Background Briefing ABC Radio National July 17th
I’m sure Wendy Carlisle thinks she’s helping Australia.
The awarded writer who calls herself a science journalist, breaks laws of reason, makes a litany of careless errors, ambushes interviewees with false claims, and devoutly stares past hundreds of peer reviewed references as if they don’t exist. Yes, Anything but the evidence!
She thinks hunting through resumes of retired scientists is a good way to inform us about the need for a Carbon (sic) Tax.
It’s a wake up call ladies and gentlemen. This is the state of “science” at your ABC where polite discussion and meaningful research has been replaced with tabloid guttertalk.
The ABC is not part of the problem, it IS the problem. It’s not just that we spent $1 billion last year on the ABC — the real cost of the propaganda-machine disguised as “impartial reporting” is the billions of dollars we have already malinvested due to the ABC’s inability to provide rigorous and relevant science reporting, and the multi-billions more we are about to waste.
The nation is about to undergo a massive economic shift, transforming jobs and lives in a quest to prevent bad weather 50 years from now. It’s an idea so stupid, so uneconomic, and so politically insane that it’s utterly predictable that hundreds of unpaid whistle-blowers are rising up in patriotic duty to protect their country and the good name of science.
And the ABC is attacking them.
No wonder the public is angry. The ABC will report irrelevant minor and incorrect minutae of people who were not even on the Monckton tour, but can’t find ten minutes to explain the independent scientist’s arguments. Who would have thought they’d be so scared of the science? And since the odd fifty percent of Australians are unconvinced about the need to act on CO2, you’d think it would be a priority — you know, to explain how those silly skeptics are wrong.
The institution supposedly serves the people. So you’d think that if science was being exaggerated and exploited, and giant financial institutions stood to make billions based on the scare, that “our” ABC would be right there, digging for the truth, and worth every penny. Instead they sent Wendy Carlisle out on a muckraking venture of character assassination. She went out of her way, across the street, and practically hid in a nuclear bunker to avoid any evidence that mattered.
What’s the saying? You can lead them to water but you can’t make them think.
It’s all about the reasoning — stupid
Are Monckton and the other skeptics paid PR agents, true cranks, or citizens saviors come to rescue the nation from corruption and greed? How would we know? The only way to tell is to look at the evidence… that is, not the evidence for other endeavors by other people on other topics in other countries, but to go direct to the source, and look at the scientific evidence they refer too. [eg here, here and here & here too.]
Monckton, Evans, and Nova (yes, me) made dozens of references to peer reviewed papers, model predictions, and faulty measuring equipment, and Carlisle ignored all of them despite attending our talks (and twice). During a lengthy pre tour phone interview she asked me to email references to her, and I did. Though I might as well have written them in Arabic. The “scientific evidence” Carlisle managed to eke out of three weeks of research and squeeze into her long interview consisted of a couple of largely irrelevant points about polar bears and sea level rise that she thought she could show were wrong, except they weren’t (see below):
- Monckton did not make a mistake about the IPCC prediction of sea level rise. The 6 cm IPCC prediction he quotes applies to sea level rise due to melting ice sheets. It’s not the same as the total sea level rise predicted due to all causes, that Wendy quotes. Monckton did not exaggerate. Al Gore did, 100 fold.
- Did those four bears drown in a storm or not? Monckton refers to Monnett and Gleason, 2006. Let’s quote that paper: “Our observation suggest that polar bears swimming in open waters near Kaktovik drowned during a period of high winds and correspondingly rough sea conditions… No other deleterious environmental conditions were present…” Furthermore, The Justice of the UK High Court agrees with Monckton. Thus Ms Carlisle misconstrued the evidence in order to claim that “Lord Monckton miscontrues the evidence”. Projection anyone? (Thanks to nocarbontax.com for both these points.)
So while skeptics get their information from NOAA, NASA, Vostok and Greenland ice cores, and peer reviewed papers, Wendy Carlisle seems to have got hers from places like DeSmog — a professional smear site written by a PR group with paid marketing staff, who market renewable energy firms in their other jobs for Hoggan and Associates. They push the bounds of slander and libel, to cherry pick any tenuous word association to smear and attack scientists who’ve worked for decades at the peak of their fields.
She thinks this is “research”.
Read on for the real story on Tim Ball, Fred Singer, the ambush interview, and the dismal record in logic and reason.
Analysis by “Strategies”: The reasoning that buries itself
ABC staff have been so under-trained in logic and reasoning that they can’t recognize an irrational swamp like Naomi Oreskes arguments. Oreskes long ago tossed Aristotelian thought into the bin, and opted instead for the bogus form of “argumentum ad strategatem”. It goes like this: if Naomi can speculate that there is “a strategy” (other than seeking the truth) in any statement, then that person making the statement is doing it for the wrong reasons, and the statement must be wrong. She forgets that people trying to get the truth out also use “strategies”. (What do you do when there are real doubts? Speak randomly?) Yea and verily, our national debate is reduced to inanities. How easy it is to mock anyone who points out any quantum of uncertainty. Did News of the World Hack Phones? How could you say that you Doubt-monger(!!!): “that’s just what the tobacco institute did too – seeded doubt”. Never mind that some doubts are real.
It’s a multipurpose fog factor, any debate can be reduced to meaninglessness with the handy nonsense of Oreskes. (Did I mention “Tobacco”?) Suddenly no one can question anything “official” without being accused of “seeding doubt” like evil tobacco corporations.
It works both ways though. The Queen of the Merchants of Doubt is Naomi Oreskes herself. She seeds doubts about scientist’s reputations and the whistle-blowers credibility. While skeptics raise doubts about the evidence, the useful idiots raise doubts about “character” — also known as ad hominem attacks.
Carlisle also read from the Oreske’s playbook and baited me repeatedly to say I wanted science settled in the “townhall debate”. I want policies debated at town halls (and everywhere else), and if the policy is based on highly complex, wildly uncertain science, then the science needs to be explained in town halls, on TVs, radios and everywhere else too. But according to Oreskes, that’s a “strategy” too — to get science out of peer review and into town halls. But figure how things work in Oreskes’ world: if any policy can be labeled “scientific”, then voters don’t get to decide which party has the best plan — because it “ought” be settled via the elitist, anonymous, unpaid, manipulated “peer review” system, and only government paid and ticketed participants are allowed at that forum. (And you pleb-citizens had better feel good about that.)
The elitist attitude that science only belongs to a select few, is rather totalitarian when “science” is used as the weapon in policy that affects the whole population.
It sounds twee, but science belongs to all of us.
Shouldn’t ABC science reporting start with logic and reason?
What is science without reasoning? Answer: It’s not science. Indeed, reasoning is so important to science than it outranks the sacred tenet of evidence. Without good reasoning, we can have all the evidence in the world but fail to make sense of it.
Argument from authority is a well known fallacy. Yet everything Wendy Carslisle says is based on the assumption that the government science is right. How do I know? I asked her, and she couldn’t name any experimental evidence to support her unshakable faith, only that essentially she trusts the agencies. Argumentum ad verecundiam. If only she understood why that was so woefully inadequate.
The whole culture of the ABC is such that if there was something wrong with government science, the ABC would be the last to find out. They’d be too busy attacking unpaid whistleblowers, oblivious to the circular reasoning: “We know the government is right, because their scientists are the authority. Why are they the authority? Because the government pays them to be.”
Wendy’s world boils down to “government scientists: good; independent scientists: bad”
Another kindergarten fallacy is an ad hominem attack, which Wendy Carlisle appeared not to understand at all. She was aghast that Tim Ball was not a professor or a published climatologist (which is misinformed in any case, see his doctorate in climatology here, and CV here) and that I was associated with him (well yes, barely). She used that question of “character” as a way of dismissing all the arguments all the skeptics make. I pointed out that his biography tells us nothing about our climate. Any six year old would recognize that you can’t understand how much the world will warm by studying a man’s Curriculum Vitae. She snorted and simply denied it was an ad hom. How can you reason with that?
She reported on Tim Ball at length in her program despite the fact that he was 14,000 kilometers away from the Monckton tour and had virtually nothing to do with it.
When 22 peer reviewed papers equals “0”, and climatology wasn’t climatology
- Carlisle said “Professor Timothy Ball has never published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal on the topic of human contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.” And neither has Ross Garnaut. But Ball has published at least 22 peer reviewed papers on climate science, and he got a doctorate in climatology back in 1982. (That’s 22 more papers and a more relevant doctorate than Tim Flannery) Didn’t she feel the public ought to know that? It’s true — possibly Alan Jones introduction of him, was too enthusiastic, but climate modelers who can’t produce any working prediction are introduced as “eminent experts” all the time, and Garnaut — a paid government agent– is introduced as “independent”. Let’s get a grip.
- Tim Ball says he worked in Climatology at the University of Winnipeg. Tim is retired, and is being hounded and attacked to the point where he is facing law suits and launching them in return, and has already forced the Calgary Herald to issue a retraction for a slanderous article. In that bullying climate, someone at the University of Winnipeg has written a three line email saying “We have never had a Climatology program“. Awkwardly for them, Marc Hendrickx found an archived webpage showing indeed that the University had at least three courses in Climatology. Rewriting history is an old “strategy”. But Carlisle assumed that fans of warming wouldn’t do that, and failed to check her sources. This international petty obsession with Tim Balls exact title from 1982-1996 shows how successful Ball’s arguments are. The attacks are mindless: perforce, does the exact nomenclature of extinct courses validate climate models and invalidate Ball’s arguments? Who are the ABC kidding? It was not only wrong, but meaningless too. [Note in the interview both Ball and Carlisle refer to “a department” but in the written links it’s referred to as a “course” or “program”?]
Who are the cranks here?
What matters to the world right now, is climate sensitivity. What “Background Briefing” think you need to know are stories about tobacco funding 20 years ago on a different question, in a different country, by a different speaker. If you find a cause and effect link there, do tell us. Rush to tell Wendy. She needs you.
Carlisle blindly used the standard Oreskes incantation — here’s the chain: Monckton advises a group called SPPI, which Carlisle claims is run by Fred Singer (it isn’t), and 20 years ago Fred Singer wrote a report saying that smoking doesn’t cause cancer (he didn’t), and Singer was paid by Phillip Morris (he wasn’t), so therefore Monckton’s arguments about climate can be dismissed without a glance. Got it?
What really happened in this irrelevant chain of events?
- Bob Ferguson founded and runs the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), which Monckton advises. Ferguson explains that Fred Singer is not and has never been involved with running SPPI. Singer runs an entirely different group SEPP.
- Fred Singer has never claimed smoking doesn’t cause cancer. Instead he was commissioned to write a report for a group about the statistics on passive smoking (note the word “passive”) and Singer, who doesn’t like cigarettes, but likes the scientific method, felt compelled to point out that the passive smoking study only met the 90th Confidence Interval, not the time honored standard of the 95th, and that the relative risk due to passive smoking was so small that the studies were not statistically significant. He did that work for a group who, he found out later, had got some funding from a tobacco company. (Incidentally, does that mean that now, the new bar for independent scientists is they cannot accept funding from any company or group without first investigating all that organization’s complete and historical sources of funding. How does that help advance scientific knowledge? Best to get all your funding from the government eh?)
Singer was attacked for doing his job, he was scientifically correct, he didn’t take money from Phillip Morris, and in thanks, is degraded with statements verging on outright lies from the ABC.
Singer was attacked for doing his job, he was scientifically correct, he didn’t take money from Phillip Morris, and in thanks, is degraded with statements verging on outright lies from the ABC.
But like dog biscuits to cult members, sloppy reasoning and research feeds the hounds the misinformation they need so they can keep yapping and Feeling Superior about acting like a dog, and barking at the enemy.* Knowing that the word “tobacco” is involved anywhere in the chain means they don’t have to discuss skeptical scientific arguments. Handy way to shut down debate.
Stooping to ambush Wes Allen with the deception about Singer
Wes Allen wrote a whole book about Tim Flannery’s mistakes: The Weather Makers Re-examined. Instead of giving the Australian public an insight into how riddled with errors Flannery’s books were, Wendy cornered Allen with an egregious distortion about Fred Singer instead. She told Wes that “Fred Singer… was one of those scientists to cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer…” and asked Wes, who is a G.P., how he felt about that, effectively twisting the knife to put Wes on the back foot and get Wes to look silly trying to defend it, or to attack a fellow skeptic. But since Singer didn’t ever say that, it was a mindless ambush which was never going to help the public learn anything useful about our planned Carbon Tax.
Thus the mud keeps spreading, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.
Lies by omission
So Wendy Carlisle “science journalist” spoke to everyone in the room except the expert in modeling who detailed the evidence of why the climate models are wrong.
When the answer didn’t help Wendy paint skeptics as paid hacks, she kept that information from the public. She grilled me too about David Evans’** and my investments, our conflicts of interest, and where our money comes from, but since we are clean as a whistle (actually cleaner than she could possibly guess) she didn’t broadcast my answer, possibly because it wouldn’t do for the Australian public to know that a major skeptic (or two) have no skeletons in the closet and are acting voluntarily out of a sense of patriotic duty and professional concern. It’s just another way to show that Wendy was not there to help Australians understand what drives the skeptics, but to advocate a government policy. Her strategy is to ask questions but only report the answers that make skeptics appear bad — a hallmark of propaganda, not journalism.
More pointedly, Wendy sat through Dr David Evans’ presentation twice, but assiduously avoided interviewing him. It could have been that his PhD from Stanford didn’t lend itself to mocking, or that his DeSmog attack pages are so weak, or maybe it was his background with the Department of Climate Change, but even Wendy realized that interviewing him would score no easy hits.
So Wendy Carlisle “science journalist” spoke to everyone in the room except the expert in modeling who detailed the evidence of why the climate models are wrong. Hello, anyone want to deny 28 million radiosondes? I have just the teacher for you…
This women worked hard not to get the truth.
Double standards anyone?
Wendy Carlisle told me she wished I would publish my arguments in the peer reviewed literature. But I am just a messenger as is she. If I had to get “peer reviewed” so did she. Where were her publications?
Insisting that your critics jump through “peer review” is another way to silence dissent, and rather than being the mark of a rigorous science writer it’s a symptom of a lazy mind — one that’s waiting for someone else to find the holes in the arguments of those they want to dismiss.
And of course — if there’s a problem in the peer review system itself, we all know which media institution will be the last to find it.
Other errors in the Carlisle “briefing”.
- There was no scientist called “Ben Singer”. Carlisle presumably meant Ben Santer. And far from Fred Singer hounding him, it was Fred Singer who was slandered by Al Gore’s staffers, Justin Lancaster. Fred Singer was viciously attacked with an outrageous falsehood, so he took Al Gore’s team to court, and in the face of the evidence, they settled and apologized.
- For the record, the answer to the question Wendy asked, “Who organized Monckton’s tour?”, is that thanks are mostly due to the Climate Sceptics party — which runs on a shoestring, offered no money in speaking fees, paid for discounted air fares, and yet gets lumped in Wendy’s description as if it were a large industrial player.
Oh the irony, Wendy was the only person paid to be in the room on the Monckton tour, and yet the unpaid citizens speak the truth, while the paid one tosses untruths, errors and innuendo.
Conclusions
The net effect of pieces like Carlisle’s is to stop people listening to the other side of a policy debate. And it works. Ask almost anyone working at or informed by, the ABC, to briefly outline the skeptic’s position and our main two or three arguments. They can’t. Simply no idea. They are clueless that most of the projected warming comes from water vapor, and simply look bewildered when it is pointed out to them that skeptics agree that CO2 causes warming but that debate is really over the magnitude and direction of feedbacks.
This is why this kind of work is worse than just a nullity. People have been spouting unreason since time began, but when nonsense is given the formal approval of taxpayer funded “expert journalists”, suddenly the batty views of wild innuendo take on a life they don’t deserve. The ABC is actively making it harder for the community to sort through the mud and get to what matters because it’s propagating the mud. This is why the crowd is getting so angry. “Our” ABC is obviously “their ABC”. And they are working against the taxpayer. It’s time for it to stop.
It’s not reporting. It’s disguised PR. When Carlisle had evidence the skeptics have no financial interest and that this is a genuine grassroots movement she withheld it. When she had the chance to add in spurious slurs against distantly connected people she took every opportunity. She could have written about the science, but chose not too. The devastating missing hot spot argument was put to her five times, and the list of peer reviewed papers was sent to her (at her request), but at the end of it all she said “you don’t use much peer reviewed science”.
