Are the”rellies” asking what they can buy you for Christmas? Have you got friends who are skeptic-leaning and might appreciate an easy-going, cartoon-loaded book? Problem solved : -) Order it here.
This is a book like no other. Carter and Spooner make a special combination. Readers here will know Bob Carter, who is a well known long-standing skeptical marine geologist, who has written Climate: the Counter Consensus (2010) and published countless papers. He’s formerly a Professor and Head of Earth Sciences at James Cook University (until JCU caved in to political correctness in a tale of remarkable petty spite).
People may not realize that John Spooner is a prize winning cartoonist for The-not-so-skeptical-Age daily newspaper in Melbourne. He has won too many prizes to list (see here) and is a brilliant political satirist with exceptional skill at the art of caricatures. It’s worth buying the book just to read the first chapter written by Spooner, once-upon-a-time-a-lawyer turned cartoonist. The best cartoonists have to be smart– if they aren’t a step ahead, it isn’t funny.
“Every cartoonist and satirist in the world, not to mention the investigative reporters, should by now have had their bullshit detectors on high alert. If the evidence was so good and the sceptical scientists were so weak, wrong and so few in number, then why the need for such rancorous politics? If you have the UN, the EU, the banks, the financial markets, most of the clergy and the media on your side, then why this dishonorable nastiness as well? I’ve always hated bullies…”
“As anyone familiar with the judicial process knows, the gravest issues of liberty and fortune are often determined by a jury selected from the general public. … in the end it is the jury that decides which version of the scientific evidence is to be believes. No one in a civilized society is daunted by this process. We accept the outcome…” — John Spooner
The book is currently #12 in Amazons list of Natural Resources on kindle. See more cartoons and reviews below…
Thanks to John Spooner for permission to publish these.
Make no mistake, this book is not just cartoons, but really about the science (in a friendly way) as well as politics. The book is even richer for the influence of Bill Kinninmonth, Martin Feil, Stewart Franks, and Bryan Leyland. For overseas readers, not that it’s definitely colored with an Australian flavor, though the rules are universal. (See Lubos’s review for a description of the contents and chapters and you’ll see what I mean).
“…it is deeply refreshing to read the new book called Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies About Climate Change by the internationally respected geologist Bob Carter and illustrated by the cartoonist John Spooner, which puts climate change exactly where it should be – in perspective. After demolishing many other arguments for carbon taxes and climate alarm, Carter runs through recent weather events, showing that there is nothing exceptional, let alone unprecedented, about recent droughts, floods, heat waves, cyclones or changes to the Great Barrier Reef.Carter is a courageous man, because within academia those who do not accept that climate change is dangerous are often bullied.“[The authors of Taxing Air] calmly, analytically and totally dismantle the global warming stupidity. They explain the basics of climate; they pose and answer the most basic questions – which are usually skated over or ignored by the so-called consensus – about global temperatures, their change or not, over time, and the various claims about them. … The extent of the relentless, sheer, never-ending industrial scale stupidity that Carter-Spooner clinically but devastatingly expose.”
— Terry McCrann, The Australian
“I’ve read a lot of books on climate change from both sides of the debate, and I think this one … is a standout. And I think it … should be in every school, every university, every community library, and especially in the offices of every federal and state MP in the country. It really does deserve to be widely read.”
–Nick Minchin, Former Senator and Minister for Finance
— see all the reviews at TaxingAir
Go to TaxingAir.com to buy it for $30.
Amazon sells a kindle version: Taxing Air
* * *
REFERENCE
Carter, Robert M.; Spooner, J.; with Bill Kinninmonth, Martin Feil, Stewart Franks, Bryan Leyland. (2013). Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies about Climate Change. Kelpie Press. ISBN 9780646902180.
I notice Fishpond.com.au offer free postage Australia-wide.
I got my copy from the publisher months ago, and postage was $10.
40
Yeah, a great read. Got an autographed copy that is for my cousin, Sean. Got to read it first, of course.
Caught up with Bob on his Brisbane book launch. Have talked with Bob on certain occasions. For those that have not had the pleasure…”Salt of the Earth” comes to mind.
100
Nice to hear because he comes across that way, I hope to someday have the pleasure.
40
Scaper
You’re not wrong about Bob Carter. Only had the pleasure once (so far) but a true and genuine (emphasise GENUINE) guy. A true gentleman who combines scientific knowledge with human empathy to us lesser lights scratching for the truth.
Hear him out.
Cheers,
Speedy
50
Scaper
Very true. I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting Bob Carter once (so far) but was impressed by him as a scientist and someone with deep human empathy.
It requires little learning to puff the ego of a fool; a wise man grows more humble as he accumulates knowledge.
Cheers,
Speedy
30
I’m sure he’s had his moments as a scientist, but did you pick up on his failings as a mathematician?
Bob Carter got climate sensitivity wrong when he expressed it as DeltaT=x*log(C=C0).
This means every single time he uses his wrong formula in his book, he gets the wrong result.
This is why you should rely more on properly peer-reviewed academic papers, and be more sceptical of pop-sci books that haven’t had the benefit of being checked and corrected by other scientists prior to publication.
That it, I am assuming you are in fact a sceptic?
