I wondered who was funding Oreskes to fly all the way around the world to deliver two seminars in Perth to audiences of mostly evangelical believers. Michael Kile (Quadrant magazine) reveals more of the details. Presumably she is funded by the Professors-at-large program at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia (UWA). We still have no details on the amounts.
UWA think achieving “international excellence” is so important they’ve put it in their logo.
…
We see below how many of the UWA hosts benefit from climate change grants, and thus would potentially gain from promoting a baseless smear against critics who threaten their funding or status. These hypocrites are happy to promote the untruth that skeptics are funded to speak, when the they themselves are the ones who benefit financially from a dubious scare campaign. The professors-at-large program is supposed to foster public debate, but four of the ten Oreskes hosts signed a letter seeking to silence a skeptic from speaking at another university.
Who would sponsor an expert that is ignorant of 99.99% of their topic?
Oreskes claims skeptics are funded by big-oil, but misses that most oil companies support alarm, that funding against skeptics is 3,500 times larger, and that she can’t really name any significant money to support her smears (see my post here). She found “millions” in funding to skeptics, but missed “billions” in funding to alarmists. The historian claims to research how extensive funding has distorted the climate debate, yet missed 99.97% of the funding she supposedly studies. She is hardly producing rigorous work, or even doing competent research.
Despite her inept performance, Oreskes has ten “hosts” at UWA. She claims to be an international expert as a “science historian”, but her hosts include just one scientist — Kevin Judd (Mathematics and Statistics), who has received grants for discussing climate models (apparently he’s the kind of statistician who believes it doesn’t matter if thermometers are placed over concrete because “statistics” tells us hot concrete is not warming the thermometer). The other hosts have nothing to do with science or with history:
- Stephan Lewandowsky, Psychology (receives grants for namecalling, and finding that unconvinced people are mentally deficient),
- Mark Edwards, Business (he writes about sustainability),
- Jan Dook, Centre for Learning Technology (Science communication),
- Alex Gardner, Law (writes about legal implications of climate change on wetlands and rivers and is also an adjunct professor at ANU in the Australian Centre for Environmental Law).
- David Hodgkinson, Law (who writes about climate change law and climate refugees),
- Carmen Lawrence, Psychology (former premier of WA, and currently paid to write about changing behavior and “climate change”),
- Grady Venville, Education
- John Inverarity and Richard Pengelley, St George’s College.
Stefan Lewandowsky will protest that he does “cognitive science“. But his modus operandi is to begin working from a logical fallacy, and everything he does goes downhill from there. A scientist uses logic, but Lewandowsky does not, making “argument from authority” his raison d’etre (all must obey “the consensus”). He is an activist, not a scientist.
UWA aims to stop public debate
The professor-at-large program’s mission is to “stimulate public debate on contemporary issues”. However Lewandowsky was one of the first to sign up to try to stop Christopher Monckton expressing a different view on at Notre Dame University (WA). Furthermore Judd, Edwards and Hodgkinson also signed that list, and apparently would rather sponsor a poorly researched smear campaign than allow a skeptic to speak in public.
Such is the quest for “excellence” in intellectual rigor at UWA these days.
Many of these hosts gets grants for climate change work. Since no one at UWA is paid to be skeptical, there will be few alternate voices at UWA, or at least none with a strong vested interest to speak out. So they will not host an opinion that differs from Oreskes. What we see is how the cancerous growth of one sided “crisis” funding, not only finds a crisis, but directs even more funding to others who come to the same conclusion. It’s a form of funding confirmation bias. Who is financed to audit and expose the fallacies, the poor reasoning and the lack of evidence? No one. Skeptics do it unpaid.
UWA is becoming a leading light in anti-science, and a mockery of free speech. Oreskes parades as a “science historian” yet apparently is ignorant of the largest whistleblowing revolution that has occurred in modern science, not to mention that she doesn’t know that argument from authority is a fallacy, and breaches the basic tenets of science. The scientific method is being scrapped by allowing the Queen of Smear to present her one-sided ad hominem arguments (which miss the main money) as if a cherry picking smear campaign qualifies as scientific history.
If you are an alumni of UWA (like me) and are concerned about falling standards and intellectual rigor there, please leave a comment or email me (joanne AT joannenova.com.au) so I can get in touch. It is time to stop the rot.
Michael Kile uses Oreskes techniques on Oreskes – he studies her biography
Naomi Oreskes claims that those who are not experts in climate science, and those funded by large corporations, have no right to be heard. Yet her experience as a science historian is brief, and her past funded by a rather large corporation. It shows how mindless her reasoning is:
“How did a US geologist working with Western Mining Corporation in South Australia, a co-author of esoteric papers – from the origin of LREE-enriched hematite breccias at the Olympic Dam Cu-U-Au-Ag deposit to the oxygen isotope composition of Chilean El Laco magnetite – transform herself into a credible climate change alarmist in less than a decade? How, indeed?”
Contrast that with Fred Singer — whom Oreskes attacks and mischaracterises at length. Michael Kile writes that Singer played …
“a leading role in early space research, developing Earth observation satellites, establishing the US National Weather Bureau’s Satellite Service Center in 1962, and becoming founding dean of the University of Miami School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences in 1964.”
Oreskes promotes dogma and closed minds:
On 23 January, 2012, Judith Curry posted this note on her blog with the heading, “Open-mindedness is the wrong (?) approach”. “Naomi Oreskes has an op-ed in the LA TIMES today entitled “The verdict is in on climate change”, with subheading “When it comes to climate change, openmindedness is the wrong approach.”
What we need, according to Oreskes, is a Climate Court, presided over by a “scientist general” (or a Pope?). “The problem is that there is no judge, no recognized authority giving us instructions we accept, and no recognized authority to accept the scientists’ verdict and declare it final….Without a scientist general to instruct us on climate change, we as a nation have been adrift, looking for leadership and not finding it.”
Oreskes wants an Orwellian institution, where activist scientists are the “jury”, not merely a group of expert witnesses trying to prove a case. As to her opponents, the “think tanks, institutes and fossil fuel corporations” and those who “take on the mantle of defence”, they will have no role. Condemned to silence, they presumably will be exiled to gulags designed by schools of psychology for promulgators of “denials, dodges and pseudo-scientific studies”. Here, they will spend years in programs of cognitive modification, self-criticism and re-education. Welcome to the realm of post-modern science.
Other posts about UWA
- The death of reason at UWA
- The Great Leap Forward. Professors et al realize they need to talk about evidence instead of insults.
- Learn how not to reason at the University of Western Australia
Posts on Oreskes
- Oreskes, the Queen of Climate Smear, ignores the big money, has no evidence, throws names
- Oreskes’ clumsy, venomous smear campaign: busted
- Now we are not even allowed to doubt?
- Oreskes, Readfearn: Got no evidence? Throw different names. Skeptics are paranoid ideologues afraid of reds under the bed.
Post on Lewandowsky:
- Peer review denial and the abuse of science
- Lewandowsky: the ABC parades a witchdoctor again
- The hypocrisy of the annointed
- Picasso Brain Syndrome
- Confused? You might BE a psychologist
- Name-calling fairy dust: “Conspiracy Theorist”
That statement should have every red blooded scientist out screaming for her blood.
The woman should have every single one of her degrees rescinded.
Can a degree be revoked?
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Would John Brookes or Ross please provide a comment on the appropriateness of setting up a “climate court” with a “scientist general” presiding? Or will this, like all other indefensible and morally unconscionable propositions from key climate figures be met with damning silence?
