people will just pack up and leave.”
“So, at present, Texas is growing like crazy with loads of folks flooding in from California.”
“I would suggest to folks in the Euro Zone who think that “Tighter Financial Union” would solve the problems to take a long slow look at California, our present Greek Like trajectory to financial ruin, and our debt problems and bond costs.”
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/?s=california+economy
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Why do you even legitimise this P.O.S. with space on your blog Jo? just send her a roll of dunny wrap and tell her to wipe her mouth because she is talking crap.The only people who listen to her are beyond hope,cheers
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Because ridicule and satire are effective tools for de-fanging the warmist figureheads and by association the entire CAGW scam.
It should be done as part of a good old fashioned double-punch. A swift right Satire to the chest followed by a Science to the head.
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Talk talk talk is all they have, and until they take concrete action, no one will listen on the scale required.
I know I harp on this, but until they actually begin to stop the largest of those CO2 emissions, which come from the electrical generation process, then talk in fact is all they do have.
Have they shut down any of those large scale coal fired plants? (Go on, anywhere on the face of the Planet)
No!
Have they even mentioned shutting down any of those large scale coal fired power plants?
No!
If I may offer an analogy here, and while it concerns Tobacco, it is, after all, just an analogy.
People smoked, and then they started to disseminate the adverse health effects of smoking. They stopped advertising on TV, they upped the price ….. again and again and again, all of it in Government taxes.
They put warnings on the packaging, and then they upped the price.
They introduced health warnings on TV and upped the price.
They put graphic images on the packaging and upped the price.
They introduced plain packaging, and as sure as night follows day, they will up the price again.
People still smoke, and the percentage, while dropping, is still relatively large.
As soon as they knew the problem, and if it was so dire, bite the bullet, hang the trouble that will ensue, and just ban the damned things outright.
But no, while ever people smoke, the Government makes huge dollars from it, all the while talk talk talk about how bad it is, with suitable tut tut tutting!
Fast forward to CO2 emissions and the largest of them, coal fired power.
Place a Tax on them.
Legislate for unachievable restrictions (CCS).
Raise the tax each year.
Legislate to add power that cannot replace what is already being delivered.
Make it seem that it has now become more expensive.
Sell them off so there is a greedy private enterprise to blame and no blame comes back on the Government.
Subsidise those replacements both at construction and delivery of power to make them seem cheaper than coal fired power.
Raise the tax again.
Each year, lower the amount they can emit, and then double the cost if that cap is exceeded. (ETS)
Have people come and give talks about how bad those emissions are.
But shut them down because they are a danger ….. Not on your life.
Because, just like banning tobacco from the outset, that would be political suicide on a scale unimaginable, and they know this.
Talk talk talk!
That’s all they’ve got.
Tony.
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And one can wash it all down with heavily-taxed Alco-pops Tony, which doesn’t seem to have diminished teenage drinking nor the number of young drunks! It’s all for show, more government revenue to waste and being seen “to do something”!
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Tony,
this wont be news to you but I found it amusing.
I was just checking Google to see if there might be even one tenuous example to refute this statement
OK I found no good examples but some tenuous ones.
The best thing I discovered is the Carbon Price Coal fired Power Station. It is in Utah if anyone wants to look it up.
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Gee Aye,
keep looking, it’s a challenge.
Anything you do find of any large scale coal fired plant that has closed, (and good luck with that) look first at the age of the plant.
Nothing larger than 2000MW has closed in the last four plus years, and in fact the largest is barely 1600MW, and there’s only three or four greater than 750MW.
The only ones that are closing are the medium sized ones, and only three or four of them in those 4 years, up to 1500MW Nameplate Capacity, and even then the largest is only around 800MW, and all either close to, or over 50 years old.
No coal fired plant of any size is closing because of this CO2 scare, not one.
Any plants that are closing are due solely to being 50+ years old.
Look at the list in the link below just from the U.S. where the most coal fired plants are closing down, and note particularly the plant size, and more importantly, note the plant’s age. Wind Plants and Solar Plants of any type can only dream of lasting half as long as these plants.
There’s a huge number of plants on this list, but in the main they are all the small ones, 100MW and less.
Plant Retirements
Tony.
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Carbon Price is still running
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Thanks for this info Gee Aye, because it gives me a chance to show something.
This Plant, the Castle Gate Power Plant (also referred to as Carbon Plant) is on the banks of the Price River near Helper in Utah.