38
Margot:
Rather than trying to teach us how to suck eggs on a piece of humour, how about giving a reference so that we can see how faithfully you have represented Carter’s formula for sensitivity.
As it is pretty standard and available in the IPCC report or Hansen’s papers, forgive me if I remain skeptical of your comments.
Can anyone confirm Margot’s statement?
30
Margot:
The following quote about peer review is from a guest editor of the Medical Journal of Australia.
You were saying?
40
Link to above quote,
http://www.scientific-alliance.org/scientific-alliance-newsletter/perils-peer-review
30
Margot, you seem to be under the false impression that believing something because someone else told you is “science”. It’s not. That’s actually the religious methodology of knowledge.
40
Had it for months, started to read it twice now. Just got to find the time to finish it, read Climate: the Counter-consensus, some time ago and enjoyed every word.
60
Ditto.
Both very good books, although Taxing Air better for non technical targets.
72
Why?
Do you think the non-technical benefit in some way from Bob Carter’s failure to understand let alone explain the difference between transient- and equilibrium climate sensitivity?
It’s a terrible book, full of boring political commentary (with Spooner admitting he gets his knowledge of climate science from a dodgy TV documentary), and not very clear on the science itself.
38
Translation – It doesn’t conform to your pre-determined ideology.
61
Do I have an ideology?
I merely require checkable facts. Bob’s “facts” have to be sifted out from among a blizzard of boring opinions and they are often checkably wrong, as I have demonstrated.
39
[SNIP]
32
[SNIP your criticism applies to you too. – J]
37
.
[SNIP]
62
[SNIP this is not a contributing sub-thread]
31
[SNIP]
42
[SNIP ha ha but OT]
32
[SNIP]
22
[SNIP droll. yes. But I’ve added a couple of new distracting words to the filter.]
32
[SNIP]
32
[SNIP]
32
[SNIP – j]
[I think we should call an end to this conversation at this point] -Fly
32
[SNIP]
22
I’ve sort of been expecting that – our Mods are not renowned for their sense of humour.
Still, it was fun while it lasted.
And worth the effort – our M&M’s can’t stand ridicule.
[Yes, we have no sense of humour, and we haven’t been fed yet either. But remember, it is better to win with logic and fact, than Ad Hominem statements. Personal attacks reflect badly on Jo. Please remember that in future.] -Fly
31
A mildly amusing riff while it lasted I suppose.
Ah, well. Normal service is now resumed. Management apologises for the interruptus…
31
Excellent book, one I can dip into for the answers when encountering yet again the propaganda of the warmists.
A good read whatever your age or background, all you need is an open inquiring mind. This of course excludes members of the ABC, Fairfax press, ALP, Greens …..
Buy this book for a warmist friend or relative this Xmas. Then when they spout their usual claptrap you can point them to a page in the book that explains or refutes their statement. Saves a lot of time.
Let’s try and get Bob Carter crowned as Australian of the Year.
130
Dan, what did your “open and enquiring” (and hopefully, “sceptical”) mind make of the following statement by Bob Carter:
“If earlier warming events cannot be attributed to increased carbon dioxide then it is not
logical to attribute the recent warming to a coincident increase in carbon dioxide”.
Did you swallow that?
[If you want to take a single line quote from a book Margot you need to provide chapter and page number so that context can be checked….Clearly for instance the sentence above would make absolute sense if ‘unexplained’ was inserted after ‘earlier’ which may be implied in the context…Mod]
27
[Moderated should have picked up earlier..Please read guide to commenting: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/02/guide-for-commenting/ …Mod]
32
Bwahahaha. Nice one.
Like most [snip can we do less namecalling, more reasoning, thanks – Jo] Margot only swallows information that agrees with her pre determined ideology.
Note the quote without context? Something she/he/it/whatever sooked about on a previous thread.
[Has Margot provided a page reference, a link, or something to allow us a sensible discussion? Jo]
32
I’m not swallowing anything. I am merely making a very basic observation as to the logic of a proposition that is clearly fallacious in and of itself.
Read it again and tell me if you really think Carter is correct.
38
[Moderated…..Mod]
32
C.O.N.T.E.X.T. Margot.
You have cut and paste a sentence which is obviously part of a larger body of text.
How about if I asked if you agree with this statement?
“The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade” – James Hansen.
Do you agree?
51
Speaking of fallacies, please admit that it is a fallacy to conclude that any policy action whatsoever follows from an alleged increase in temperatures.
11
Another charmer. We seem to have a surfeit of these here. You must be very proud, Jo.
37
.
[Moderated……..Mod]
42
MV actually Margot’s reference to “swallowing” was totally above board and polite. Unlike the gutter reactions.
[Thank you Mattb – yes the tone of the conversation at this site is expected to be higher quality. The conversation should have been picked up earlier. But we only have volunteer moderators so it is good when our usual high standard commentators can bring the tone back up. Mod]
56
MattyB,
I’ve spent the last couple of days gently and politely (well, for me) pointing out to Margot that her increasingly shambolic and hysterical cherry-picking, semantics splitting, spin doctoring, and outright tampering with the truth had reduced her to something of a standing joke amongst the regulars around here.
She has refused to get the message so now I’m treating her like the very poor – and usually tasteless – joke that she seems determined to become.