(And just who are the deniers?)
Carlisle actively ignores the Black Hole in the Room, known as the Banksters financial interest in a trading scheme. Has she asked Tim Flannery about the Panasonic funding, his position with Siemens (who sell desalination plants), or his vested interests? Did she ask Malcolm Turnbull about his past at Goldman Sachs or that his HIH case was settled by a payment of an undisclosed amount thanks to Goldman Sachs who also stand to benefit from carbon trading?
This kind of one-sided reporting is merely a rubber stamp of government press releases or worse, rubber stamping something lower: a PR activist’s outrageous deception.
As Christopher Monckton says: How do you spell Pravda in Australian?
A. B. C.
* Apologies to our canine friends who don’t deserve the comparison.
** Yes, Dr David Evans and I are married :-). Thanks.
————————
Some of Joanne’s favourite posts are on the art of Science Communication
Prediction: The more desperate they (the alarmists) become, the more irrationally they will act.
Since they believe to their core that words cause things, that belief creates truth, and that agreement validates their position, they can do nothing but go further and further away from reality. They are self blinded and willfully ignorant. They believe they have their precious fantasied consensus to protect them. The reality is that they would be better protected hiding under their bed covers.
Keep up the pressure. They will drive themselves over the cliff into an abyss of their own making. Our challenge is to not go along for the ride nor pay the the trip.
At the very least, refuse to be a willing victim. Say NO! to their madness.
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In the ‘green’ corner we have ‘Wittering’ Wendy Carlisle of the ABC.
AND, in the blue corner we have Jo ‘no-prisoners’ Nova – champion sceptic of AGW alarmism.
Result – first round knockout and complete demolition of wittering Wendy.
Wendy seems like the type who would take a knife to gunfight!
Keep knocking ’em over Joanne.
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Sorry, no. They receive tobacco taxes too!
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While I write this our Canadian CBC is busy broadcasting CAGW propaganda under the guise of science programming. CBC is suppose to be our national radio, and should be putting the best interests of Canada first. Instead they seem hell bent on saving the planet by destroying the Canadian economy and encouraging the export of manufacturing jobs. Apparently we can save the world by substituting cheap, clean burning coal power with horrendously expensive wind and solar; while allowing China to do our manufacturing using power derived from dirty coal hydro plants. Seems like the ABC, BBC, and CBC all have the same puppet master.
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graphicconception: #3
What a good point! That is it, all spokes people for the government are indirectly tobacco company shills … need we say more?
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Well done Jo. To misquote our family motto,
“Nil illegitimi carborundum”
Ken
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I think a formal complaint to the Broadcasting Tribunal should be made
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I can’t vouch for his figures but as a B.Sc (biology) I can state that Monckton hit the nail on the head with his statement that science does not operate through consensus but through application of the scientific method. This argument alone applied properly should destroy the credibility of any certainty of human induced global warming, since as Monckton also correctly states, the climate behaves in chaotic or non linear fashion, which cannot be predicted to the 95% level of significance.
And Jo, if this David Evans you are married to is the one I’m thinking of (of Gold Nerds fame), you should impress on him that the quantity theory of money is bogus. The value of bankers paper does not depend on the quantity in circulation but the quality of the assets said banker has issued his (or even her) paper against. Yes, I heard him give a presentation on the subject. I’d thought it was going to be about carbon credits.
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Well done Joanne.
I cannot help but think the AGW crowd are getting very poor value for money from their PR companies/helpers and their tame MSM journalists. The mess they have made of trying to derail Lord Monckton’s tour is amazing. The could not have given him better publicity even if they were on his side. The debate was their oppportunity to really score some points but they put up a really weak defender of the faith.Now they are resorting to saying you don’t argue science in a debate but it has to be done in peer review literature. They are just running out of excuses.
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Quote: Insisting that your critics jump through “peer review” is another way to silence dissent, and rather than being the mark of a rigorous science writer it’s a symptom of a lazy mind – one that’s waiting for someone else to find the holes in the arguments of those they want to dismiss. End quote.
Bravo Jo, and thank you for your great work and perseverance. With regard to peer review Lewandowsky’s piece on Unleashed last Tuesday basically implied what you said above. In response I submitted the comment below, which to give Unleashed some credit, was published just before they closed all comments!
Quote: Stephen, your article is disingenuous and I suspect your hubris has blinded you to seeing alternative points of view. I have never had a peer-reviewed article published but as an author I have a number of books that grace the reference section of most of the public and educational libraries in Australia. One of those non peer-reviewed books is a reference work that is not only cited in peer and non-peer reviewed journals and reports but is a reference book in TAFE, undergraduate and post-graduate environmental and other courses, as well as forming a significant part of a government report into Australia’s vegetation formations. Another of my reference works deals, in part, in the extremes of Australia’s weather and climate, not surprising given my strong background in climatology, based on empirical evidence and observation rather than Bayesian probabilities and (less than accurate) climate modelling. I am therefore well positioned to know quite well the obfuscation through omission that occurs in the climate change debate. Misrepresentation, a lack of due diligence and denigration of opponents not only weakens your case but strikes at the credibility of your argument.
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Breaking News:
The Under-Secretary-General and UN Environmental Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner, gave a statement to the UN Security Council, on 20 July 2011, on the impact of climate change on maintaining international piece and security.
Bringing the argument to the level of the Security Council seriously raises the ante in the debate (they are getting desperate). It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, because three of the permanent members: Russia; China; and the US, have all declined to play the climate game, for one reason or another.
The propaganda on the presentation is at: http://www.unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?DocumentID=2646&ArticleID=8817&l=en
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Raredog: #10
Nice!
But I bet dollars to donuts that he (Lewandowsky) never reads the comments – it would be far beneath his dignity to do so.
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As Monckton said in Ballarat, “the next party that moves to defund the ABC will be sweeped into office”.
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The reporting on Monckton describing Ross Garnaut as a fascist
was extensive & Monckton received scathing criticism.
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
in a 2004 interview in a Danish newspaper said the following;
“”What is the difference between Lomborg’s view of humanity and Hitler’s? . . . If you were to accept Lomborg’s way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing.”
Didn’t hear about that from Aunty!
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[…] Analysis by “Strategies”: The reasoning that buries itself More » […]
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Taking a deep breath (suspecting this argument will be butchered) –
To argue the science in public forums is a good thing, no question. In such a forum the CAGW scammers are exposed to those with even a minimalist science education. However, CAGW is NOT about the science it is about the politics. The current near panic state of the ABC, Government and Green lobby is not because of the exposure of the falsity of their position (it has been shown to be a scam for at least two years). The panic is induced by the near total rejection of the Carbon Dioxide Tax by the general populace.
After years of continuous goebellian propaganda on the issue, the masses are quite simple saying “bugger off“. The current government are prone to believing that what Canberra press gallery and the ABC tell them is what the rest of the country think. The CPG and the ABC have been telling them that a Carbon Dioxide Tax is a vote winner. Suprise! The carbon dioxide tax is an electoral disaster.
Expect the lie machine to be powered up (with renewables of course). The ABC know the risks of expousing a political view that 80% of the population think is “crap”. Their only option is more propaganda. The situation is dire, so expect more and more alarmist untruths from our media outlets.
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I got this,
Horticulture, you can lead one to culture but you cant make her think, did i get it right?
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Keep the passion Jo!.
And don’t let the bas&^rds grind you down.
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We have the same problem here in the USA with our so called news outlets, just more news by press release. No investigation into the affairs or even good research in the story at all! Seems to me that this lady Wendy, i use the term loosly, is the one with a stradegy(agenda)!
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I should qualify my statement above in that it may actually be possible to determine with a 95% level of significance that the climate behaves in a non-linear fashion & is thus unpredictable.
Hope that helps.
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Murdock criminal scandal. The Murdock empire
of the sunhas been deliberately pushing all forms of alarmist doomsday warming propaganda for years.Search on here http://www.corbettreport.com/ for comments and info on this gutter snipe.
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HELP WANTED
I have lost my “argumentum scientific”, the last place i saw it was before i visited this address:
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/debunking-the-bunkum-of-that-dopey-Monckton/
Can someone help me find it.
Generous reward offered.
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Off Topic. If this has been mentioned here, my apologies.
Convoys are being organised to converge on Canberra.
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The essential problem with the ABC is that it occupies an important niche but, in failing to deliver, merely prevents anyone else from doing a better job. A large part of its budget is obtained under the pretext of serving regional communities which otherwise would not be served at all. This might have been the case a few decades ago but this is no longer true due to new technology. And what we are left with is a dysfunctional quango that delivers two distinct messages to two markets, regional and metropolitan.
And the metropolitan service, news in particular, is so dominated by inner city leftoids that it poses a very serious threat to the regional communities that justify most of its budget.
The time is long overdue for the ABC budget to be put out for tender to the existing commercial broadcasters. Regional commercial radio and TV markets cannot attract the commercial funding to present the key products that are currently delivered by stand alone ABC units. But if that niche was put out to tender there is not the slightest doubt that they could deliver the same or better service, as an increment to their existing delivery, for much less than the cost of the ABC’s stand alone units.
And it is obvious that if a particular program, or part of a program, has been funded by government then there would be no need to find advertising revenue to cover that part of the service mix.
Almost the entire administrative and management cost of the ABC budget would become redundant because the successful commercial tenderers already have that function covered. In fact, the existing ABC services could be spread between all the local commercial broadcasters, with some parts going to one station while others go to another. And some parts of the ABC program mix that merely compete with similar products from the commercial stations to fill up space could be rationalised altogether.
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That sea level rise one is tricky. Gore is correct, but that is will full melting of the sheets, and Monckton is correct as it is based on a particular timeframe. Gore, being a showman, leaves the impression that those sheets will melt very soon (rather than the large sea level rise occureing imminently should the sheets melt), and Monckton gives the impression that the total sea level rise by a certain date will only be 6cm. They are both loose with the truth to sell their preferred picture. That’s why I don’t get my science from Al Gore. Or MoB.
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MattB, you have made the same mistake as Wendy Carisle. She too thought Monckton meant that 6cm was the total sea level rise, rather than the rise from the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets alone.
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[…] Joanne Nova list a litany of other errors in Ms Carlisle coverage of the Lord Monckton Tour here. July 17th, 2011 […]
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JMD #8. Yes. That’s the David Evans 🙂
I find the “quality” of money argument leaves me cold. 🙂 Velocity of money arguments don’t cut it for me. Occams razor suggests money is just another “good and service” subject to supply and demand.
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It’s probably a good thing that I will never be PM because in my first day on the job I would defund the ABC, BoM and the CSIRO not necessarily in that order. I wonder do they ever worry that come the next election win by the Coalition abetted by a cooling climate that some of them will have to answer some pertinent questions?
Peter Garrett is doing his bit for scientific endeavour by producing resource material for schools which is based on the propaganda from the CSIRO. Will any of these frauds be held to account? Even when the truth becomes glaringly obvious it will be decades before the ABC informs the public. Remember “Climategate”?
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Jo,
A withering smack-down of an unprincipled journalist who is not fit use that name. Jo-10; W.Carlisle-0. The smarmy, smart-a#@e line of questioning and gratuitous (smearing) innuendo betrayed her agenda. Funny thing is, objective
journalists should never have an agenda, by definition. Just what are they teaching all those undergraduates at Journalism School I wonder? Or did the “science reporter (sic)” learn ‘the ropes’ while immersed in the left-wing marinade that has long-since saturated our ABC? Either way, Jo you have well and truly slayed the beast. Well done.
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Jo, in my opinion, the ABC’s problem is it does not perceive itself to be biased. It is also infected with that nasty form of elitism that leads to monolithic political correctness. “We know best. Our motives are unassailable. Our assumptions unquestionable.” For myself, I don’t believe in creationism (I believe in Darwin & Science). But this is how I get labelled just because I am not convinced by the CAGW argument (thanks to you, et al information providers). This is how the polictically correct establishment, as evidenced by the ABC, denigrates those who do not agree with them. They have a variety of “nazi” equivalent epithets for anyone who disagrees with them.
10
If it leaves you cold, you do not understand it. It also has nothing to do with velocity.
Your ‘worser’ half is aware of Antal Fekete, you should read his stuff. I won’t belabour the point but I still say you are hacking at the branches, ultimately those with there hands on the levers of credit will find a way to take what you have, whether in the form of carbon or some other scam.
10
the harvard boys who started GetUp and the Union leaders would never tell their moronic members who it is they are assisting when they believe in the CAGW/carbon tax scam:
21 July: ABC: Sabra Lane: Industry launches anti-carbon tax campaign
Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says nothing will convince the Government to abandon the carbon price.
“You’ve got to stand up for what you believe in. We must make this reform, this is a long-term reform to our economy, that will have environmental benefit,” he told Channel Nine.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-21/industry-group-steps-up-carbon-ads/2803794
the only coverage of former News of the World man, Neil Wallis, who has now been arrested in the phone-hacking saga, and who worked during an overlapping period for both Scotland Yard and UEA, where he was brought in to do damage control/reputation management post-Climategate, was in the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press. the only reason the newspaper covered it, of course, was damage control/reputation management:
16 July: Norfolk Eastern Daily Press: Peter Walsh: Ex-News of the World man advised UEA over ‘climategate’
The UEA spokesman said: “The vice-chancellor sought communications advice from a large PR company following the unauthorised publication of emails from the Climatic Research Unit. The company assigned Neil Wallis to us for this purpose.”…
There have been several reviews, and a police investigation, into the saga, which began weeks before the important Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
The committee’s largely positive findings were welcomed by the UEA, and Edward Acton, vice-chancellor, said: “We are delighted that the select committee has produced a fair and balanced report that makes crystal-clear that the scientific reputation of Prof Jones and Cru remains intact’”…
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/ex_news_of_the_world_man_advised_uea_over_climategate_1_965732
the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press is part of Archant:
Archant: Richard Jewson, Chairman
Richard Jewson, 66, joined the board of Eastern Counties Newspapers Group Limited (ECNG) in 1982 as a non-executive director and became Chairman in 1996…
He is currently a director of Temple Bar Investment Trust Plc, Grafton Group plc, Raven Russia Limited and a number of other unquoted companies.
He is HM Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk and also Chairs the Council for the University of East Anglia
http://www.archant.co.uk/about_board.aspx
Archant is a publishing company, based in Norwich, United Kingdom. The group publishes four daily newspapers, around 75 weekly newspapers, and 75 consumer and contract magazines.
The Group employs around 2600 employees mainly in East Anglia, the Home Counties and the West Country and was known as Eastern Counties Newspapers, until March 2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archant
2007: University of East Anglia: UEA Honorary Degrees 2007
Richard Jewson is Lord-Lieutenant of Norfolk and Pro-Chancellor at UEA. He is currently chairman of Archant and a non-executive director of Jarrold. He receives an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree…
Prof Lord Robert May is a cross-bench member of the House of Lords and was president of the Royal Society from 2000 to 2005…
From 1995 to 2000 Lord May was chief scientific advisor to the Government and head of the Office of Science and Technology. He was knighted in 1996 and made a life peer in 2001. He receives an Honorary Doctor of Science degree…
Physicist Prof Sir John Enderby is vice-president of the Royal Society and president of the Institute of Physics…
He receives an Honorary Doctor of Science degree.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2007/may/UEA%20Honorary%20Degrees%202007
26 Nov 2009: Reuters: Clean Energy Brazil Plc Announces Resignation Of Chairman
Clean Energy Brazil Plc announced that on November 13, 2009, Clean Energy Brazil announced in its response to the mandatory offer by Global Investors Acquisition LLC (the Offer) that Antonio Monteiro de Castro, the Company’s Chairman, and Richard Jewson, a director of the Company, had indicated that they intended to resign from the board of directors at the end of the offer period
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/CEB.L/key-developments/article/1764005
(translation)CEB will invest R $ 400 million in sugar and alcohol
This is the premise that gave rise to the CEB. To complete the formula, the company will “advisor” the Temple Capital Partners, consulting created exclusively for this purpose and with the participation of Czarnikow…
In Council’s own CEB six non-executive directors are part, chaired by Antonio Monteiro de Castro, who collect functions of COO (Chief Operation Officer) at the British American Tobacco and is Director of the Fundação Getúlio Vargas. The other directors are: Michael Aldwyn (Director of Merrill Lynch Latin American Investment Trust), Richard Jewson, Marcelo Junqueira, Tim Walker, Philip Scales, all with extensive experience in corporate and capital market…
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=pt&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.uol.com.br%2Fcanalexecutivo%2Fnotasemp06%2Femp191220061.htm
you want a Big Tobacco story?
