Maurice Newman’s frank Op-Ed broke lots of rules last week — he used the words “fraud”, “deception”, and the IPCC on the front page of a major national daily paper. But the response to it has been a lower grade of apoplectic than what we are accustomed too. Which says something about the debate. Tick tick tick…
Graham Readfearn, journalist, has had nearly a whole week to summarize the strongest rebuttals around the world and he’s come up with 600 words of lame names. Newman is a “dizzy” denier, with “tricks on the brain”, and a “conspiracy dial”. Where is the science? Even as ad homs go that is barrel-scraping.
The Readfearn reasoning amounts to saying that Newman is either wrong because he is an old white guy (let’s be ageist, sexist and rascist eh?), or he is wrong because he cited Roy Spencer who is wrong because he’s a Christian. Thus and verily, ergo, ergot and a truffle too, climate sensitivity on Planet Earth is 3.3 degrees C.
If Spencer had been a Muslim would Readfearn have spent 6 paragraphs mocking the awkward conflicts with science and the Koran? Perhaps not. Instead he might have had to fill 6 paragraphs with more sexist, ageist and anti-right-wing material, though I expect he could have managed. He’s had practice.
Readfearn was probably “inspired” (in namecalling) via The Weekly Standard which discussed the climate Roy Spencer’s religious beliefs last weekend, or rather, which revived the same old intolerant attack lines that have been around for years.
Roy points out some of the hypocrisy in his reply:
“When warmist scientists like Sir John Houghton use the Bible to support action to fight global warming (e.g. his book Global Warming: The Complete Briefing) that was OK with everyone. Same with Katherine Hayhoe and Thomas Ackerman. So, I guess it depends upon whether the bible-believer agrees with them before the warmists decide to trash Bible-believing ways.”
Let’s use the Readfearn-sword-of-insight. If the climate is facing a crisis because Roy Spencer is a Christian, then the climate will also be OK because Hayhoe and Ackerman believe in God. Does two outnumber one? Has anyone done a survey on Christians in Climate Science, and can we pivot-table the skeptics and believers? (Quick, send the idea to John Cook.)
Life is like an endless Escher puzzle to the namecallers — one question leads to another, and before you know it, you’re back where you started.
Let’s put a bigger perspective on it. Readfearn attacks Roy Spencer, the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Roy was awarded both the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award. Readfearn is a journalist who ran a blog which got 14,000 comments (he says so on About Graham*). Notably, while he was working for the BBC news service, 911 happened. He now writes in quite a few green left publications including a regular with DeSmog. These are his career highlights.
Of course, experts can make mistakes, and Readfearn might be right about Roy, but if so, why doesn’t Graham discuss any science? If he cared about the environment, you’d think he’d care about getting those satellite measurements right.
Readfearn is convinced that Spencer is wrong, and The Guardian is convinced that his opinion is worth sticking up their masthead.
That says something about The Guardian.
———————–
* BTW Roy Spencer got 22,000 comments on his blog in the last three years, though I notice he doesn’t mention that on his About Page. (I had to ask instead.)
Roy’s reply is at Science and religion: Do your own Damn Google search.
(Jo says, if anyone finds God through Google, do let us know.)
Now that is interesting.
There are people who read the Guardian and the Independent.
And some people even call them newspapers and take them serious.
How quaint..
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The Guardian? What is that?
50
The Grauniad remains predictable and true to form and in so doing has become a modern day village stock. Readfearn et al. find themselves in an intellectual and philosophical corner painted green. Doubtless, he is beginning to find this most unpleasant. I think all we’re seeing now is bile leakage. This can happen when you’re squeezed hard enough into a corner.
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Isn’t it bile that starts out Green and turns into the Dark Brown Stuff.
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Nothing is more vicious than a cornered man.
Especially a pompous nitwit.
As the green scales fall from his eyes, lookout.
His family may wish to encourage counselling, as the true believer flops and snarls thro the 5 stages .
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John, guys like that never admit they were wrong, so don’t hold your breath. Don’t forget, there is no way science can prove them wrong, as proof denies belief, and without belief they have nothing.
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I don’t understand what Christianity has to do with global warming. There are Christians and non-Christians on both sides of the debate. I suppose next someone will say all people with blue eyes believe in global warming (or don’t believe in it depending on the person who makes such a stupid statement). Isn’t focusing on one religion enough when discussing climate change; namely AGW?
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I believe the use of Christianity in this case is just a good old fashioned red herring thrown in by the CAGW side, one of many actually if you consider the warmists’ habit of copying/aping the real scientists terminology, cherry pick, decline, increase etc .