[Please read guide to commenting: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/02/guide-for-commenting/ ]
72
I suppose that swallowing is above board and polite, opposed to a gutter reaction of spitting. Thanks for setting people right on your colleague’s predilection.
[SNIP]
12
I would be so proud if I ran a website that attracted so many misogynists and tolerated their filthy and demeaning behaviour.
[The tone and content of the comments is against site policy Margot. We have auto pick up of certain words but those slipped through. Apologies for not picking it up earlier. We have volunteer moderators and we miss stuff. Guide to commenting is here: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/02/guide-for-commenting/ ……Mod]
47
“so many misogynists ” and now you channel that most obnoxious of ex-PM’s..
Are you part of the handbag parade (male or female)??
I don’t care about your assumed gender… [Moderated]
I don’t CARE if you are male, female or trans.. [Moderated]
End of story !
52
Margot, right now I can’t think of anything more worthy to do with my life than make you feel proud.
So I tell you what:
How about you set up a website and I’ll come and visit and bring my misogyny, and you can feel proud tolerating my filthy and demeaning behaviour***. I’m up for it if you are.
[Moderated]
62
I wouldn’t tolerate your vile behaviour for a second, for I have standards.
39
Aaaawwwww. Tissue? Teaspoon of concrete perhaps?
40
We all have standards, for they are a scale. It is where you sit on your scale that matters, and where your scale sits relative to the scales of others.
“There is nothing so relative, nor so flexible, nor so ephemeral, as personal standards, for the only measure is ‘mine are higher than yours'”. And you can quote me on that.
Or better still, quote Winston Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds? Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill, … Well, … I suppose I might, but we would need to discuss the circumstances, of course.” Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds? Socialite: “Mr Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!” Churchill: “Madam, we have already established that. What we are now doing, is haggling about the price.”
80
And ethics too, I’ll wager.
Just like Peter Gleick.
71
Margot:
Don’t know who swallows but it seems to me you are quite comfortable with pal reviewed material even if it is nonsense.
Do you swallow the accepted alarmist CO2 sensitivity given that it fails, and fails dismally, whether you take the last 15 years, 70 years or 140 years against claims by the IPCC or Hansen. Climate model runs all fail.
In science we normally turf out a failed hypothesis and don’t go overboard in twisting gyrations, screwed neck twirls and body contortions to try to breathe some life into it.
Anyone able to comment whether Margot’s quote faithfully reproduces the book; the full stop (period) is normally enclosed by the inverted commas in correct grammar usage.
50
The only place Margot’s quoted passage appears anywhere on the Googlesphere is in a critique of Taxing Air written by Ian Enting and presently residing on SkS, address of PDF as follows:
http://skepticalscience.com/docs/Comments_Taxing_Air.pdf
The quote is allegedly from page 37. I cannot comment on whether Ian Enting understood the quoted passage’s intended meaning as I don’t have the original book either.
00
Here’s the book launch of Taxing Air I came across a while back http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT3HKM01_Cc
Bob Carter is an Australian hero and more men need to grow beards in this country.
50
I agree!
I was privileged to meet JoNova, David Evans and Prof Bob Carter at the Australian Environmental Foundation Conference in Sydney last year. It was well worth the airfare from Melbourne to attend for the day (thanks Jo for the notification on your Blog). I was really disappointed that Jennifer Marohasy (former President) was not there.
Bob Carter was very nice and even tolerated my exposition about the Green House Gas Effect for quite a while during a sailing ship trip on Sydney Harbour. He seems not to have understood my argument however since his new book has a very different explanation!
30
Mr Spooner is obviously a prize winning cartoonist of a bygone Age.
100
Sorry, forgot the link
http://www.bandt.com.au/getmedia/6fd3ff02-340b-4c34-ab00-c30dbb55e3ed/Newspaper-ABC-june-2013.aspx
10
In fairness to the Age Newspaper, Spooner has been able to publish a number of sceptical cartoons and one long article in their pages,
40
Thank you Australian Government from the Canadian Government: Michael Smith News; http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2013/11/statement-from-the-government-of-canada-regarding-the-repeal-of-carbon-tax.html#comment-6a0177444b0c2e970d019b0102aba2970c
40
While you’re at it guys, how would you like to repatriate this shameless [moderated]? There is no place for deceitful manipulating [moderated] like Russel Norman in Godzone. You can have him back now if you like:-
https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/newsletters/Russel-climate-change-131113-web.html
[please keep language decent as per site rules……Mod]
20
Damn . . . moderated!
Seriously , I couldn’t have called him anything less immoderate . . . I toned it down as much as I could
Read the article , and make your own judgement. It’s the worst obscenity imaginable.
60
Good one farmerbraun,
Your comment keeps being pushed down the list. And I still don’t know what you called him!
00
Ill bite.
Christine Milne must have soiled several pairs of bloomers in joy on the news of the PI typhoon, especially on the back of the NSW fires. So deep is her desire to stay at the trough, she is happy to mislead the Senate today (see post below) and directly attribute the PI Typhoon to the Abbott Govt. So complete is her cynical view of the stupidity of the Australian public in thinking they buy her nonsense.
How desperately sad ones life must be to sit around praying for death and destruction to somehow prove your pathetic point. These people are parasites, no profanities required.