It is a small scale coal fired plant with two small generating units totalling 150MW in all. It has been in operation since 1954, for 58 years.
The amount of power actually delivered to consumers in that time can be easily equalled with Wind Towers, as this is indeed only a small plant.
It would require a wind farm of 60 average sized 2.5MW towers. However, because its power is only delivered on a sporadic basis (25% CF) then you would need three times as many towers, hence 180 towers. also, because those wind towers only have a life expectancy of 25 years at the absolute best, that means 360 towers, and even then the old coal fired plant would still have produced power for 8 years longer than those wind towers.
If an average wind farm of 60/80 towers costs around $1.4 Billion, we are now looking at around $9 Billion to deliver an equivalent amount of power.
All that to replace ONE small scale coal fired plant.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Tony.
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And then look at Germany and China and the HUGE number of coal fired plants being opened or planned soon !!
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Go for it guys….. keep pumping that HIGHLY BENEFICIAL CO2.. for the good of ALL humanity.
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just a point here Tony. Its delivery requirements are local and current (no pun intended) so if you changed the number and types of power sources then delivery requirements would also change.
I am saying that a particular station’s role depends on what other power sources are active around it.
Anyway… let us not distract from its unique name that resonates at this point in time.
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Tony…
You are a wealth of info.!!
God bless Coal and coal fired power, because if we had to rely on solar and wind…
I would never have been able to read your info…!!!!
God (or whoever) bless Tony from Rocky…
PS… O/T
This is the funniest joke i have heard for ages…..
Julia Gillard walks into a bar.
Love BA.
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Bet she doesn’t walk out! 😛
DaveE.
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Well the Germans shut down their nuclear plants.
I guess nobody told them that they had an extremely low carbon footprint.
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Citizens’ Assembly, hmph…
Citizens’ Assembly this Way -> Address by select committee of chief shamen.
Can I come in?
Show us yer entry permit – Out! Yer not one of us, serf.
Git back ter where yer came from.
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Anyone can print up a badge with CSIRO on it ….
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true. What I find odd is that the person was wearing the badge. CSIRO people don’t even have badges while at work so why wear one to a public forum? I don’t doubt the author but it is very unusual behaviour.
Maybe it was a staff card on a lanyard. It is a strange sort of posturing the display of staff IDs in public.
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Just to clarify, the guy I was referring to is indeed a legit, high-profile CSIRO researcher in geothermal technology in WA. I don’t share his faith but I respect him for his sincerity when he tried to convert me; I think at least he is in good faith in his beliefs. I just find it odd that so many people behave more like CAGW’s witnesses than empirical scientists in these matters.
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You want to hunt up a book titled The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. The capacity to simply look at reality empirically and then reason from it is rare. The majority of people reason more like lawyers or theologians (semantically) rather than rationally. They tend to reason top down, starting with a rule and shoe-horning things to fit, or else ignoring the contradictions. This not by any means limited to some specific “wing,” “party,” or “persuasion.” Scientists are not immune either. Authority is a very comforting and stress reducing concept, consequently, with uncommon exceptions, people tend to relax when they find an authority to their taste. Look at Einstein’s distaste for quantum mechanics. He firmly held that reality must be orderly and lawful, and more over, that humans could understand that “law.” He even understood the arguments and mathematics well enough to make predictions that he was convinced were evidence of the incompleteness of QM. Instead, he was right and his predictions were in fact verified. Happily, he died not knowing that.
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You have nerves of steel. I see him as deranged.
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When this all started they decided that the only way they could pull this trough, international socialism, was by beeing firm believers with no place for doubt.
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And I saw a post some years ago showing a discussion to make social environmentalism a religion that should occupie all people’s minds, society, life etc
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http://www.green-agenda.com/
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We did note that this was an exceptionally strange congregation.
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C. S. I. R. O.
Climate Security Intelligence Response Officer
Just surmising … 😉
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[snip – Jo]
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thanks for that Jo
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CO2 is one magical (at 0.039%) gas!
… and when the cold comes, yea, it will be CO2’s
punishment of the unrighteous.
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Thank you for this edifying information. Know your enemy is sound advice.
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This is an interesting quote coming from somebody who is demonstrably far-left in her political views.
The Cold War may have started sometime after the Yalta Conference in August 1945, but it has certainly never ended officially.
