Climate change violates one of Newton’s Laws
First published on OnlineOpinion Dec 2007 and unfortunately still very applicable.
by William York
The claim that the science debate over cimate change is settled violates the most important of Newton’s Laws. This violation is not of the famous Laws of Motion but of a little known set of derived bylaws, Newton’s Laws of Experts, a major contribution to understanding social dynamics.
Newton’s Laws of Motion may be simply stated as:
- First Law: every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force;
- Second Law: the rate of change of momentum is directly proportional to the applied force; and
- Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The bylaws, Newton’s Laws of Experts, are as follows:
- First Law: every expert persists in his state of rest or opinion unless acted upon by an external grant;
- Second Law: the rate of change of opinion is directly proportional to the applied grant; and
- Third Law: for every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
The First Law of Experts is well known and can be demonstrated in countless universities, institutes and research bodies. There are two major influences. First, the need to appear relevant to the wants of society means engagement in the great issues of the day. This has been brought on by well intentioned but misguided policy that assumes innovations, financial, technical or other, spring fully developed from academic research and national needs should determine the areas of research interest.
The second and much more worrying influence comes from the coupling of politics to science. The academy has a natural bias towards the left as its business is overthrowing old ideas and generating new interpretations and understanding. If this is coupled to saving the planet and giving rise to a better world then there is a resonance between politics and academia.
At the present time there are three issues that resonate with at least parts of the academy: climate change, genetically modified organisms and nuclear power. In each case, it is arguable that the scientific understanding on the political side is selective, frequently ignorant and often presented in terms that startle the public.
As a result governments, often subject to marginal politics, have created opportunities for endless grant applications for any research perceived as relevant to these issues. As a further result, academia has responded by setting up special institutes or university departments and, with knowledge of the availability of large research grants, has applied for and received funding.
It is often the case that the envisaged research was not aimed at the target set by the government, but simply represents the dressing-up of a proposal in a way which would attract the grant.
This discussion leads to the Second Law of Experts. There is no doubt that large grants, leading to the establishment of new institutes, departments or divisions, have the effect of moving experts into positions where they will represent these new initiatives. The lifetime of these organisations is subject to the continuous feeding from grants, so there is every incentive to emphasise the importance and relevance of the research, thus providing strong and positive feedback.
The Third Law of Experts is one that is most commonly encountered in the Law. Expert witnesses are frequently called by both sides for explanations. So, rather than experts advising the bench, each side presents the most favourable explanation that helps its own case.
The present major concern of society is climate change. Why this is so is best understood in the words of H.L.Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
The effect of the political interest in climate change has been the violation of Newton’s Third Law.
Where are the experts speaking against the position that climate change is caused by human activity? They are scarcely to be seen or heard at this time. Within the academy, one expert will not willingly place himself between another expert and a grant-giving body, unless he has immunity from subsequent retribution. There are examples of those who have taken the contrary view being hounded by colleagues, being unable to secure research grants and even calls for them to be removed from their positions.
However Newton’s Laws are eternal and immutable. The violation of the Third Law will be only temporary as slowly scientific observation and understanding will get the better of the present situation.
From the above analysis, it is a firm conclusion that the climate change debate is distorted in its presentation and that its alleged scientific conclusions are unsound. Only when the Third Law is satisfied will we finally understand.
This writer would not like to estimate how long this will take. Rather he would suggest that we all heed the advice of another sage, this time from Hollywood, where Sam Goldwyn is supposed to have said that he never liked making predictions, particularly about the future.
William York likes to find the funny side of life. He used to write for BRW back in the late 1980’s.
Thanks to both William York and Tom Quirk
Image: Wikimedia : Sarah K. Bolton: Famous Men of Science (New York, 1889). Published before 1923 and public domain in the US.
As Lindzen said at the Climate Change Select committee (UK) today. ” I can only speak for the US on this, but the result of finding solutions in science, is to have your funding withdrawn”. After a slow start, to which I can only attribute to the misapprehension that the committee would be open to a sceptical viewpoint of CC, Lindzen was the star performer. No doubt there will be a separate thread for this event so I will leave it there.
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Donna Laframboise is the last of 6, I think, scheduled speakers.
Some that read here and elsewhere helped pay her way.
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As a matter of interest, can those who clicked the “thumbs-down” symbol for John F. Hultquist kindly explain why? However you read it, his comment is a simple, clear statement of fact.