Businessweek: Antonio Monteiro de Castro
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=8050196&ticker=TUP:US&previousCapId=9560377&previousTitle=NEW%20BRITAIN%20PALM%20OIL%20LTD
Global Investors Acquisition acquires remaining interest in Clean Energy Brazil PLC
http://www.alacrastore.com/deal-snapshot/Global_Investors_Acquisition_acquires_remaining_interest_in_Clean_Energy_Brazil_PLC-593056
13 Nov 2009: Clean Energy Brazil: Response to offer circular
Response to the Mandatory Cash Offer by Global Investors Acquisition LLC for the whole of the issued and to be issued
ordinary share capital of Clean Energy Brazil plc not already owned by Global Investors Acquisition LLC
GIA Chairman: Antonio Monteiro de Castro
GIA Directors: Richard Wilson Jewson Non-executive director
The business address of each of the Directors is IOMA House, Hope Street, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 1AP…
(a) A Placing Agreement dated 10 December 2007 between the Company, Numis, Smith &
Williamson and the Directors under which Numis agreed to use their reasonable endeavours as
agents for the Company to procure placees at a placing price of 95p per share for 21,900,000
Ordinary Shares or failing which to subscribe for the placing shares at the placing price
themselves….
(d) A termination agreement dated 7 April 2008 between Temple Capital Partners Limited
(“Temple”) (1) CEB Cayman (2) and the Company (3) under which the parties agreed that an
investment adviser agreement made between Temple and CEB Cayman on 13 December 2006
would be terminated in consideration of the payment to Temple of US$23 million satisfied by
the issue to Temple of 11,800,000 Ordinary Shares.
“Numis” means Numis Securities Limited
http://cleanenergybrazil.com/assets/files/ceb/response_to_offer_circular.pdf
9 July 2011: UK Telegraph: Philip Aldrick: Hayward adds Numis role to his growing portfolio
Tony Hayward, the former BP chief executive who stepped down in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, is to join stockbrokers Numis as he continues to amass directorships in the City.
He has retained a non-executive post at TNK-BP, BP’s lucrative Russian joint venture, become senior independent director of Glencore, the world’s largest commodities trader, and has jointly founded oil and gas investment vehicle Vallares with financier Nat Rothschild.
He can now add Numis to his roster of appointments, where he has agreed to become the first member of the investment bank and stockbroking firm’s advisory board. Numis was attracted by Mr Hayward’s business experience and contacts book, a spokesman said.
Numis non-executive directors are paid £50,000, though Mr Hayward is expected to receive less – reflecting the limited responsibility of the role. He is already being paid about £150,000 a year at Glencore and could share in a £410m windfall as the result of a £15m investment by three founders of Vallares, which he is running. His remuneration as a non-executive director of TNK-BP is not disclosed.
Mr Hayward left BP under a cloud after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe which caused the death of 11 oil rig workers and one of the largest ever oil spills. His public handling of the crisis made him a hate figure in the US, where he came under personal attack from politicians and the public, but he retained a loyal following in UK circles.
Mr Hayward’s appointment reflects Numis’s intention to build a strong presence in oil and gas. Other targeted sectors are said to include online and financial services, and other leading industry figures are being approached.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8626991/Hayward-adds-Numis-role-to-his-growing-portfolio.html
in the following, note “coal” and “oil” and “no place for renewable power in the portfolio”. if you don’t know Glencore, you should:
June 2011: Guardian: Terry Macalister & Graeme Wearden: Tony Hayward seeks £1bn from Vallares share sale
Former BP chief Tony Hayward hopes to raise £1bn from London listing of Vallares, his new oil and gas joint venture
Tony Hayward, the former BP boss pilloried by US politicians over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year, launched his comeback with a £1bn stock market float that will catapult him back into the oil business.
Less than a year after he was forced out of BP by a wave of anger in the US, Hayward launched the new company, Vallares, alongside high-profile financier, Nat Rothschild, and backed by US investors.
“It shows support for the concept and the people,” said Hayward, who has received early financial backing from institutional investors, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds.
His new venture plans to use the money raised on the London market to buy into an oil and gas company in need of capital, with a value of up to £8bn. But instead of buying the company, Vallares will offer shares in itself and therefore give the company access to the global financial markets…
Hayward is a non-executive director of Vallares but would become chief executive of the newly merged operation and would build an operating team around him suited to the kind of oil and gas assets that are obtained.
Vallares, which has another ex-BP man, Rodney Chase, as chairman, stresses that it is not an investment company but will seek to mirror the success of sister company, Vallar, which has made a big investment in Indonesian coal.
Vallar was established last year by Rothschild, while the four founders of Vallares – Hayward, Rothschild, former Goldman Sachs partner Julian Metherell and ex-Schroders man Tom Daniel – are committed to providing £100m of the £1bn, including buying £80m of shares as part of the flotation…
Rothschild, who is one of London’s most successful hedge fund managers, said: “I am delighted to be partnering with Tony Hayward, whom I have known for many years, on this exciting new venture. Together, we believe the company is well positioned to capture value in a sector with attractive fundamental supply-demand dynamics.”
The company plans to capitalise on the growing global demand for oil and gas, particularly in emerging markets, which could outpace the ability of the energy industry to bring in new reserves.
Hayward, who was became a non-executive director for the newly listed commodity trading multinational Glencore, said there was no place for renewable power in the portfolio and he had already made a list of potential assets in South America, Africa and even Russia. He remains on the board, as a non-executive, of TNK-BP, the Moscow-based joint venture at the centre of a row between BP and local investors over the former’s desire to form a joint venture with the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft…
The new oil company launched by Tony Hayward is just one of three energy businesses announcing plans to raise funds from high-profile individuals and on the London stock exchange to take advantage of very high crude prices. Lakshmi Mittal, steel tycoon and Britain’s richest man, launched an initial public offering for Ophir Energy, which is raising £170m to fund the drilling of a series of wells in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania. Other investors include Mvelaphanda Holdings, the South African company founded by Tokyo Sexwale, a former freedom fighter who became a South African politician and tycoon. Meanwhile, a new shale gas firm business called 3Legs Resources, chaired by the former UK energy minister Tim Eggar, is raising £60m on the junior Aim market to drill new wells in Poland and the Baltic. These all followed the $60bn (£37bn) float of commodity trading group, Glencore last month, at a time when oil prices have been at historic highs of more than $115 a barrel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/09/tony-hayward-seeks-1bn-from-vallares-share-sale
Temple Bar Investment Trust PLC
Largest Holdings includes Royal Dutch Shell, British American Tobacco
http://www.trustnet.com/Factsheets/Factsheet.aspx?fundCode=ITTMPL&univ=T
Reuters: Temple Bar Investment Trust PLC
Richard Jewson: Senior Independent Non-Executive Director
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyOfficers?symbol=TMPL.L
10
JMD – I have read Fekete, he’s interesting. But I’m more convinced by Mises, Rothbard, and Hayek.
10
What is funny is that genuine lefties (Richard S Courtney excepted) regard the ABC as having a right wing bias. I’ve become so used to right wing bias that the ABC seems pretty balanced.
And just what are you smoking, theRealUniverse? The Murdoch press has been the fake skeptics biggest ally, giving oxygen to opinions that never deserved to see the light of day. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m about as excited about Murdoch’s demise as I was when the Berlin wall came down – it is a great day for freedom and democracy when the biggest bully meets his comeuppance.
What a profoundly arrogant shit he has been.
It can’t possibly be true, but rumours are circulating (and I didn’t start them, but wish I had) that Murdoch has been gunning for the Australian government (you may not have noticed, but he has), because he doesn’t like the NBN. What, you may think, has that got to do with anything? Well apparently he sees the NBN as a competitor to Foxtel, in which he has an interest. We won’t have to pay Foxtel $70 a month if we have high speed internet. So Rupert, the old shit, is trying to bring the government down so that the Liberal party can save us from high speed internet, and he can get even richer.
20
Climate nonconformist – you misunderstood. I agree with you that is what MoB said, but the delivery to the audience certainly sells the idea that it is total to the audience. As I say this is no difference to Al Gore making people think that the 6m rise due to total collapse of the ice shelves is something that will happen within a lifetime.
10
Easy peasy answer to the ABC problem of broadcasting CAGW propaganda –
Make them use only renewable energy for all equipment, transmitters, translators and satellite equipment.
None of this dirty coal power, we can’t have our National Broadcaster being hypocritical.
I might even be able to stand Tony Jones, just to see the “No Signal” message come up when the wind don’t blow.
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John Brookes @ 34
So by this definition genuine lefties are those with politics further to the left than those supporting the Socialist Alliance, Trotskyites etc. I personally know a former Fairfax lefty who believes that the UK Guardian Newspaper is in the political centre. MAybe you should read Bernie Goldberg’s two books on media bias, and he is a genuine lefty as well, because in those he shows that lefties have the opinions they have as a result of extreme social incest, and when you only use a limited number of ideas to think with, without getting new ones, then one’s thinking patterns go down the road to intellectual inbreeding.
On the other hand we free traders (as distinct from conservatives who basically mercantilists) tend to mix with lefties quite easily – I have many close friends of lefty persuasion, and as long as I don’t excite them with dissonant statements, conviviality is assured. I often need to hold my tongue when they vilify their political opponents, though, since messenger shooting is an admission of intellectual and philosophical bankruptcy.
10
That Murdoch is only interested in his financial bottom line is news to no one, John. If he wants to bring down Gillard, it is my belief that it is based more on his understanding that what she intends to do will damage irrevocably his main readership base, the aspirational working class, who are the (?) intended victims of an iniquitous tax, timed to cause the most economic damage possible. He knows that most of the remainder of the MSM couldn’t give a rats ass about them and he knows it is good business to give them a voice, guaranteeing it’s loyalty. As arrogant as he undoubtedly is, he obviously can’t compete with your smug superiority, where such things as a family man being able to put food on the table and keep his family warm are considered collateral damage to an ideological battle to establish a green utopia with as yet undetermined or impractical energy alternatives. He knows these people are at least worthy of his attention as his patrons, while you clearly see the huddled masses as an inconvenience in the way of establishing some Quasi- Marxist state(if we’re not there already), where dissent is suppressed, news is a propaganda tool to drive your personal agenda, and science is merely a gift wrapping appended to a political message. Well, I for one would happily live in a warmist gulag if I don’t have to listen to any more self serving, holier than thou, proto- communist drivel from left wing stooges who wish to send us straight back to the 19th century in the guise of “progress”.
11
Brookes..
Maybe some of his publications have..please which ones?.
It has been (sorry I cant post a link yet, Ill find it) on record that the ’empire of the sun’ has deliberatly been pushing AGW and WAR agenda. If you look for his demise so do I!
10
Comment
The Murdock agenda
http://williambowles.info/2011/07/20/what-did-he-know-and-when-did-he-know-it-cameron-coulson-and-those-pesky-emails-by-william-bowles/
There ya go John B!
10
The Australian. It continually says that it believes the science. But it continually gives shonks like Monckton a platform.
Some people think that giving Monckton a platform is balance, but that is rubbish. He’s a great showman and a great charlatan. He’s a lot like the late Julius Sumner Miller – the public thought that Sumner Miller was a great physicist, but he was a showman who liked physics – in the end a somewhat pathetic figure.
What I’ve not understood is why Murdoch has taken his particular stance on AGW. What is in it for him? Maybe the most benign explanation is correct – he encourages controversy because it sells newspapers.
20
John, don’t you get it. Even a malignant narcissist like Murdoch can at least see what the consequences of this CAGW and its associated taxation structures will be, and while I don’t believe he sheds anything more than crocodile tears for the plebs, EVEN HE has more empathy for those who will suffer than the “compassionate” left, who really don’t care about people per se except as intellectual concepts. Just as democracy is just too difficult and inconvenient for these acolytes of the faith, so too is real human suffering on a personal level. They like the large picture crowd scene because they don’t have to get too involved, allowing themselves the luxury of remaining at a casual distance, lamenting to each other at how sad it is for ” those less fortunate than ourselves”. Too bad, such a shame. That’s why warmists don’t really care if they are correct, it’s the concept that’s more important. It doesn’t worry them in the least that if they are wrong that thousands if not millions will die in an energy deficient world. That’s why they have no compunction in falsifying data, gilding the lily, hiding declines, merging disparate data to “confirm” their theories because the cause is soooo noble as to merit these little deceptions. BTW, I dislike right wing hawks for exactly the same reason, so don’t feel too special that I’m singling your lot out. At least they don’t tell you what humanitarians they are while they are screwing you over.
10
“At least they don’t tell you what humanitarians they are while they are screwing you over.”
Sorry???? The whole argument is that we should not waste money on climate change and instead spend the money feeding the hungry masses and preserving our hard earned liberty!
11
Rereke,
Would that bethe same UN security council that allowedgenocide to occur in early 2009, and instead of admonishing it last month decided to give libya a detention slip instead?
I sure wish they concentrated on their originak charter instead of all this irrelevant B.S. We might have less suffering in the world if they concentrated on real issues rather than imaginary ones!
10
A friend tried to submit my Post about CO2 emissions reduction by moving to new technology coal fired power plants to the Unleashed site, which I suppose is part of The Drum at the ABC, but they didn’t want to run with it.
No one would have been more surprised than I would have been, had they actually posted something like that, which is so far off the ‘party line’.
I guess the ABC doesn’t see logic in something like that.
Tony.
10
Tony,
It looks like you’ve been promoted by the abc to the “enemies of the proletariat abc” group.
There are more than a few of us dangerous non herd dwellers here.
Congratulations, you must have made their eyes water over there at THEIR ABC.
10
Its like the British Bullshyte Corporation..except with an A.
10
No, we shouldn’t waste money on climate change, because that is a meaningless tautology that has no grounded realistic basis as a concept, let alone as something we can throw money at to fix. Just as King Canute couldn’t contain the waves rushing to the shore, so should today’s scientists have some humility and realize that humanity can no more control the climate than the earth can control the movements of the sun, the sun control the orientation of the milky way, etc,etc. Wasting money on fruitless impractical schemes is never a good idea. If we were talking about gradually changing to Thorium, other nuclear or practical alternate energy in a timely and considered fashion, then many more would be on board with the concept of slowly phasing out our dependence on fossil fuels and DIVERSIFYING our various energy inputs without butchering our economy in the process. Even solar and wind, which are highly impractical for reasons enumerated here endlessly, would be acceptable parts of this process if paired with hydro or nuclear. Instead we have the incredible catastrophisation of climate in a form of hysteria totally out of proportion to the data, which shows modest warming, recent stabilisation or cooling, and natural cyclical variations with little to suggest more than
minor if any human impact in my opinion. Pretending that polar bears will drown, that Antarctica and Greenland will melt away, etc, etc does nothing but make sensible people roll their eyes, and rightly so. There is NO direct irrefutable evidence that any ill effects have occurred or will occur from the modest warming we have seen in the last 150 years, let alone whether any part of that is due to man, let alone to justify throwing trillions of dollars down the drain or diverting it to China or the 3rd world governments who are inherently corrupt dictatorships with a vested interest in keeping their citizens poor and hungry and ignorant to shore up their wealth and power. Then, you have the UN which is an unelected, undemocratic, transnational conglomerate whose only interest is self perpetuation, money laundering and obliterating sovereignty and self determination of nations and individuals. So, yes, preserving liberty is essential to progressing humanity. Warmists, in spite of their belief, are regressive, anti technologists who are scuppering human ingenuity which could allow mankind to attain better self management through continuing rather than diverting the arc of progress the west has only begun to engage in. And, yes I do believe some of this wasted money could be properly diverted to alleviating hunger etc in the third world, but not via the UN who are a massive corrupt bureaucracy, where most of the money is siphoned off before it gets to it’s target in “management costs”.
10
The left/right thing was dissected quite well in a series of essays in The Australian about this time last year- in particular, leftish Dennis Glover seemed, IMHO wisely, to suggest that although there is no really consistent distinction discernable, only the motives of the proponent separate the two sides. Individuals benefit = right, society benefits = left. That would explain why the most deliberately socially regressive legislative in my lifetime, the generous gross feed-in tariff provision is considered leftist. The motive, not the result.
MattB- Left/right? You support socially regressive measures. Foreign aid, arguably even more socially regressive than gross feed-in tariffs (poor people in rich countries sending money to rich people in poor countries) though accidentally so rather than deliberately.