90
O.K I’ll post it again without the comments on Russel Norman’s parentage:-
https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/newsletters/Russel-climate-change-131113-web.html
10
Its pretty disgraceful. AGW alarmists are riding the Philippine people like carousel ponies all the way to the bank.
Typhoons in typhoon season??? Whoda thunk it Cleetus?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/11/09/quiet-tornado-season/3477209/
Coz no doubt about it Ma, them carbon thingies is making them storms bigga … hayuck…
40
From WMO – As of early November 2013, the 2013 global tropical cyclone activity was closing in on the 1981–2010 average of 89 storms, with a total of 86 storms in the year to date (wind speeds equal or greater than 63 km/h).
Better not hit 90, or it’s got to be Lucy in the sky with…
Maybe Milne could visit the Philipines and help trash some more of their golden rice crops.
Supports the death half a million each year, but willing to blame natural disasters on her opponents.
20
Do you understand the physics of storm like this?
Do you understand the role of ocean temperature?
Are you aware that ocean temperatures have increased?
Now tie all this information together, and what do you get? You can ask Cleetus, if you like.
38
Are you aware that ocean temperatures in the area of Typhoon Haiyan’s development were average??
50
.
Yeah, but don’t forget Heywood, in Margot’s lexicon “average” lies somewhere between catastrophic and cataclysmic.
Nothing is ever “normal”. If you read them carefully, you will see pretty-much every current greenie pronouncement of doom can roughly be translated into:
“Oh noes, and it’s even more average than we first thought”.
This translation can be safely – and correctly – be applied to all greenie pronouncements on anything from polar bear numbers to typhoon intensity, and everything in between.
61
MV, your contribution may be given added value were it to be based on and even contain references to, some facts.
You do seem to have accepted Bob Tisdale’s “average” assertion though, which is surprising, because a person who was being sceptical would ask a few questions about his graph, such as,
– How do you conclude sea temperature for cyclone Haiyan was “average” when your graph doesn’t even contain the sea temperature for the time the cyclone was there?
– How do you conclude the unknown temperature was “average” when you are comparing the unknown November value against values for previous years that include different months from the month that is relevant to Cyclone Haiyan?
This is pretty much the sort of thing that has led me to summarily discount just about anything Bob Tisdale ever says. This is characteristic of his lack of ability to add any value to our knowledge. Worse, there are foolish people about for whom this sort of non-information is very confusing. They seem to believe it somehow adds context to some kind of narrative they have constructed.
47
Margot,
I didn’t even look at the graph. My comment was based on general observation.
Last week a slightly larger than average storm went through the Philippines.
Since then it has been described as “unprecedented” – it wasn’t, “apocalyptic” – it wasn’t, “the largest in recorded history” – it wasn’t, and “killed the most people” – it didn’t.
That event closely followed a week of bushfires around Sydney which were variously described as “unprecedented” – they weren’t, “catastrophic” – they weren’t, “the worst in October in recorded history” – they weren’t, and “caused the most damage ever” – they didn’t.
I could similarly describe last summer’s “unprecedented heatwaves”, “disappearing Arctic ice”, Greenland glacier’s “record ice-melt”, and any one of a dozen other fairly typical, cyclical, more or less AVERAGE weather events in the last ten years, that you cultists have blown out of all proportion.
.
You can only scream DOOM so many times Margot, before most people stop swallowing it.
Not you though, eh? You have an insatiable appetite for it**.
** – Doom that is, not swallowing.
71
Not yet, and I won’t become aware of any such thing on the say-so of a random blogger on the internet.
I am much too sceptical for that.
Mind you, when another random internet blogger with a history of opposing climate science says that Bob Tisdale is wrong, I am thinking that doesn’t hold out much hope for Tisdale’s credibility:
http://i55.tinypic.com/2i7qn9y.jpg
It *does* however say a lot about your credulity.
38
Gees, isn’t it amazing that basically everything stops warming once you put into place a decent measurement system.
UHA, RSS: level since 1979 except for the 1998 ElNino release of potential energy
Global ocean heat content stops rising as soon as they start deploying the ARGO buoys
Really amazing !! But totally expected.
I guess there is truth in the saying… “A watched pot level boils” 😉
Or a watched data source, can no longer be adjusted.
61
Margot:
the people who issue the temperature calculations (the IPCC-ites) admit that the World hasn’t warmed since 1998 or even 1995 (Phil Jones) so perhaps you can explain where the warming of the seas came from?
And please don’t use the totally unproven assertion about “missing heat” going into the deeps, as that wouldn’t affect the surface temperatures.
You have fallen for circular reasoning:
CO2 controls the temperature
CO2 is rising therefore the temperature is rising.
Since the temperature isn’t rising there must be some “missing heat” somewhere.
That “missing heat” will cause a catastrophe somehow.
Since CO2 is still rising, there will be more and more catastrophes to come.
You could put on a set of sandwich boards and parade the streets proclaiming “the end of the world is coming” or you might look closely to see if there is a flaw in that reasoning.
HINT: Many people on this page have mentioned that flaw.
50
Sorry Graeme,
The “ocean deeps” was last season’s explanation.
