“Skeptics” are described as if they are one small block of fringe extremists, but not only is half the population skeptical in some sense, in this debate I am not on either extreme, but a centrist, smack in the middle. On the one hand, alarmists are convinced the climate is headed for a catastrophe, and on the other some people are convinced there is no greenhouse effect at all. Wes Allen, sits in the middle with me, and he’s been engaged in an intense debate with people on both ends of the spectrum. After a scorching critique of Tim Flannery’s work, he has swung his attention the other way. Here is his synopsis of the Slayers book, for discussion, and I’m sure it will generate a long passionate defence and debate, just as previous posts on this topic have. (eg: Why greenhouse gas warming doesn’t break the second law of thermodynamics and So what is the Second Darn Law?). I know the Slayers are keen to discuss their ideas. I’m hopeful people can remain polite, as that’s where progress may be made… many thanks to Wes here who has done a diligent write up, and has […]
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October 21st, 2012 | Tags: Allen (Wes), Greenhouse Effect, Slayers | Category: Global Warming |  Print This Post | | For all those thoughts that don’t belong… 7.6 out of 10 based on 29 ratings In May it was all over the newspapers, in June it was shown to be badly flawed. By October, it quietly gets withdrawn. The apology and press release are coming soon…right? Thanks to help from the Australian Research Council it only took 300,000 dollars and three years to produce a paper that lasted all of three weeks. But it scored the scary headlines! It was “confirmation”, it was “unprecedented warming”, and it was a scientific certainty that was based on “27 natural climate records” and “over the last 1000 years”. What could possibly go wrong? They had 2 whole proxies that went right back a thousand years, and they’d used computers (!) to rehash the data 3000 ways! Frankly, I’m surprised it lasted three weeks. Let’s remember that if one single journalist had simply asked “how much colder was it in 1200AD?” Gergis, Karoly and the rest would have had to say “0.09 of a degree”. No one asked. But Gergis et al, had a proxy in Tasmania, and another in New Zealand, and they were “confident” they could calculate the whole grand continental collective temperature to nine one hundredths of a degree? Seriously. As Mike E then pointed out […] October 19th, 2012 | Tags: ARC Grants, Gergis (Joelle) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | UPDATED (Already) Money is grubby thing, but financial independence means freedom. Freedom to spend time writing what a heart believes instead of what an employer demands. (Freedom to follow the most inexplicable whim — like tossing the 9-5 day to debate details of dendroclimatology with people who detest you). I wouldn’t be able to indulge in the luxury of writing this blog if it weren’t for the gold shares that keep food on the table. Next Monday David is speaking at The Gold Symposium in Sydney. (I’ll be in the audience.) Who should go? — only people who don’t want to be poor. I want to see both these independent conferences succeed (The AEF too), I want to share the word about both money and science, and I want to help independent spirits meet up. That’s why I’m giving them both a shameless plug before the article. There is a big overlap between gold and skepticism: skeptical of government science often means skeptical of government money too (see We are all Austrians now). For the pure-science readers here, it may all seem thoroughly odd, but while some will paint gold as a fatuous symbol of pointless wealth – and sometimes […] October 17th, 2012 | Tags: Evans (David), Gold, Social Events for Skeptics | Category: Big-Government, Economics, Event, Monetary History | Print This Post | | Prof Stephan Lewandowsky had to make an ethics committee application in order to survey anti-skeptics to “find out” whether skeptics are conspiracy mad nutters (as you would). Simon Turnill launched an FOI to ask for information and has received some information. Turnill wondered why the application seemed so unrelated to the survey. I pointed out that I’d seen a different Lewandowsky paper that fitted the description in the application. Simon hunted and found Popular Consensus: Climate Change Set to Continue (where Lewandowsky shows people in the Hay St. Mall, in Perth, some “stock market” graphs and asks them to extrapolate the trend). Lewandowsky appears to have obtained an ethics approval for this bland paper, and then put in a last minute request for a “slight modification” which was for an entirely different survey for a different purpose and an unrelated paper, and which, as it happens, uses an internet survey rather than a face to face one. But apart from that… it was nearly the same. Worse, Turnill found that by the time Lewandowsky was finalizing the ethics application in August 2010, he’d already done that bland survey fully 7 months before, and the paper was almost finished. The […] October 16th, 2012 | Tags: Lewandowsky (Stephan), UWA | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | It’s hard to measure sea levels, because land often moves up and down too (which is known as “isostatic“). But Australia is stable tectonically, so the Australian sea-level record is more useful than most. It preserves the holocene era