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Silence is complicity…
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“…Oreskes wants an Orwellian institution, where activist scientists are the “jury”, not merely a group of expert witnesses trying to prove a case.”
As does the entire UN-sponsored climate alarmist movement. They know that without legal force none of their utter nonsense will ever survive in the long-term, so they demand (again and again) that public institutions adopt policies and enact legislation that endows their political agenda with some (forced, illusory) legitimacy – and that will also allow them to use fear as their most powerful tool with which to bully and beat down upon all who have the temerity to dissent from their ‘consensus’.
I always find it ironic and depressing that the constant threat of totalitarianism, whenever it rears its ugly head, is now to be found most often alive and well within the self-appointed ranks of the left-wing CAGW militia. One wonders if the irony of that is entirely lost on them.
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And again and again their demands are ignored, by all but the most inept institutions.
And that is why I am not that worried about threats of world domination.
a) People like Oreskes only appeal to people like Oreskes – people who have an obvious agenda, or are to stupid to realise how dumb they sound, or both. The silent majority are smarter than that.
b) Building a single world government takes a long time, even assuming that it is possible at all. Large bureaucracies reach a point of criticality at which they collapse under their own weight. The slow motion train wreck that is the EU is an example. And there are already voices calling out for the UN to be disbanded in its current form, to be replaced by something that is less dominated by countries that emerged as the victors of a war that started seventy years ago.
c) The more people are inconvenienced in their day to day activities, and the more the elite flaunt their lifestyles, the more resentful the working people become, and the more they are prepared to push back.
d) Propaganda only works if people don’t realise they are being propagandised. Modern propaganda is no longer that sophisticated because modern propaganda cannot work at today’s speed of communications. So when you look for it, you find it, and it is so, “ho hum”. And the kids I meet are really smart, when it comes to recognising propaganda.
e) Kids want to learn about the world they live in. Teachers can explain how it works, and the the kids are awed by what they learn. Or teachers can feed them the propaganda line, and the kids turn off from education, and look for other ways to find out about stuff. This is what happened in the Soviet Union, and other Communist countries. and it will happen elsewhere.
f) The generations that are seriously into the climate change meme are Gen-X and Gen-Y. The Boomers were around before it became fashionable, and the Millennial’s and later have been innoculated against it, because they expect the media to lie to them. They have known no different. No wonder newspaper circulation’s are falling, and pay-wall sites are being ignored. The people currently entering the workforce rely on social media, and consensus amongst trusted peers for decision making. This is proving a problem for business, but social media demonstrates “the wisdom of crowds”, in that they get the right answer in the end.
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I wish I could agree with you, RW, but I don’t think kids (12 to 25 age group) have any wisdom in crowds, nor does social meda do anything positive to imbue anything more than narcissism, self-absorption, attention-seeking and utterly aimless distractions. The return of Big Brother and its ilk on TV, the endless misogynism of the nightclub scene, the binge drinking and drug culture, the complete lack of foundation knowledge that you and I took for granted, all make me despair for our future as Western societies and possibly as a species, quite frankly.
The Baby Boomer generation thrived on the idea of the Renaissance Man, well versed in art, poetry, the sciences and history, curious about the natural and human societal environment around him (or her). Such a beast is rare in the extreme. Most University graduates in this era would struggle to pass a School certificate level examination from the 1950’s or 1960’s.
Classrooms are becoming nothing more than a battleground, where those with nascent intelligence are bored witless and those in the lower percentiles excel only in disrupting class rather than partaking in it. HSC exams are so predetermined that most students know precisely what essay questions they will be given in advance, most assignments are internet cut and paste, grammar rearrangement exercises and in some courses students can go through a 4 year course without purchasing a text book or writing one word of notes and still comfortably pass.
The lowest common denominator is unfortunately now the norm, a population so stultified that they believe John Lennon’s lyrics to “Imagine” represents a realistic blueprint for humanity’s future rather than an ill conceived Utopian fantasy. We are royally screwed, IMHO, without drastic and fundamental changes in our approach across the board, starting with fundamental realignment of education approaches- just as the Law is too important to trust to Lawyers, so to is Education too important to trust to Teachers.
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Winston, this becomes very apparent when they get to university … from my experience, I cannot fathom how some achieved the necessary entry requirements in the simple things, English writing and comprehension, standard maths, etc. And, where did anybody get the idea of an IT literate youth ? Maybe for gaming and FB but serious research, nah.
Popular group assignments as a matter of grading allows them to hide behind the smart ones but since changing to the identification of individual content they are hopelessly exposed.
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Institute of Advanced Studies – the brilliant physicists at Princeton must be weeping when they read that their institution’s good name has been purloined by these UWA ignoramuses.
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Oreskes and Professors’-at-large? OMG … someone let them out!!
[snip]
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Oreskes failed to read the instructions under the feet of the little black duck:
She and her sponsors at UWA should heed that motto before choosing to spout ultimate truths.
I finished my B.E. at UWA in 1982, having been there long enough to gain doubt in all that I knew. My hypothesis for gaining a degree was that the academic staff were anxious to get rid of me after my final 2 years. (6 years for a 4 year course so I’m no academic Wunderkind.)
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Timely and relevant from Pierre’s blog:
Renowned German Sociologist: Claims Of Absolute Scientific Knowledge Are Premature, Political Propaganda
Close to the bone for those believe they hold the truth.
Prof. Dr. Peter Weingart’s research focii are relevant.
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Let them go – they will destroy themselves!!!……….in fact I think maybe they have.
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Destroy themselves? These people are already zombies.
About two weeks ago I was driving to Grafton and I heard some clueless ABC country host start an interview with Oreskes on the radio.
I couldn’t finish the interview because I began bleeding from my ears. It was like watching Goebbels pull the wings off butterflies accompanied by Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Often I feel like skeptical science is winning the public debate, but in ABC La-La land, no progress is discernible.
The fawning ABC local host – who obviously knew nothing about Oreskes or the science – hung on Oreskes every word because his program notes must have said she was great wise oracle to be handled like an exceedingly valuable crystal vase full of pure truth.
The gist of her interview wasn’t about any evidence for CAGW. No, that’s the Lord’s gospel truth. Amen, brother. No need to examine the evidence.
I got the feeling that if the host had said, “but what about water vapour feedback…” Oreskes wouldn’t have had a clue what he was on about. You could tell she exists in a conceptual bubble, a bit like a North Korean general. Dissent is not, not tolerated, because it simply does not exist in Oreske’s oxygen-free world.
So instead of the interview being about CAGW it was about how Oreskes was the only brilliant historian who had ever studied the propaganda methods used by tobacco companies 50 years ago to confuse the public about the medical evidence around smoking as a cause of lung cancer.
But what’s that got to do with the climate, you ask? Ah, HA! That’s the pure genius of Oreske! Her name will go down in history with Pope Urban VIII, Mann, Hansen’s Bulldog and Piltdown as one of the greatest scientifically illiterate stumps of all times.
According to Oreskes it was only through her vast powers of intellect that it was it possible to apply all that she had gleaned from the hidden archives of the evil tobacco overlords to the topic of climate science and discovered that exactly the same people and methods were being used to discredit climate prophecies of the great apocalypse!
Wow.
Yes, that’s right, Mr. ABC host, THE SAME MAD TOBACCO SCIENTISTS are masterminding the Denialistism Plot to destroy the planet!
Oh. My. God. We’re stuffed! whimpered the ABC host.
How mad cigar-puffing, scotch-drink tobacco scientists from the 1950-60’s era are still calling the shots today wasn’t explain.