The war itself has been real enough – a lot of people on both sides have lost their lives, and it still continues. All that has changed is that the battle lines are no longer demarcated by country borders, but are now much more defused, and the strategy has shifted away from troop deployments towards a greater emphasis on the propaganda domain. This shift occurred in 1990, and was marked by the removal of the Berlin Wall (initially by East German troops).
The message that Oreskes gives is a propaganda line that seeks to imply that communists are no longer the enemy of a free society, and that we have nothing to fear from extreme socialism.
Whatever her official qualifications, she is first and foremost a propagandist – and a very good one.
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“She replied that there is no such category, because anyone who doesn’t think the models have been conclusively proved is either lying or does not know any physics, cannot call himself a scientist and doesn’t deserve to be heard.”
Did nobody [snip… “call”] her for that?
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We ignore the Oreskes’ of the world at our own peril. As has been stated above, she is an effective propagandist and she and her fellow CAGW propagandists, aided and abetted by the MSM, politicians, schools, and other social/civil institutions have been indoctrinating generations of children since, being somewhat arbitrary, “The Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson was first published in 1962. Throw in Ehrlich (“The Population Bomb”) and other doomsday scenario writers and scientists, and you have generations of people as afraid of humans and technology, as the generations who grew up fearing nuclear annhilation in the 50’s and 60’s. Fear is a strong motivator for action but fortunately, economic progress and the desire to better one’s circumstances are also strong motivators. That is the true battle we must fight: the “saving” the Earth by limiting and ultimately destroying the economic basis of modern society (as California seems determined to do) vs. the drive to better one and one’s family’s standard of living by utilizing the resources and technology that have taken Mankind from short and brutal lives to the modern day. CAGW is but one skirmish in a larger and more profound battle that is being fought.
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Re California. I read the other day that it intends to keep getting electric power from new coal stations. This seems scandalous until it is realised the stations will be built in surrounding states. The cheek! But movie stars are not going to stand for lots of power outages caused by poor generation by windmills.
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Oreskes qualifications are interesting. She starts out trained as geologist with a BS from Imperial College in London. When she went for her PhD it was “interdisplinary” – geological research and history of science – from Stanford. Looking at her CV, she seems to have pretty much lost any interest in geology by the late ’90s and proceeded to more of a “historical analysis” pattern. The interest in history leads one to suspect she trusts footnotes as authoritative. [I think of history as fiction with footnotes].
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Yes – you are absolutely right!
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just to be clear… there are degrees other starting with “S” (mostly socio something() so science uses BSc.
now BS could be equated with BSh and I think that geologists have to contend with this problem more than others because they contend with being confused with BE’s. Poor things
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.
Now a BG – only at JCU – a Bachelor of Geology!
But used to be BSc (Major Geology etc)
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It seems you still have a choice, if you don’t want to be bothered with the science bit, but spend most of your time on cool field trips.
Which Geology degree?
If you take our Bachelor of Geology degree, you will concentrate solely on geology, and you will have vocationally-orientated training.
On the strength of its multi-disciplinary nature, geology builds a strong foundation for any science career. With JCU’s Bachelor of Science (Geology) course, you combine geology with subjects from other science disciplines to widen your industry-ready skills, enhance your long-term career aspirations or pursue a personal interest area.
The choice is yours.
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In fact, my high school biology teacher long ago would have been livid at using “B.S.” But that IS what her bio says, so who am I to pretty up for her?
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Nice dress.
Would be good for making address to Curtins, if it were longer.
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That pun is hanging by a thread.
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No longer intended.
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Personally I would have ignored her – you know, it’s worse to be NOT talked about! I enjoyed Robbo’s piece though. I would like to have seen the reaction to his question.
I saw Oreskes when she was in Adelaide last time she toured Australia and she actually asked skeptics to identify themselves amongst the relatively small audience. I felt obliged to raise my hand – there were a few of us.
I view all these climate-religious gatherings as an affront to nature. They are essentially preaching that nature is incompetent in dealing with a little extra carbon dioxide.
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To Chuck L above, your post was not yet visible when I composed mine (I hadn’t renewed the screen for a while), so it’s a coincidence that we both talk about “ignore” in an opposite manner – ie no contradiction intended.
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Ian, I guess I see CAGW as one front in a social/cultural war raging on many fronts. Here in the US, such august bastions of “journalistic integrity” as the LA Times, Washington Post, NY Times and the major TV networks of NBC, ABC, CNN, and to a lesser degree, CBS, constantly sound the clarion call to fight manmade catastrophic global warming quoting such luminaries as James Hansen or Michael Mann. Even among my Facebook friends, intelligent,college-educated individuals parrot and post the latest pronouncements of “Climate Armageddon” and “tipping points,” and when I refute them with facts, graphs, and links to peer-reviewed studies, they question the sources or simply stop responding. Believe me, I wish that we could ignore them!
