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O woe betide those who are losing. Graham Readfearn moans and laments the Green-Labor losses that are likely to come nationally in the near future. Readfern packs the whole kit-and-kaboodle of fallacies, misnomers, and confounded reasoning into one article.
“Anyone who places any stock in safeguarding the current and future climate (and for that matter anyone who doesn’t) should prepare themselves for the risk that very soon, climate science deniers, contrarians and sceptics will be running the show.
But who are the deniers here? Readfearn fashions himself as a bit of an expert on deniers, so you’d think he’d be able to say what they deny. But Readfearn thinks skeptics deny that CO2 absorbs infra red:
“To Pearson and others, the experiments of John Tyndall in 1859 which established the warming properties of what we now know to be greenhouse gases just didn’t happen.
Dear Graham, if you bother to get accurate you’ll note that Spencer, Lindzen, Monckton, Michaels, Douglass, Singer, Idso, Knox, Soon, Svensmark, Christie, Watts, Carter, Giaever, Schmitt and I could go on (Evans, and dare I say Nova in that list) — all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It may come […]
Two major proxy studies, larger than ever, were released in April and June 2012. They show that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) existed, and was similar to current temperatures. These comprehensive studies suggest current temperatures are not unusual, and that itself is not all that surprising — I’ve mentioned before how there are hundreds of proxy studies showing it was as warm or warmer back then. (CO2science has been documenting them.) But these studies are worth a mention because they are so large.
Climate models cannot explain what caused the warming 1000 years ago, nor the cooling 300 years ago, so they can’t rule out the same factors aren’t changing the climate today (though they claim they can). If climate models can’t explain the past, they can’t predict the future.
The last 12 Centuries
Ljungqvist used 120 proxy records — nearly 3 times as many proxies as previous studies and conclude: “during the 9th to 11th centuries there was widespread NH warmth comparable in both geographic extent and level to that of the 20th century”. Their proxies included ice-cores, pollen, marine sediments, lake sediments, tree-rings, speleothems and historical documentary data.
Ljungqvistet al 2012 Fig. 4. Mean time-series of centennial […]
“Hangout with the Prime Minister“
There are only hours to go before the three winning questions that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard must answer are decided. Andrew Bolt noticed that the author of one question got US voters involved. (From BOLT: It seems the author has got US Internet forums to help. Also here: not-so-pointless-poll-on-australian-chaplains / aggregator | AtheistAus | pzmyers. “Should blog readers fight fire with fire? It does seem odd having US readers demand answers from an Australian PM that they’ll almost certainly won’t hear about a program that doesn’t affect them in the slightest.”)
Those who log in can register 8 votes. But it closes very soon: Voting ends on July 19th at 5 PM.
At the moment:
Q1
“Dear Prime Minister, as the first female, atheist, unmarried Prime Minister of Australia, and leader of a self-described socially progressive party, how do you explain your opposition to same-sex marriage and “deeply held” belief that same-sex…”
Q2
“Dear Prime Minister. Against the strongly expressed concerns of mental health professionals, teacher unions and secular organisations, why do you allow the outrageous situation to continue where largely unqualified, religious evangelists have access…”
Q3
“By how much, measured in thousandths of […]
So much for that global “free” market.
Scott the trader writes to explain that the EU “CER” credits are the ones people can buy and exchange for Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) but they have sunk to $4. The more expensive $9 EUA units that most commentators mention, are not exchangeable in the Australian market:
“The EU CER price is equivalent to about A$3.80 per tonne… Almost $20 below Australia’s fixed price. These are the products most comparable to Australia’s $23/Tonne as it will be CERs that we can surrender instead of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to satisfy an Australian Clean Energy Scheme liability. It is incorrect as most media commentators are doing in Australia to compare to EUAs which are at about $9 Australian. Australia cannot access EUA’s to satisfy our carbon liabilities. The only comparison is $3.80/T for a CER and $23/T for an ACCU.”
So most commentators are comparing the wrong type of carbon credits, and the Australian market is even more overpriced than people recognize. Australians will be paying 500% more than the largest carbon market in the world.
The Australian scheme is the most expensive, and most ambitious in the […]
Topher did the brilliant “Forbidden History” video, which has hit 50,000 views and he wants to make two more to remind people of the importance of free speech.
There are only hours to help him to reach the tally. Pledges are only processed if the total hits $35k and I hear that there is a big donor as yet unlisted, and the remaining gap is small, so those last promises today might make all the difference.