Oreske did explain how there’s mega-bucks to be made in promoting the collapse of civilisation. (She made sure to refer listeners to purchase her best-selling book for more details again and again.)
Obviously, there’s nothing like a good mass extinction event for corporate quarterly profits. I can hear the shareholder conference calls droning on now… “gross margins are projected to rise by 10 percent year over year as the seas rise, cities burn, the economy collapses and food riots break out due to global warming induced crop failures…”
Oreske spoke in classic Orwellian doublespeak logic. She accused climate skeptics of using Big Tobacco propaganda methods from the 1960’s, but she was transparently – in broad daylight – appropriating McCarthy-era smear tactics and wielding the very same propaganda techniques she was describing! It was so twisted.
Buy her best selling book for more details, she said again.
The whole ABC interview was like robbing a bank full of tellers, guards and customers without anybody noticing. But I suppose the local audience was mainly spread between Nimbin and Byron. Too stoned to notice.
It was gobsmacking, audacious, crude and brutal. Yet the fawning ABC host didn’t blink an eye. She could have spoon fed the bloke arsenic and told him it was candy and he would have say YUMMMY! Heck, maybe she did towards the end of the interview. I’ll never know, because I had to turn the radio off, pop in some Judas Priest at full volume and bang my head on the steering wheel as I cruised into the jacarandas lined ‘burbs of Grafton just to clear my sinuses.
Zombies reek.
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Didn’t enjoy it then?
BTW, already given you a thumbs up.
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Hi wes, speaking of ABC interviewing Oreskes, try this one.
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No thanks, Cohenite, the last interview gave me Ebola-like symptoms and I don’t own a Level 4 biohazard suit, so I’ll pass on this one.
But I did notice Oreskes’ book sales are lagging in the Amazon rankings.
So in the true spirit of Warmism I thought I’d just make stuff up to help boost sale.
Here’s a list of fake book jacket blurbs from various celebrities to adorn her latest screed:
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Wes,
MANY thanks for the laughs – she deserves every one of those recommendations.
Cheers,
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Makes this alumni cry. Oh when will it end, it is just soo depressing.
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The previous post to this one regarding positive or negative temperature feedback in response to rising carbon dioxide levels is extremely relevant here.
Oreskes and her ilk, if they attempted any kind of scientific approach to the subject of climate change, would clearly be terrified by the concept of negative feedback from clouds.
As negative feedback is almost certainly true, it is an extremely inconvenient fact and knowledge of it must be suppressed at all costs. It must not be discussed, debated or even thought about.
Most important of all, the global warming gravy train must continue to run. In order to ensure this, all inconvenient facts and sceptical science must be villified, condemned and smeared.
A zero tolerance policy must be vigorously applied to anything which might upset the growth and well-being of the corrupt science of the world’s bloated climate change industry – such is the world of Oreskes.
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It is extremely unlikely that overall feedback is negative. You need a fair degree of positive feedback so that the minor changes in solar irradiance accompanying the Milankovitch cycles can cause the transitions in and out of ice ages.
But I’m sure you knew that.
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Lets look at it from a different point of view John.
As the planet cools (for whatever reason) and the polar ice expands towards the equator, if feedbacks were not negative, the planet would never get out of an ice age. But we know it has and does.
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Good point Baa. Clearly the ice is a positive feedback. The warmer it gets, the less ice there is, so the earth reflects less energy, and absorbs more. Going the other way, as the earth cools, there is more ice, which reflects more energy, and absorbs less. If that was all there was, you’d get runway heating or cooling.
There is, of course, one really big negative feedback that stops runaway warming or cooling. That is the T^4 dependancy of the emitted radiation.
The ice, however, is a long term feedback. I can’t imagine its having very much effect right now.
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All that is needed for ice to have a positive feedback effect is for more snow to fall in a winter than melts the next summer (or, vice-versa). Effectively, this is always happening at some level — the snow fall and snow melt are never exactly the same.
There is some evidence (from ice cores — sorry, can’t find right now) that ice ages can effectively start in a few years. Snow fall exceeds snow melt for several years running by some threshold amount, which then becomes self-sustaining. If you want to see some scenarios of how this might come about, I suggest looking at the site iceagenow. For example, ocean warming (independent of climate warming — by volcanic action perhaps) could drive higher snowfall levels without a corresponding increase in summer melt.
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I might also note that, while overall feedback has to be negative (since we are not locked into Snowball or Frying Pan Earth), the transitions between ice ages and interglacials for the last 3 million years have the look of a bistable system. The transitions between states can appear to be driven by positive feedback.
The evidence from paleoclimate proxies is that we are near the highest temperature that the Earth can achieve in this period — perhaps we could get 2 deg warmer. However, we could transition to the cold state and get 10 deg colder fairly quickly. The recent cold states seem to last ~100,000 years and the intervening warm states (where we have been for the last 11,000 years) appear to last ~8,000 years on average.
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BobC:
Did I read that right?
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Yep. The next ice age appears to be overdue.
The contention that anthropogenic CO2 will stop this cycle is based on bogus analysis of paleodata (basically, assuming that CO2 drives everything else in the face of definitive evidence to the contrary), and fraudulent manipulation of the CO2 record.
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If feedback was positive, the Holocene period (~the last 10,000 years) would have seen huge swings in temperatures with cyclical peaks much higher than those prevailing today – it hasn’t! By definition, positive feedbacks will feed on themselves until some kind of scary high temperature equilibrium is reached.
The alarmist scaremongers will tell you that for every 1 degree C rise you get from a doubling of CO2 levels, you get an extra 3-4 degrees thrown in from the cloud feedback mechanism. I presume there are dozens of pal reviewed papers, liberally littered with the words ‘may’, ‘could’ and ‘might’ purporting to ‘prove’ this.
However, this logic is never applied to changes in solar radiation – whenever you get more solar radiation (change of orbit, the effects of our Sun being a variable star, Milankovitch cycles or whatever) then the Earth warms up. When this happens at the end of an ice age, life on our planet explodes into action, spewing out CO2, which as you know is a trace gas which can have a mild positive impact on global temperature. As the planet warms up, some CO2 will also be released from the oceans.
As the world warms up after an ice age, there is a huge increase in the amount of water vapour in our atmosphere, which as you know is a much more potent ‘greenhouse gas’ than CO2 can ever hope to be.
Unfortunately (?!?), there is no evidence of positive feedbacks, precipitated by increasing CO2 levels, occurring in the geological record. Irritatingly for alarmists, rising CO2 levels always follow rising temperatures at the end of an ice age.
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Well that proves you have no scientific background at all. Given the earth had an atmosphere much higher (>7000ppm CO2) in the past, if the feedbacks were positive the earth would have been cooked and all the water boiled off eons ago.
In reality the earth is bi-stable. It has two semi-stable phases. One phase has temperatures in the range we are seeing now. (Actually a bit warmer since the earth is sliding into an ice age – Graph 1 and Graph 2 ) The other has temperatures much colder. You can see the bi-modal changes in this Graph and that we are already at the upper end of the temperature swings. This Graph brings home the fact that the current temperature is not at all driven by CO2 but CO2 is driven by the temperature. It also brings into question the “Official” CO2 measurements from the ice cores.
More on the manipulating of the CO2 record HERE
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The Milankovitch 100, 000 (approx.) year cycle give a 7% change in solar heat reaching the Earth. That might have something to do with the melting.
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“It is extremely unlikely that overall feedback is negative.”
Climatic feedback moderates trend; when its trending hotter cooling influences occur and vice-versa. Spencer did a good paper on this in 2007 and followed up with his 2011 paper with Braswell.