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Good one Ian Hill!
They are definitely preaching that nature is incompetent and also that we need to give them the money and the power to straighten us humans out and stop nature from changing!
Some of them seriously need to get their hands dirty and leave the protection of their urban environments….and probably yank their heads out of their computer models.
It must be people who drive to work in their climate controlled cars from their climate controlled houses to their climate controlled offices who are alarmed about climate change?
The rest of us who work outside know perfectly well it changes.
We also know that it’s things like the sun, the rotation of the earth, evaporation/transpiration, storm/wind events and shifting ocean currents that rule the climate and the weather, not our human proportion of CO2!
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[…] Jo Nova Share this:PrintEmailMoreStumbleUponTwitterFacebookDiggRedditLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry was posted in Climate Change and tagged climate fraud, climate hysteria, dioxycarbophobia, shameless activists, warmist propaganda, weather superstition. Bookmark the permalink. ← Peter C Glover: Whatever Happened to Peak Oil? […]
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Slightly O/T but you have to laugh.
I was looking at Perth temps from BOM for round 1900.I found that there were 2 stations in operation at that time
Perth Gardens(9097) and Perth Regional Office(9034)
For the year 1900 Perth Gardens recorded an average yearly temp of 23.8 while Perth Regional recorded 22.6.By the year 1928 Perth Gardens was down to 22.8 while Perth Regional was up to 23.0.
So if you believe Perth Gardens the average yearly temp in Perth had fallen 1 degree in 28 years while the temp at Perth Regional had increased by 0.4.Considering the stations are within a couple of kilometres of one another who to believe.
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Yes, but. I dont know exactly how they do it, but If you extrapolate one of these to give hundreds of readings out where there are no thermometers , then the uncertainty is averaged out, as in out of the equation, isn’t it ? Clever things, Acad
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I happened upon a quick little snippet of propaganda for little children the other day on TV. It was just before noon on one of the ABC channels. I guess it would be viewed at school during scheduled science lessons and gives teachers a bit of a breather from direct teaching.
It showed a little girl aged about 7 or 8. She had collected rainwater overnight. Then she litmus tested it and found it was slightly acidic. A short clip was shown of a cityscape with supposed pollution that causes acid in the rain.
Next, she arranged small plants in different pots. One would receive pure (distilled?) water, one the acid rain water and one with water made more acid with vinegar. She expressed much sympathy for the ‘poor plant’ that would receive the rain water.
Of course the inference being made is that acid rain is caused by human pollution. This was the case until laws long ago reduced such emissions. Also, volcanoes cause similar pollution and acid rain has fallen for millions of years. But, never mind that as long as the little tykes get the message so to speak.
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Elva,
At least you recognise it as propaganda. The more people who do, the less effective it is.
Tell your friends.
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I just looked up the definition of the word “Cult” and made a couple of minor changes:
Oreskes and the CAGW Cult – looks like a near perfect fit to me.
Cult
Religions or religious sects generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of authoritarian, charismatic leaders.
b. The followers of such a religion or sect.
2. A system or community of religious worship and ritual.
3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
4. A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular problem.
5.
a. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a belief, principle, or thing.
So CAGW believers belong to a cult – no question of that.
The high priests of the cult milk a gullible public for funds, they spout unsupported rubbish, they pretend to be the holders of the one great truth and all those who do not believe in that ‘truth’ are heretics, unbelievers and deniers. No debate or discussion can be allowed, only the cult’s high priests know the true wishes of Gaia; so blessed be the names or Oreskes, Hansen, Mann, Jones, Gore and all the other prophets of doom.
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That sounds Greek to me. All those Gods. Isn’t there only one true God ? Which one I wonder.
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Sorry, I missed that they are only styled as the prophets.
Gaia it is then.
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.
So right Peter,
The cardholders now include big business – this ad/video for a Green Future is typical!
Play the video – it’s only about 30 seconds – and a little boy telling us all that steel for windmills will save 400,000 tonnes of Greenhouse gas emmissions every year!!! How many tonnes of steel is required to make one windmill, and how many windmills to supply Australia with baseload power 24/7? All this is feel good adverts to convert public opinion to the Gaia think tank! Where is the proof for this figure – NONE! But if I put up rates for Truck haulage as a result of the CO2 tax – then I have to prove it – or suffer!