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The play of the Christianity card (and that’s all it is) is for the CAGW zealots merely a device to demean the skeptic and thereby his argument. It’s both an ad hominem and a form of poisoning the wells. One finds this device from the trolls on Andrew Bolt’s site, esp. in regard to Roy Spencer. It goes like this: Roy Spencer is a skeptic, but he also believes in Intelligent Design. Therefore he is a fool and his “science” is worthless.
My immediate response: Prof Graeme Clark, who invented and developed the Cochlear Implant (the so-called “bionic ear”) also believes in Intelligent Design. In fact, it is precisely because of his belief in Intelligent Design that led to the development of the bionic ear: it was simply an exercise in thinking God’s thoughts after Him – when all his colleagues (in the 1970s) thought he was mad. I heard him on this issue personally, at a Melbourne Prayer Breakfast a few years ago. Does that therefore make the cochlear implant into bogus science and a worthless device?? Try telling that to the many who have regained their hearing from his brilliant device!
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They are working their way into a corner,first they are going to have to prove that there is no God,of which they can’t do,which sort of puts them at odds with their own attacks on the faiths/beliefs/theories of others.
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Nice point!
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Hmmm – is THAT the latest line from the replacement-theist Left? They’re not athestic of course, because they still worship Gaia and the Holy Trinity: The Father (Gore), the Son (Flannery) and the Holy Ghost (Milne of course). So their position is that people who believe in a God are stupid and can’t understand science? Tell that to Newton, Galileo (for all his hassles with the church, certainly a devout believer) or da Vinci.
When my Christian-hating leftist friends mock beliefs, I ask them to list all the evidence for atheistic creationism. Where is the proof that the universe all by itself produced 10^53kg of mass-energy (in violation of the laws of thermodynamics? And that complex molecules formed from amino acids – magically in the right order to be self-replicating in the form of amoeba? And that they formed complex life with trillions of cells, when even a 99.9%-formed animal would live only minutes if missing a key part? That stars are precisely calibrated to last billions of years but then produce complex elements in their last few minutes. That 0.1% more baryons than anti-baryons mean they didn’t have to make us out of nothing by gamma rays.
I’m happy to consider non-god explanations. But let’s hear what that explanation is. (And I don’t necessarily mean capital-G God either – even if a smoking gun was produced showing the entire OT and NT was a script written for an ancient Middle Eastern TV series and there is no Abrahamic God, that in no way proves that there is NO omnipotent or near-omnipotent Creator. Nor does “disproving” bits of the Bible refute the possibility that it was a revelation of Himself by God in a metaphorical way appropriate to the understanding of 1st Century people who were typically poor and not formally educated.)
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Al Gore, 2002.
.Fascinating, as a certain pointy eared gentleman used to say
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Wow, you almost had me converted there. But then I realised 14 odd billion years is a long time to get things right. (If only partly)
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Come, come, you’ll never be a warmist with an attitude like that. The decline in the active Christianity probably correlates with the increase in temperature which would lead some people to say, ergo, ergot and escargot global warming is driven by that decline. 🙂
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So where does this leave the arch-warmista
scientistsfrauds like Sir John Houghton, Katherine Hayhoe, Thomas Ackerma, etc. ? … they summon the Bible to support their multiple religious beliefs on a regular basis.50
I take it that Jo is skeptical about God too, and that is fair enough. I
I could Google up God but it would be tiresome to read all the answers, however Geoffrey Blainey has written 553 pages about God in his recent new book “A Shirt History of Christianity”, which I thoroughly reccemend. He has something new and fascinating on every page, even if you have had a religious upbringing. In fact it is probably even more,interesting if you have had a religious upbringing.
In comparison to Jesus I had never heard of Graham Readfern before, possibly because I do not read the Guardian nor Desmog blog
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Peter C I did Google God and the first results were from The Huffington post and Wikipedia, so that settles it then you get your lefty evil from the HuffPo and all your good honest spiritual guidance from Wiki. /sarc off
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Not a full frontal but here’s his hand at least, according to NASA.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/01/09/hand-god-spotted-by-nasa-space-telescope/
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I was more having a dig at Google here. If God was writing on the Internet, I don’t think google would find him.
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A couple of Hindu gods were issued court summons via newspaper adverts in India a few years back 🙂
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1571926/Hindu-gods-get-court-summons.html
Perhaps they should have tried the Guardian. The paper certainly needs the advertising revenue, and I think they are also willing to leave no journalistic depths unplumbed when it comes to matters weather and climate. Perhaps they’re running it as a ‘loss-leader’ to increase readership, even if they are annoyed readers?
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I think this is the very same Redfearn who was famously and comprehensively done over by Christopher Monckton in Brisbane in 2010.
He seems to have learned nothing since.