An interesting 2001 paper places this moderating capacity in the context of entropy and relates to the growing MEP approach to climate which mandates negative feedbacks..
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But, but, there is no more Milankovitch cycles. No more ice ages:
Climate Control Kommisar Steffen would never utter any thing un-scientific. It must be true.
As James Hansen of NASA claimed, ”We have taken over control of the mechanisms that determine the climate change.”
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And Hansen is most likely right. We are unlikely to enter a new ice age any time soon.
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I’ll start believing Hansen when he demonstrates he can predict volcanism and Solar behavior (or anything, really).
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Quote:
If Hansen is right, we can choose when to enter & exit ice ages at our own will, as of 2003.
We have taken over control of the mechanisms that determine the climate change.
So, why the need for a carbon & oxygen tax in 2012?
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I just don’t get this. The negative feed back already exists, it’s called the Water Cycle and it was excised from the AGW fisics to produce the illusion of “greenhouse gas warming of 33°C from -18°C to 15°.
The Water Cycle is that huge dynamic weather system in which heat is transferred from the downwelling direct beam heat from the Sun, thermal infrared which they’ve also excised, which cooks oceans and causes evaporation, which rises to the upper colder levels by the high capacity heat retentive water vapour where it cools down releases its heat and condenses back into liquid water or ice – RAIN – is the negative feedback. And all RAIN is carbonic acid, it brings all the carbon dioxide around it in the atmosphere.
The Water Cycle cools the Earth by 52°C to bring temps down to 15°C from the 67°C it would be for an Earth without water. Think deserts.
The Greenhouse Effect is an illusion. An illusion.
Until more people stop taking this fictional science seriously and stop getting into the trap of arguing nuances in it as if it is real, nothing changes politically. It was designed to be a distraction.
They’re hiding the Climate Change Con.
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They’ll get it one day Myrrh, I don’t know if it’ll happen in my lifetime, but one day they’ll get it.
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Are you really saying that the climate models don’t take atmospheric convection into account?
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No John; He’s saying that they don’t take the water cycle properly into account. GCMs don’t model water vapor and clouds by first physical principles — we don’t know how to do that. What they do is to put assumed behavior in by means of parameterizations. Evidence is, that they don’t have it right yet.
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oreskes is simply providing cover for the infinite possibilities the CAGW meme has opened up for the money-grabbers, political or otherwise:
12 Aug: ContraCostaTimes, Calif: Long Beach to study possibility of selling carbon credits to industry to offset tree costs
Does money grow on trees? Some Long Beach council members want to find out.
A proposal to be introduced Tuesday to the City Council asks to determine the feasibility of selling carbon credits potentially produced by Long Beach’s 393,000-tree urban forest to help defray the multimillion dollar annual cost of tree trimming.
The possible source of revenue – at a time when Long Beach leaders are faced with balancing another deficit in 2013 – would come from businesses such as utility companies and industrial plants buying carbon credits to offset their yearly obligations under AB 32, California’s 2006 global warming law…
Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske, the measure’s sponsor, said she discovered markets set up to exchange the carbon credits while she was researching corporate sponsorship opportunities for the city.
“I just find that it’s an interesting way to raise money for tree maintenance and do nothing except take credit for the fact that we have cultivated this wonderful urban forest,” Schipske said…
Long Beach has a projected $17.2 million deficit for the next fiscal year…
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_21294645/long-beach-study-possibility-selling-carbon-credits-industry
btw Garcia is a former republican, now democrat.
lots more in the comments, etc:
Bishop Hill: Ten Billion
The Guardian’s science editor, Robin McKie, has been to the theatre. He went to see Ten Billion, a one-man show by computer scientist Stephen Emmott. This is slightly odd. The Guardian is losing tens of millions of pounds every year and yet this is their second review of the show. I wonder why they would be plugging it so much?.
The answer, of course, is that it’s a show about man’s impact on the planet – it is in essence a lecture by a somewhat millenarian academic with no particular expertise in the area…
COMMENT by geoffchambers: McKie writes for the Observer. There are alrady two reviews at the Graun (Observer sister paper The Guardian), by Billington on the theatre pages and Ian Jack on the Climate Change page
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/8/12/ten-billion.html
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It is a bit rich to say that UWA is trying to stifle debate on AGW, given that the Centre for Water Research gave David Evans a platform to present a “skeptical” view. I also recall a glaciologist,whose views were not liked by the pro AGW crowd, giving a talk at UWA.
There are a couple of good climate related talks coming up in the near future, and I’m sure there will be a “skeptic” presence. You can spot them in the q & a session, when they look all self-righteous and ask questions that are just diatribes with a question mark at the end.
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When you take a leak, John, do you need the “Scientist General” to give you directions?
To misquote Oreskes, the really great thing about Science as a discipline is that you don’t need a judge, a recognized authority giving us instructions, a recognized authority to accept a scientists verdict and declare it final, since facts speak for themselves and depend on observations and empirical measurement rather than opinion or belief. The ability to test and retest hypotheses allows scientists to refine their theories, entertain conflicting hypotheses that explain the data more accurately, or refute failed hypotheses on the basis that they fail to explain observations completely, or prove invalid through lack of predictive accuracy. Oreskes and her ilk are attempting to overturn centuries of scientific method by supplanting their own pseudo religious interpretation where anointed ones are elected to deliver Sermons on the Mount as the arbiters of valid science. For you to defend that, John, or by failing to raise your voice in protest suggests that you are not truly a scientist by vocation or aptitude, or that you are an utter charlatan, or that you are just too weak and compliant to think for yourself. Just where do you envisage Science will be in 100 years if these people succeed in hijacking objective methodology for social constructivist democratic theory of knowledge? I’ll tell you where, in the toilet.
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Before Hitler came to power, Germany was very strong in the sciences, having produced world-renowned scientists, especially in physics and chemistry. German medicine was similarly excellent. Consequently, there was a strong scientific tradition there, and an equally strong scientific establishment. That didn’t fall apart right away under Hitler. Indeed, if you read histories of Nazi Germany, what will amaze you is that the changes weren’t immediately apparent. Seemingly “normal” life went on for quite some time. Moreover, because there had been years of political unrest between moderates and fascists (read climate warmists and climate sceptics ) before Hitler was made Chancellor to some it seemed that the new Nazi regime was an improvement over the chaos before. Although some changes were immediate (Swastikas everywhere, propaganda on the radio, the opening of Dachau, etc.), major changes that everyone noticed took months and years.
Then, as Hitler’s hold tightened, academia came under his thumb. This control first took the form of a purge of Jewish scientists and faculty from the universities; later it involved the placement of committed Nazis (read warmists) in positions of authority. The effects were widespread and insidious. Many of the scientists who carried out atrocities in the name of their experiments during the war were trained in universities made ideologically pure in the 1930s. What was also not generally appreciated is that Nazi-ism was very attractive to physicians and scientists. Indeed, physicians found Nazi-ism particularly attractive, with its explicit appeal to make them the physicians for the milieu rather than just individuals. Indeed, a frequent statement made by Nazi leaders is that Nazi-ism is “applied biology” designed to protect the health of the Aryan race. Consequently, it was easy for physicians and scientists to slip right back to seemingly normal endeavors and, as the war progressed, it became even easier for them to consider what they were doing was science.
This is the type of regime Oreskes would like universities and academics reside under. A supreme counselor, a scientist general to instruct us on climate change, because she thinks the world is looking for leadership and not finding it for what she regards as the threat of climate change. Only shitheads don’t learn from the mistakes of monsters. What type of head is John Brookes?