Trenberth’s latest “theory” is that we can’t find the missing heat ‘cos it’s in the missing hotspot.
And we can’t find the missing hotspot ‘cos it moves around a lot and hides.
This is Trenberth explaining it to Joe Romm at Climate Progress:
“We can confidently say that the risk of drought and heat waves has gone up and the odds of a hot spot somewhere on the planet have increased but the hotspot moves around and the location is not very predictable. This year perhaps it is East Asia: China, or earlier Siberia?
It has been much wetter and cooler in the US (except for SW), whereas last year the hot spot was the US. Earlier this year it was Australia (Tasmania etc) in January (southern summer). We can name spots for all summers going back quite a few years: Australia in 2009, the Russian heat wave in 2010, Texas in 2011, etc.
Similarly with risk of high rains and floods: They are occurring but the location moves.”
.
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
But people like Margot swallow it all the time.
52
Or it could be over the Arctic with the warm air melting the ice (oops last year’s explanation) – perhaps the warm air is causing all the cold air to spill out and cause the recent freezing winters in Europe, USA and China? (One of the silliest ideas the AGW believers have come up with, as it doesn’t explain why it occurs in winter nor why South America is affected as well).
I know! The missing hot spot hides on another planet until it is ready to strike. That explains why the AGW believers can see it, they’re often on another planet too.
40
Guys,
Haven’t you been paying attention? There is no single hot spot. There are multiple hot spots, and they are centred over Canberra, Washington, London, Wellington, Rome, Paris, and Bonn. But the biggest one is centred over the UN Headquarters in New York.
Nobody knows why, or even if there is a correlation to any external factors.
40
Yet in the same breath they bellow that its the hottest day/month/year on record…..
The most recent from the WMO states:
Of course we all know that we do not have reliable ocean temperatures prior to Argo buoys (2007). By November 2012 they only had a million readings, which is not a lot – around 300 readings per buoy.
01
Says the random blogger commentator on the internet. Forgive us for ignoring your crap.
Well, it isn’t my graph, but is shows the monthly SST anomaly from the 1981-2013 monthly averages for the month of october. If you can find the november anomaly data then go for it, but I am tipping you’ll have to wait about 16 more days.
You can spin (or spit) it anyway you like, but you can’t prove AGW causation of Haiyan.
00
Well you OBVIOUSLY DON’T understand any of these..
yet you show no propensity to want to learn.
Just the same moronic propaganda straight of SkS or one of the other agenda sites.
This last typhoon, while quite strong was nowhere near as strong as some in the past.
If you go to this page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_intense_tropical_cyclones#Western_North_Pacific_Ocean
You will see that the central pressure measurement of this latest typhoon, (895hPa) is nowhere near as low at that of those recorded in that region before AGW is supposed to have occurred.
The AGW press have grossly exaggerated.. and you, being a gullible moronic fool.. have fallen for it. say DOH !!!
21
Returning to more sobering matters:
The second cartoon about JuLIAR giving the top half of Australia to Obama may be just a little too close to the truth for comfort.
Here’s something you’re unlikely to read about in our MSM.
I’ve written before that politics has moved on from “climate change” – it’s yesterday’s news.
Keep your powder dry.
53
If goods do not cross borders, armies will.
Seems even if goods do cross borders, navies and air forces will cross anyway. 🙁
Plenty to gasbag about on this weekend’s Unthreaded, I guess.
20
.
A thumbs up from Bastiat, for at least being remembered.
Reading between the lines of our sanitised history, it seems to me we are in much the same position as in 1940 with the Yanks and Japan. And look how well that turned out. For everybody.
I won’t be pushing the issue – not here, nor in the Weekend Unthreaded. I was simply using it to highlight the fact that, as far as the upper echelons of political decision making are concerned, “climate change” is yesterday’s news. Bread and circuses for the masses.
.
I wonder how our Foreign Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop, is going in her SECRET AUSMIN defence meetings in Washington?
40
for those who can’t afford the book (not everyone can), my local library has it, so check yours. looking forward to getting my copy. meanwhile, some good fun, in two parts, which proves once again it’s all about the ETS:
Bishop Hill has this video of Baroness Worthington who helped draft the Climate Change Act, insulting Tony Abbott (around 7 mins in), Nigel Lawson, Koch Brothers, etc., while loving nuclear (granted, thorium), believing the Pentagon is busily cutting its carbon dioxide emissions, & other giddy nonsense.
Baroness Worthington speech at the Rushlight Awards 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceHmoYzcw0I
Worthington is the founder of Sandbag, CARBON TRADING FANATICS…& intends getting the trading they want, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
first lie is in the headline, cos all that’s agreed is talks:
8 Nov: Sandbag UK: Back-loading agreed, next stop structural reform
The back-loading of allowances is part of a two-step process to get the EU ETS back on its feet. This process was recently confirmed by DG Clima Director General, Jos Delbeke, who, in a recent ETS expert meeting, said that long term structural reform of the ETS could only be completed once the back loading of allowances had been finalised. Today’s decision makes way for those urgent long term reforms to take place, ensuring the ETS remains fit for purpose going forward…
http://www.sandbag.org.uk/blog/2013/nov/8/back-loading-agreed-next-stop-structural-reform/
About Sandbag
After decades of discussion we now have a system to include carbon pollution in economic decisions. This is the opportunity to get things moving, to drive change across Europe and nudge the millions of daily decisions towards the greener, cleaner option.