Louis H the free trader, old style anti-authoritarian lefties and ratbag right anarchists can all claim one honour- they aren’t conservative.
10
More scary than Murdoch!
Sherwood Ross http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25708
10
jo –
re the multi links piece still in moderation. i posted it that way so u could vet it, as i’ve been collecting those links for about a week. if u wish, u could use any of those links yourself in future threads. just wanted to get it all to u and the passion of this thread made it seem a good time to do it. best wishes.
10
Thank you Jo, after reading the strategies used by the ABC and friends, the emotion I feel is stone hearted rage. I think we have over many decades been slowly eroding the basis for truth in our western society to what appears now to be a critical point in our history. I suggest administering an enema to the ABC to begin the healing.
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John Brookes: #41
July 21st, 2011 at 5:28 pm
And the problem with giving shonks a platform is???
Are you concerned that Monckton may convince some to his point of view?
You’ve been hanging around this denialist shonk of a blog for months now, you haven’t been brainwashed to change your mind.
But then again, the rest of the plebs are dumb asses who are prone to be misled (unlike you) and they can’t be trusted to make informed decisions for themselves.
Much better that the likes of informed, educated ones like John to decide who should be heard and who shouldn’t be. Right John?
Do you have any idea what FREEDOM means John?
Do you have any idea what DEMOCRACY means John?
Do you have any idea what EQUALITY means John?
Do you have any idea what an OFFENSIVE TWIT you are John?
Clearly, what you don’t understand John, and you never will, is that building a global behemoth of a business from a tiny newspaper in backwater Adelaide takes a lot of doing, it takes RISK and calculated GAMBLE. More than once Murdoch faced losing it all.
Murdoch didn’t build News Corp by doing the same as everybody else. He did it by being different, by offering an alternative.
So I’d suggest he is doing that very thing now, offering an alternative, taking a risk that AGW is crap. The credibility stakes are high, the potential subscription sales are profound.
Murdoch saved the British press by going against the establishment.
He may repeat the dose again.
10
Want evidence of ADMITTED planting of ‘global warming’ into TV shows..by the Murdoch owned ’empire of the sun’..
10
Off topic but worth reading !!
NBN – How many people will pay these prices?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_many_people_will_pay_these_prices/
NBN retail price revealed: up to $189.95/month
http://www.optuszoo.com.au/news/breaking/brisbane-times/nbn-retail-price-shock-up-to-189-95-month/411427
10
Who the hang let turnbull into the liberal party? Hes making the same fallacial arguments we saw in the monckton debate.
And who is keeping this luddite in the party? Their ABC is giving him a long free run for the same tired old arguments.
He is so obviously a labor plant
10
Tony brilliant article of yours about coal fired power stations lowering Co2
I’ve been accused of being a galah promoting that line amongst friends without the clarity you provide.
Push it hard as the counter intuitive will cause much division amongst the Bob n Jiliar fawners
10
Damian Allen @ 55 I note the 59.95 for 30GB isnt far from the 50GB + IP phone naked DSL offered by some ISPs at similar rate but yes it does look rather dear.
10
Let Media Watch know how you feel,
http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=33&m=8918&ps=50&dm=1&pd=2&am=8918#m8918
Johnathan Holmes has identified dishonesty in the climate debate as a particular concern of his, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the attention.
Also the first link of Jo’s post allows viewer feedback.
She tried hard to stuff words into Jo’s mouth even when the quotes didn’t support them.
10
O/T
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_many_people_will_pay_these_prices/P40/
yep bloody good value. no more $30pm line rental rort to the big T. Cheaper than the cr@p adsl1 link we currently pay more for. Oh, did I mention we’re in rim hell – read 3mbps if the neighbours aren’t online.
Turncoat turnbull reckons wifi will be superior to fibre. His ignorance of physics shows him up on this topic just like it does with his consensus views on agw.
Bloody good value for money, imo.
10
davida,
tried that with the non reporting of climategate. holmes dedicated a whole episode to spouting agw propoganda.
murdochs press didn’t cover climategate here in aussie either btw
10
Thanks for this article, Jo. I actually heard the broadcast on the weekend and was left confused…did Monkton really get the polar bears wrong?? But surely there was so much more to discuss than polar bears? Huh! ABC scored a point with temporary confusion…merely temporary, merely confusion. Thanks to your site I can now pick out ad hominen attacks and did so many times during the broadcast, so I figured that it wasn’t that good a piece of journalism anyway.
The sad thing that I have seen building up in the community is how people pro AGW are becoming so emotionally attached to it; they have no where to go with an alternative point of view. As skeptics, we may yet be convinced (not yet though) if the evidence is provided. AS it is I am starting to get lectured by friends despite my proposition to agree to disagree.
Thanks for a refuge from the madding crowd!
10
@TonyfromOz:
Tony
I heard last week that Tasmania was going to get a new WOOD fired Power Station !
If this isn’t a joke – do you know anything about them ?
eg. How many Trees a Minute do they burn ?, and how much ‘CLEANER’ than Brown Coal would they be ?
TN
10
@John Brookes:
1. “It can’t possibly be true, but rumours are circulating… that Murdoch has been gunning for the Australian government … because he doesn’t like the NBN…
Well apparently he sees the NBN as a competitor to Foxtel, in which he has an interest. We won’t have to pay Foxtel $70 a month if we have high speed internet…”
A1. Murdoch owns 9.9% of Foxtel – Telstra owns 50% of Foxtel – NBN as a competitor to Foxtel John ? – as Lord Monkton would say “Go Figure”.
.
2. “Some people think that giving Monckton a platform is balance, but that is rubbish. He’s a great showman and a great charlatan. He’s a lot like the late Julius Sumner Miller…”
A2. I agree with you John – Lord Monckton is a ‘terrific’ showman (personally he reminds me of the late, great Marty Feldman).
He does give ‘Balance’ to any ‘Warmist Propoganga’, and he also gives good advice,
(or at least he did to the Media at the Press Club), “GO DO YOUR RESEARCH”.
.
Over to you John.
PS.
Do you know who the ‘Peer Reveiwers’ were for the Garnaut Report ? (I would love to get their names so that I can check their credentials – (Wendy Carlisle style of course) – because the report, and the figures, were fairyland CRAP).
.
10
While Americans tout their “Freedom of Speech” that is enshrined in the first amendment to the Constitution as being of utmost importance (it is), along side that freedom is the part about the “Freedom of the Press”. It is along side Speech because it is equally as important. And just as uncontrollable. There is not much difference between Dan Rather Making up stories and Wendy Carlisle hacking them. Both are good examples of bad journalism, and for honest journalists, it makes them want to cry (alas there are far too few of those).
The BBC, the ABC, and most of American Journalism (print and broadcast) is very left. Their reporting is usually just like Wendy’s. More left out (because it does not fit the preconceived notion) and of course the rest biased.
But the big difference between the ABC, BBC and the alphabet soup that is American broadcast journalism is – we can ignore it, and if we chose that path, it does not cost us a cent! Unfortunately for the rest of you, if you have a problem with broadcast journalism, you can ignore it! But it still costs you big time. I have never seen ABC (well, I have seen the American version), or the BBC. But reading the comments from those who are burdened with the onerous cost of the propaganda machines, I can say I have not missed much, and am thankful that at least I am not supporting them.
10
@PhilJourdan: #60
Spot on with the analysis Phil.
From what I have seen, our ABC (Aunty) is nothing like as liberal as your ABC.
.
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SHEIK it SHEIK it BABY
GET UP just GOT LOST
.
On Foxtel TV Today (Lunchtme Agenda) Tom Switzer of the ‘Spectator’ just left Simon Sheik of ‘Get Up’ totally Red Faced and absolutely discredited.
When Simon Sheik started on about ‘Copenhagen’, Tom Switzer asked, “where is the next UN conference” – oops – poor old ‘Simple Simon’ didn’t have a clue where it was, (His face was a picture – I was watching carefully to see if he was turning GREEN at the gills or just going RED in the face)
.
LESSON ‘Simple Simon’ – listen to Monktons advice – Get Up (of your lazy arse and) DO YOUR RESEARCH.
.
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Joanne,
Let me know If you’re interested in any of these button concepts. I’ll send you the high res art and you can have some buttons made for fund raising. The photos are originals so there aren’t any copyright issues.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39632727@N08/4739377148/in/photostream
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Sea-level rises are slowing, tidal gauge records show
What’s that deflating sound I hear?
10
No, Ms Nova, it shouldn’t sound ‘twee’ (I had to look that up, not common to me in California). Science is about finding a rational explanation to the workings of the universe, and as such, no single person has any form of monopoly on it. There are those (scientists/professors) who have studied all that we have thought before on the subject, and as such, they are holders of the best thoughts we’ve had. However, what they have studied is merely the thoughts on solving riddles that others before them have quite randomly come up with. There is no special key or trick to finding a solution to a riddle. If we’re all very lucky, your solution (should you ever find one to a riddle of the universe) will be as varied as humanity and your chance of finding that solution is as likely as any other human on the planet.
Scientists are simply those who have studied a subject enough to be able to properly express their solutions to the mysteries around us once they come up with one. They do not have any form of special intuition that makes them better at finding those solutions.
So yes, science belongs to all of us, it has since the first of us looked up into a non-light-polluted sky and wondered just what the hell those lights at night were.
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John Brookes
1Degree Initiative
News Ltd is just chock full of gaia hating deniers isn’t it.
10
Jeremy at 71,
What you call luck may be a useful part of solving real world problems but it is never sufficient. There are some of us who practice rigorous rationality and a disciplined scientific method that vastly enhances our odds of finding solutions as compared to the usual by-guess-by-golly problem hacker.
The so called luck part simply saves time and effort if it is with you and costs if it is against. I will take a disciplined how over a reliance on random luck every time. I do take advantage of a useful circumstance (aka luck) but I don’t let the lack of it stop me.
Actually, there is such a thing as luck. An active prepared mind sees useful circumstances all around and can chose to take advantage of them or not as his purpose requires. An inactive unprepared mind cannot see them and therefor cannot choose to take advantage of them no matter how favorable it would be to do so.
Even in the area of finding solutions to tough problems, there is no equality of result. How you do what you do makes a huge difference in outcome. If you are very “lucky”, you caused it. If you are very “unlucky”, you caused that too. All the rest is simply stuff happens – some good (right place at right time) and some bad (wrong place at wrong time) but luck has nothing to do with it.
10
Oops. What happened to the “NO” in “Actually, there is NO such thing as Luck.” Bad luck? No, I simply did not proof carefully enough to make sure my fingers typed the “NO” when my mind told them to do it.
10
So Julia gets her science from the CSIRO _ WRONG!
ONE of Australia’s foremost experts on the relationship between climate change and sea levels has written a peer-reviewed paper concluding that rises in sea levels are “decelerating”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/sea-level-rises-are-slowing-tidal-gauge-records-show/story-e6frg6nf-1226099350056
10
The ABC “Science” writer misses one important issue.
If a given party proposes a theory, (e.g. AGW) then it is their duty to defend any and all scientifically logical disputes to that theory.
Such a dispute may be (for example) the failure to locate or definitely measure atmospheric temperature profiles claimed to be a necessary part of their theory. (The missing hot spot.) It may be a failure to disclose source data or computer models used support of that theory. (Numerous examples, appears to be modus operandi.) It may be a failure to logically explain, in an holistic manner, why temperatures have fallen as well as risen during periods when CO2 has risen monotonically. It may be inconsistencies between the quantitative models and the known paleoclimate and even relatively modern historical climate record.
In other words, you could drive a truck through this theory, and still have room for a passing lane.
No wonder the adherents to this psuedo-scientific faith – and it is no more than that – are keen to discuss personal issues of title and semantics, rather than try to defend it.
It is simply indefensible – both the theory and the journalism.
Cheers,
Speedy.
10
Great post! Thanks.
I just wish that millions in the states could read it. (would read it?)
10
@MattB:
July 21st, 2011 at 6:12 pm
‘“At least they don’t tell you what humanitarians they are while they are screwing you over.”
Sorry???? The whole argument is that we should not waste money on climate change and instead spend the money feeding the hungry masses and preserving our hard earned liberty!’
Yes, to think otherwise is a kin to communism, aka, wasting money on the abstract climate change instead of investing in the proper details like feeding the hungry. If you missed out on the history lessons, but investing in feeding the hungry has been the exact right thing to do to adapt our society, not just technology wise but even morally (something climate communists lacks) to the ever changing climate, and this has been so since man proper took up farming to feed the hungry more so than just hunting and mere gathering.
Why is it that socialists want the tax funded libraries but not the collected knowledge within?
10
Wendy Carlisle has form when it comes to skewing – or just flat-out ignoring – the facts.
Quoting the transcript of The Boy on Christmas Island, March 13 2011:
“In the last ten years, Christmas Island had a new detention centre built for 700 asylum seekers. By the end of the Howard era, the boats had dwindled to a trickle, the centre was nearly empty.
But by early last year, for a complex mix of reasons, the boats started coming again.”
A complex mix of reasons? How about just one reason – the Rudd government threw the door wide open!
10
If I had written everything about global warming from the start until now in a novel, no one would find it credible enough to read. Even Wizards, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits are more credible than this mess.
10
And who absconded with my Gravitar? 🙂
10
Interesting that we have to turn to The Australian to get some press on scientific issues. Oh look at that… the sea level rise rate is decelerating and diverging from IPCC models:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/sea-level-rises-are-slowing-tidal-gauge-records-show/story-e6frg6nf-1226099350056
10
Lomborg has something sensible to say at last.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/bootleggers-hijack-climate-change-debate/story-e6frgd0x-1226099304031
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You may find this of interest http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2011/07/policy-analysis-with-incredible-certitude.html
“Analyses of public policy regularly express certitude about the consequences of alternative policy choices.Yet policy predictions often are fragile, with conclusions resting on critical unsupported assumptions or leapsof logic. Then the certitude of policy analysis is not credible. I develop a typology of incredible analytical practices and give illustrative cases. I call these practices conventional certitude, dueling certitudes, conflating science and advocacy, wishful extrapolation, illogical certitude, and media overreach”
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Lionell in 74,
Not true if it wasnt for bad luck i would have no luck at all. :-))
10
To the numerous posts about SL rise or lack thereof i give you this
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/turnbull-defends-scientists-20110721-1hr6s.html#ixzz1Sm73WuEo
Its like it never happened, the sea level study that is.
10
To me, the ABC showed their true colours when they shelved the coverage of the Monckton vs Denniss debate in favor of covering the Murdock inquiry live in the UK – when 90 minutes later they were going to dedicate 2 hours to the live coverage anyways…
The actions of the ABC remind me strongly of the actions of the BBC during the ‘winter of discontent’ especially when we had to go cap in hand to the ‘gnomes of Zurich’ and ask for money from the IMF – the union members in the BBC ‘lost’ the tape of the actual visit and the live 9 o’clock news broadcast was interrupted as a result. Good luck trying to find this on the internet anywhere – I haven’t yet.
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week both these are rather ‘watered down’ coverage of the events – its was truly ‘dire’ in the UK at that time.
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Pat @ 33
Union members are not “moronic”. Particularly on the issue of man made catastrophic global warming hypothesis. I can assure you that many intelligent and environmentally concerned union members are appalled and angry at the opportunism and betrayal of the interests by the ACTU and their union leaders. To give a small example some union members stood up for the right for Barnaby Joyce and Connie Ferranti-Wells to be heard on the carbon dioxide tax when they were attacked by an astro turf mob of about fifty greens and union officials in Wollongong recently. Normally we would have been on the other side against Barnaby and Connie but people were very angry at the attempt to shout them down. The next week the following letter appeared in the Illawarra Mercury. It sums up the feelings of many, many workers and union members in our region.
“Steeling ourselves
I’m appalled by the way our union, the AMWU and Arthur Rorris (Secretary of the South Coast Labour Council) carried on in the Crown Street Mall on, Wednesday July 13.
The union was supposed to be speaking on behalf of its members and stated that its members agreed with the Government’s carbon tax. Yet I am a member of the AMWU and work at Bluescope Steel and everyone I have spoken to disagrees with the tax.
No one was asked by the union if they agree or disagree with the tax. For the AMWU to say that BluescopeSteel employees agree with the tax.