As far as I am aware, if you hit the wrong imperial thumb, clicking the other one cancels your first choice, so I am guessing that mere mention of Donna Laframboise just attracts automatic hostility, in some quarters.
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Oops. Sorry, it doesn’t work Owen. I’m frequently all Imperial Thumbs as you quite eloquently put it, on this Smart Mobile Internet device with a tiny user interfaces that belies all its smartness.
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Just incase there is no future separate thread on the UK Climate Change Select Committee, the UK Guardian has a piece bewailing how badly distorted is the selection of the invited witnesses who are to provide testimony to the committee (http://tinyurl.com/kasj2gd). This piece, with its complaints about the selection of too many “denialists” and the subsequent cacophony of complaints in the comments section, suggests the selection of witnesses is about right.
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Whoever wrote that Guardian article is a credulous wide eyed gullible believer. The unnamed writer is sceptical about ‘higher levels of carbon dioxide emissions will be good for plants’. I learned the photosynthesis equation when I was 11.
This is article has one redeeming feature: it is almost a parody, and uses just about every cliché from warmist holy writ.
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D**n you, Turtle of WA. Now I’m going to have to break the habit of a lifetime and read that Guardian article, if only for the laughs.
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OK Turtle, do you still remember that equation? My memory always pauses when it comes to which enzymes are transmembrane although I do remember that proton additino and subtraction (NADPH- NADP and ADP-ATP) occur on the same side. P700 is PS1 isn’t it? It took me until Uni to get that far though.
I am also intrigued, you must have some answers to other things since surely you’ve progressed since age eleven, beyond what most plant scientist know. How does the whole plant system cope with extra organic production when other inputs (eg water, soil based traces) remain the same?
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“How does the whole plant system cope with extra organic production when other inputs (eg water, soil based traces) remain the same?”
They become much more efficient when not deprived of a CO2.
250 ppm is base level starvation, and you only want to let them have a stale cracker biscuit.
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1 Scientists are poor.
2 Industry and governments, organizations employ scientists
3 Scientists do what they are told to do by the organization.
4 Any scientist who publicly disagrees with the organization is fired. Goto 1
So most of the famous sceptics are journalists or independent (retired) scientists (see 4). Sceptics are individuals, not parts of an organization.
Most of the publicly known promoters are heads of organizations who benefit from the funding (see 2) or economists who just love the attention.
Then there is the IPCC, a UN multi governmental committee set up in 1988 and funded specifically to discover man made Climate Change. They were very successful and have been well funded for 25 years now.
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IN other words. poor scientists can come up with many reasons to be incompetent.
C.S. Lewis — “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching”. Seems some scientist have lost their integrity.
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Unfortunately for the past 40 years or so incompetence has been quite normal in the scientific community. The top school leavers are attracted to medicine, engineering, health sciences and law leaving the university science faculties to squabble over the lowest achieving school leavers. The average ATAR cutoff for physiotherapy is 96. The lowest entrance score for any Australian university course is science at Federation University with an utterly abysmal cutoff ATAR of 33.
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This premise is correct; the ‘enhanced GHE’ is a ‘Perpetual Motion Machine of the 2nd Kind’.
They mistake the atmospheric ‘Radiation Field’, in reality a potential energy flux to a sink at absolute zero, for a real energy flux (‘back radiation’) which adds to the real net surface IR from the coupled convection and radiation needed to offset incoming SW thermalised at the surface. This makes the presumed ‘black body’ RF surface to atmosphere. This RF, also mistaken for a real energy flow, is supposed to be absorbed by GHGs then thermalised in the gas phase thus making it expand, the imaginary heat engine.
The real energy flux absorbed by the atmosphere is 23 W/m^2, not 157.5 W/m^2. The latter is the 333 W/m^2 ‘back radiation’ offset by the incorrect assumption that you can apply Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation at TOA. Is everybody with me so far?
The 23 W/^2 absorption is real but anyone with adequate statistical thermodynamics knows that the Law of Equipartition of Energy precludes thermalisation of that energy: it is ejected from the local gas volume to give ‘Local thermodynamic Equilibrium’. Eventually it does thermalise, but only at condensed matter.
So, we have a scientific howler of the 1st Rank. Any process engineer like me knows this instantly but 25 years of IPCC Climate Alchemy propaganda has attempted to do the science equivalent of Gresham’s Law; Bad physics driving out Good. Hence and many others are fighting like Hell to stop this deliberate attempt to reverse the Scientific Enlightenment, the intention being to create a Theocracy led by charlatans like Hansen, Flannery, Jones etc..