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Great comment Markus; John Brookes affects a pleasant, avuncular demeanour but there is nothing pleasant about what he supports. The only thing missing from your Nazi/AGW comparison is a reference to Lord Haw Haw; maybe John is applying for the job?
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BTW cohenite, I have no problem with you guys voicing your opinions. I do have a problem that decision makers might listen to you, but there is not much I can do about it.
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Funny, that’s how we feel about you. Except Joanne IS doing something about it (despite your feeble attempts to object), and the evidence is that it is working.
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I think there is a rule that when you bring up the Nazis, you have lost the argument.
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It’s called Godwin’s Law.
I think that Markus’ point is a valid one, however: Progressives always want to be judged on their intentions — Markus pointed out that Hitler’s rise to power was enabled by people who had good intentions.
As nearly any engineer (but fewer scientists) can tell you — it is only results that count, intentions are irrelevant.
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Not a chance John. In 2008 as one of the worlds authorities on carbon modeling, Dr David Evans presentation about carbon accounting was stopped just weeks beforehand due to protests that it should not go ahead without a “climate scientist” present, even though UWA didn’t have any.
The priority at UWA is not in furthering science knowledge of humanity.
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An internet advertisement I saw recently touted the University of Adelaide & its new ‘Master of Entrepreneurship & Innovation’, or some such baloney. This is the height of absurdity & I suggest, just like the Uni of WA throwing money at ‘Professors at Large’ a direct result of – they control your money.
Higher education is a credit bubble of enormous dimensions, & like any credit bubble, recall Pets.com, private label MBS, CDS cubed, Faceplant.com (down about 50% in a matter of months), I could go on & on… things get more absurd as time goes on.
You cannot expect things to be any different, while university debt trades ‘money good’. They can do whatever the hell they please, & they will. They are masters of their universe.
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I don’t think you can call Lewandowsky et al’s efforts to prevent Monckton speaking at Notre Dame a “smear campaign”.
It was so weak and whiny that it was really only a “smudge campaign”.
But we should also not be surprised that these pathetic losers stick together like sh*t on a shoe — as a movement they achieve little; imagine how helpless and lost they’d feel if they were on their own.
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What do you have in mind Jo? I’m a Physics graduate of UWA.
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So how does Jo substantiate that “billions” are spent on “AGW alarmist” research?
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REPLY: Like this. – Jo
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Well you’re as bad the UWA and Oreskes then. Uncritically parroting an anti-AGW think-tank’s generalist headings as evidence. That all of this is “alarmist” science??
Just another shoddy unresearch. SPPI as evidence?! Please excuse me while I giggle. Let me cite the IPCC texts as proof to you and argue from authority. You’d spew.
This is 100% what you’re railing against supposedly. No proof. There is nothing wrong with basic climate science, climate technology. In fact without which the prime skeptics would have nothing to say. Foreign aid – thoughts skeptics would have applauded those struggling against storms, droughts, floods etc from whatever cause.
You have listed NO PROOF other than your brazen ram-raiding rhetorical bluster!
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Not quite Mr Fish. I didn’t parrot anything, I wrote the paper.
It’s been three years, and no one has found a flaw in the numbers or the refs.
Bad luck eh?
Go on, prove me wrong, find me the list of billions of grants on offer for skeptics. I hunted…
Jo
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Jo
He is just a naive youngster.
Be gentle with him.
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No, she needs to pound him into the ground with facts and numbers.
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mmmmmmmmmmm. Smoked trout. 🙂
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Jo’s into catch and release … so we have something to play with in the future too. 🙂
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Bet we don’t see him again (at least in his un-cooked form anyway)
Cheers,
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If you take away the “T” you are left with “rout”, and that is what he has just experienced.
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LOL!
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Ah…… fish cakes for dinner !!!
pity they are rancid.. so…in the bin they go..
I will have to go get something else with a bit more taste.
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Well played, Jo.
Mr Trout was trolling but it was he who took the bait – hook, line and sinker.
Classic act of hari-kari… and now he’s shushi.
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One thinks of Edmund Burkes lament to know that it is necessary to debate this in public and for the ideological positions to be confronted. The positions do not have to be confronted in an aggressive or necessarily demeaning manner but whilst exposed to the spotlight, the appropriate questions asked.
If the alarmists are open to debate (admittedly a questionable assertion), than when Ms Oreskes is in Perth should be the time to ask questions of her oratoria for her to respond to. One has to watch for the immediate “settled” or “consensus” evasion but with care the right questions can be posed.
Its not until those supposed “consensus” views are challenged in public that the public can see that the matter is either not settled or indeed contrary to that promoted, will the ideology be removed from the debate.
You have a fantastic opportunity if the organisers don’t try and shut debate or questions down and looking at the list one shouldn’t be too optimistic. A carefully vetted airbrushed audience probably – invitation only.
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It is worse than that- the “genius” of Oreskes’ contention is that she states ostensibly that there is a general consensus that science can be decided by consensus. How do we arrive at this conclusion? Why, by consensus of course.
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Oops, apologies Jo, never been snipped before, unintentional connotations. (
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REPLY: It’s ok 🙂 – Jo
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There are a couple of good climate related talks coming up in the near future, and I’m sure there will be a “skeptic” presence. You can spot them in the q & a session, when they look all self-righteous and ask questions that are just diatribes with a question mark at the end.
Written by JB tonite!
Sigh!!
Q & A like what Johnny Boy?
Where is the empirical evidence that man is causing anything wrong?
Yawn… If thats all Brookesy got, Im going back to the TV and a repeat of the Olympics Closing Ceremony…
Lots and lots of CO2 there…woohooo…
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So Jo,
Okay, you’ve convinced me.
The UWA is a principal hotbed of CAGW/Marxist propaganda activity and you’re looking for UWA alumni to help in the fight for a return sanity at the UWA. You might like to add this guy to your mailing list:
NAME: – Colin Barnett.
QUALIFICATION: – Masters Degree, Economics, UWA.
CURRENT OCCUPATION: – Premier of Western Australia.
RECENT EMPLOYMENT HISTORY: – Leader of a LIBERAL PARTY dominated Coalition government in Western Australia for the past four years.
CONTACT DETAILS: – wa-government@dpc.wa.gov.au
.
And voting Liberal/Coalition in the next Federal election is going to “solve” all our CAGW problems?
sarc/off
Jo, much of the “travel” costs for these turkeys you write about were financed through grants from Barnett’s LIBERAL PARTY state government. As was many of the “research projects”. Google WA state government financing of UWA.
Someone PLEASE remind me again how simply voting for a LIBERAL PARTY dominated Coalition Federal government is going to change anything? I need some reassurance.
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As far as I can tell here in the USA we have the Progressives (Fabians) and the controlled opposition both beholden to the central bankers.
If you bother to look it becomes very obvious the Federal Reserve in the USA was a central bank intent on defrauding US citizens. Congressman Mcfadden’s speeches in 1934 made it crystal clear Congress was clued in on what was going on. It has been one hundred years since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was passed and just how many US Senators and Congressman have tried to rid us of this vampire that is sucking the lifeblood out of our economy? A half dozen? (Congressman McFadden, Congressman Lindbergh, Congressman Gonzalez, Congressman McGuGin, Congressman Shoemaker, Congressman Patman, Congressman Rankin, Congressman Ron Paul link )
No matter what country you will see legislation is passed AND NEVER REPEALED Do not forget Max Warburg’s famous words.