George Georgeou Corrimal </strong>”
Please do not denigrate hard working honest people who have rejected their union leaders and the government’s propaganda. It does no service to the cause of defeating this wretched tax to denigrate the very people who will defeat it. Here in the steel region of New South Wales the issue has already been decided. We are not fools as the lady in Brisbane famously told our lying Prime Minister. The workers here are just waiting. And when they and many like them in labor heartland electorates eventually get a vote on this they will finish carbon pricing in this country forever. Please don’t insult them.
10
Sorry for some reason the copy of the unionists letter didnt copy completely and should read:
No one was asked by the union if they agree or disagree with the tax. For the AMWU to say that BluescopeSteel employees agree with the tax is wrong.
10
Crakar24 @ 84,
If luck were a factor, random chance would have you experience good luck once in a while. If all you experience is “bad luck”, then you are doing or not doing something to tilt the odds greatly against yourself. Perhaps there is something about the way you do things that needs to be changed.
You are not a powerless chip of wood floating on an angry ocean. You have the power of choice over yourself, what you think, how you think, what you do, and how you do it in response to cirumstances. To hold that bad luck did it to you is to give away that power. Sure “stuff” happens. “Stuff” happens to everyone. Get over it and start making better choices.
10
Connolly, what does it take to arrange a shop floor vote calling for the abandonment of the Carbon Dioxide tax?
Get the media there.
10
I attended the Prof Bob Carter’s free forum in Tamworth last night. It was filled up and about 200 people plus attended. Tony Windsor was rapped on the knuckles several times in the forum to the approval of those who attended. Seems
he is on a fact finding mission in Europe and has said ‘at least they are doing something’. Well they are and it is failing to cut emissions. However, the 14th
August rally in Tamworth coincides with the convoy of carbon tax rebels heading to Canberra. And one ex Mayor said that could we have another forum in their town hall before the carbon tax voting in Parliament. One hundred per cent approval from those who attended. I think one person wanted to know were the sea levels rising etc. I think he may have been a TW rep. Obviously Bob’s lecture had flowed over his head? But it went on for at least 2 hours possibly more with questions on Bob’s lecture. I asked about the disclaimer on The Critical Decade report by the MPCCC and he said same with some CSIRO report – they were computer models that could be inaccurate? It was a good forum. And if TW thinks most of his electorate approves of carbon tax, he should re think again, not from what I witnessed in Tamworth his biggest section of his electorate.
10
Lionell have you been doing Landmark forums? I think Crackar was just having a joke.
10
I thought the smiley face was a dead give away, even Dr Spock would have smiled at that one.
10
Baa Humbug:
Thanks for that withering character assessment.
Sure you can admire Murdoch. But don’t go too far.
Remember when Elle’s long term relationship with some French dude broke up a few years ago? Well, some details appeared in the Murdoch press. Details which only Elle had only confided in her business manager. So Elle assumed that her manager had betrayed her, and sacked her. So this woman is out of work, and no one will hire her to do what she does best – because she is not trustworthy or loyal.
Of course, it turns out that the information came from voice mail that was obtained illegally. So for the sake of a good story, Murdoch’s empire wrecks someones life.
That must be the freedom, equality and democracy you bang on about Baa. The much admired entrepreneurial spirit. We should all bow down and worship, “Dear Rupert, who are….”
10
Back to journalism we have this,
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/260164/Uproar-as-BBC-muzzles-climate-change-sceptics
The “consensus” gets a good plug.
Here some examples of the benefits of a consensus.
“…let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever.
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.
Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra.
The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.
Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.” — Michael Crichton
Copied from http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
10
Connolly @ 85 & 86 thanks for that info; I was wondering why most of the unions representing the workers whose jobs will be affected by this stupid tax seem to support the tax
Now I know; from what you say it seems those unions are just as representative of their members as (say) Oakshott and Windsor are of their electorates
And dare I say just as concerned as Gillard is about the national interest
10
Bulldust at #80
BD – I commented to that story as you probably did – but the poor mods must hit meltdown at 9:30am, because nothing gets posted after that (except on Jack or Mumble’s who do their own moderating).
I pointed out that EU space agency Envisat shows that sea level has been falling for 18 months, quite rapidly. Which I suppose you could call deceleration. I’ve yet to get a comment through moderation to this effect.
I should not quibble I suppose, at least the Oz does cover both sides sometimes.
10
checked all the articles on Turnbull’s speech last nite and didn’t find one that mentioned the venue – the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron at Kirribilli, which no doubt will be one of the first places to go under when those seal levels rise (or not)…
Virginia Chadwick Memorial Lecture 2011
In March 2011, the Virginia Chadwick Memorial Foundation was formally accepted on the Register of Environmental Organisations by the Minister, The Hon Tony Burke MP. This means that the Foundation is
now endorsed as a deductible gift recipient under the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 as detailed below…
The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP has accepted our invitation to present the Inaugural Virginia Chadwick Memorial Lecture in Sydney on Thursday, 21 July 2011 at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron (33 Peel Street, Kirribilli NSW)
Tickets: $125 per person…
Virginia Chadwick Memorial Keynote Address at Ecotourism Australia’s annual conference
Ecotourism Australia’s annual Eco Asia-Pacific Tourism Conference has offered to name one of the keynote talks at the November 2011 conference as the ‘Virginia Chadwick Memorial Keynote Address’…
Virginia Chadwick Reef Talk Series
We are planning to host the Virginia Chadwick Reef Talk Series as part of the 2012 Australian Festival of
Chamber Music in Townsville.
http://www.vcmf.org.au/documents/VCMF_Newsletter_May_2011.pdf
and virtually everyone from Virginia Chadwick to the Board members are Liberals.
Wikipedia: Virginia Anne Chadwick AO… was a Liberal Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1978 to 1999
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Chadwick
Chairwoman of the Virginia Chadwick Memorial Foundation is Fay Barker, former Liberal Party Councillor for Townsville. on the Foundation’s Board is former Liberal Party Minister, David Kemp, NSW Liberal, Catherine Cusack, who Barry O’Farrell dropped from the front bench, and WWF Facilitator, John Tanzer.
wwf.panda.org: John Tanzer: Facilitator
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/coraltriangle/solutions/coraltrianglestaff/john_tanzer.cfm
and people wonder why Abbott won’t sanction Turnbull!
10
“attack scientists who’ve worked for decades at the peak of their fields.
…
Read on for the real story on Tim Ball, Fred Singer”
Jo, you are once again making a fool of yourself.
10
crakar24 at Comment 93
Helicobacter pylori demonstrates the same thing as this really.
For decades, in fact almost a Century, it was thought stomach ulcers and gastritis was, well, something other than what it actually was, and in fact, the later theory was that it was stress related.
For nearly all of that time, some from the field of Science thought it was a virus related thing, but they were scoffed at because, well, ‘we know that a virus cannot survive in the stomach because of the acids in there’.
Two Aussie doctors, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren still thought it was virus related, but it was hard to nail down.
They tested for years with nothing. They left, by accident, samples in a petri dish over the Easter break, longer than had ever been left before. When they got back to work they found that the virus had manifested due to the extra time.
Still, the Science scoffed.
So, the healthy Barry Marshall drank a whole beaker full of the cultured virus, and man there’s some balls right there.
He developed ulcers, well, a really severe case of them in fact. Knowing antibiotics would kill viruses, he was put on a course of them, and the ulcers cleared up. They killed the virus.
For years, their theory was treated with outright scepticism ….. until this.
These two guys changed Science, and now we all benefit.
Consensus scoffed for years. Scepticism led to the truth, and ultimately, the correct treatment, and all the textbooks had to be rewritten because of what these two men did.
Barry Marshall and Robin Warren won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2005, Nobel Prize winners who, er, actually did something in the name of Science.
Tony.
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Arie in 99,
Call me stupid but i dont understand your post can you give more detail on the point you are trying to make.
Cheers
Crakar
10
The thing is Tony, that the consensus in the case of Helicobacter pylori demonstrates that scientific evidence (in the form of the Prof’s actions and subsequent cure) won out and was quickly accepted as the norm. So what’s the problem?
The lesson is most certainly NOT that in every field of science you should take the position that every crackpot theory out there is probably correct just because sometimes they are correct. In fact you should ignore them and mock them to spur them to actually coming up with some evidence.
10
Oh Matty,
how I wish I was a rich man.
I’d buy a Cherry Farm.
You’d be one of the first guys I’d hire come harvest time.
Trouble is you’d probably say Young is too cold for you!
Tony.
10
Crakar24 @ 93,
Don’t quit your day job to be a comedian. It’s not funny to joke about giving away your power to something as ephemeral as “luck”.
10
Lionel at 73.
I have read an artilce by a successful person saying the harder he works, the luckier he becomes. Although it is not good to have negative thoughts, the real damage is done when the thoughts are verbalized. If one has negative thoughts, the best strategy is not to voice them.
10
Crakar24: @95
Even that article keep on and on parroting the same BS the totally falsified “concensus” theory.
Its not anywhere “mainline” only in the International Panel of Climate Crooks it is and their followers of Govt paid stooges.
10
Crakar24
To refer to Tim Ball and Fred Singer as reputable scientists who have worked “at the top of their field” is a laugh. Just google a bit and you will find out why.
10
Arie i would guess you would consider the charlatan and crook M Mann as someone at the top of his field?
10
Cant find much bad press on Singer..maybe a few blog sites that dont like the truth and a statement he made about that charlatan Oreskes who would deserve all the bad press she gets. Most information looks pretty good to me..arent BIASED are we Arie?
10
Peter Dun just posted this over on the previous “Monckton Debate” thread.
I’m reposting here because it’s just too good to miss.
I urge you to have a look if you haven’t seen it.
http://vidcall.com/index.php/videos/show/2090
10
MattB at #102
Matt – the trouble with this one is the politics. You have very powerful forces on the consensus side, who couldn’t care less about what caused ulcers (it was only big pharma that lost out…class enemies, so who cares).
The vast number of politicians with skin in the game, plus the left-wing of politics who have been politically on the back foot since 1990, plus a degree of religiosity from the even further left Greens, and you have a seesaw with an elephant on one side and a mouse on the other.
So, every time another study is published (with great difficulty by the scientists) you have a large number of politically motivated people trying to bury it as fast as they can. Human nature, unfortunately.
But if you think Copernicus, Gallileo and Kepler they won…sometime after they and quite a few other scientists were dead, crisped even. They too were up against a similar coalition. I just hope it doesn’t end up in the literal trenches like the 30 Years War…and it wasn’t the consensus that won that one either.
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Real @ 109
Didn’t you know?
Singer, who is amongst many other things, a statistician, dared question the statistical methods employed by the US EPA to support the link between passive (second hand) cigarette smoke, and lung cancer.
This proves conclusively that anything Singer ever did before or after has been at the behest of Big Oil / Big Tobacco / Big (insert greenie villain of the month) and shouldn’t be taken seriously by anybody.
10
Lionell in 104,
You make as much sense as Blimey and JB on a good day, just to be clear it was a joke and OK you did not find it funny i apologies for that but it has nothing to do with giving away power or whatever.
10
theRealUniverse –
was watching a documentary online the other nite and it had a japanese official welcoming everyone to the –
“Intergovernmental Panel on Crime-ate Change”
no offense meant to any japanese friends.
10
MattB,
In my post 95 and subsequent posts by Tony (100) we have demonstrated that throughout history a consensus has been proven to be wrong, now i suggest there are two reasons for that.
1, The consensus view was based on solid evidence that at the time lead a majority of scientists to agree on one outcome even though there were a handful of scientists that viewed the evidence differently and therefore a different outcome. Over time the evidence supporting the handful of scientists grew strengthening their view the consensus then shifted to a point where they were in agreement.
2, The consensus view was based on solid evidence that at the time lead a majority of scientists to agree on one outcome even though there were a handful of scientists that viewed the evidence differently and therefore a different outcome. Overtime the evidence supporting the handful of scientists grew strengthening their view however the consensus refused to budge. They refused to budge for various reasons but as they faded away new scienctists replaced them with an unbiased mind and with no hidden agenda and quickly accepted the science the consensus refused.
Now the question is are witnessing 1 or 2?
10
Crakar 24 at 113.
Even things said as a joke have power to do the same amount of damage as if said seriously.
10
What are you a buddhist? or a fortune cookie writer?………..sorry that was a bad joke (again) and you are being so serious,….sorry Lionell promise not to laugh while i type this.
10
Thanks Arie in 107,
Not got time to respond now…sorry.
Cheers
10
MattB, you are of course quite right. To favour a theory just because it is at odds with a consensus position does not only provide a privileged position to a potential scientific breakthrough but also to any crackpot theory under the sun.
“Sceptics”, of course, don’t quite know what to do with that consensus. They either deny that it exists (Peyser, Singer, among others) or they claim that it is inherently suspect just because it is a consensus (Crichton).
Crakar24 Crichton’s argument is self defeating. ” … every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees …” So now there is consensus that there is such a thing as continental drift and this notion can therefore no longer be regarded as science.
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Crackar I don;t think either of your examples suit the case at present.
we are: A small group of scientists came up with a view that was not the consensus and over a number of years through much research that view eventually became the consensus. There are a rabble of cheesed off types who will do all they can to take things back to the way they were.
To you and Bruce in 111, however, is that either side of the current debate can be presented in a manner that “their” science is the poor ignored truth trying to overturn the consensus. So while they are interesting points of history, they don’t do much to assist with the present debate.
As an example, I bet that after Gallileo’s ideas “won” the consensus there were still some scientists who spread disinformation to uindermine the consensus. You can see this in terms of creationism/evolution, and dare I say it you can see it in climate science.
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Memoryvault at 112.
Perhaps you can find that reference in Science of the year 1989 that Singer quoted for his claim about that glacial retreat:
“the same data can be found all over the internet. They were first published online by Professor Fred Singer, one of the very few climate change deniers who has a vaguely relevant qualification (he is, or was, an environmental scientist). He posted them on his website http://www.sepp.org, and they were then reproduced by the appropriately named junkscience.com, by the Cooler Heads Coalition, the National Center for Public Policy Research and countless others.(14) They have even found their way into the Washington Post.(15) They are constantly quoted as evidence that manmade climate change is not happening. But where did they come from? Singer cites half a source: “a paper published in Science in 1989″.(16) Well, the paper might be 16 years old, but at least, and at last, there is one. Surely?
I went through every edition of Science published in 1989, both manually and electronically. Not only did it contain nothing resembling those figures; throughout that year there was no paper published in this journal about glacial advance or retreat.” (Monbiot)
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At the risk of repeating myself @ 75 but the trolls are slow to pick up this simple idea.
The ABC “Science” writer misses one important issue.
If a given party proposes a theory, (e.g. AGW) then it is their duty to defend any and all scientifically logical disputes to that theory.
Such a dispute may be (for example) the failure to locate or definitely measure atmospheric temperature profiles claimed to be a necessary part of their theory. (The missing hot spot.) It may be a failure to disclose source data or computer models used support of that theory. (Numerous examples, appears to be modus operandi.) It may be a failure to logically explain, in an holistic manner, why temperatures have fallen as well as risen during periods when CO2 has risen monotonically. It may be inconsistencies between the quantitative models and the known paleoclimate and even relatively modern historical climate record.
In other words, you could drive a truck through this theory, and still have room for a passing lane.
No wonder the adherents to this psuedo-scientific faith – and it is no more than that – are keen to discuss personal issues of title and semantics, rather than try to defend it.
It is simply indefensible – both the theory and the journalism.
Cheers,
Speedy.
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Speedy: “It may be a failure to logically explain, in an holistic manner, why temperatures have fallen as well as risen during periods when CO2 has risen monotonically.”
because there are other forcings, as you well know, not just GHGs.
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Can one of our resident cultists name me more than a small handful of “climate scientists” who are acceptable as “climate scientists” to our resident cultists, and who are not, in one or another, on the public payroll?
No?
So it’s safe to assume that the so-called “consensus” on climate science is really a “consensus” of people agreeing with what their employer pays them to agree with.
And this is “science”?
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OK smart ass Arie Brand: where is YOUR personal evidence that manmade warming is happening! Go on present it! Dont quote ANY REAL world data will you. GHG theory is false.
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The Abc is staffed by idiots.As an aside, in the past any leader of the labour party with Juliars performance would have been hung out to dry at 40% let alone 26% whats going on? who owns the party now? CO2 is life,heers
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MattB @ 103
And since these “other forcings” are perfectly adequate to explain ALL observed climate phenomena over the last 150 years, exactly why do we have to believe increased CO2 is having much effect at all?