and the rises and falls, and correspond more with glacio-eustatic (ice equivalent) sea-level changes, rather than changes in land masses. During the coldest days of the last ice age (known as a glacial maximum) 20,000 years ago, the oceans were 125m lower than today. They peaked at around 1 -2 meters higher than present between 9000 and 5000 years ago, and have been trending down ever since. Our current rate of 30cm/century (if that continues) hardly seems unprecedented or highly unusual. And 10% of that is apparently due to an isostatic “adjustment”. Worse, if you look at the raw data, the rate is closer to zero. Hmm. Lucky we have all those adjustments eh? If Australian sea levels keep falling at this rate, we might really need to save That Reef. Clearly there are many details yet to be worked out about sea-levels. That phenomenal rise out of the ice age: …
WA and NSW coastlines are considered the […] October 15th, 2012 | Tags: Evidence, Holocene, Sea Level | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Anything you want to discuss? – Jo 8.4 out of 10 based on 14 ratings Follow the money. As usual the Green trail ends at a Greenback (so-to-speak). In this case it’s the euro-colored kind. The EU is focusing on “first generation” biofuels — corn, soy, sugar and palm oil — which pushes up prices of food, and cuts down forests. (In a recent study, sugar cane ethanol was shown to produce 10 times the pollution of gasoline and diesel.) In contrast “second generation” biofuels are waste products. If the EU were interested in the environment, they would favour the second type. Instead, the policy hurts the poor and enriches the rich and does little to help the environment. In 2010, Indur Goklany calculated the additional mortality burden of biofuels policies and found that nearly 200,000 people died in that year alone because of efforts to use biofuels to reduce CO2 emissions. Where are the Greens protests? Jo The press release: Biofuels benefit billionaires 8.5 out of 10 based on 56 ratings […] In a move of Olympian audacity, Seth Borenstein keeps a straight face and shamelessly shifts to pretending that more Antarctic sea-ice fits their climate change theory. Yet again climate models fail to predict things in advance, they only do the post modern type of prediction — the bury-my-bewilderment type, after the fact. Once more, nothing can disprove the theory of man-made climate catastrophe. The oceans are warming, but that now means less sea ice in the Arctic, and more sea-ice in the Antarctic. Of course! Shifts in wind patterns and the giant ozone hole over the Antarctic this time of year — both related to human activity — are probably behind the increase in ice, experts say. This subtle growth in winter sea ice since scientists began measuring it in 1979 was initially surprising, they say, but makes sense the more it is studied. The only point of science is to predict things. But when alarmist predictions turn out to be wrong, Borenstein and co don’t adjust the theory, they pretend post hoc that the new results “fitted” all along, and radiate collective amnesia about the hundreds of times they “experts” predicted the opposite. Antarctic sea ice hit record highs […] When everything else about being Green turns out to be a pox on the environment, it’s no surprise that electric cars are too. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology study found greenhouse gas emissions [of electric cars] rose dramatically if coal was used to produce the electricity. Electric car factories also emitted more toxic waste than conventional car factories, their report in the Journal of Industrial Ecology said. So electric cars are only bad if they are powered by coal fired electricity, or made in a factory. Oh. Presumably the aspiring Green needs a hand-made hydroelectric car, right? That, or the kind of car that has 18 gears, a chain and two wheels. The kicker with electric vehicles, or EVs, is that awful secret that batteries don’t grow on trees, don’t recharge spontaneously either, and need replacing every five years or so. There is no getting around the fact that electric vehicles need electricity. They may not emit any evil CO2 themselves, but they have to get those electrons from somewhere, and in most places that’s from coal. And it wasn’t just the coal, it was other stages of the “life-cycle” too. The production of EVs produced about twice […] At the end of next week, the Australian Environment Foundation is hosting its annual conference. I had such a good time at the last one I attended (in 2009) that I’m going again, this time, not as a speaker, but just to be there. Bob Carter is attending too. This is one of the rare events this year to spend time with passionate rational people in Australia — people who are interested in the outcomes, not just the intentions. Find out the latest developments in protecting the environment with a pragmatic, science-based approach. And it’s not just about the speeches, the conference also includes a Tall Ships Cruise, a Gala Dinner, informal drinks, and an open forum. The conference covers the science of fisheries, wind farms, water resources, temperature records, indigenous land-management and the economics (from a former reserve bank board member) of the carbon tax. Costs between $85 – $250 (depending on membership and the events chosen). Details: Word, pdf or PayPal Conference programme Little Green Lies, by Jeff Bennett