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No not exactly. I take it that you reject the Green House Gas Effect Theory because if true it would lead to the creation of a perpetual motion machine.
Why not expand your thoughts into a paper and submit it as a PROM to Principia Scientific International?
Then I can read it through in more detail. Then perhaps,I will understand more about the application of Kirchoff’s Law and also the equipartition of energy and other things that you have mentioned
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The enhanced GHE does not exist. Moreover, the real CO2 climate sensitivity, which would in the absence of other processes be ~1.2 K, is near zero because there are other processes.
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How many different names do you have up your sleeve mydogsgotnonose, alecm, Spartacusisfree…? As Peter C says below, write a paper and let’s have a look at it.
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I have submitted two papers. One shows Carl Sagan got his aerosol optical physics wrong hence all of Climate Alchemy has to be reconsidered. In that paper I show how biofeedback gives all the amplification of delta tsi at the end of ice ages. It is being re-submitted, the Physics first.
I also submitted a much longer review paper which demonstrates the correct radiative physics, but it has to be condensed to have any hope of publication.
In short, I am constructing a replacement atmospheric physics to replace the 40+ year stuff from Houghton via Sagan which is plain wrong. This is not a trivial exercise.
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This is a great article. I do like dry humour.
But the ideas are not just restricted to “the academe”, and those directly involved in the grant generation and extraction process.
We also need to consider, what I would have referred to, in a previous life, as “fellow travellers”. These people are those who are not in possession of finely tuned grant extraction capabilities, but dearly wish that they were. So they work to improve their skills in this area, and insure the continuance of their tenure, by practicing on the largest subservient audience they can find — children between the ages of five and fifteen.
I refer of course to the propaganda indoctrinators, otherwise known as Teachers, and their supporting cast, in those parts of the bureaucracy responsible for Education, and indeed other areas of the bureaucracy with tenure that ultimately depends on the grant extraction skills of those in “the academe”. The product of the propaganda machine is an endless supply of voting units who are predisposed towards sacrificing a significant proportion of their life equity in providing government with revenue, which can then be utilised in satisfying the grant applications of “the academe”.
And there we have it: Perpetual motion of financial incentive.
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A Thumb from me for that RW. Pity the darned thing is green, though!
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FijiDave,
We have a choice between green and red … much like life really …
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RW,I’m so glad you like dry humour.In a previous post you said that you would be too busy in your next life to drop Jo a line,so I would like to thank you for talking to us in this life about things from your previous life.
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Good article.
I don’t need to be a climate scientist to realise when people are trying to mislead me.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) is not a scientific organisation.
A little bit of research will quickly establish they do not use the scientific method. They perform no experiments. They never intentionally test their hypotheses and woe betide anyone who dares question an assumption.
The words “United Nations” and ” “Intergovernmental” were good clues.
Instead of using the scientific method, they search the literature for papers that support the official CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) doctrine and put these into their assessment reports. The peer reviewed scientific papers that contradict the doctrine are simply ignored. This creates the impression that the evidence is all one sided.
Imagine a court case where only the prosecution was allowed to present evidence.
It’s called confirmation bias. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)
So why do they do this when they could do science? My guess is because they are not interested in the truth.
Anyone who thinks we should “trust the science should read this.
(http://nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/delinquentteenager_sample.pdf)
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Donna Laframboise has another book out, “Into the Dustbin”, dealing with the chairperson of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri. It is a wonderful read, best done in short sessions to protect your blood pressure. How can such bureaucratic misfits be taken seriously?
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Because the alternative is to recognise that there exists an independent quality called ‘merit’; that some people are simply smarter, more honest, more effective, than others.
The notion of ‘merit’ contravenes the First Law of the Unified Field Theory of Liberalism, which states that the only evil is ‘discrimination’, and that complete indiscrimination of thought is a moral imperative.
Through simple steps it can be seen that this leads inevitably to people of influence generally being the most stupid, dishonest, and ineffective that society can dredge up.
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“Imagine a court case were only the prosecution was allowed to provide evidence.”
Response: Yes, in the courts of ‘climate science’, North Korea and the Soviet Union.
We live in a world of “the science is settled”, no other opinions allowed.
And that, boys and girls, is why you should believe in CAGW, or there will be consequences!