Could it be because there is a consensus of “climate scientists” who are PAID – one way or another – to promote this unproven theory to support the political aims of the people who pay them?
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MattB in a paper by N Scafetta (empirical evidence for celestial origins of climate oscillations) it has been shown that the intensity of the solar radiation is modulated by the orbits of the planets. Also further here http://www.landscheidt.info/
My guess is that his has been well overlooked for a long time while science has been pre-ocupied with other complex origins and it seems too simple to be true but it sure looks promising.
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Arie Brand @ 121
Ah yes, well he MUST have got that wrong, mustn’t he?
As we all know, according to the “consensus” IPCC Report, the glaciers will all be melted by 2035, which is at least a bit better than the “consensus” over at NASA, that they will all be melted by 2030.
All based, of course, on a peer-reviewed, published “scientific” “consensus” article by a Greenpeace campaigner.
I mean for Singer, or anybody else to think otherwise, would be, well “voodoo science”, wouldn’t it?
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“Arie i would guess you would consider the charlatan and crook M Mann as someone at the top of his field?”
Real Universe – much as I hate to rob you of your bogey man the answer is yes.
If I had only looked at the defamation campaign waged with this man as the unfortunate subject I would have concluded that so-called sceptics either can’t read or are of bad faith or both. A good example is the reception of the North report about the (still unbroken) “hockey stick” at blogs such as ClimateAudit etc. I have written earlier about this here:
http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1735
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TonyOz@103; HA, HA! Mattyb on the cherry farm; perhaps he could replace his marbles with cherries!
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TRU – without wanting to sound like an appeal to consensus type… my general position is that I am open to all such scientific advances and discoveries.
THe question to me is this:
Given what we know about the science, potential consequences, and the costs of acting, shold we at least get ourselves in to a position to be able to make significant cuts should needs be?
And to me the answer is “Yes”. We cut by 5% by 2020, there is a small amount of economic cost, but we are in a much better position to make deeper cuts based on the science.
Lets face it a policy based on strict adherence to “the science” would see us implementing much much greater cuts. A policy based on the “skeptical” view of the world would see us do nothing. A 5% cut by 2020, via implementing a sensible economic structure, well to be honest I can’t see the problem.
GOing deeper than 5% without nuclear will be a real struggle… although we could just buy permits form o/s in a global market (I am not at all opposed to this unlkike some green types).
It just seems to painfully pragmatic!
By 2020 the science will be much more settled, and if it settles my way then at least we’re on the right track. If it settles your way…. well then not to overuse an analogy but not many people who insure their homes are annoyed in 30 years because their house didn’t burn down.
Do you get me… I honestly see the current 5% reductions (ets or tax or even direct action) as a compromise from pure warmist science to such an extent that skeptics should be happy as larry!
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MattB:
You seem blissfully ignorant to the fact that Australia’s emissions are still increasing. A 5% cut by 2020 represents something like a 20-25% cut over a business as usual scenario. The cost of such a cut in emissions is not trivial. It can only occur if one is willing to accept a major drop in output per person or population or both.
Last time I checked our population and economy were both growing… therefore emissions will continue to grow. You can’t have it both ways with current technology… it simply does not work.
The utopia you dream of does not exist yet.
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MattB@ 123
To take your thoughts to the next logical level. You agree that there is more to atmospheric CO2 level in explaining climate. What is it that demonstrates that CO2 concentration changes from 280 to 400 have any impact on climate?
How can you can so sure that CO2 drives climate, whereas you can’t even identify the much more powerful factors that seem to overcome it with monotonous regularity?
Cheers,
Speedy
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” I mean for Singer, or anybody else to think otherwise, would be, well “voodoo science”, wouldn’t it?”
You missed the point Memoryvault. Singer didn’t do any of his own research on the matter – he “based” himself on a source that apparently cannot be found. In short here too he just made things up. Coming to think of it that is not too bad a definition of “voodoo science”.
And now I have had enough for today.
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Arie Brand: Manns CRIMINAL hockeystich has been disproved by many. EVEN the IPCC distanced itself from it! O and tell you eco fascist loonbin climate FRAUD wakko mates to GET LOST and stop trying to put the whole economy into the STONEAGE!
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John Brookes: #94
July 22nd, 2011 at 12:02 pm
No John, it was self assessment by you, I just deciphered it.
I don’t admire him at all. There is a difference between admire and recognition John. Surely even you would recognize the feat involved in developing a small town newspaper into a global media communications company.
That ‘evil empire’ employs 43,000 people across the globe John. There will always be some bad apples in a bunch. Your heart bleeds for a woman who lost her job? Have you mentioned this story to the Thompsons of WA at all John? Can you point me to your posts where you damn the eco-nuts who wrecked a family life in a systematic planned way?
Never bow and never worship anyone John. Recognize; yes.
Now, about your bowing, forelock tugging and worshipping of infallible climate scientists John……
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OT – The Julia Gillard meal @ KFC.
2 small breasts
2 large thighs
A red box
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Bush Bunny @ 91
Tony Windsor hopefully will be visiting AirBus in France. And they can tell him what the Chinese are doing to them. They sure arent following the lead of the insane government that he is propping up. O dear its getting nasty.
http://www.totemtourism.com/1/post/2011/06/china-blocks-billion-dollar-airbus-order-in-battle-against-eu-carbon-caps.html
Incoherent Rambler @ 91
Yes mate that is badly needed. The union members have been denied democracy twice. We wont get a vote on the tax before its implemented and we didnt get a vote on it before the ACTU declared its support. Still Morris Iemma has taken a stand and I expect the revolt in the union rank and file will only gather more steam.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/iemma-predicts-carbon-calamity/story-fn59niix-1226098657315?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAustralianTheNationNews+%28The+Australian+%7C+The+Nation%29
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A better link on the China ban on AirBus
http://www.aviatime.com/china-blocks-airbus-order-over-eus-emission-trading-scheme.html
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Wow… someone defending Mann’s schtick… I didn’t think there were still people that believed that claptrap. Next he’ll be saying Briffa’s Yamal exploits are the best science one could hope for… sad.
Trees =/= thermometers
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Bulldust you seem blissfully ignorant of the reality that half of the 5% will come from overseas credits. Didn’t you read that in Bolt?
Speedy there is a whole section (“causes”) on the climate change wikipedia page that discusses all of those other factors that influence the climate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
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” Manns CRIMINAL hockeystich has been disproved by many. EVEN the IPCC distanced itself from it!”
I was already nodding off but couldn’t let that pass. “CRIMINAL hockey stick”? Have a cup of tea, Real Universe, and lie down.
The IPCC report 2007 didn’t “distance” itself from the hockey stick as you (and the Wall Street Journal) claim. It provided, beside the original hockey stick, about a dozen other reconstructions (based on different proxies) that all came to the conclusion that the temperature is now higher than at any time during the last one thousand years – in other words, the point of the original hockey stick and the IPCC Report 2001.
But why let the facts stand in your way when you are so pleasantly raving on about my ” eco fascist loonbin climate FRAUD wakko mates”.
Jo, oh the company you keep …
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Cue me Matt, for what I put in the Oz this morning – more proof the mods are groaning at their seams with overload, it surfaced eventually.
So you realise that 78% out of 80% will come from overseas credits by 2050 Matt? And the 78% that the UK buys, the US buys, that China buys…PNG and Guinea are going to have a good business retreading and reselling carbon credits I think. I smell an opportunity for a few Nigerian businessmen.
Incidentally I did reply to your #120, but WordPress ate it twice so I gave up.
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Arie @ 143
So Arie, just what exactly DID happen to the MWP and the LIA in Mann’s hockey stick?
Are they hiding in the same place as Trenberth’s Travesty “missing heat”?
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Bulldust: Aria is probably a computer warmist sockpuppet!
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Bruce… ultimately under a global market for CO2e emissions a country that can make a lot of money per unit CO2e will purchase from a country that makes less money, and both sides benefit. Even if we doubeld our emissions under a global market that would not be a problem to me, and would simply be evidence that it was cheaper to reduce emissions elsewhere. This will mean that resource rich countries like Australia will still be able to supply iron ore etc for the global markets, rather than some other country be forced to use less efficient ore sources locally.
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MattB:
You are doubly ignorant that the overseas abatement is assumed as part of the modelling done by Government. You would have to have rocks in your head to believe the US will be embarking on an ETS anytime soon (meaning at least 5-10 years away, and I think I am being really generous there), let alone China, which relies on coal-fired power stations to drag its people out of poverty. Neither economy can begin to think about hamstringing itself with an ETS right now or in the foreseeable future.
BTW I have spent a little time perusing the Government model assumptions:
http://www.treasury.gov.au/carbonpricemodelling/content/default.asp
For those who thought $23 per tonne CO2-e was alarming, try $100-200 per tonne CO2-e down the track a couple decades (chart 3.4):
http://www.treasury.gov.au/carbonpricemodelling/content/chart_table_data/chapter3.asp
There won’t be an Australian economy anymore at those prices… at least not as we know it. Have a browse through some of the assumptions and have yourself a giggle at the modellers’ expense.
MattB .. it matters not a jot where the credits come from… we still have to pay the tax. And if other countries don’t get involved in abatement there will be enormous demand in Australia driving the CO2 permits through the roof.
You really should not comment on matters economic mate… you haven’t the foggiest clue. I study markets for a living and have been schooled i exhaustible resource theory, energy markets, emissions markets… you name it. I have also done my fair share of modelling and can tell you first hand that the MMRF models are 100% GIGO. They are extremely sensitive to parameter assumptions, so you can churn out any result you like with a little tweak here and there.
For another laugh look at the Australian population growth assumptions… they are a complete joke (on the low side).
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Sorry Bruce of Newcastle – just where did you get that quote from?
And another thing – despite many claims to the contrary, Mann’s hockey stick is substantially correct.
It turns out (and this is not surprising) that the Mc’s analysis was dodgy. They ran a lot of simulations using random data, searched for the few which gave the best hockey stick shape, and then paraded them saying, “this is what Mann’s method produces with random data”. It turned out that there are some technical details (quite beyond me) that allow one to see quite easily that Mann’s results and the neatly selected results of chance were different.
The infamous Wegman didn’t even do his own simulation – just re-used the Mc’s. But its a pretty deep barrel and there clearly is very little left in it….
OK. There is now a prize for whoever can come up with the most links proving I’m wrong.
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“You really should not comment on matters economic mate… you haven’t the foggiest clue. I study markets for a living and have been schooled i exhaustible resource theory, energy markets, emissions markets… you name it.”
Ok lets make a deal I’ll shut up on economic issues and you can butt out of the science? I do note however that both the seemingly vast majority of scientists AND economists agree with me.
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Bulldust
and yes guess where the money goes to the ‘four horsemen’ of the banking cartel.
The ones that have broken Greece, Portugal, Iceland and the Italy and Spain to come the USA.
http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/Crisis_And_Collapse_Unfortunate_but_Inevitable
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MattB @ 142 and 147
You couldn’t even lie straight in bed, could you, Matt?
Speedy asked you to explain how you could be so sure about the effects of CO2, and you answer by pretending he asked about ALL the known and postulated influences on the climate.
Bruce asked you how virtually EVERY country in the world is going to end up buying “credits” from just a handful (ie there just aren’t enough to go round), and you reply by pretending he asked how a carbon credit scheme worked.
It would be more honest of you simply not to answer – you know – like you do with me.
.
Obviously because you can’t.
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As we found today there is no evidence that Aussie ocean levels are rising above about 0.15m per about 100 years. Seeing the measurements go back a couple of hundred years there is no reason to doubt it is all caused by natural climate variability.
There you have it and that’s why the real action is and always was about:
“Oh, the Insensitivity! More on Ocean Warming 1955-2010
July 21st, 2011 (Roy Spencer)
“The evidence for anthropogenic global warming being a false alarm does not get much more convincing than this,folks…………….
…Conclusion: The bottom line is that the relatively weak warming of the ocean since the 1950s is consistent with negative feedback (low climate sensitivity), not positive feedback. The ocean mixed layer and the atmosphere convectively coupled to it loses excess heat to outer space before it can be mixed into the deep ocean.
In other words, Trenberth’s missing heat is not in the deep ocean…it’s instead lost in outer space.”
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John Brookes @ 149
So perhaps you’d like to answer my question to Arie @ 145.
Apparently he can’t.
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MattB way back at Comment 132, (sorry, I’ve been out this afternoon)
You say:
There’s a fat chance, if any chance at all, that Australia will go Nuclear, and if they did, that won’t be until 2035 at the very earliest.
However, you mention a 5% cut, thanks to this new tax, which you infer is at a small cost we surely can all afford to pay.
Man, let’s actually pretend for a minute that we need to cut those emissions.
I did a whole piece on how we can cut those CO2 emissions by up to 30%, by replacing those existing coal fired power plants with er, new technology coal fired power plants.
You’re on the ball.
Read that Post and then cut me to shreds.
I’m looking forward to it.
Here’s the link:
CO2 Emissions Reduction – A Radical Plan
Tony.
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John – the quote is of me. Sorry, narcissic, but Matt mentioned that half of the 5% is coming from overseas, it was irresistible since I’d written about the 78% to Henry Ergas’ article in the Oz this morning.
And the 78% comes from p7 of the Treasury report. The “indulgences” is my description coming from p83 where in half a page of waffle Treasury describes in intense detail that they come magically from overseas (ie no detail of when, where, what cost or anything else).
And Matt in #147, yes I do know that. You seemed to have missed my point, which is if everyone sources abatement from overseas then either it will run out with alacrity, or it will be invented on demand. Or will cost just a tad more than the $30/t that Treasury is assuming (if I recall – dinner is up, I’m not going to check now).
All of this with 2XCO2 well below 1 C too. World’s mad.
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Clueless MattB:
If you ask me, as an economist, what is the most efficient way to curtail pollution in theory … surprise, surprise I would agree with all the other economists and say an ETS or direct tax, the latter in the case where an ETS cannot be efficiently implemented.
That is not the relelvant question.
The proper question to ask is, as Monckton and Lomborg correctly assert:
Is it better to abate GHG emissions or fund adaptation if negative climate impacts eventuate? A benefit:cost approach is required to answer this question. This is the furthest thing from the Australian Government’s mind because they know full well that Australian emissions has no measureable impact on climate.
Once again you cannot help yourself can you? You selectively misinterpret what the economists are saying, just as the IPCC chapter editors selectively interpret the science. If you ask the wrong question there is a very good probability you get the wrong answer.
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Substantially correct as to how not to use principal component analysis. Mann’s algorithm generated a hockey stick plot when even using random data – and people actually believe this is ok? How freaking stupid can one be????
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MattB, using Wonkypedia?
Where only a footnote remains to what appears to be a significant factor in the Earth’s climate? Unless you want us to believe that it’s an “etc”. The footnote (23) points to:Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds in GRL where the abstract says:
The abstract of one of the papers citing same: Impact of galactic cosmic rays on Earth’s atmosphere and human health opens with:
Which laws of nature have been repealed to allow antroprogenic CO2 to become a major driver of climate?
Trying to shut down the science doesn’t work any more. And trying to do so will back-fire – which is only one of hundreds (today) of web sites where the attempt to gag real scientists is being reported.
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Bruce @ 156
MattB didn’t miss your point Bruce.
He slithered around it.
With him it’s standard practice.
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Mann’s hockeystick is statistical garbage: as McShane and Wyner have proved:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/13/mcshane-wyner-hockey-stick-smackdown-redux/
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Tony in 155 – I may be missing something, but in your post you claim
1) 40% emissions from coal fired power stations
2) your new tech can cut emissions from these power stations by 30%.
” The new expansion plant will have a total power of 2000MW and emissions just on 10 million tons, 43% more power for only a 10% increase in emissions, which is a comparative reduction in emissions of 30% over the original process.”
YOu then conclude, as per your post in 155: “I did a whole piece on how we can cut those CO2 emissions by up to 30%, by replacing those existing coal fired power plants with er, new technology coal fired power plants.”
But that is only 30% of the 40% = 13% reductions not 30%.
They are already taking of replacing with Gas… so what’s so special about your post. What with long term contracts to supply power etc, simply replacing old coal with new coal plants is going to be hellishly expensive. It is not like some silver bullet.
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Bruce sorry I didn;t realise that was your point. Indeed for everyone to buy emissions from overseas would require a totally corrupted market… obviously there has to be a genuine buyer and a genuine seller or the cap is an illusion.