The CAGW crew is working overtime to scare everyone into the cult!
These ads run across the corporate horizon and dictate the total belief in CAGW, in the form of money they receive from the source!
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I disagree.
They can recognise a marketing advantage when they see one, and why not? Echo the meme back to the believers, and they will, like the brainwashed they are, flock to buy your product.
Whether you believe in your own advertising or not, is immaterial, as long as you can detect a change in “the consensus” and adjust your marketing to suit.
The free market at its best – servicing the needs of its customers.
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.
True Rekeke,
But the CO2 Steel Transformation Package worth $300 million would have helped this pure market advantage strategy that they promote! They still receive this if they close all steel making plants in Australia, and if prior to the CO2 credit handover date (July 2013) they can on sell these CO2 credits?? (Double up on the cash for the move overseas).
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My Dear Naomi, I am a self-confessed emissary of the Devil. Koch brothers paid me $1 million for this; don’t laugh, it’s the bloody truth I tell ye……
I’m an iconoclast and climate science is the best fun I’ve had in ages because the proponents of the ‘consensus’ you included, are pompous idiots and include economists*, social scientists, pseudo-scientists and psychologists claiming ‘the science is settled’. It’s not. The stupidest of the assumptions are as follows:
1. IR emission from the Earth’s surface is the same as an isolated black body in a vacuum.
2. This energy is absorbed then directly thermalised.
Both are impossible as any professional scientist should know. The net result is IR heating of the atmosphere is exaggerated x 5, in turn leading to the imaginary positive feedback via the water cycle which recent experimental data prove is not happening.
Any competent scientist knows operational emissivity can vary, the ultimate case being two bodies in radiative equilibrium at the same temperature; the operational emissivity of both in any wavelength interval is ZERO hence no net energy transfer. Kirchhoff worked this out 150 years’ ago, but he had a good mind, not your parrot brain.
In extending the IPCC IR theory to correct the heat transfer, I brought over physics from spectroscopy: GHGs in IR self-absorption turn off IR band emission from the Earth’s surface which then rises in temperature to release by convection and radiation the energy it receives from the Sun.
I believe, subject to further work that the reduction of its emissivity is the real GHE, fixed by the first few 100 ppmV of water vapour. Because there can be no CO2-AGW, to tax CO2 is unjustified.
Now, please tell me where I can confess my egregious sin of personal self-aggrandisement. After all, I imagined that as a retired engineer I could work out the apparently complex but really beautifully physics proving such climate science luminaries as Trenberth and Hansen have made elementary mistakes I would expect no graduate from a good science course to have made.
Please, pulleeze tell me where I can make my mea culpae……..
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*Sorry, missed this out: http://www.ipa.org.au/…/did-global-warming-send-lehman-brothers-broke
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Link doesn’t work try HERE
http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/1438/did-global-warming-send-lehman-brothers-broke
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She’s not secretly a clone of Francis Fox Piven is she?
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More likely one of Rosa Klebb…
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wasn’t Rosa [snip, lets not] ED
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Do you mean [Snip]? if you mean it,say it!
[I’m all for saying what you mean. Saying it nicely is better] ED
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Delicious! – Thank you, Jo, for publishing this. Read it over a coffee after breakfast (UK time), and now I’ve finished wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes I find you’ve put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. Dr. Soria, I like your style.
If only it were as easy to get rid of the poisonous influence of these [self-snip] as it is to laugh at them.
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Agree – these guys (and gals, sometimes) could do us parodists out of job. (If they ever paid us for it.)
Cheers,
Speedy
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.
Here’s a picture of Naomi signining books (which are actually CO2 storage units) in 2010!
Naomi also states the following in 2010:
So she is not interested in any outside debate – Full Stop!
Naomi has not changed at all!
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Getting close to my eighth decade on this world, I was raised by a mother who put the fear of god into me about women. Thou shalt not thou shalt not to a point I was very tentative about approaching them. That faded over the years and I slowly realised that they were no more special than men only different, our task was to look after them as best we could.
So I got over my fear of women, then I see this image at the heading of this post of a podium a woman and a red and white striped flag, and my fear returned. I feel it must be the red and white striped flag that instilled the fear, for microphones have never bothered me.