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oops, “trust the science”
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Very entertaining and thought provoking, as this is from 2007 I wonder what the average time is that scientific debates reach any sort of conclusion?
Also if there is an obvious average time is this a healthy pattern for science?
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But the debate HAS made a conclusion..
Trouble is that that conclusion was made BEFORE the debate has actually happened.
And only those who accept that conclusion are allowed to debate., en masse.
Its called “climate science”
Once the debate is eventually opened up, without fear of retribution, loss of tenure or income etc, and becomes a proper scientific debate.. (it may just be starting to happen, unsure)
then the idea of CO2 driven CAGW will die a natural death.
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If you take Newton literally, it’s all about inertia. When governments started mandating things because of CAGW, people jumped on board to push it along and take their cut. The mass and momentum of the movement is now so vast it’ll go on for years.
Common sense and critical thinking is more of a friction in this case. Not a mass in itself. So no sudden stops can happen, just a long slow decay of momentum.
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Jo,
Maybe O/T but see this for a potential Sceptics Creed
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/akhenaton-i-think-i-like-this-guy/
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“This writer would not like to estimate how long this will take. Rather he would suggest that we all heed the advice of another sage, this time from Hollywood, where Sam Goldwyn is supposed to have said that he never liked making predictions, particularly about the future”.
The quotation “prediction is difficult, especially about the future” has been attributed to many people, among them Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, but may have first been used back in the 1930’s in the Danish parliament as a pun. If only the IPCC could understand!
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Oversubsidisation of research allows the not-so-fit to survive. (h/t Bart Kosko, “Fuzzy Future”, written as a follow-up to his famous “Fuzzy Logic.”)
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I’m wondering just how many climate scientists, Greens and other NGOs that fear the future know what is happening under our noses in the real field of science.
The world today, despite the wars, has improved remarkably since 1900 in physics, engineering and medicine. This has meant not only sustainability but increased living standards such that Bill Gates may be correct that grinding poverty could be over by 2035. No one in 1900 knew the magnitude of advances to occur by 2000.
Likewise there is one particular area of physics which has been used and will be used to shape our future. The transistor has been miniaturised so that 1 billion fits in a smart phone. The secret has been applying quantum physics/mechanics which is not understood even by those who study it.
One example is the use of sending a particle (electron or atom) to a distant place in an INSTANT. That appears to overcome the speed of light.
However, the particle doesn’t travel. Its ‘clone’ appears instantly 100km, 1 million km or the other side of the galaxy while the original disappears. The secret is ‘entangling’ the particle with another and so far it has worked at about 80 km distances. Codes could and can be sent this way but one day whole solid objects along with 3D printing could replace normal transport. In short, replicators like in ‘Star Trek’ may be reality.
But a more important aspect is using entangled particles as bits in a computer. They are Qbits. Only a few could do many tasks at once instead of today’s computers doing one at a time fast as they are. If 300 Qbits are used the quantum computer could do an infinite number of tasks. Thus, climate change, weather forecasts and engineering all kinds of things would be easier than imaginable.
Future problems or debates about climate would become ho hum. A positive view of the future is better than like in 1900 when it was said humans could never fly.
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And we managed to progress to this point in spite of the Eugenics movement, Malthusianism, Marxism, Lysenkoism, Nazism, the Great Depression, two World Wars, a Cold War, nuclear brinkmanship, Goldman Sachs, and the Rothchilds.
Imagine how well we could have done without all those unwelcome diversions. Unfortunately, it is in our nature to only fight for advancement so vigorously when we are threatened by such external or internal strife.
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The Wright Brothers were successful largely because they managed to design and build a very simple and extremely lightweight aluminium engine.
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Speaking of the influence of grants -I have told this anecdote before but it was an interesting introduction to me to climate change politics at university.
I, alog with others, was invited to sit in on some presentations by the applicants for a job as a tenured lecturer at my local university. I listened to the first few talks and we broke for tea. I asked the Professor what weight they gave to an ability to communicate with students – one of the persenters being Russian with a brilliant reasearch record but poor English skills. He replied – “None. There is only one candidate here – the Canadian. He brings 5 million in grant money – I can hire 25 staff on that.” The Canadian’s reasearch area was the somewhat esoteric (and I believe now discredited?) field of “Icehouse Earth” paid for by Global Warming money. Naturally, there seemed to be a distinct lurch in the direction of Global Warming policy promotion that accompanied this appointment – which I dont think has yet been reversed.