The post here last month on The Forbidden History of Unpopular People garnered a very enthusiastic response.
“It’s about arrogance, it’s about powerful people here in Australia who believe that they are smarter than you, that their opinion is worth more than your opinion, and that their thinking is better than your thinking, and if you think they’re wrong, you should just shut up.”
Help stop the News Media Gestapo
I’m sorry I wasn’t onto this earlier in the piece…
8.8 out of 10 based on 33 ratings […]
When independent auditors found errors, gaps and deep questions about the HQ (High Quality) dataset for the official record of Australian temperatures, the BOM responded by producing a completely new set called ACORN in March 2012. But this set is also plagued with errors. One of the independent auditors, Ed Thurstan writes to me to explain that though the BOM says it aimed for the “best possible data set” and specified that they check internal consistency of data (one such check is to make sure that the maximum on any given day is larger than the minimum) when Thurstan double checked ACORN he found nearly 1000 instances where the max temperatures were lower than the minimums recorded the same day.
This raises serious questions about the quality control of the Australian data that are so serious, Thurstan asks whether the whole set should be withdrawn.
Why are basic checks like these left to unpaid volunteers, while Australian citizens pay $10 billion a year to reduce a warming trend recorded in a data set so poor that it’s not possible to draw any conclusions about the real current trend we are supposedly so concerned […]
Australia’s hottest day? Not 2010, but 1828 at a blistering 53.9 °C
Back before man-made climate change was frying Australia, when CO2 was around 300ppm, the continent savoured an ideal preindustrial climate, right? (This is the kind of climate we are spending $10bn per annum to get back too?)
We are told today’s climate has more records and more extremes than times gone by, but the few records we have from the early 1800’s are eye-popping. Things were not just hotter, but so wildly hot it burst thermometers. The earliest temperature records we have show that Australia was a land of shocking heatwaves and droughts, except for when it was bitterly cold or raging in flood.
In other words, nothing has changed, except possibly things might not be quite so hot now.
Silliggy (Lance Pidgeon) has been researching records from early explorers and from newspapers. What he has uncovered is fascinating. — Jo
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Charles Sturt (1930 postage stamp) Wikimedia
Lance Pidgeon writes:
“EXTENSIVE FLOOD”, “AWFUL BUSH FIRES”, “PROLONGED DROUGHT“ AND “CHANGES OF CLIMATE“.
These Australian headlines from the 1800’s above describe extremes the early colonists faced. At the time the European explorers who were instructed […]
Two biology and environmental academics from Schenactady and Rensselaer Polytech New York were apparently concerned that their young prodigy might be lost from the religion of global warming (and misled by “Deniers”) so they put together together a guide to help others facing the onslaught of common sense and reason. The piece titled “Effective Strategies to Counter Campus Presentations on Climate Denial” was published in Eos.
What they didn’t do, was put forward empirical evidence. (If only they’d thought of that?)
The source of their angst? Christopher Monckton (of course) who spoke at Union College (thanks to CFACT), with help simultaneously from none other than Ivar Giaever (the Nobel Prize winning physicist we saw yesterday) who spoke at Rensselaer. (Imagine the very idea of a Nobel prize winning physicist speaking on campus about uncertainties of predicting the weather?)
Eos , Vol. 93, No. 27, 3 July 2012
Effective Strategies to Counter Campus Presentations on Climate Denial
Jeffrey D. Corbin and and Miriam E. Katz [PDF]
Assuming the world copied the Australian Carbon Tax… it will cost $2,000 trillion to cool the planet by one […]
The NZ Herald reports a new study showing that since 1988 there has been a sudden increase in the absorption of CO2 over land. It’s in the order of a billion tons of CO2 a year and amounts to 10% of all human emissions. As usual, the spinmeisters frame it in terms of our guilt instead of their ignorance. “Look! Things would have been worse and even warmer if not for this new unknown factor.”
But globally plants already emit about 80Gt per year. Finding one extra Gt of absorption is both predictable and largely insignificant. What this episode really shows is just how far the alarmist PR departments will go to find any excuse to cover up for two decades of poor predictions.
Dr David Evans, formerly a carbon modeler for the Australian Greenhouse Office calls the new discovery “just noise”:
Sounds impressive, but it’s not significant. Rough numbers: there are currently 800GtC (gigatonnes, or billion tonnes) of CO2 carbon in the atmosphere, and each year: plants oceans absorb 80GtC and emit 80GtC, oceans plants absorb 120GtC and emit 120Gt, and human emissions are 8GtC. (Notice that the total turnover in CO2 carbon each year is about […]
Dear Paul,
Thank you most sincerely for writing to reply to my email. Thank you for taking the time to contact Nature, and thank you for the recognition that the term “denier” causes offense.