Lol could you imagine if any other markets existed where the paper you traded wasn’t backed up by actual wealth! lol… hang on… eek.
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Bernd in 159 – I must admit I lean towards an opinion that CERN is not censoring anything, but I’ve said it before I look forward to advances in science based on the cosmic ray issue.
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Bernd Felsche: Interesting that Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn http://www.weatheraction.com/ who has remarkably accurate with some of his trial extreme geophysical event predictions, isnt convinced of the cosmic ray theory of cloud formation influencing the climate.
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MattB @ 162
Given MattB that you are (at least according to you):
A) – trained in physics, and
B) – trained in engineering,
Perhaps you would like to:
1) – compare the running costs of a super-critical coal-fired steam power station to a gas one, and
2) – explain just exactly where all this gas is going to come from? – And I don’t just mean physically Matt, I mean contractually.
3) – Explain how, and at what cost ( since that doesn’t figure in your post @ 162), this gas is going to get from wherever you think you might be able to buy it, to were it is needed.
You never know MattB, you might learn something.
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MattB @ 163
MORE slithering Matt. You STILL didn’t actually answer the query.
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HAHA
Trained? yes monkeys can be trained too. Now learning and understanding..thats different!
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MattB @ 164
STILL slithering MattB. Let me restate the query to you @ 159:
NOT whether CERN were censoring anything.
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Posted a link to Jo’s excellent rebuttal to the Background Briefing comments page. Guess what – it didn’t get through. Seems no alternate viewpoint will be tolerated by the deranged auntie!
[Thanks for trying Marc! — The message gets through, even if it doesn’t “get published”. Lets keep trying 🙂 JN ]
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Mattyb@162:
power [P] is now 1.43, emissions [E] are now 1.1 so 1.43P/1.1E = 1.3P/E
TonyOz may also care to comment.
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John Brookes at #149
I like one hockey stick. This one. OK more than one since Dr Mann and Dr Kaufman seem to like the same sports.
There is shape and then there is orientation. If you don’t like how the data came out, hey why not flip it?
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Then there is this one:
http://bp3.blogger.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/R8cydkIMN6I/AAAAAAAAARQ/5B8MdDKGom8/s1600-h/hockeystick_rehabilitated.jpg
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MattB
I do concede that point.
I was so busy concentrating on the Power plant emissions alone I missed that.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Still, that 13% is better than 5% just from Tax alone.
Tony.
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MV – no laws of nature have been repealed, and you know it.
Also I’m not a fan of the gas solution and agree with you in general in 169. I just think it is important for tony to realise he is discussing a 30% cut from coal fired electricity, not a 30% in total emissions.
The majic wand he suggests would:
cut emissions
keep coal in business
use existing technology
It is blindingly obvious, which suggests it is wrong, as the coal industry could easily propose it, but they’ve not.
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Hey Tony in 174 – we’ve had a moment! or a few!
1) I’ve read one of your links
2) I’ve politely pointed something out
3) you’ve agreed with me
Crikey we are ON A ROLL HERE!!!!!
Look I agree it would work, just like a switch to nuclear (which would work even more)… but it ain’t going to be cheap as you are talking of retiring early billions of dollars of plant.
two other issues are that (a) if AGW is real then it is not enough cuts (remembering that the 5% is a 1st step, wheras your plan gives us no more wrigge room), and (b) if AGW is bunkum then why would you bother;)
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Matt at #175
Magic wand? Easy. I watched part of Gary Gray (Special Minister of State) in an interview on ABC 24 about uranium policy a couple hours ago. He sounds like a nuclear power believer, but was walking a very dangerous (for himself) policy line through the nuclear minefield when asked about baseload compared with alternative energy.
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Louis # 158
I am not sure if this can be completely quantified. All we can do is read the posts of JB and record the (increasing) stupidity level.
The level appears to be increasing at a exponential rate. I think this has something to do with a positive feedback loop. The implication is that we are observing the start of runaway stupidity levels.
There are of course a few other factors at work, e.g. political allegiance, low education level, resistance to logic etc. But without doubt, the primary factor is Anthropogenic Gross Wanking (also know as AGW).
It is clear that we need to get this under control, the future of our children, indeed, the very future of the planet is at stake.
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Further to #178, I want a grant to study the it.
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MattB @ 175
STILL slithering – STILL does not address the original query
STILL slithering – does not address the fact that it is STILL a far better solution on ALL counts, that would cut emissions by 13% – even by YOUR calculations , which beats the sh^t out of a “solution” that DOESN’T actually provide any meaningful power and will bankrupt the nation to boot.
STILL slithering.
The Australian coal industry is not about investing in power generation, it is about investing in digging coal out of the ground and selling it.
The power generation industry is about generating power. The power generation industry had plans over five years ago to convert places like Hazelwood and Bayswater to super-critical boiler systems.
The POLITICAL situation in OZ in that period has meant it is impossible to invest the funds necessary with any assurance that the plant will be around long enough to be profitable.
EVERYBODY involved in the steam power generation industry knows that super-critical is the way to go. But then, as someone “trained in both physics and engineering” you already knew that.
So one can only assume you’re slithering again.
How surprising.
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MattB and TonyOz; so you agree that the CO2 emission [CO2E] reduction from the coal technology will be 30% but only 13% CO2E reduction in the overall electricity supply.
OK; let’s say that again; the new coal technology reduces CO2E from coal power by 30%; and MattB dismisses that.
Who’s still missing something?
And who’s to say there won’t be more improvements in coal technology in the future; we know coal can supply baseload; wind and solar never will.
I would have thought that, even if you believe in AGW and the government’s witless plan to reduce emissions by 5%, that this new coal technology would at least be a breathing space, especially when it is compared with the economically stupid Chinchilla solar proposal.
I repeat, how is this not a good thing and viable option to the carbon tax?
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Gee, Jo this journo didn’t irritate you a little, did she? 🙂
I agree with you, and the science reporting on the BBC and the NZBC is just as dismal.
If you have time, check out James Dellingpole’s latest on the egregious Dr Jones, geneticist, who has accepted the BBC’s shilling to state that sceptics and ‘deniers’ should not be interviewed or quoted on the BBC sciency things in the interests of fairness! And Jones calls himself a bloody scientist!
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One doesn’t need to understand statistics, nor does one need to have Manns data and methodology to know that the hockeystick is bunkum.
The whole purpose of the hockeystick was to show unprecedented warming in the 20th century. So unprecedented in fact that global temperatures went from being the lowest for a thousand years at the beginning of the industrial revolution, to being the highest in a thousand years or more.
Not only that, numerous other studies have apparantly confirmed this, so it must be true.
How did Arie put it at #143?
So lets think about this. For about a thousand years, fairly steady and benign global temperatures, never varying by more than 0.3degC over 50 years, gently sloping down towards the end of the 19thC suddenly starts to climb in an unprecedented way due to mans emissions of CO2.
NO NATURAL FORCES (OR FEEDBACKS) WERE STRONG ENOUGH TO DIVERT TEMPERATURES FROM THE BENIGN FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, AND NO NATURAL FORCES (OR FEEDBACKS) WERE STRONG ENOUGH TO STOP CO2s RELENTLESS FORCING DURING THE 20thC.
Until of course the last 12 years or so, when suddenly, unexpectedly, surprisingly, NATURAL FORCES (OR FEEDBACKS) HAVE OVERWHELMED CO2.
These forcings (or feedbacks) which hadn’t shifted temperatures to any significant degree throughout the length of the hockey stick shaft, some 900 years, and hadn’t laid a glove on CO2s might during the 20thC, suddenly appear to suppress the might of CO2.
So it’s not just global temperatures that graph like a hockey stick. Natural forcings, if they were to be graphed, would also appear like the shape of a hockey stick, a straight line for a thousand years, then a sudden blade of about 12 years.
Now I know the above seems a bit far fetched, but many people, educated people, smart people, articulate people believe it. IT MUST BE TRUE.
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Let these alarmists continue to behave in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
We know correlation is not causation but there must be correlation for causation. The lack of CO2 correlation is deadly to the IPCC theory… a theory that, in any case, will shortly be blown apart by a soon to be announced climate change bombshell!
I refer to the eagerly awaited results of the “Cloud Experiment” – CERN, Geneva.
Without giving away his results of the experiment, you can hear what the lead scientist, Dr Jasper Kirkby, has had to say about the experiment… you’ll get to appreciate what he has discovered by watching the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63AbaX1dE7I&feature=player_embedded
Enjoy the video… particularly the part where Kirkby explains how he discovered the climate models have got the level of sensitivity/feedback the wrong way round… hence, the climate models are all wrong.
It will come as no surprise, of course, that the politically correct Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN, has already tried to warn off Kirkby et al not to interpret their results. Can you believe it?!?!*%@#^!
This begs the question… when the “Cloud Experiment” results are announced, how will all the alarmists explain themselves… the UN and the IPCC, governments, scientific institutions, politicians, science academics, economists, the media, etc and all the others who believe in man-made global warming and who claim the science is settled?
And what will Wendy Carlisle have to say?
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“Arie Brand”,
A moronic communist traitor…….
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RealUniverse
Neither I.
Svenmark’s primary model is the standard one – a nuclear powered solar energy source, irradiating inert spheres of rock and gas in a spatial vacuum, with all the forces adequately explained by Newton’s equations describing gravity. This model seems not to be adequate, hence the invocation of a human influence to explain observable physical anomalies.
Alternatively one might use the theory of the Plasma Universe in which the equations of Heaviside, Maxwell and Lorentz are applicable, in addition to Newton’s, to describe cosmics. In this model the earth is assumed to be part of a galactic electrical circuit in electrical plasma, and that the physical behaviour of the gassy film coating the earth, is due to the interplay of electrical currents passing into and out of the earth-system.
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Louis.@186. Same Im not totally convinced..haha maybe someone will try to disprove it..not because it proves any warming by other means if its disproved. Disproving a theory that shows causality with one phenomenon doesnt mean the other is correct by default of course. Oh dont tell a warmist journo!
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MattB @ 175, The coal industry is involved with mining and selling coal. They do not care who they sell it to or what it is used for. Everybody in the Electricity industry knows about the efficency inprovements with super critical plant but who would be game enough to invest in coal fired electricity generation with this stupidity going on.
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@memoryvault: #110
“Peter Dun just posted this over on the previous “Monckton Debate” thread.
I’m reposting here because it’s just too good to miss.
I urge you to have a look if you haven’t seen it.”
http://vidcall.com/index.php/videos/show/2090
Top link MV.
I agree with you – EVERYBODY – should look at this as something we can do jointly.
.
This type of marketing might well appeal to the demograph we have not yet captured, the under 24 GREEN(peace !!!) voters.
My daughter turned 20 this week and she is absolutely disgusted with the level of intelligence of a lot of her friends, who think that by voting GREEN, they are saving the Whales.
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@CameronH: #188
“…the Electricity industry knows about the efficency inprovements with super critical plant but who would be game enough to invest in coal fired electricity generation with this stupidity going on.”
Speculate to Accumulate.
It is already being positioned in the Coal Industry, look at the MA activity.
The ‘Smart Money’ knows that this Government is already living on ‘Borrowed Time’. (3 years MAX)
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Crakar24 @ 113,
As I said, don’t quit your day job.
On the matter of giving away your power, I suggest checking your premises.
Ask yourself:
1. Is your continued quality life important to you?
2. Is it important for your quality of life to be able to solve problems?
3. Is it important to stay in touch with what actually is as you attempt to solve problems?
4. Where does the power to solve problems come from?
You will find you gave your power away a very long time ago. Since you don’t take your life seriously, your subconscious mind won’t either. It believes everything you tell it and returns in kind (aka GIGO). Eventually everything becomes a joke to it including your life.
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Mattb @ 142
That wiki reference wasn’t very helpful – it contained 2 things:
That the earth’s climate has changed,
That the vested consensus believe it is “in large part” man-made.
The first one I knew already. The second was unsubstantiated assertion.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Half Time O/T
Subject: Gillard visits a classroom
Julia Gillard was visiting a Sydney primary school and the class was in
the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.
The teacher asked Ms Gillard if she would like to lead the discussion on
the word ‘Tragedy‘.
So our illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a ‘Tragedy’.
A little boy stood up and offered: ‘If my best friend, who lives on a farm,
is playing in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a tragedy.’
‘Incorrect,’ said Gillard. ‘That would be an accident.’
A little girl raised her hand: ‘If a school bus carrying fifty children
drove over a cliff, killing everybody inside, that would be a tragedy.’
‘I’m afraid not’,explained Gillard, ‘that’s what we would refer to as a
great loss‘.
The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Gillard searched the
room.
‘Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?’
Finally, at the back of the room, little Johnny raised his hand and said:
‘If a plane carrying you and Mr. Rudd and Mr. Swan and Mr. Garrett was
struck by a ‘friendly fire’ missile & blown to smithereens, that would be a
tragedy.’
‘Fantastic’ exclaimed Gillard, ‘and can you tell me why that would be a
tragedy?’
‘Well’, said Johnny, ‘it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn’t
be a great loss, and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either!’
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Louis Hissink (158):
Where does that come from? Not from Svensmark.
This is Part 1 of 6 of The Cloud Mystery which covers the state of the research to about 2008. Watch all parts. Then explain what your comment has to do with variable GCR flux (via different densities in the galaxy and modulated by the sun’s variable magnetic fields) and the formation of low-level clouds.
Note that Svensmark et al demonstrated experimentally the formation of aerosols by ionising radiation in their laboratory in Denmark several years ago. The CLOUD experiment at CERN was to replicate that experiment on a larger scale and to give deeper insight into the nature of the (decay) particles involved.
10
Getting educated on the necessity of CO2 for the human breathing function and the relationship of the airs CO2 content to the rate of breathing might be of interest to climate warmists who seem to want no CO2 in the atmosphere whatsoever.
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Felsche @ #194
The standard solar model is not a hydrogen fusion model?
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Maybe Bernd, Louis source of CR isnt the standard Hydrogen Fusion in stars. Also not all CR galactic protons which are about 90% of the CR flux come from H fusion sources. However as usual case in astrophysics its open to argument..
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Raredog @ #10.
I’m dragging the chain on complimenting you on your Lewandowsky comment. It was Good-O!
Keep growling.
My view is that the ABC will eventually see that their constituency does not align with their internal culture.
The consistent inundation of “The Drum” with peer-reviewed science that contradicts the alarmists’ propaganda will eventually turn the tide.
I noticed that “The Australian” today started to run the evidence undermining the IPCC on sea level rise. Ditto “The West Australian”. This needs to be supported.
Keep swingin’.
Sam
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Lionel, I think if you re-read my post, it wasn’t a license to avoid homework. It was an explanation as to why Science doesn’t “belong” to anyone, because truthfully anyone is capable of investigating. Those who call themselves scientists are simply the minds who are prepared to speak the right language when inspiration strikes.
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The Adelaide Monckton talk was very successful. Despite its uncentral location at South Adelaide Football Club about 400 people attended and 399 of them went away happy. The one who wasn’t stunned everyone by implying that Monckton had changed his name by deed poll to give himself a title. She must not have watched this week’s debate in Canberra. Monckton allowed her enough rope before putting a stop to it.
The SA talks are sponsored by Ann Bressington, Upper House MP. Ann was interviewed by Leon Ashby and was very impressive. Leon showed slides of his very successful farms in SA and Qld before the Kyoto protocol ruined his businesses.
Chris Monckton was on the stage for the best part of three hours. He was brilliant. Wish he could be Australia’s next Prime Minister. Every other of the dozen or so questions was relevant and he answered many of them at length. One of them was about a farmer in Queensland who has a million acre property and apparently the environmental rules are so strict that humans are not allowed to “go” in the bush any more. Seems unbelievable. There is some justification for that in Antarctica (not that there are bushes there) but here? Is human waste so different from animal’s that the environment can’t cope? Monckton stated that the best thing that could happen was to suspend all environmental laws for 10 years.
The main messages of the night were the complete nonsense of our government’s climate policies in light of the real science and the potential loss of democracy in Australia in much the same way as has happened in the UK.
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Two new short posts up.
I saw the excellent Vaclav Claus today and was fortunate enough to spend the afternoon on a cruise boat on the Swan River with a small group including the great man himself from Czechoslovakia. I’m a very lucky woman. 🙂
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Arie Brand, it’s been a very long time. So glad you could pop back in.
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Fair return for all your work here Jo. I trust you gleaned much wisdom from Vaclav’s experiences.