Once the elite decide upon a measure the main objective is to get a bill passed by “Compromise” and then when the public’s attention is caught by something else the provisions favorable to the moneyed powers are slipped back in using one liner amendments. VERY VERY rarely is a law once passed ever removed.
It is all a political song and dance to make the ordinary people think they have an actually say in their government so the government keeps its Legitimacy. Once a people realize they have been HAD they become difficult to manage or govern.
Remember the World Bank through the Danish Text was all set to take control of the world wide carbon markets.
Remember the Chair of the IPCC, Robert Watson worked for the World Bank
The World Bank even has a Carbon Finance Unit all set-up and waiting to suck more wealth out of the middle class and poor.
Another thread to pull is Anthony Giddens, the former London School of Economics Director and advisor to Tony Blair, and his Third Way.
[so many links means your post got caught by the spam filter gai. Sorry it took so long to release it. Please consider breaking up future posts. mod oggi]
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You should persist with this line of thought memoryvault.
You might even manage to lift the fog around the heads of a few Reaganouts!
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Wasn’t our old friend Adam Smith an alumni of (or still studying at) UWA?
Or was he one of the staff?
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Well, if your a Farmer it will mean tickets on the soil carbon sequestration gravy train?
Oh, and rule by economic illiterates, recession, Serfchioces II, Julie Bishop as FM (LOL!).
Would mean change, but hardly for the better Mem.
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And yet 60% of the electorate will still vote for them, how bad must the other lot be?
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Is Oreskes promoting the exportation of the Kangaroo Court system of the Wild West into Australia? Another stereotypical American lacking a sense of irony?
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An example of this is :- Lewandowsky, Oberauer & Gignac – NASA faked the moon landing|Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science (in press, Psychological Science)
The paper starts by accepting the validity of science is from beliefs of scientists. The questionnaire asked some extremely biased questions. Then failed to observe some basic rules of extracting scientific results, such as
– placing the questionnaire on alarmist blogs, such as John Cooks “Skeptical” Science and Tamino’s “Open Mind”.
– failing to report the numbers of “skeptics” who completed the questionnaire.
– failing to report on all the sections. For instance, the section of genetically modified foods might have the reverse correlation of what was intended.
From the Author Note:-
My own conclusion is that Jo Nova is being quite mild in her description, but entirely accurate.
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Crickey..
Its like they live under a rock..or cannot search through this site or use google..or have been asleep for years.
Probably all of the above..
I am sure its a $CAGW$ bot.. 🙂
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Once again, concrete isn’t ‘hot’ relative to most other manmade surfaces and many natural surfaces. Concrete is cool because it has a high albedo. And that high albedo (which means the percentage of solar radiation it reflects) heats things in the vicinity including stevenson screens.
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Which is cooler to walk on at 3pm on a day that the temp is 40 C????
Grass or Concrete?
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For live grass, look up ‘evapotranspiration’. But even dead grass will help insulate the underlying soil.
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Phil,
Surely the albedo of clouds at altitude (various) differs from albedo of concrete at ground level (in terms of near surface warming) which in turn differs from albedo of ice at the poles due to angle of inclination. And what is the albedo of asphalt?
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Albedo means the same thing where ever it occurs. It is the percentage of solar radiation reflected expressed as a value between 0 and 1.
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Mea culpa, I was imprecise. What I was trying to say when I was referring to the effect of albedo on near surface ambient temperature, which varies according to such factors as altitude and latitude, yet when I see it mentioned it seems to be referred to as a discrete factor where such considerations are homogenized away as increased or decreased albedo, yet where this occurs it is surely not as simplistic as it seems to be consigned. Or is that just a false impression I have gained, that such factors are taken in isolation to the point of irrelevance.
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The effect of albedo on near surface temperature is that low albedo surfaces accumulate heat from solar energy (insolation)and then transfer that heat via conduction to the nearby air. High albedo surfaces accumulate less heat and therefore transfer less heat through conduction. Radiation plays a role too small to be relevant.
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I did understand that, but thanks just the same. So what impact on global “average” temperatures, rising 0.7 in a century, is contributed by albedo changes in the tropics from deforestation reducing evapotranspiration and cloud formation, plus asphalt surfaces of roads as opposed to more highly reflective surfaces like concrete, plus loss of ice cover due to glacial retreat at lower latitudes.
Although there are approximate Albedo figures for different surfaces, I struggle to understand how well that all can be quantified given that say clouds distributed more equatorially would be more reflective than those distributed poleward as just one example, plus different cloud morphological types at different altitudes would not only have different albedo, but to my mind the radiative effect on atmosphere surrounding would also depend on altitude. It all seems to me to be too complex to even hope to model such variables with even ballpark accuracy through averaging and approximations. Thanks for your patience, but I feel there is a point there I am struggling to get out.
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Winston, FWIIW, my view is that some change in a global average isn’t evidence of a global effect, except when local and regional effects have been removed, and albedo changes are local and regional effects.
Its quite easy to measure surface albedo. It was done as early as the 1950s from aircraft. The fact that more work was done 50 years ago on measuring surface albedo than in recent years is just more business as usual from climate science. Don’t study things that might produce inconvenient answers.
We don’t need to model things we can measure. The problem is that albedo isn’t being systematically measured. Despite it being the primary determinant of near surface air temperatures.
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Thanks Phil,
I think you have addressed what I was trying to get at (I acknowledge I expressed it in a round about sort of a way), but you put it more directly, succinctly and cogently. Thanks for that.
And then you have cloud albedo variations on top of surface albedo changes (as alluded to in the following post re feedbacks), with cloud albedo variations being more significant over ocean than land, I would imagine. This is an unbelievably complex variable in the climate equation, and surely any attempt to model without a precise idea of the dimensions of this particular elephant in the room is necessarily doomed to Quixotic failure. It’s a fool’s errand, IMO. I don’t often say this but I believe “it can’t be done”.
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It seems like the run of the mill for this lot.
Canberra coffee machine salesmen are making some great sales in canberra so beaurocrats can have expensive lattes
Scumbags. Every. Single, one. of them.
Every small businessperson who likes coffee should now go out and buy themselves a coffee machine and put it as a fully deductable expensive due to it “Increasing productivity”. I wonder how the ATO would treat that.
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It’s something to consider to “balance the books” in June.
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hmm we all chipped in and bought the Aldi one and we supply our own pods.
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That’s the way it should work Gee Aye.
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“Who would sponsor an expert that is ignorant of 99.99% of their (her) topic?”
Now that is not a classy thing to say.
The money comes from the taxpayer
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Sorry off topic,
Found this video at the Bolta. Hope you enjoy it.
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The new attack is on CO2’s impact and cost to our health,
Brought to you by the climate institute, out of the kindness of their heart of course.
Check out the sentance I,ve highlighted above. Carbon life forms get health benefits by consuming low carbon foods, if there’s a doctor in the house please explain.
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BTW, just reading the press release has turned my stomach, don’t know that I could digest the PDF.
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I want to see then ALL go in a NO CARBON diet.. see how long they last
moronic putzes !!!
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Totally agree. They have to eliminate carbon from their diets immediately and for the forseeable future – which for them is probably 3 weeks.
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ARRGGHHHHhhhhh
I wish these idiots would understand that, [crystalline] “Carbon is a girl’s best friend and CARBON DIOXIDE is a plant’s best friend”
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As the house medico, I have a prescription for those members of the Climate Institute producing such tripe, a liberal dose of antipsychotic medication, preferably intramuscularly monthly on a court order to aid “compliance”.
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Ahhhhgggg the Orks are coming.. looks a bit like one … (watch that get snipped) 😉
One ring to rule them all !