Do we also agree that the term denier fails basic English, and cannot be defined as a scientific label because you still are unable to say what deniers deny?
“I think if you understood where skeptics were coming from it would help you design surveys that produced useful results. Basic research, like reading what leading skeptics were saying, would seem a bare minimum requirement before designing a study.”
As far as I can tell, I suspect what you feel deniers deny (though you appear reluctant to actually state it) is not any scientific observation, but the pronouncements of the highest authority of climate science (which you deem to be the IPCC).
“I do believe that the technical aspects of this debate should be between climate scientists, as with complex multi-disciplinary issues it is very easy for findings to be misconstrued by non-experts. Whether you like it or not, the majority of climate scientists agree that there is a high likelihood that anthropogenic climate change […]
I’m impressed (really quite surprised) that this made it to the top story of the front page of The Australian. The syllabus for Years 10 -12 science students in Queensland contains this nonsense. What is good about it though (see below) is how it forces influential science leaders in the country to pick sides. Is science a “consensus”? Even on Climate Change? No says the Dean of Deans…
The Queensland Studies Authority:
“Science is a social and cultural activity through which explanations of natural phenomena are generated,”
“Explanations of natural phenomena may be viewed as mental constructions based on personal experiences and result from a range of activities including observation, experimentation, imagination and discussion.
“Accepted scientific concepts, theories and models may be viewed as shared understandings that the scientific community perceive as viable in light of current available evidence.”
[QSA, Physics Senior Syllabus, 2007] [QSA Chemistry, 2007] [QSA, Biology 2004 amended 2006]
The answer from QSA (The Queensland Studies Authority)?
They said the statements concerning a view of science and science education should be read in the context of the entire syllabus and it was not, and was never intended to […]
Dr Paul Bain has replied to my second email to him which I do most appreciate. (For reference, see the letter he is replying to here: “My reply to Dr Paul Bain — on rational deniers and gullible believers” ). He deserves kudos for replying (it’s easier to ignore inconvenient emails), and also for taking some action to improve the article he published. I will reply properly as soon as I can. For the moment, and for fairness’s sake, it’s here for all to see.
Please be constructive and polite in comments. No, I don’t think there is any scientific reason (or definition in the English language) that validates the term “denier”, but Nature is going to publish an addendum this time, and that will be noticed by other researchers in the field. That is progress. Though there is a long way to go. — Jo
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Dear Jo (if I may)
I apologise for my long and delayed response – while I would like to be more succinct, I have to resort to Pascal’s excuse that I’m writing a long response because I didn’t have time to write a short one.
First, an update. As we all know, […]
Dr Paul Bain sent me his second reply to my second letter late on Friday, which I am grateful for. I’ll post it in a few hours (scheduled 9am Monday morning Eastern States time, which is 7pm NY Time). It seemed fairer to let the conversation unfold in business hours, rather than releasing it over the weekend or at midnight.
It’s your chance to help researchers studying skeptics learn more about what we think. — Jo
8.3 out of 10 based on 20 ratings
Keep talking…
6.1 out of 10 based on 23 ratings
It was a dumb memo to write:
“Brumby’s recommended some “simple things for you all to do to find some extra sales”.
“We are doing an RRP (recommended retail price) review at present which is projected to be in line with CPI (consumer price index), but take an opportunity to make some moves in June and July, let the carbon tax take the blame, after all your costs will be going up due to it,” Mr Priest wrote.”
“It is understood the newsletter was sent to franchise owners last month.” [The West Australian]
But the outcry about it is over-the-top. It has drawn national interest, been published on the news around the country. The company has issued apologies. The outrage has been so overdone, that today managing director of Brumbies bakery’s (Deane Priest) resigned.
The memo was dumb because it wasn’t suggesting a totally honest approach, and because it projected the wrong attitude to staff of Brumby’s, and it was especially dumb, because there is a witchhunt on for any business which blames a fraction of a cent more than they should on the carbon tax. With 300 stores across the country there was […]
We know there is something wrong when we pay public servants to serve us, and they provide us with temperature records that are not the same as the original data, but they won’t explain why they adjusted them. We know the system is rotten when the inexplicable adjustments are used as an excuse to take even more money. We’ve tried FOI to get the information, but they ignore it. We’ve asked the National Audit Office to audit the records, but the people who adjusted the records are essentially the same ones who control them, so they just changed the records again, and said the audit request applied to a set they did not use now.