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You should read about Lawrence Hargrave. In the 1880s he was lifting himself off the ground with a tethered box kite using the wind (at Stanwell Park which is still popular with hang gliders). He also designed a rotary engine (1889) to power a flying machine but the ability to make components sufficiently precise to get enough power out of it was lacking at the time.
I don’t think that anyone said that humans could never fly, just that it couldn’t happen without a significant improvement in power to weight ratio of engines.
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If Newton was around today he might well have coined a Fourth Law: for every self-proclaimed expert in science there is a factor of X in rent seekers multiplied by a factor of Y in regulators required to collect and distribute the ensuing largesse extracted from the gullible Z, which is proportional to the gaming factor A multiplied by the greed factor B compounded by factor Z.
So when the game is on, X and Y increase in proportion to the multiplier (A x B) x Z. So by increasing the gaming factor A (fear based on false supposition and level of payment to assuage the false doctrine), X and Y increase proportionally.
But when the game is up, the gullible Z reduce in number (uncouple from the religion), which progressively decrease the flow of largesse to, and quantity of, X and Y.
And perhaps Newton might also have coined a Fifth Law: for every scam disposed of there is an equal reaction spawning a new scam. This might well include fellow travellers in economics, abundant in advancing theory to support claims proposed by A and B but devoid of outcomes that align with empirical observation.
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“Third Law: for every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.”
…Who has access to PR firms like Hill and Knowlton (or it’s affiliates).
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I was thinking that meant the hollow earthers were likely to be booked into the same convention centre as the flat earthers.
At the only other place in town you find the “alternative 3” crowd in the room next to the faked moon landing people.
So the warmists climate changers are going to meet the coolist lack of changers soon.
They will preach about so many species going extinct due to their symbiotic dependance on man ended change etc.
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I like the Old Boy already.
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An expert is defined as a person who gets to know more and more about less and less until that person knows everything about nothing.
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The exception is climatology. There an expert is someone who accepts and forcefully promotes the opinions of the other experts. The core “knowledge” has been predetermined.
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Expert = Drip under pressure
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Definition: EXPERT
Ex…a has been
Spert…a drip under pressure
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Not forgetting the Generalist who knows more and more about less and less until he/she knows nothing about everything!
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Oh well, we’re all allowed one mistake. I’ll try again.
Not forgetting the Generalist who knows less and less about more and more until he/she knows nothing about everything!
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Potentially there is, in an open and free society where people are encouraged to think for themselves. Which is why the “experts” with the upper hand attack any attempt to contradict or undermine the established consensus.
In physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the realm of ideas this is not the case. It matters not one jot how many thousands or millions of experts support a falsity. It is still a falsity.
In physics there quantity of matter is fixed. In ideas it can grow. In fact we are all the beneficiaries of the phenomenal growth in ideas over the past few centuries.
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try explaining Newton’s Third Law to the MSM, when trillion dollar dreams are involved:
28 Jan: WaPo: Eugene Robinson: Dire signs from a warming world
Another insane cold wave — not the infamous “polar vortex ” but its evil twin — is bringing sub-zero and single-digit temperatures to much of the nation. And global warming may be even more extreme, and potentially more catastrophic, than climate scientists had feared.
This is, of course, no contradiction. The rallying cry of the denialists — “It’s really cold outside, so global warming must be a crock!” — can be taken seriously only by those with a toddler’s limited conception of time and space. They forget that it’s winter, and apparently they don’t quite grasp that even when it’s cold in one part of the world, it can be hot in another…
Why is it getting warmer? There’s still just one explanation that fits the available facts: Since the Industrial Revolution, the large-scale burning of fossil fuels has increased the concentration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by an incredible 40 percent.
And according to an important new study, published Jan. 2 in the journal Nature, the eventual effect of human-generated carbon emissions could be greater than anticipated. Because of the impact of warming on cloud cover, the researchers calculated, average global temperatures could rise a full 7 degrees by the end of the century. This “would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous,” the study’s lead author, Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales in Australia, told the Guardian newspaper….
President Obama, who understands the science, should use his executive powers as best he can, not just to reduce carbon emissions but also to prepare the country for confronting the environmental, political and military hazards of a warmer world.