And in the DARKNESS bind them !
IS UWA becoming Mordor ???
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More like Gollum I think Andy.
After all, they do believe that their CAGW theory is ‘the precious’…
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The Oreskes ‘error’ on big oil funding was not an error at all. In the U.S., some years back Senator Barbara Boxer (California, far-left liberal)made a public statement and she was challenged on the veracity of her claim. Her response: ” I will do or say anything to support my agenda”.
My point is that [Snip – lets not be pejorative] some people will deliberately lie, misrepresent, deceive to create a headline, as they know that the public at large is easily swayed by media talking points; details are not provided in any of the media.
Also in the U.S, the Banksters, Mega-Corps, and gov’t are tied at the hip and six (6) corporations control the media. So, their message gets fed to the dummies sitting in front of the TV to obtain the news..
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A compelling argument in 2.1 RW, and as always I respect your rationale and point of view. If you are not familiar with it, a book called “The Fourth Turning” authored by Strauss and Howe has interesting insights regarding the seasonal changes in the psyche of Homo Sapiens over many centuries. The “winter of our discontent” in fact fits a pattern established over many centuries. I suspect that you would be interested in this concept, since it is in keeping with your ideas, but over several thousand years the turning from Winter to Spring doesn’t always eventuate in the same way.
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Of topic but- Jo- how about doing one on sea ice so I can sensibly ask someone what’s so good about ice? (It’s a time-of-year thing.)
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I am a Graduate of UWA (Masters Criminal Justice, 2008).
I am concerned about the lack of academic rigour, but I am more concerned about the impact of politics on the assessments of students work.
Early in my Masters dergree I made the mistake of mentioning Keith Windshuttle in a discussion with another student and a lecturer. Both were horrified that I should mention such a politically blasphemous name, even in the context of examining research methods. Neither had ever read a word of Windshuttle, but had absorbed the Left meme that he was evil and not to be mentioned in polite society. And both forever considered me tainted for having the Knowning Of The Devil.
I had to accept a Credit from that Lecturer, but learnt thereafter to research and write strictly from a Leftist and Marxist perspective, in order to obtain Ds and HDs.
There is no academic freedom, no freedom of thought, no pursuit of excellence at the UWA Law school and the Crime Research Centre. I also know that some extremely mediocre work was passed and a degree awarded, because of the political provenance and ‘victimhood’ status of the students.
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Time they changed the UWA motto to
🙁
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I understand that this has nothing to do with the topic of this Thread, but this is important, and you all need to see this.
Some of you may be a little inclined to actually place some belief into the fact that the current increase in the cost of electricity has increased because of what is called ‘gold plating’ of the grids, or that it could also be due to ‘poles and wires’.
The following chart shoots that ‘meme’ to hell. Now, some people may look at the chart and not readily understand what it is actually saying, so I need to add some explanation.
The chart I have linked to below indicates the wholesale price of electricity, the price that the the power plants sell their power to the retail electricity providers for. This chart compares equal situation with equal situation, both being in the same Month, the first column showing the cost in July of 2011, (pre CO2 Tax) and the second column showing the cost in July of 2012 (post CO2 Tax). That cost is expressed in Dollars per MegaWattHour. So, on the first line there for the State of NSW, that cost in Jul 2011 is that $30.75 per MWH. This equates to just under 3 cents per KWH. At the same time, the retail cost for electricity for residential consumption was 21 cents per KWH.
Note how in every case, that wholesale cost of electricity has more than doubled. This whole cost increase is passed through in full to all areas of electrical power consumption, and equates to an increase in the retail cost for electricity of around 14% to 17%.
Some may look at the decrease in demand that has also shown up here, some States more than others, and some may say that this decrease in demand may equate with a decrease in CO2 emissions. What you need to understand here is the way power is generated, and then distributed. Those coal fired power plants operate at their best efficiency when running at their maximum all the time, so any decrease in demand would not even register with them, and they will continue doing what they always have, just humming along at max revs producing what they always have.
What this decrease does indicate is that with the price increase, som people in some States are just consuming less.
Emissions have not changed one bit.
This chart shows the actual increase in the cost to the retail providers, and has nothing whatsoever to do with what comes later, the grid, the poles and wires etc, as all of this increase is at the front end.
The following is the link to the image of this chart.
Wholesale Electricity Costs Pre And Post CO2 Tax
Tony.
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Tony. Interesting info as always. Is there any information on the rises in costs that have had to be built in over the last few years due to having to meet the Labor/Green MRET requirements? (All attracting GST of course)!
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Keith, Professor Sinclair Davidson wrote an article recently indicating the the RETAIL cost of electricity tracked the CPI until the election in 2007 made it clear that the country would soon be afflicted with a carbon pox. Part of this is most definitely the cost of reporting emissions, part of it is general tightening of health safety and environmental constraints (not all bad) and a good part of it reflecting the need to generate some revenue from assets before they are made obsolete through this CAGW nonsense, as is the case with several installations. I don’t have numbers for you unfortunately.
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Sorry to be pedantic, but “and they will continue doing what they always have, just humming along at max revs producing what they always have.” implies that alternators change speed. You and I know that they are synchonous machines in synch with the grid, but what you mean is that at less than full output their efficiency drops, so the same CO2 emissions simply produce less power (within limits).
As I have said before, our combined cycle power station churns out 208 MW just the way it did last year. The only difference is that there is another ten million in tax to pay which is ultimately borne by the poor consumer (that’s us) so that it can be spirited away to the UN to line someone’s pockets (like Maurice Strong of Al Gore.
Good post, Tony.
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Interesting Tony.
There will also be a perverse outcome further driving up prices. All electricity distributors operate on a cost+ model. Their distribution costs are largely fixed. So as increasing costs drive down demand, the fixed costs are spread over fewer units sales and so prices go up further.
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Interestingly too, every time I have asked (in humble and moderate language) on an ABC blog, what portion of the increased costs of poles and wires is attributable to the need to run HV to Innamincka for Flannery’s experiment, and to remote windy promontories and bleak hills to service brief periods of production from isolated windfarms, my questions disappear into the cloud.
Another set of hidden subsidies?
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Gnome,
it probably goes so far over their heads that they have no concept of what you are talking about.
Keep in mind these are the same people that, if you said, “hey look, a dead bird”, they would all look up and ask where.
Tony.
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My ABC Bureacrat in CNS did not even know that the world had not been warming for 15 years…
They just listen to and believe Dr Karl….
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Funding from BIG OIL
An easy $1500 to be made by somebody willing to regurgitate the right words.
Extrapolating big-oil’s apparent propensity for seeking important advice on technological furtures from undergraduates typically afflicted by a surfeit of hormones, I guess that their boards of management consult with pre-schoolers for important, corporate business decision.
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Bernde, Thanks for the tip. Here’s my idea and I’m willing to share the $1500 with any one who can come up with the technology to harvest and harness all the seemingly inexhaustible supply of hot air that continues to emanate unabated from CAGW alarmists! Any takers?
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For our useless politicians and bureaucrats, I suggested stationary bikes hooked up to generators. I am sure you could power the entire capital and improve their health at the same time.
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Oreskes wants a ‘Ministry of Truth’ to tell us what is ‘true’, and with the legal power to control any form of media,
including blogs, that attempt heresy.
Unfortunately science, as in real skeptical science,
‘I can’t prove my hypothesis wrong’ – ‘please help me by showing where I have erred’ science – is the genie that is
well and truly out of it’s bottle,
much to the chagrin of religions and quacks of many callings.
Here’s to heresy !