But the system is failing to live up to its potential.
That’s where Sandbag comes in. We shine a light on what is really going on in emissions trading and we push for improvements so that it delivers.
We hope you’ll join us. With a finite number of permits being created, together we can both lobby to ensure fewer are handed out and also buy and cancel them ourselves…
http://www.sandbag.org.uk/about/
00
2008: Guardian: Sandbagged: Dealing a blow to carbon trading
Bryony Worthington, who has lived and breathed emissions trading every day for the past decade, has had enough. She tells Leo Hickman why.
Bryony Worthington, who has inhaled the fug of emissions trading every day for the past decade, first as an environmental campaigner, then as a government official, and finally as a lobbyist for a giant energy firm, has had enough.
Using her unique knowledge of how “this game” works, she wants to expose its underbelly and help to spark greater debate about what, she believes, is a vitally important component of our collective fight against climate change…
Next week, Worthington launches Sandbag.org.uk, a not-for-profit website that allows members to buy up surplus “permits to pollute” that form the currency of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme (or EU ETSs). Members can then “retire” them so that they cannot continue to be traded between the industrial polluters – cement, steel and car manufacturers etc – forced by EU regulation to operate within the system. “I suppose it’s a bit like burning money in front of someone so they can’t spend it on something bad,” she explains.
The concept sounds like a clever variation of carbon offsetting, the now mocked method of allowing people to atone for their “carbon sins” – flying, driving, heating – by letting them pay for, say, a tree to be planted, or someone else, often in a developing country, to reduce emissions on their behalf.
Worthington is sensitive to the charge. “We’ve deliberately tried not to look like an offsetting website,” she says, adding that some offsetting firms can, in her view, be “more evil than doing nothing” due to the often neo-imperialistic veneer of some of the offsetting projects they fund in the developing world.
“There’s no carbon calculator on our site, for example. My pitch is simply that if you haven’t got a lot of time, but do have a credit card, you can take, say, a tonne of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in a second by paying for an emissions credit to be withdrawn from the system.” At the current rate of trading in the EU ETS, a tonne of carbon is priced at about €23 (£18), around twice the average price to offset a tonne of CO2 as charged by an offsetting company…
“We need to explain to these companies that they need a carbon market that works,” she says, stressing that the current surplus threatens to kill the market dead, because the price remains far too low to encourage firms to implement meaningful reductions.
“What we have to tell them is that if the current system is allowed to fall over then the alternative will be a world of heavy regulation and high taxes. The allocation was calculated on nothing more than guesswork.
“They know the current surplus is a windfall. We know it’s a windfall. Just give it back. We need to shame them into it by getting some forward-thinking firms to make the leap first.”…
A spell at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs implementing public awareness campaigns and helping draft the Climate Change Bill, was followed by another career swerve. She became a lobbyist, “head of government relations”, for Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), one of the UK’s largest energy companies…
“I did think briefly, ‘What have I done?’ But in the time I was there, they invested massively in renewables and are one of the few energy companies working to help customers reduce their energy demand. They still do need to sort out what they are doing with coal, though. But then, no one really knows what to do yet.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/12/carbonemissions.carbonoffsetprojects
13 Nov: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Energy giant SSE raises dividend days before consumer price rise
Big Six energy firm hands shareholders above-inflation dividend increase days before imposing 8.2pc price rise to 4.4m households
Energy giant SSE risked consumer wrath on Wednesday as it handed shareholders an above-inflation 3.2pc dividend increase, days before implementing its 8.2pc price rise for 4.4m households.
SSE, formerly known as Scottish and Southern, reported adjusted pre-tax profits of £354m for the six months to the end of September – down 11.7pc on the same period last year – and said its energy supply business swung to a £115.4m operating loss.
The company said the result in the supply arm – which delivered a £48.3m operating profit a year earlier – reflected “the impact of higher wholesale gas, distribution, ***environmental and social costs, which themselves were rising, during the spring and summer period of lower energy consumption”…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10445729/Energy-giant-SSE-raises-dividend-days-before-consumer-price-rise.html
21 July 2012: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: MPs have no idea what the Climate Change Act means
They passed it almost unanimously, but MPs still can’t grasp the consequences of the most expensive legislation in British history
One of the most bizarre features of the Climate Change Act – put through by Ed Miliband when he was our first climate change secretary and passed almost unanimously by MPs – is that it was largely drafted by a young green lobbyist, Bryony Worthington, seconded to the Civil Service from Friends of the Earth, where she had been in charge of their global warming campaign. On YouTube you can see a talk she gave last year to another campaigning body, funded by the Department for International Development, in which she tells the extraordinary story of how the Act that commits the UK to these pie-in-the-sky targets came about.
First she sold the idea of a Climate Change Bill to David Cameron, when he became leader of the opposition. This prompted David Miliband to follow suit and it was he who put her in charge of drafting the Bill that was finally put through the Commons by brother Ed. For this, the Act’s prime architect was made Baroness Worthington in 2010…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9416805/MPs-have-no-idea-what-the-Climate-Change-Act-means.html
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Love your posts Pat. Hey Postman Pat lol
But seriously, keep em coming, always informative.