Maybe it’s the message, as propaganda is the evil twin of truth, and flags have never impinged on my sensibilities before. Some time in the not to distant future it will be this woman’s sensibilities that are not just impinged upon but shattered by the glaringly obvious truth.
It has been said that if you live long enough what is in your heart shows up on your face.
That is most appropriate in this case I feel.
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Some interesting comments there Wayne.
KK 🙂
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oreskes and the rest of the CAGW evangelists constantly pretend the energy companies are the enemies of CAGW when, in fact, have done very nicely from the scam, with none of the little CAGW followers even noticing:
16 Aug: Bloomberg: Steve Dorst: Jim Rogers’ Boardroom Coup and the New Carbon Rules
(Steve Dorst, a documentary filmmaker, will premiere his new film Shattered Sky nationally on PBS in September)
During the fireworks and record heat of Independence Week, Duke Energy closed its $26 billion merger with rival Progress Energy, creating the nation’s largest electric utility…
Jim Rogers is no stranger to headlines and he has made a lot of them since he emerged several years ago as the unlikeliest of species: CEO of a coal-generated power company who sought a U.S. climate policy.
I interviewed Rogers in November 2009 for a recently completed documentary film called Shattered Sky…
Duke Energy’s website calls Rogers “a CEO statesman” for accomplishments that straddle business and policy, such as in 2007 when he pushed the Edison Electric Institute, a utility-industry group, to support U.S. climate legislation when he served as its chairman. Anti-coal advocates accuse him of doublespeak: How could anyone operate coal plants and truly want to address climate change?
I opened the interview by asking Rogers why he thought climate change was a problem to begin with. “It is clear to us that climate change is an issue that we must face up to,” he said. “It is also clear that the scientists have done their work, they have spoken, and we’re really acting based on the work that they have done.”.
Rogers and Duke Energy in 2007 co-founded the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a centrist group of business and environment groups calling for federal policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-16/jim-rogers-boardroom-coup-and-the-new-carbon-rules.html
13 Aug: Radio Australia: World going backwards on carbon reduction, says geologist
The former Chairman of the Shell Oil Company says a lack of political global will has set back carbon reduction efforts to a dangerous degree.
Lord Ron Oxburgh has been a distinguished Professor of Geology and Geosciences at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Defence Ministry and is a climate change advisor to the Singapore Government.
While Chairman of the British arm of Royal Dutch Shell, he warned of the consequences of climate change and the need for new energy sources.
In 2006 he said the world had only ten years to make real progress towards a low carbon future…
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asia/world-going-backwards-on-carbon-reduction-says-geologist/998242
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Meanwhile from the weather is not climate department, CAGW is causing
snow“climate disruption” in Canberra.00
Sometimes the non-scientific, logical-fallacy-riddled sermons of the true believers are so far removed from reality that they can only be answered by humour.
Dr Soria’s piece is a spectacularly good example – more please.
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Maybe it’s just me, but Oreskes bears a striking resemblance to Dobby from Harry Potter.
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Hey, watcher with slanging Dobby. Dobby was a good elf.
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Christine Milne reminds me of Dolores Umbrage in Harry Potter
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I realize that many people think its a joke that CAGW seems like a religious faith. But its not really a joke. I used to be a member of the Gaia/climate alarmist faith. I know what it feels like to view Co2 as an invisible devil. I know what it feels like to secretly hope the next typhoon or hurricane causes death and destruction, the secret disappointment when they don’t deliver. It actually is comforting to know that so many other people feel the sames way, its like some form or mass chronic depression.
I’ve broken out of that now, but I still see it in the CAGW faithful. Its not really a joke, its a bit un-nerving.
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Evening all.
If CAGW is a church, then, to extend Dr. Soria’s analogy, it’s got more than it’s fair share of Pharisees. To use the biblical quotes, they burden the people with rules – but do they lift a finger to lighten their burden?
No, actually.
Cheers,
Speedy
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What annoys me is the fact that we have to pay this cretin any attention at all. Yet another toxic anti humanist crusader searching for a ladder next to a high horse. That we do is testament to the fact that we feel the need to balance the ledger against a tide of lousy partisan journalism and a raft of base and shallow politicians. I have no doubt we will win this battle simply because the truth always has the shortest odds. The problem is the Oreskes of this world constantly reinvent themselves to resurface under yet another banner, demanding our attention and guilt. She can kiss my caboose.