Professor of Environmental Management in the Crawford School of Economics and Government, ANU Saturday October 20th The annual conference will be addressed by the following speakers: […] Some skeptics wonder why I bother pursing and documenting the problems with Lewandowsky et al 2012 and with the blog ShapingTomorrowsWorld. They figure that all skeptics now know the papers dismal failings, and it’s clear that Lewandowsky is unlikely to be grateful for the help. But Lewandowsky exposes people higher up to awkward questions. Why do they fund work so unscientific? Why do they allow such hypocrisy and bias on a government funded publication? Are standards at the University of Western Australia (UWA) so low that they can’t find a Professor who understands the scientific method, and can reason without name-calling? Aren’t other statisticians at UWA concerned at what Lewandowsky is doing to the reputation of “UWA Statistics”? Finally, aren’t the scientists who missed out on ARC funding angry that our taxpayer funds are given instead to someone who apparently uses the funds to promote his personal political views, instead of in the pursuit of knowledge? (See: Lewandowsky gets $1.7m of taxpayer funds to denigrate people who disagree with him) The abject incompetence is a gift to us. Rarely is a study so outrageously bad that people with no scientific background […] October 7th, 2012 | Tags: Lewandowsky (Stephan), UWA | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Credit: S. Ross et al., UNCW We already know that pH varies naturally across the oceans of the world. In some sites, it varies more in a single day than global oceans are likely to face in a century. But cold water corals live in deep water, are slow growing, and hard to study. Six years ago, experts in cold water corals were telling us how they would be likely to fall victim to ocean acidification first, and that they believed this for good reasons but with little experimental data. But about a year ago data came out (by one of those same experts) showing that rather than being the badly affected, cold water corals adapted to effectively very high levels of CO2 and possibly even increased their calcification rates. Eight days after the pH was changed suddenly, the corals did worse. But when the experiment was continued for six months, the results turned right around. The researchers pointed out how useful longer studies are: “This is the first evidence of successful acclimation in a coral species to ocean acidification, emphasizing the general need for long-term incubations”. The paper is called “Acclimation to ocean acidification during long-term CO2 exposure […] October 5th, 2012 | Tags: Corals, Ocean Acidification | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Good on you Chris Tangey. Chris Tangey captured moving images of a dust storm picking up a bushfire. He’s turned down some income to stand on his principles. Al Gore wanted to use the awesome shots of a dust devil picking up a bushfire, which happened on Sept 11, 360km southwest of Alice Springs at Curtin Springs Station. When Al Gores office asked for rights to use the footage, Tangey knocked him back. He felt its use in a climate change setting would be “deliberately deceptive” and that it was “difficult for me to imagine a fire event less relevant”. “I am aware that you may have missed the reporting on the very localised nature of this firestorm,” Tangey wrote. “However, in any case, I am confused as to why you would offer to buy a licence to use it at all unless you had conducted even elementary research which might indicate that this Mt Conner event had direct linkage to global warming/climate change.” 9.3 out of 10 based on 120 ratings […] by Joanne Nova and Anthony Cox UPDATED: See also Has the EPA done due diligence on the IPCC Report. The theory that failed It takes only one experiment to disprove a theory. The climate models are predicting a global disaster, but the empirical evidence disagrees. The theory of catastrophic man-made global warming has been tested from many independent angles. The heat is missing from oceans; it’s missing from the upper troposphere. The clouds are not behaving as predicted. The models can’t predict the short term, the regional, or the long term. They don’t predict the past. How could they predict the future? The models didn’t correctly predict changes in outgoing radiation, or the humidity and temperature trends of the upper troposphere. The single most important fact, dominating everything else, is that the ocean heat content has barely increased since 2003 (and quite possibly decreased) counter to the simulations. In a best case scenario, any increase reported is not enough. Models can’t predict local and regional patterns or seasonal effects, yet modelers add up all the erroneous micro-estimates and claim to produce an accurate macro global forecast. Most of the warming happened in a step change in 1977, […] October 2nd, 2012 | Tags: Climate Models, Climate Sensitivity, Evidence, Evidence (AGW disproved) | Category: Atmosphere, Evidence, Global Warming | Print This Post | | Report your site and email troubles here (if you can). I gather some people are getting patchy access, and having trouble emailing me. We moved the site again last night, and the changes propagate throughout the global network some people appear to be losing access temporarily. As it happens my access is faster than