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At the current rate of trading in the EU ETS, a tonne of carbon is priced at about €23 (£18), around twice the average price to offset a tonne of CO2 as charged by an offsetting company…
Fee Fi Fo Fum
I smell the profit of an English mum.
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I have just been reading the Carter/Spooner explanation of the Green House Gas Effect (as understood by scientists). It is all very confusing!
Carter/Spooner now want to modify the Fourier explanation as adopted by the IPCC in AR4 but they have a number of problems.
Apparently the tropical surface absorbs more radiation than it emits (warming), but the tropical atmosphere emits more radiation than it receives from the surface (cooling). According to Carter/Spooner the finding cannot be explained by conduction because air is an insulator! Turbulence can’t help because the total energy of the upper atmosphere is too high due to potential energy at altitude (not observed in reality).
I think I understand how these problems can be resolved but Carter is neither clear nor helpful.
Assistance from this blog appreciated.
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Try
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/new-paper-shows-simple-basic-physics-of.html
It says the Greenhouse effect is exaggerated about 8 times. Room for Carter & Spooner to move.
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Another book may be out by XMAS.
Kevin Rudd resigns.
I might just download a Twitter picture of him crying.
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Thought I’d save you the trouble:-
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/emotional-kevin-rudd-resigns-from-parliament/story-fni6ulvf-1226759294219
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Bum!! It was supposed to be the picture not the article!
Guess you’ll just have to find it yourself…..sorry.
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Good riddance to a nasty sociopath. I only regret that he cannot be forced to pay personally for the damage and wrongs he has done to many people through his abuse of power.
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Freedom:abject freedom-my long-lost child! Read Spooners’ bit in Quadrant and was quite taken with his candour;like many of us he has taken a proper road and questioned an orthodoxy which employs obscurantism of the worst kind.Balance in the pursuit of reason for gods sake!
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“Probably it is true enough that the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another. In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance only for a small minority. But this does not mean that anyone is competent, or ought to have power, to select those to whom this freedom is to be reserved. It certainly does not justify the presumption of any group of people to claim the right to determine what people ought to think or believe.”
― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom 1943
The meaning of true freedom is all but lost these days my friend. Hayek contends that true freedom such as that enjoyed by the first settlers of the US travelling west as pioneers may be the last time we could point to it(circa mid 1800s). Its certainly only a memory now.
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It is a well written book which just becomes more relevant and more correct as time goes by unlike much of the alarmist propaganda which has to keep being adjusted to the empirical evidence.
We are continuously told about the scientific consensus, and the UN IPCC says they are 95% certain humans have caused most of the global warming since 1950, yet I’m still waiting for a single peer reviewed paper which provides us with:
1. Proof that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 above pre-industrial levels can lead to a warming of global atmospheric temperatures greater than 1.2C without making assumptions about climate sensitivity to CO2 which rely on unproven positive feedback mechanisms.
The fact the UN IPCC dropped any climate sensitivity measure from the AR5 Climate Report released in September shows they are even less confident about the climate’s sensitivity to CO2, and they have no clue how to measure it.
2. An accurate calculation of how much of the atmospheric warming since 1850, or 1950, you pick the date, is caused by humans, and how much is caused by natural variability; and which components of natural variability.
If you can’t calculate that, then how can you possibly know how much warming humans are causing and/or how much you will stop the planet warming by reducing emissions? If you can’t do that, how can voters make an informed decision about the costs to reduce emissions versus any potential benefits from the reduction of emissions?
3. A justified assessment of what the ‘ideal’ global average temperature is for the planet. You see if we are taking action to stop the temperature rising then surely we must think that the current temperature, or a warmer temperature is not ideal, and that a cooler temperature is better. But where is the peer reviewed research which proves a cooler temperature is better particularly in light of the facts that warmer periods such as the Minoan, Roman and Medieval were when humans seemed to flourish, and cooler periods, such as during the Little Ice Age when a third of Europe’s population died, were not so good?
4. Proof that anything we do to reduce emissions and therefore reduce or maintain global average temperature won’t be overridden by any of the natural variables which have been at play causing massive shifts in climate on earth over many millions of years, but as recently as hundreds of years ago including natural variations in solar activity, cosmic radiation, magnetic field variation, the earth’s axis tilt and elliptical orbit of the sun, ENSO, volcanic activity including sub-aerial and subterranean and submarine and any other major players I have forgotten to list.
You’d think if the science was so certain that challenge to the alarmists would be a breeze!
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1/ Climate sensitivity is discussed in great detail in chapters 8 and also 7. Many figures are given for different forcing values in relation to different places, different times and different emissions scenarios.
The amusing thins is that you have the time to compose lengthy, breathless denunciations of a science you don’t understand based on your understanding of a document you clearly haven’t read.
Hahaha. Hilarious.
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You talking about others not understanding science……. seriously ?????????????????????????????????????
roflmao !!!
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Margo, please show how you have calculated the human valuations attaching to any proposed policy action versus the counter-factual, now and indefinitely into the future.
Have you applied any discount for futurity and if so how do you know it’s correct?