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The old saying goes,when you tell a lie,it is half way around the world before you get up for breakfast.The problem is,the more lies you are told,the less you listen.
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“The problem is, the more lies you are told, the less you listen”
Which is why the AGW meme is dying a natural death in the public’s eyes.
Its been lies from the beginning and people are waking up to this.
The more people like Readfern carry on, the less people are listening.
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Correct. However, just because people wake up to the scam doesn’t necessarily make it go away. Governments have the power and will to enfor4ece on the people whatever they want, democracy or no democracy. Let’s hope our government is fully on our side. It is yet to be proven they are. Time will tell.
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I was daft enough to listen to BBC Radio4 this morning. The head of the British Antarctic mob was saying that a 1% increase in sea ice there was insignificant and he was being rude about ‘D……’. It seems to me that 1% increase on a large icy continent is a very large amount of ice. Also, an increase that is more than 2 standard deviations from the norm is actually statistically significant, is it not?
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Well spotted. Have a look at the Bishop Hill blog, where this very point is being picked over (and shredded!). The implication of “Less than 1%” is that Antarctic sea ice is about 1400 million sq.km – and that was from an Antarctic scientist!
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Ooops – too enthusiastic with the decimal point: 140 million sq.km. Still large, though.
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Actually:
‘A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.’
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So, this Polar Vortex thats all the rage lately. . .
Heres a two minute video claiming the polar vortex is caused by Global Warming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDTzV6a9F4
But, heres Time magazing in 1974 claiming the polar vortex is caused by global cooling:
http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/01/07/time-magazine-goes-both-ways-on-the-polar-vortex-in-1974-time-mag-blamed-the-cold-polar-vortex-on-global-cooling-in-2014-time-magazine-blames-the-cold-polar-vortex-on-global-warming/
Its things like this which, to me, makes it so obvious theyre just making it up as they go along.
And it astounds me that others can not see this. People still eat it all up.
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Forty years is two generations. People eat it all up because: What do/did their grandparents know about climate change?
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In Jo’s masthead are the words “Tackling tribal groupthink” and what we see from this fellow Readfearn, whoever he is, is part of the ritual utterances of his tribe.
Why respond to facts and analysis when one can be paid to simply repeat familiar inanities?
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How can this man claim to be a scientist?
The wisdom of Dr Roy Spencer PHD.
‘Let me turn to Dr Spencer…do you believe that the theory of creation actually has a much better scientific basis than evolution? [Ha ha, and why are we going in the direction]…because it is some thing you have said, I still want to see if you still believe in…[er, I believe that evolutionary theory is mostly religion, it’s naturalistic, but my faith is not strong enough to believe that everything happened by accident…and I’m open to alternative explanations]…and do you still believe that the theory of creation has a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution to be specific…[I think I could be put in a debate with some one on the other side and I could give more science supporting that life is created than they could support with evidence that life evolved through natural random processes so YES!
Now watch for yourself!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKhS8TAxvjE
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The same idiotic response that I find with trolls on Andrew Bolt’s site. See my response to Peter above. This kind of reasoning would leave Graeme Clark’s cochlear implant a worthless piece of junk, because it came as a result of his belief in Intelligent Design.
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Good to see BlackDildothe4th is back in the new year to plug his YouTube channel.
Tip for new readers of Jo’s blog, BA4 is just a mouthpiece for his boyfriend the devout CAGW disciple Richard Alley. He posts select YouTube videos of his beau in order to increase his view count, which he monitors closely. For some reason, BA4 thinks that an increasing view count equates to people agreeing with his argument which, in turn, gives him some sort of weird gratification.
My recommendation, don’t bother clicking the link. Make sure you tell him you aren’t going to click on it either, it annoys the pi$$ out of him 🙂
Note that the above comment is nothing but an ad hominem attack against Dr Spencer. That’s all he has really. Richard Alley videos, Ad homs and strawman arguments.
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Nah. No way will I be indulging his pathetic ego by clicking any of his useless links. BlackDildoBreaker4th should crawl back under the rock he came from and acknowledge the Global Warming Movement is well and truly busted.
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Sheesh Heywood, if I were to go that way I’d like to think I could do better than Richard (Mildew) Alley, talk about settling!
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@Heywood
January 10, 2014 at 9:14 am
‘nothing but an ad hominem attack against Dr Spencer’,How people can accept ‘creationism’, ‘intelligent design’ as it has been re-branded, remains a mystery! The theory of evolution is the most accepted world wide theory there is! And it is ironic that AGW supporters are accused of just following a religion, when it is obvious that those that do, are 180 degrees out!
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His belief or non-belief in creationism is relevant to his climate research how exactly?