The day will come, I predict, when world leaders are willing, even desperate, to curb greenhouse gases. But by then, I’m beginning to fear, it will probably be too late.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-global-warmings-impact-cant-be-ignored/2014/01/27/b5917594-8792-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html
28 Jan: HuffPo: Julie Fox Gorte: Tricks of the Trade That Block Climate Change Progress
(Julie Fox Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing, Pax World Management LLC)
I recently attended the 2014 Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations, along with more than 500 other financial leaders, most of them members of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. At that meeting, Ceres, the Summit’s organizer, released the Clean Trillion report calling on investors to scale-up clean energy investment to at least $1 trillion by 2030. This is the level of investment that the International Energy Agency estimates will be needed to keep additional global warming below the 2-degree Celsius threshold, beyond which the impact of climate change is judged catastrophic…
Last week the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a new report, “Tricks of the Trade: How companies anonymously influence climate policy through their business and trade associations.”…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-fox-gorte/tricks-of-the-trade-that-_b_4674342.html
24 Jan: Reuters: Paul Taylor: Major trade powers pledge free trade in green goods
The world’s biggest trading powers pledged on Friday to work toward a global agreement on free trade in environmental goods, but they gave no timeline for talks intended to support the fight against climate change.
The United States, European Union, China, Japan and several other developed economies said in a joint statement that the agreement would take effect once there is participation by a critical mass of members of the World Trade Organization.
That gets around the WTO’s requirement for unanimity on trade deals…
The WTO estimates that the global market in green goods, technologies and services – ranging from solar panels to wind turbines and water recycling plants – at some $1.4 trillion.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman put the value at $1 trillion, noting that the signatories of the initiative jointly represented 86 percent of world trade…
But some environment groups said including products like incinerators, steam generators, and centrifuges, used in the production of fossil fuels, sent the wrong message.
“If you dig in to the list of products whose tariffs would be reduced or eliminated in this approach, you’ll see that many would actually cause more environmental harm than help,” said Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program…
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/24/us-davos-trade-idUSBREA0N0OM20140124
29 Jan: Bloomberg: Dean Scott: Obama Urged to Act Alone on Climate If Congress Unwilling to Pass Legislation
The president should “reaffirm his commitment to the aggressive timetable and agenda he laid out a year ago, especially with regard to regulating greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants,” according to Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy…
Dan Weiss, a senior fellow on energy and environment for the Center for American Progress, said he expects Obama to use his address to Congress to point to his administration’s progress in setting greenhouse gas limits for cars and light trucks, the ongoing boom in natural gas that has helped curtail U.S. emissions and improved energy efficiency.
“Then I expect he would talk briefly about implementing his climate action plan” Weiss told Bloomberg BNA, adding that Obama may remind Congress that he launched the array of executive branch actions only after Congress failed to heed his call for action in his February 2013 State of the Union address…
While there is little hope of congressional action on climate change in the near-term, “President Obama still has the bully pulpit,” Angela Anderson, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program director, wrote in a Jan. 24 blog post. “He has only just begun using it in earnest to mobilize the nation on climate change, but it is beginning to work,” she wrote, noting that there are only a few moments a year, including his address to Congress, “when the president can traditionally command our attention when it comes to important issues.”
“Taking climate seriously—and talking about it publicly—can go a long way toward helping the nation understand the facts and the risks that come with a warming world,” Anderson wrote.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-28/obama-urged-to-act-alone-on-climate-if-congress-unwilling-to-pass-legislation.html
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Have they all gone away yet?
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Sir Isaac Newton was a great scientist. He would be rolling around in his grave watching the current batch of CAGW so called “Climate Scientists” engaging in what could at best be described as “fictitious & mythological Climate Research” primarily based on “GIGO Computer Modelling”.
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I see – so according to this (humor) article the membership of the Flat Earth Society should match that of the sum number of cartographers and perhaps astrophysicists? Because “Only when the Third Law is satisfied will we finally understand.”
Hmmm… rather a weak argument IMO. Simply put, theories with stronger evidence have more scientific adherents, those with weaker evidence have fewer.
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KR
‘Simply put, theories with stronger evidence have more scientific adherents, those with weaker evidence have fewer.’
–
Consistent with the constraints of time and place, you could be a Lysenkoist.
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That’s why only 3% of scientists adhere to CAGW.
Of course I use the word “adhere” as in “glued to”, because there is no stronger bonding agent than “Grants (TM)”.
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There is a Flat-Earth society in the UK. CAGW believers, apparently. Sadly, no such organisation or popular belief was held prior to Columbus setting off. Its not a myth but an intentional con (by Washington Irving and others). Despite it being number two on the most persistent myth list of the American Historical Association and over a century of attempts to put the lie to bed, many teachers still teach it in high school today.