Today we announce a new approach — Anthony Cox and others are pursuing the legal option. It’s a creative strategy — he‘s approaching this through consumer protection laws.
Is there a chance consumers could be misled by reports that don’t include the uncertainties? We think so. – -Jo
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Guest Post: Anthony Cox — Legal Action Against AGW
Image: Wikimedia
In New Zealand there is an ongoing legal action against the government producer […]
It was for a moment the clash of the Nobel Prize winners on climate change… just barely, but nothing like this has happened before in the debate-that-isn’t. Normally this is not a show the heavyweights turn up too. But there were three Nobel winners in the room at the same time.
Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland won the 1995 Nobel for work on Ozone. Both of the first two are fans of the man-made global warming theory and they both spoke just prior to notable skeptic Ivar Giaever (who won a Nobel for tunneling in superconductors in 1972). [UPDATE: Watch Giaever speak – the whole speech – it’s excellent. h/t Roberto Soria]
As usual, the core arguments of believers comes down to argument from authority. Can they attack the credentials of the dissenters? The skeptics, the real scientists, talk about evidence.
From Scientific American by Mariette DiChristina
Crutzen:
“The scientific evidence is really overwhelming. Most experts agree; maybe two or three in 100 disagree.” He added, “I know who they are and why they are wrong.”
8.7 out of 10 based on 146 ratings […]
Australians are spending $77 million a week to try to replicate the stable climate we had with CO2 at 280ppm. So just how ideal was that climate? Newspaper reports of the times were filled with stories of droughts, then floods, bitter cold, and fires that wasted the land. Hmm. Something to aim for then?
And what did the scientists of the day say then? Back before anyone had a hand-calculator or a satellite, the choices were: Orbits, natural cycles, magnetic effects and man’s influence. How times have… not really changed all that much.
Published in 1860 The Sydney Morning Herald.
THE following paper was read at the fortieth monthly meeting of the Australian Horticultural and Agri- cultural Society, on Tuesday evening, by Mr. Robert Meston.
If the 60 year PDO cycle is sketched backwards we would expect temps to be cooler in the 1790’s and 1850’s and hotter in the 1820’s and 1890’s.
During the “perfect” climate of the preindustrial era — apparently there were still floods and storms. (?!)
“To begin with British observations. 1697-98-99 were three bad years—years of floods and storms. 1700 proved hot and dry during sum- mer, and 1703 […]
Just which Big Scare Campaign is the worst?
Thanks to Thanks to Steve Hunter h/t Andy’s Rant.
The Australian Labor Party has been crying “Tony Abbott’s Scare Campaign” in every second interview on the carbon tax. I guess we could call this whipping up a scare about the scare campaign. Except that Abbott was responding to the primary scare, so cries of “Scary Abbott” are the counter scare to the scare that counters the real scare campaign.
We’re not just talking of job losses and electricity bills. The ALP forecasts Hell. The prophesies are for centuries of killer heatwaves and mega-fires — seas may rise 7 m threatening 700,000 houses and melting Greenland; the houses that aren’t inundated might be razed by fire; acid will leach through the oceans wiping out the Great Barrier Reef (and 60,000 jobs). The entire agriculture industry of the Murray Darling irrigation basin will disappear….and deadly mosquito plagues will spread and put more than a million people at risk.
The Labor Party are The Primary Scareholders
Here’s a member of Parliament doing his best to scare the pants off Australians (guess who?)
Excerpted:
“The massive stores of heat in the […]
Australians will pay $77 million per week in carbon taxes, while Europe with the 30 most green countries pays just one third of that, according to the Mineral Council of Australia.
“Australia’s carbon tax starts generating $77.3 million per week from today. New figures from the Centre for International Economics show that Europe’s emissions trading scheme — which covers 30 nations — has generated $23m per week so far in 2012.”
Wholesale electricity prices have stepped up by $21-25MWh (roughly doubling) overnight across the three largest states – apparently $2 more than was expected.
The ACCI points out the contradiction in sending a price signal but intimidating anyone who dares to say how big that signal is.
THE Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has taken a swipe at the consumer watchdog, accusing it of intimidating commercial operations and trying to mask the cost impact of the carbon tax on business.
ACCI’s director of economics and industry policy, Greg Evans, said yesterday the purpose of the carbon tax was to introduce a price signal into the market, but the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission was trying to prevent businesses from attributing increases to […]
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