ever — so hopefully yours will be too, soon. (Thank Andrew for that). Perhaps clear those caches… (yes, that’s a message for all the people who can’t read this ;-)). Somehow I have about ten articles in draft and none of them quite ready. There is a lot on the boil… 9.4 out of 10 based on 42 ratings Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Two hundred and fifty years ago the pamphleteers were the bloggers of the day. The Finkelstein plan in Australia is a modern version of the License of the Press under George III. Another excuse to tell people what they are allowed to read. One John Wilkes was elected MP for Aylesbury in 1757. George III soon-to-be-crowned King, arranged for his friend the Earl of Bute to get the job of PM. Wilkes wasn’t too happy with that. He thought Bute was incompetent, and so when one supporter of Bute started a newsletter called The Briton, it was only eight days later that Wilkes started his own newsletter, called the North Briton in response. Wilkes wrote anonymously each week, but his 45th edition was too much for George III and Wilkes was charged with Libel for accusing the George of lying, and he was tossed in the Tower. He challenged the arrest and won (eventually). His speeches during the trial became famous and had people chanting “liberty and Wilkes” in the streets. Sadly troops fired on the protesters, killing seven, in the Massacre of St George’s Field. The cry of “45” (from the […] September 29th, 2012 | Tags: Free Speech, UK | Category: Big-Government, Free Speech, Global Warming | Print This Post | | There are many details to iron out, but thanks to some pesky hacks, I now have a bigger support team, a larger network of shared expertise, a much larger server and eventually, as we work through the site, a more efficient, faster site, that is more resilient, more stable, with a better back up system. I’ve also had a few very helpful donations. We’re not protected by a soft media, a large public purse, and we don’t hide behind a censored fake debate as so many do. They can attack, but it only makes us stronger. More soon…
Please report things you notice here that need a fix. We are aware of the thumbs up, and a few missing image links. Tell us how the service works for you. The Temporary site is still up, and may stay there indefinitely. So if you had a comment or conversation there: Not there yet, Still not there yet, I needed a holiday and “Sunny Days” . Thanks for your patience.
Australian Environment Foundation Conference in Sydney Meet like-minded people and be a part of some rational science in Sydney on Oct 20 & 21. David Evans is a keynote speaker, […] From the file of “Things that would really be catastrophic”. Did a meteor have a role in a major shift in Earth’s Climate? The start of the Quaternary period (2.588 million years ago, where the Pliocene became Pleistocene) coincides with evidence of a mega tsunami in the South Pacific. The Eltanin Meteor fell into the South Pacific 2.5 million years ago setting off a (likely) tsunami that was hundreds of meters high and theoretically pushed mass material into the atmosphere which may have contributed to the cooling the globe had already started on. This meteor was hard to detect because it hit the ocean rather than the land. But researchers have pieced together evidence of the mass tsunami on continents around the pacific rim. Figure 1. Possible effects of the Eltanin megatsunami. (A) Composite model of wave amplitudes for the South Pacific [modified after Ward and Asphaug (2002) but with a greater decay rate of wave amplitude away from the impact point; this produces lower wave amplitudes on affected coasts, more in line with recent findings but not as low as those proposed by Shuvalov and Trubetskaya (2007)]: ANT, Antarctica; AU, Australia; NZ, New Zealand; SA, South America. (B) […] September 21st, 2012 | Tags: Meteor, Pacific Ocean, Paleohistory | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | The Lewandowsky view is Drilling into noise. The McIntyre response: Lewandowsky’s Fake Correlation My favourite Lewandowsky line is: “We cannot get into the details here…” McIntyre can and does in gory depth. He posts the equations, the code, the tables, everything. He graphs the residuals, and shows the “severe non-normality” of them. He tests the correlation and finds that the two most obvious fake responses heavily affect the results: “Lewandowsky is absolutely off-base in his assertion that the examination of outliers is inappropriate statistical analysis. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case: proper statistical analysis REQUIRES the examination of outliers.” “One can readily see that the two super-scammers (889, 963) contribute essentially 100% (over 100%) actually of the negative correlation between CauseHIV and CYMoon in this calculation.” Lewandowsky says: “no one who has toyed with our data has thus far exhibited any knowledge of the crucial notion of a latent construct or latent variable.” McIntyre replies: “Principal components, a frequent topic at this blog, are a form of latent variable analysis.” As a former graduate of UWA, this is embarrassing. Does UWA not teach and use rigorous statistical methods? Is there no one who can help him? Plus, when […] September 19th, 2012 | Tags: Lewandowsky (Stephan), McIntyre (Steven) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | |
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