Lots of adherents = must be true.
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“those with weaker evidence have fewer.”
Which is why the AGW hoax will gradually die a natural death.
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OT Interesting article published yesterday on line.
Even got those graphs with squiggly lines, to boot!
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Dr Brian ought to read ALL of that link.
Its what REAL SCIENTISTS THINK WILL HAPPEN.
ps.. back to the touring. Internet cafes cost too much !
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I knew you could not help yourself. Hehehehehe.
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A bit off topic , but very typical .. Will the ABC mention this.. at all ! ?
http://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/sea-shepherd-on-trial-over-spill-in-coastal-waters-off-cairns/story-fnjpusyw-1226811832390
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Should have issued a liquid alert.
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Oh, this is side splitting!
Must read on. WARNING: Do not consume liquids whilst reading.
Source.
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Do you think the ABC will put this on their news ?
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I doubt it, Griss.
A shame that Abbott came out today. My understanding was the government is sitting back waiting until the ABC further degenerated into a leftist megaphone. Then acted.
A shot across the ‘Ship of Fools’ figurehead, maybe?
Picture a nude Flannery.
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Umm, the ABC doesn’t actually have a “news” section.
All it has, is a half hour paid advertisement for the Australian Labor Party and it’s affiliated Greens Party.
20
Extra,
“Former Greens leader Dr Bob Brown is Sea Shepherd Australia’s chairman.
Sea Shepherd Australia Limited and the Department of Transport and Main Roads declined to comment while the matter is going through the court.”
The ABC will only publish a news story if Bob Brown says it is true.
You have to laugh, it’s almost like a climate scientist being stuck in ice.
40
I been wondering how long its going to take them to work out there are no sheep at sea. *boom tish*
I was thinking about having a T shirt printed (living in Tassie as I do and constantly seeing Sea Shepard stickers on cars) that said…
SEA SHEPARD
SECURING THE SAFETY
OF SHEEP AT SEA FOR
OVER 30 YEARS
With a crook instead of a trident, but some hippy would probably fling their poo at me.
31
Also it must be the day Greens secretly celebrate the gods of irony and hypocrisy.
Sarah-Hanson Young today…
“The Greens have also seized on Mr Abbott’s remarks, warning the Federal Government is “coming after” the national broadcaster.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the Government is obsessed with secrecy and does not want journalists doing their job.
“I think we should be very aware that Tony Abbott is coming after the ABC,” she said.
“He’s never liked the ABC; he’ll do everything he can to undermine it and that’s why we need strong voices in Parliament to stand up for the public’s right to an independent national broadcaster.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-29/tony-abbott-steps-up-criticism-of-abc/5224676
This from the people who brought you the Finkelstien enquiry because Bob Brown didn’t like his press.
https://newmatilda.com/2011/05/20/bob-brown-v-press
But when one of your main speeches includes things like;
http://australianclimatemadness.com/2012/03/29/fellow-earthians-greens-bizarre-psyche-revealed/
I think the MSM maybe had a right to ask questions of anyone proposing to offer an alternative Government who comes out with that sort of um…. esoteric wisdom.
More Green Gold!
30
Wow I wish I was lucky enough to be an expert, I LOVE money.
30
Marvellous, Jo.
Reminds me of number one of Arthur C Clarke’s famous three laws of predictions: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is most probably wrong.” (!!)
00
Where do these laws leave Barack Obama when, in his state of the union address, he echos Al Gore and says climate change is a done deal?
The only worse waste of time I’ve ever been through is every other state of the union address by Mr. Done Deal. 🙁
In the meantime the Tuesday shows I like were all delayed a week because of the big wind from DC, just to add insult to injury.
When will they learn?
00
There is no doubt that modern medicine continues to discover amazing protocols, treatments and therapies but to be fair to people who are sceptical about vaccination science, the jury is still out on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines as a one size fits all modality. As a person who has a friend with a child (amongst many others) brain damaged by a vaccine I ask where is the empirical evidence that vaccines are 100% safe and 100% effective and suitable for a one size fits all approach. In fact there is no such evidence. On the contrary there are a number of papers in the published research which point to vaccines being ineffective and waning in immune response after a very short time. Unexpected waning of immunity after pertussis vaccination is now well known and is well described in medical literature. In fact, increasing whooping cough is seen in large proportions of the vaccinated population. Also the pertussis bacterium pathogen has been ‘adapting’ and resisting the vaccine. As a person sceptical about anthropogenic global warming I remain sceptical about vaccine effectiveness and safety. The Gardisil (cervical vaccine) was never thoroughly tested prior to release. The release was the testing and the CDC recommended a marketing program to report side-effects and adverse reactions. Not a very scientific method for testing something injected directly into the bloodstream of our young people. By the way, just for the record, my children have been fully vaccinated. However, I am used to being called all kinds of names because I question the ‘science’ of vaccination, just like I’ve been called all kinds of names because I question the ‘science’ of AGW.