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OK off on a tangent … because it’s me … is this how Mothra* began?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/mutant-butterflies-haunt-fukushima/story-fnb64oi6-1226450205095
(You may have to Google the title and click the search result to see the story).
Think of the children!!1!!1one
* For the geek-challenged: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra
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I am often amused by the appeal to ‘consensus’. One reason is that modern climate followers pooh pooh the RC church for giving Galileo such a hard time for claiming the earth circled the sun.
But it was not the RC church that obeyed the ‘consensus’ the earth was at the centre of the universe. No, it was the Greek, Ptolemy, who was believed to be correct in that belief. This was before the Romans came. Later, when the Roman Empire became Christian the scientific consensus about an earth centric universe simply flowed along with everything.
So, for about 2000 years the consensus was wrong, but no one could challenge it even when proof was offered. It took another 100 years or so before the sun centered view was able to topple the consensus.
The lesson is that consensus is no pointer to correctness. Even today, much argument goes on in Quantum physics even with the discovery of Higg’s bosun. More questions arise in relation to 90% of the ‘unknown’ dark matter and dark energy.
We must admit we know less in relation to nature in relative terms than we ever thought. As Einstein and Bohr once mused, “Would the moon exist if we didn’t look at it?”
I do wish the climate ‘scientists’ would acknowledge some humility instead of uncharacteristic arrogance unsuitable and unbecoming of true scientists.
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That’s right Elva.
But the irony for me is that the teachings of Ptolemy (which were based on a self-evident argument) were toppled by a new application of mathematical principles. And it is the same mathematical principles that are now being applied (but not produced) as “proof” of what is no more than a belief system based on another self-evident argument.
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Climastrologists are not scientists they are Propaganda Meisters and nothing more. Worse they have lead a whole generation of ‘should have been ‘ scientists into doing useless incorrect research where ‘Politically Correct’ is much more important then the search for data facts and the truth.
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the CAGW crowd claim to hate the oil companies who, they wrongfully say, are funding CAGW sceptics, yet they say nothing about petrol prices staying high when oil prices plummeted, a crude oil glut developed, and the aussie dollar strengthened?
25 June: Australian: Tim Webb: Oil glut to push price under $US70 per barrel, analysts warn
Prices for Brent crude, the European benchmark, have already fallen from $US120 to under $US90 a barrel in less than two months as the eurozone crisis deepens and concern about the global economy mounts. The collapse will offer some much needed respite to motorists and energy bill-payers…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/oil-glut-to-push-price-under-us70-per-barrel-analysts-warn/story-fnb64oi6-1226407476582
how cute…blame Iran for US/UN sanctions???
18 June: Oil-Price.net: Steve Austin: Why Is Gas Price Remaining High When Oil Price Is Going Down?
Blame Iran, Really
Naturally world geopolitics also have an effect on the price of oil as well as price at the pump. As of July 1st, 2012 the European Union will stop buying oil from Iran. Until then the European Union will buy 20% of Iran’s oil exports…
So what will happen over the next few months? Is the price of oil poised to rise or will it continue falling? The fact that Japan is ready to approve a bill which would give sovereign guarantees for Japan’s tankers which load Iranian crude oil is an indicator that prices may continue to fall. If the
Japanese bill is passed this will undermine the effectiveness of the sanctions which will come into effect on the 1 July, and thus increase the amount of oil on the market, leading to further declines in oil prices…
http://www.oil-price.net/en/articles/why-is-gas-price-high-when-oil-price-down.php
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of course, as is the way with these free-marketeers, there are the usual hypocritical WAIVERS for some, but not for others, and too bad if there’s a global financial crisis:
March 2012: Daily Yomiuri Japan: U.S. sanctions on Iran oil exempt Japan /
10 European countries also win waivers
The 10 other countries exempted are Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. All are EU members…
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/T120321005811.htm
China was left out of the waivers at first, but simply ignored the sanctions until eventually the US added them to the list:
13 Aug: Reuters: Osamu Tsukimori & Chen Aizhu: CORRECTED-Asian oil buyers help Iran stave off the worst, for now
(Correct’s China’s August loadings in the ninth paragraph to 16 million barrels from 8 million)
* Asian imports of Iran oil may edge up, but will level by year-end
Japan more than doubled its August loadings to 7 million barrels compared with July to make up for disruptions through the middle of the year, while India is expected to follow suit and load 2 million barrels at most, industry sources say.
China, Iran’s biggest oil customer and trading partner, kept August loadings unchanged from July at about 16 million barrels…
***Even though global markets are awash with crude, Iranian oil has retained its appeal with discounted prices, easier trade financing terms and because its grade of high-sulphur oil is well suited to many refineries.
Earlier this year, the United States granted allies Japan, South Korea and India a waiver from financial sanctions after they reduced purchases from Iran by around 15 percent in the first half of the year from year earlier levels.
China was given a U.S. waiver after imports fell by more than 20 percent during the same period compared to a year earlier due to a dispute over contract terms with Iran.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/iran-asia-oil-idINL4E8JA1PB20120813
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some may recall a full-page anti-iranian ad in the NYT in 2010 by the american jewish organisations whose logos appear at the bottom of this petition that went out at the same time. amazing how the NYT ad had the MIT reference at the bottom, yet i can’t recall MIT protesting the use of their name in such a political manner.
(pdf)2010: Jewish Reconstructionist Federation Petition: How do we stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons and funding terror?
End America’s reliance on foreign oil
Please sign this petition urging your senators to Support energy security policy and climate change:
Dear Senator,
By making energy security policy and climate change national priorities, together we can stop Iran from earning up to $100 million a day every day for the next forty years — $1.8 trillion worth of oil revenues.1
1″Based on an economic analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, April
2007″
http://jrf.org/files/nyt_ad_petition.pdf
and so it came to pass! $100m/day says the Reuters article i posted earlier??
13 Aug: Reuters: CORRECTED-Asian oil buyers help Iran stave off the worst, for now
Asia’s major crude buyers are finding ways around tough U.S. and EU sanctions to maintain imports from Iran, suggesting that, for now, the worst may be over for the OPEC producer that is losing more than $100 million a day in oil export revenues
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/iran-asia-oil-idINL4E8JA1PB20120813
keeping the oil price high has and will always be in the interests of the CAGW scamsters.
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Insanity of it all. How far do these Dodos think they can compare to mother nature.
Source:
http://earthquake-report.com/2012/08/06/new-zealand-volcanoes-mount-tongariro-volcano-new-zealand-erupts-after-115-year/
Lets see tax at $23 per tonne..
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Let’s see, who can they send the bill to? How about …
Lucifer, c/o The Hades, Lower Nether-World-on-Styx, Hell.
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…,Lower Nether-World-on-Styx
Hmmmmm, a perfect description of Sonny Bill err the All Blacks…
🙂
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Repeat that after Saturday
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Heads up! (This is largely a duplicate of a note I placed in the Muller 404 event thread)
Their ABC is at it again: Climate sceptic reborn a believer
Re-born might have been appropriate if Muller had ever been a sceptic. He wasn’t.
Take some time to inform the ABC.
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The only way to shut the leftard pollies, journos and academics up is via the ballot box and defunding, especially of the ABC and “liberal arts” faculties. Of course for a short while they’ll kick up a huge stink and then, with no one listening, blessed silence. No doubt they’ll continue plotting in the background to achieve their Gramscian agenda but meanwhile, hopefully for more than a decade, we’ll have some peace to live our lives without these self-appointed moral guardians, aka wowsers, telling us, the great unwashed according to them, what’s good for us.
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