If you can’t do this please admit that the argument for any policy is fallacious, and that policy action cannot be justified even in its own terms.
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There have been some excellent cartoons over the years. In my toilet (best place for Juliar) I have this one. No matter what ever happens with climate science or Australian politics, this cartoon will ALWAYS be 100% true.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/bolt-gillards-tax-is-a-load-of-hot-air/story-fn6br25t-1226093427046
Signed by the cartoonist and framed of course. If only to try and ensure I spent more protesting this farce than supporting it, despite the best efforts of omniscient beings like Gillard, Brown, Flannery, Milne and Co.
Nice work on the book, I reckon a copy will find its way into my stocking one way or the other.
Also on another note. A work colleague of my partners just left our place after enjoying dinner with us.
During the conversations “the topic” inevitably arose and she (senior environmental advisor to a large Tasmanian energy industry player) stated a few interesting things. For example she has never heard of Richard Dawkins (despite having a degree in environmental science) (see this is why this high school dropout doesn’t shy from the debate)and had no idea that for the same or similar money as was spent on the recently completed Musselroe Windfarm (with which I was involved) you could get around 9 times (raw MW) the power from a gas turbine installation, with around 50% of the emissions of coal.
However as I have found over and over again, once presented with a few facts, her position as a wind and solar advocate quickly rationalised to gas or non coal alternatives, once she was properly informed. I remain convinced that despite the AGW fraternity’s most recent bleat that the general public are not informed about climate science. Quite the opposite is true, they are so misinformed by the mainstream media regurgitating eco politics that their opinions are skewed toward nonsense by eco alarmism and misrepresentation of the facts of energy science and politics.
Christine Milne proved it in spades this afternoon when she misled the Senate with the statement that the Philippine’s typhoon had killed 10,000 people, when the PI Govt. itself had earlier revised the expected death toll to between 2000 and 4000. Still tragic. But yet another example of the shrill desperation of the green movement to retain its position at the tax trough.
They deserve every syllable of lampooning talented artists can muster.
Joe Hockey to Bill Shorten today.
“Just try to calm yourself, I know your excited on your first day back, but this will be your best day in opposition, trust me”
The humour is finally back in Australian Politics. Somewhere out there Juliar is listening to all this and wincing visibly at the fact that she has absolutely no control over the outcome. The mere thought of it warms my heart greatly and all is right with the world for just a few brief moments.
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I concur jaymez. The book was an easy read and helpful in highlighting the media bias most people seem to have that I talk too. But I am slowly educating my fellow work colleagues , especially with sites like jojoba and suet.
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Atwood is a NOVELIST after all, not a non-fiction writer:
12 Nov: Huffington Post: Margaret Atwood: We Must Tackle Climate Change Together
Whatever you think of the causes — man-made (through CO2 levels created by the burning of fossil fuels), natural (as part of a solar cycle) or divine (as part of a plan to destroy the world) — Canada’s climate is changing. And Canada isn’t alone: Conditions around the world are being altered much faster than was formerly predicted…
(LOL) This is why the Pentagon — along with other government agencies — has been paying so much attention to climate modelling.
Novelists, filmmakers and other creators have been registering these changes for some time. There’s a new term, cli-fi (for climate fiction, a play on sci-fi), that’s being used to describe books in which an altered climate is part of the plot…
Even recently, people have said they “don’t believe” in climate change, as if it is akin to Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. But chemistry and physics are not beliefs; they are ways of measuring the physical world. They don’t negotiate, and they don’t hand out second chances…
It’s not longer a question of green versus commerce: We really are all in it together when it comes to air, water, earth and fire. We’re in the soup. It’s a shared soup and we’ll have to work together to get out of it.
Air, water, earth and fire were once known as the four elements, and they’re still the things whose extreme fluctuations stand to affect us most — and not in a good way…
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/margaret-atwood/atwood-climate-change_b_4256145.html
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Talking of Cli-Fi(ction), isn’t it time for a reprint of Colleen McCullough’s “Creed for the Third Millennium”. (1985) !!
All your favourite characters are in there . . .
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Can we get these billboards up in Australia?
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About that lead-in cartoon:
I’m not Australian but, Gillard as renewable prime minister? I would surely hope not. 🙁
Pour that mug of water down the drain.
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Now, how do we decarbonize Obama?
No sarcasm intended.
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He will disappear in a puff of smoke.
During the next year as he demonstrates his credentials as The USA’s worst President, his standing will slump and the Democrat vote with it. Thereafter he will be a lame duck (mostly because he shot his own foot).
I see Hilary is raising money for a tilt at the Oval Office. Will you be donating? Who will? (Apart from George Clooney – see NoTricksZone). After Obama and her connection, what odds will the bookmakers give?
We are ‘losing’ Kevin Rudd. They are saying nice things about him in Parliament today; probably the first and almost certainly the last time. The Labor Party will be cheering the loudest as he departs.
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Know Your enemy.
For a good dose of Green …. – enter here
http://sedac.ciesin.org/
NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) – Hosted by CIESIN at Columbia University
Improvements in SEDAC Web Site Implemented. Data Integration and Climate Hotspots. Mapping Examined in Recent Presentations. Special Issues of Climatic Change Feature Work by CIESIN Scientists. CIESIN Staff Fly South for Data
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