Pertussis resurgence: waning immunity and pathogen adaptation – two sides of the same coin.
10
sorry. this is posted under the wrong topic. i’ve reposted.
00
I’m not going to add to much to the story….who believes this stuff??
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/twister-decline-linked-to-warming/story-e6frg8y6-1226813535725
00
I don’t get it. I mean isn’t the first law of governments to get in power, and then the second law is to stay in power? This does not fit when most leaders that support AGW end up getting kicked out and so do their governments?
How does it work?
01
Pretty simply. The public voted them in for all kinds of reasons. Then they found out how silly the carbon scare was, and how much it would cost, and they didn’t want it any more, and threw out the gullible governments who were still pushing it.
20
That doesn’t answer my question, and is fairly insulting to anybodys intelligence. If the first purpose of governments is to get in and then stay in power, then why would you support AGW? History tells us that that is not the populist position, scaring people does not gain you votes. Turnbull lost his leadership, Rudd lost his leadership, Gillard lost her leadership specifically for supporting action on climate and Labor lost the election, in a large part according to the libs, because they supported the carbon tax for the benefit of the climate.
The libs got in due to promises to unwind all the major policies on climate that labor have put in, and have tried to do so.
So this runs counter to your populist argument, if anything isn’t the opposite the case, ignoring and attacking the science is political and the populist way to get in and stay in power. That is what Australian observational evidence tells us.
02
1. Why? You (the politician) are not too bright or are lacking in principles, and you gullibly think the UN is right, or think their scare campaign will help you get elected. It’s a judgment about the power of their PR to turn voters off the alternate view. Because the media are so stupid about the scientific method, and promote the consensus religion, the combo of “a soft media” and UN and politically correct “academic” support is politically appealing in the short term. The Green view also brings in the useful idiot supporters and the renewables industry, and large financial houses, the latter two which gain financially feeding off big-government scares. Indeed all the fans of big government handouts tend to support each other for predictable reasons. But it’s a bad judgement as Rudd Gillard and Turnbull now know.
2. Why don’t politicians take the skeptical path? Given that gullible journalists will call you names, hate you and investigate you in a hostile way, why would any sane politician be willing to announce their skepticism?
PS: Being a sock puppet is not acceptable.
31
There is not much in your comment that makes logical sense. Especially in light of observation and the experience here and all around the world.
Firstly no politician is that stupid. They are normally quite canny on political matters to have gotten to where they have got. Secondly they will have known from way back that AGW and a carbon tax is not the populist path. The only logical conclusion is that they believe the advice from all the professional scientists and scientific organisations that report to them and are trying to do the right thing. The easy populist path with all the dollars and support comes from rejecting the science and comforting the masses that there is no problem.
Thirdly, the media in Australia has been hugely biased towards the non science side, about the only one that provides actual unbiased analysis is the ABC about the issue. Murdochs media, unquestionably the largest and majority controller of information in this country, openly decries the science and the labor party and regularly produces articles with the non scientific skeptic viewpoints while deriding the actual scientists and giving a platform for people critical of the science. Channel 10, partly owned by Reinhardt, has the Andrew Bolt, love Tony hate AGW fanclub show. etc etc. All the money and support is behind rejecting the science. Also, as in Canada, we now have a government critical of the science and slashing and gagging AGW support. Again the science does not change, not her, not in Canada, not in every scientific organisation in the world, irregardless of type of government or leaning.
Politicians should take the advice of their scientists and their scientific organisation as well as the international scientific organisations that report on this issue. It would be (and is) irresponsible to take the fringe, minority and big oil supported position where they financially benefit so heavily from delay and have huge vested interests.
So going on the assumption that Turnbull, Rudd and Gillard and the labor party are not stupid people and are all successful in their own right, how did any of them profit in either power or money by supporting the majority science?
02