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ceetee, the problem with this battle is that there are far too many who believe they know the truth. In fact, the entire problem is that we don’t. Not only that, science is not about “truth.” It is about explanatory notion that work, that are productive. When you look at climate and weather you can see that if long term prediction is the measure of our understanding, it is ssadly short of being a working understanding. It has that way been since before Lorenz published his paper in the ’60s discussing systems that are supremely sensitive to intial conditions, and for which, the magnitude of responce cannot be forecast from the magnitude of the input.
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Hi duster
You talk about the fact that we don’t know the truth of AGW: “know the truth. In fact, the entire problem is that we don’t”.
That phrase is, unfortunately for warmers, just people being polite.
It is acknowledging that yes “technically” CO2, like water, is a greenhouse gas.
That is a bit like saying that when I urinate on the ground it is the same as the River Nile.
Technically when I urinate it is a bit like the River Nile and while I do acknowledge that, for some reason or other I still feel that
my efforts are a bit insignificant.
We do know the truth of AGW and it doesn’t involve Human Origin CO2 in any rational way and we should all of us, all 7 billion of us, collectively feel a bit insignificant that we influence world temperature in such a small, undetectable and piddling level..
We certainly don’t know the truth of how to predict the weather or climate accurately but that certainly does not in any way preclude
scientists from knowing that CO2 is effectively irrelevant in this monkey business called Climate Change.
KK 🙂
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“run by all-powerful, rich white males, driving Western capitalist economies.”
But they are the guys behind the whole AGW scare, aren’t they?
They run the money markets which brought us the GFC and which cooked up carbon trading as another money-for-nothing scheme. They run the media which peddle the story. They run the governments who give huge sums taxpayer money to subsidise wind farms owned by those same rich white males.
Without them, the AGW scare would not have got off the ground.
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Why the adjective white?
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Matt Ridley essay in Wired: Apocalypse Not.
Particularly like the word “Apocaholics” – sums up the “True Believers”
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Australia has become an overregulated overrated overgoverned dictatorship run by a bunch of boorish uneducated ignoramuses. Thank god the world is not listening. You really need to overthrow your government at the next election with a definite huge majority to clean up the mess.
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From head to toe, Naomi very likely is covered in “natural” cosmetics – originating from the very kelp, trees and whales she’s trying to protect, somehow. The very remote control she’s holding to make her presentation easier, the lights burning in the room so she can be seen and indeed her plane trips worldwide are the very sins she apparently despises. Does her lipstick taste like blue whale? Probably.
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A bit O.T. and I may be a tad behind the times, but I just saw on ABC news they’re erecting in Melbourne the tallest, flat-pack building made out of a cleaner, renewable source.. WOOD!
Haven’t heard a single whimper from tree-hugger greenies yet. Maybe Naomi can attract some attention to this.
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How did Bishop Oreskes fly to Perth without using fossil fuels? This is truly a miracle.
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Broom?
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A wonderful piece of satire, thanks.
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This is so true. This is how municipalities do when they want to force impopular projects upon their residents and yet pretend they offered consultation to the large public. In Canada, this perversion of democracy is used by many, especially when wanting to profoundly alter the nature of a community or O surprise, impose bogus decarbonisation measures… Usually the green mole in council, stacks up the commity with randomly selected concerned citizens, the other name for activists and the deed is done.
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Why do these supposed peace loving people never get the basics of humanity.
love all man kind.
Or is this to old fashioned.
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The ‘Devil’ according to Oreskes is the system
Interestingly, these same people whom Oreskes demonizes are also responsible for the current, unprecedented in history, standard of Human welfare.
And naturally, it is the explicit implementation of Classical Liberalism that America represents which has empowered the aforementioned (mostly) “rich white males” to increase Human welfare (and decrease poverty) world-wide by over an order of magnitude in the last 150 years — a feat never before equaled in Human history.
At least Oreskes is honest about what she wants (Re: “difficult to overcome” [the advances America represents]).
I see it a little differently: America (and its Constitution) are the “Last Best Hope” of mankind. Millions of immigrants voting with their feet each year agree.
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/climate-evangelism-the-priestess-oreskes-warns-of-the-evil-fox/#mor… […]
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Another warm-mongering Naomi savaged by Joanne:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/naomi-kleins-crippling-problem-with-numbers
This Naomi also classifies ideas according to the sex and race of their believers. She says that ‘white men’ have a ‘dominance-based worldview’ which prevents them seeing the truth of the global warming theory.
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