10
I have to disagree. The actions of Ms. Carlisle in this instance are the epitome of journalism. It’s what journalists in the private media have done for centuries.
The objective of journalism is to get access to audience, both to secure sales in the various print media and advertising in both print and broadcast media.
It’s all about “grabbing ears and eyeballs.” Scandal and catastrophe and pathos have reliably proven to do that, and so Ms. Carlisle is justified as a journalist in lying her pretty little prat off if she can pull it off without getting her employer clobbered by lawsuits successfully granting injured parties compensatory and punitive damages.
But when you get right down to it, Wendy Carlisle is not a journalist. Not really.
Working for a government-run broadcasting network, funded by valuta mulcted from the Australian taxpayers, Wendy Carlisle is a public servant.
She’s a government employee. A hired thug.
Her job, y’see, isn’t to “grab eyeballs” for advertisers, because A.B.C. hasn’t got advertisers who pay voluntarily for exposure to potential customers. A.B.C. works for the government of Australia, and the government of Australia is subordinate to the people of Australia.
Well, it’s supposed to be.
I guess when the present government is ridden out of Canberra on a rail and the words “carbon pollution” become a career death sentence for every Australian politician stupid and/or corrupt enough to have mouthed it, we’ll see whether or not the people of Australia control their country’s government.
Gonna be a real “Tea Party” experience in Oz this next couple of years, isn’t it?
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Jeremy@200
I tend to the view that we humans are all “scientists” of one sort or another. Some of us are exceptionally bright and with a little native engineering skill are able to manipulate their environment to their advantage. On the other hand some of us are quite dumb.
A few academically trained scientists are very bright, most are mediocre, perhaps because they lack the engineering component and some, also following the general population divisions, are very dumb.
Armed with those presuppositions one is then able to zero in on the predictions of Climate Scientists and identify the bright the mediocre and the dumb practitioners of that craft.
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Klaus was indeed an excellent and inspirational leader of Czech republic that is for sure.
Coincidentally I watched “Last King of Scotland” last night…
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@ 202 Lucky JN! He would be an intersting character.
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Somebody made the point that the statistical method employed by Mann et al would have produced the hockey stick result regardless of the data. Even, if for the sake of argument, we assume that this is true it would be a remarkable coincidence that about a dozen later reconstructions, using different proxies and other statistical methods, have come up with a roughly similar result, all showing anomalous warmth at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty first century (see IPCC 2007).
Oh I forgot- these are of course all co-conspirators. They are all in it: the CSIRO, all those national academies of science, the IPCC, the Queen (for noticing that spring at Balmoral now starts about three weeks earlier than was the case in her youth) – one vast conspiracy that could, however, not escape detection by the sharp minds that keep this blog alive.
10
Sloppy journalism by Wendy Carlisle driven by ideology rather than fact. To highlight just 1 – Monckton spoke at the Annual Conference of AMEC (Assoc of Mining Exploration Companies) NOT the Annual Conference of the Australian Mining Industry (There is no such body).
Carlisle tries to belittle Monckton because of his views on quarantining those with HIV.
It’s a valid viewpoint which offends the PC of our society. Toughen up princesses. Go and have a look at what’s happening in the real world.
Africa is being destroyed by HIV with >>>50 million Africans now HIV positive. Often being spread by the numerous transport drivers being entertained while crossing vast tracts of land.
Maybe these >>>50 million Africans would have been better off IF we had quarantined those capable of spreading HIV.
HIV may not have become a major problem in places like well-educated Australia but it has decimated large parts of Africa with some populations >40% HIV positive and the wiping out 2 sometimes 3 generations.
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Oopps …sloppy comments by me….should be >25 million in Sub-Sahara Africa…NOT >>50 million.
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Arie @ 209
I thought you were going to tell us what happened to the MWP and LIA in Mann’s graph?
You know, as asked above yesterday at post #146.
Slither, slither, slither.
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Louis @ 197:
Your diversion isn’t relevant to the discussion.
How the sun works is irrelevant to Svensmark. What is relevant is what it does; especially electro-magnetically. Behaviour that can be, has been and is being measured. There is no need to speculate about the nature of the sun to explain GCR modulation. No more than the need to speculate about the nature of the chalk in the writing on the wall.
The nature of the GCR is broad-spectrum. It has been shown only particles of particular energy levels can participate in ionisation that leads to aerosol formation at interesting altitudes. That is not unexpected.
It is most-certainly wrong to classify all GCR as participating in GCR. Therefore, attempting to relate the total neutron count of GCR monitors will produce much more noise than signal. Correlations will be poor and appear to falsify the theory. In the same way that not all horse apples grow on trees.
10
Well said Jo. Now we have recently seen a “jurno” and an economist severely brutalised by logical argument the truth and scientific facts. Fantastic article. Keep up the great work.
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I’d would like to state from the outset that I am a believer when it comes to global warming. Now this may be elitist but I happen to think that I would prefer to trust the research of hundreds of climate scientists across a variety of scientific disciplines rather than statements of a few geologists, an eccentric peer, a few shock jocks and the odd self proclaimed science journalist (I’m talking about you, Jo). My apologies if that offends you. I do think however that your arguments regarding the behaviour of pro AGW folks are absolutely risible. Psychologists call it projection. And what a lovely collection of argument killing strategies you have here – caricature, insult, overly emotive language. There are a number of scientists around who have completely demolished the claims of people such as Mr Monckton and Ian Plimer. Perhaps you should try reading them – and understanding them.
Finally, you apparently condone physical attacks on the press if you think they don’t agree with you- a very dangerous idea indeed.
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Mal @ 215
Well, what can anybody say to that?
You’re a “believer”, and your belief is based on “trust”.
Welcome to the Cult, brother. Just hand your money over to Pastor AlGoracle on the way in.
And as for your statement:
Where were you when we “skeptics” (for wont of a better term) for the last 20 years were labelled “deniers” (with holocaust implications), classified as having a “mental illness” and being “inferior”, (with much the same implications), threatened with “Nuremberg style” trials” (with much the same implications), threatened with confinement to concentration camps (with much the same implications), and demands that we be “tattooed” (with much the same implications), and “gassed” (with much the same implications), not to mention being subjected to “Salem style witch-hunt trials” and ritual burning at the stake.
Can we assume in the twisted logic of your puerile mind there was no “danger” in any of this?
Would that be because, as far as you and your kind are concerned, we are sub-humans?
10
“(Did I mention “Tobacco”?) Suddenly no one can question anything “official” without being accused of “seeding doubt” like evil tobacco corporations.”
So Jo, you are denying any link to the Heartlands Institute – an organisation that was precisely engaged with Philip Morris in the exercise of seeding doubt about the linkage between cancer and smoking?
10
Hey there memoryvault. Thanks for all the ad homs – spoken like a true wingnut. No I don’t think all that much of Al Gore. He isn’t a scientist. Apparently I’m meant to trust you more than the average climatologist. And this while you are insulting me. I’m sorry you are so right. Your proclamations about climate are spot on. How could I be so wrong. Your a genius!
10
memoryvault – I just spent a little more time reading your post, and I must say I’m somewhat gobsmacked by your assumptions. I don’t think you are inferior, I just think you are wrong. And yes I do think you are engaging in denial rather than scepticism. I don’t link such beliefs about climate with Nazism and death camps – but you apparently do. There is a difference, you know. I don’t believe that anyone who disagrees with me is inferior.
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Mal @ 217
No Mal.
You do NOT get to go off on another tangent before answering the replies to your previous queries.
Answer #216 AND the replies to your other contentious posts on other threads, then we will move on to any new subjects you want to introduce.
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Mal @ 218 and 219
Marvelous how you never even got around to addressing the key issue Mal of your side wanting to gaol, brand, gas and burn us Mal.
But I’m prepared to be corrected.
Just direct me to YOUR previous posts (anywhere) where you found it “dangerous”, or “intimidating”. or “bullying” for people like me to be threatened with psychological profiling as “mentally sick”, or considered fit only for confinement in mental institutions, or concentration camps, or tattooed, or gassed, or burned at the stake,
and I’ll apologise profusely, Mal.
Just one link Mal.
Waiting Mal.
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Mal @ various
STILL waiting Mal, and it’s past midnight and time for bed.
Just ONE link Mal. That’s all you have to provide. Just one link to a post you have EVER made, ANYWHERE on the internet, expressing your concern, puzzlement, outrage, or any other moral dilemma with the prospect of confining, branding, and/or killing off “unbelievers”.
Post it and I will apologise.
Don’t post it and understand why I will devote what’s rest of my life to identifying you, and people like you, and making sure when the guillotine is introduced you have your day in in the cart.
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“Marvelous how you never even got around to addressing the key issue Mal of your side wanting to gaol, brand, gas and burn us Mal. But I’m prepared to be corrected.” Look memoryvault – I would never advocate the kind of behaviour you mention against anyone. Not that I’ve ever seen evidence of it (with the exception of ridicule). But if you are trying to suggest that climate denialists are nice cuddly friendly folk who never engage in rude intimidating behaviour then you are just not getting out in the real world. I was referring to the obvious jostling and intimidation of the journalist (by crowd members and speakers urging them on) in this story – something Ms Nova seems intent on ignoring. Since your cause has the clear backing of the mainstream media in the form of the Murdoch press (70% of print media) and of Channel 10, I really don’t think it appropriate that you set the goons on journalists reporting differently than you desire.
10
And you think this is appropriate discourse? Don’t post it and understand why I will devote what’s rest of my life to identifying you, and people like you, and making sure when the guillotine is introduced you have your day in in the cart. I think you have a persecution complex.
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Mal
I am sorry but there are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who disagree. Do your research.
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I have done the research, Trevor. I can find no evidence of that number of scientists disagreeing with the evidence on global warming. But I’m happy to be proved wrong – perhaps you can point me to an article that mentions these hundreds and thousands of scientists?
10
Try Jasper Kirkby and he mention s many others.
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Also closer to home Ziggy Switowski ex Telstra CEO and a scientist. Many others but busy at present. You can find them as I have.
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Jo @202:
The President seems to be keeping the very best company then.
Now here is a man Australia can learn so much from.
There is a touch a realism & personal experience there which very few others can relate to. The dangers of which Monckton speaks, this man has lived through, personally.
And thats not to mention his considerable Economic credentials in masterminding the recovery of CZ from a disastrous comand economy.
I look forward to hearing more of his tour.
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Janama, your OT @ 139, was n’t it rather OtT ? 🙂
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For those wanting some Science:
Anthropogenic warming is real, it is also miniscule. Using the MODTRAN facility
maintained by the University of Chicago, the relationship between atmospheric carbon
dioxide content and increase in average global atmospheric temperature is shown in this
graph.
The effect of carbon dioxide on temperature is logarithmic and thus climate sensitivity
decreases with increasing concentration. The first 20 ppm of carbon dioxide has a greater
temperature effect than the next 400 ppm. The rate of annual increase in atmospheric
carbon dioxide over the last 30 years has averaged 1.7 ppm.
From the current level of 380 ppm, it is projected to rise to 420 ppm by 2030. The
projected 40 ppm increase reduces emission from the stratosphere to space from 279.6
watts/m2 to 279.2 watts/m2.
Using the temperature response demonstrated by Idso (1998) of 0.1°C per watt/m2, this
difference of 0.4 watts/m2 equates to an increase in atmospheric temperature of 0.04°C.
Increasing the carbon dioxide content by a further 200 ppm to 620 ppm, projected by 2150,
results in a further 0.16°C increase in atmospheric temperature.
A recent Idso paper shows plant growth response to atmospheric carbon
dioxide enrichment. The 100 ppm carbon dioxide increase since the beginning of
industrialisation has been responsible for an average increase in plant growth rate of 15%
odd.
The 50% increase in plant growth rate due to a 300 ppm increase in atmospheric carbon
dioxide can be expected about the middle of the next century. What a wonderful time that
will be.
1. The Sun drives climate change and it will be colder next
decade by 2.0 degrees centigrade.
2. The anthropogenic carbon dioxide effect is real, minuscule
and too small to be measured.
3. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will boost
agricultural production.
4. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is wholly beneficial.
The carbon dioxide that Mankind will put into the atmosphere over the
next few hundred years will offset a couple of millenia of post-Holocene Optimum cooling
before we plunge into the next ice age. In the near term, the Earth will experience a
significant cooling due to a quieter Sun.
From Scientists NOT economists, bankers, activists, Marxists and politicians.
Source: Dr. David Archibald
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Trevor @ 231
Excellent post Trevor.
Might I suggest you repost it on the latest thread at:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/07/monckton-to-turnbull-challenge-to-an-absolute-banker/comment-page-5/#comment-406912
20
Not to mention that science is not based on agreement by anybody, but by physical evidence, a theory that can explain the evidence and successfully forecast the outcome of an experiment.
As far as I am aware, no forecasts based on the CAGW conjecture have passed that test.
Right at the moment New Zealand is experiencing some of the coldest weather for several decades with snow right up well into the North Island. Wasn’t Global Warming going to make snow a forgotten experience for succeeding generations?
The clincher will be the continuing colder weather, in both hemispheres, over the next few years. There will cease to be any way to ‘spin’ that into a hidden catastrophe just delayed a little. Even the simple minded won’t have any difficulty, then, of seeing through all the current scare-mongering despite all the sophistry in which it is cloaked.
Paul
10
An old Rumanian once said: “If you are young and not a socialist, you have no heart. If you are old and still a socialist, you have no brain”. Rupert Murdoch embraced Marxist ideals in his youth, yet he grew out of socialism. It’s possible he can see what Vaclav Klaus and Patrick Moore see in the deep-Green movement, with its calls for more regulation of people’s lives under the excuse to ‘save the environment’: a danger to our liberty.
These people have not abandoned their original lofty ideals. They just discovered, like many of us, that an ideology of social control was not going to realize those goals.
‘The Australian’ has not been biased. It has merely been more even-handed than ‘their’ ABC, SMH and the others that diligently gave us only one side of the story.
I also agree that we should press for de-funding and retiring dear old Auntie after the next election. Denniss’ pathetic medical analogies could apply here: the illness has progressed too far to be helped by purges or emetics. Wendy Carlisle can easily find another job. I would recommend something in sales or public relations?
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Arie Brand probably means something from Wiki about Ball and Singer!
Unless it came from the warmist gurus with their band of media sycophants and ABC selected “specialists” who want us tattooed and to die by overdosing on Co2???
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Complaints of bias and factual inaccuracy leelled against my story “The Lord Monckton Roadshow” were dismissed by the Austrslian Broadcasting Authority”
You can download the report on ANC radio National’s website
10
The ACMA report Wendy Carlisle refers to can be found HERE
A 22 page PDF.
Readers should take the time to study the report and make up their own minds.
I have read the report and make the following observations.
* The ACMA accepts the ABC claim that the report was about debating styles and not scientific fine detail.
* The section on sea level rise [section 2 starting on page 8] is a good indicator of the perspective this report takes. ACMA was not interested in “fine detail” but only interested in what an “average, reasonable person” might take from the Carlisle report.
This may be OK for general programs Wendy, but the subject of AGW is not a general subject. Anyone who has spent some time studying the debate would/should know that the debate is deep in the science.
You should have known this and it was obvious from your RN programme that you did know this.
Therefore, defending yourself (via a submission to the ACMA by the ABC) by saying the programme was about debating styles is disingenuous at best. A technicality out typically used by politicians, large corporate types and used car salesmen.
If your RN programme was about debating styles, you should have stuck to that instead of getting into the merits or otherwise of shoddy climate science papers such as Monnett et al and the 4 dead polar bears (not to mention Al Gores shoddy, fraudulent movie).
By necessity, the ACMA has to have a narrow view in relation to a complaint (stick to the letter of the complaint if you will), but the rest of us don’t have to.
Those of us who are familiar with your coverage of the Monckton tour realise that you were not impartial and that you attempted a hatchett job on Monckton.
You should be ashamed to call yourself a journalist.
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The “Background Briefing” was supposedly about the backers and background of the Monckton tour. David and I spoke on the tour, and we support our own work which I explained when Wendy interviewed me. She heard us both speak at least twice. Instead of reporting to Australians that skeptics are volunteers working out of professional and patriotic duty, Wendy hid that “inconvenient” but very relevant information. Instead she went out of her way (right around the world) to attack people who were not on the tour and only distantly connected with tenuous slurs. Thus this was not a briefing of the background, it was a select set of “facts” to support Wendy’s uninformed personal views.
Her bias is obvious. The taxpayer should not be funding it.
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