As someone pointed out elsewhere, John ‘The Cartoonist’ Cook of (un)SkepticalScience also believes in God and is a Christian.
Are you going to attack his character and dubunk all of his work based on his spiritual beliefs?
Of course not. Why?? Because he’s on your side, and the side is more important than the principle right??
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Touché
20
@Heywood
January 11, 2014 at 8:55 am
‘His BELIEF or non-belief in CREATIONISM is relevant to his climate research how exactly?’ well, if he is prepared to accept such a perverse theory of intelligent design, then any of his other conclusions are suspect to say the least!
‘also believes in God and is a Christian’ yes that is a dilemma, but at least he is not a creationist and intelligent design supporter! One step too far!
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Lets use the same logic on BA — Since BA can’t find any flaws in Spencers work, but thinks an ad hom about his religious belief is important, then all his other conclusions are suspect to say the least!
You know, if he can’t see the blatant errors in thinking-by-insults, then he’s obviously wrong on everything else.
BA – I’m just using “your” reasoning.
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Have you ever looked at a statistical analysis of the theory (as Roy Spencer alludes to)?
You would be quite shocked to find just how impossible it is… purely from a scientific point of view.
Evolution is wholly dependent upon random mutation (most mutations in nature are detrimental to the organism)… chance.
Tell me BlackDildo, what are your chances of pulling pieces of paper numbered 1 to 10 from a hat in the correct order? (even that will surprise you)
For evolution, the numbers are simply too big.
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‘Evolution is wholly dependent upon random mutation…what are your chances of pulling pieces of paper numbered 1 to 10 from a hat in the correct order?’ off the top of my head…100? Anyhow:-
Evolution Of Whales
‘For the manner in which the whale has evolved is the finest exemplars of the changes evolution can bring to bare upon life on Earth…can you give us some context for the beginnings of what turned into the whale [the whale…is a classis example of what might happen to humans if we landed on a new planet because the whales were the first mammals to go into the sea because and the sea was then 65million years ago was more or less empty…you can see step by step…endless new ways of life and they very rapidly took advantage…how boring our own evolution has been…the ancestors of whales were land animals…we knew nothing 40 years ago about their fossil record, absolutely nothing about their DNA…and in just half a century research they have changed from a complete evolutional enigma to perhaps the most perfect example of Darwin’s theory as illustrated by fossils, genes…the fossil evidence is particularly impressive]…etc’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f86kKjE3Rc
[you’ve failed to provide any evidence that Spencer has incorrectly worked the science outside of his faith. This post is proselytizing, adds to your insults to Spencer already prominent. I’ll delete any more like this.] ED
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Bladderbreath is baaaack, and dumber than ever.
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Dumber than ever? Is that possible?
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Can’t be bothered to click on your link.
DumbA$$
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‘Can’t be bothered to click on your link.’ well remain in a ‘Demon Haunted World’, then!
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Ooooh Black snake, what group will you bully when the Christians are all gone?
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‘bully’? How’s that like? Oh, by using recognized science! Some chicken, some neck, some bully!
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If a god did create life, evolution is a wonderful way of creating diversity of species. 😉
Or don’t people give their god that much credit for intelligence.
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The one thing that climate alarmists and extreme Christian cults have in common is:
A deep, scientifically unfounded, belief in the concept that Armageddon is imminent and only they, the selected few, can save the world. The only difference is that alarmists prefer the concept of Tthermageddon to Armageddon.
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Jo,
Reminds me of one of Baxter Black’s pithy comments
“First rate management hiures first rate help. Second rate management hires third rate help”.
(Baxter Black is a US cowboy poet)
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And an acute observer of yankee business practices.
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I agree that Christians are not normally either sceptic or alarmist, they are probably a mixture of both.
Sceptics tend to be conservative and have active experience in how the world actually works.
Alarmists tend to be left-leaning and like to pontificate on how the world should theoretically work.
Only those people who like to take themselves seriously (usually because no one else will) take the Guardian seriously.
In June last year, the Guardian had a daily circulation of 187,000 copies, not surprisingly it made a loss of £31 million last year. Why anyone should want to keep this left wing, pseudo-intellectual, rag alive is a mystery.
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Perhaps leftist trash like the Guardian are being held up with funds and donations coming from the ALP, Greens and unions.
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I here that Satan is the prince of lies. If there was any demographic to religion, I’d not want to be on the side that lies.
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I have batted back and forth on Facebook with two dyed in the wool warmists who are Anglican preists to the point that they unfriended me.
I am tempted to write to their bishop and point out that in fact he has underlings who are worshipping at a different altar.
However, so far as I am aware, there are a significant number of clergy who understand that the Church of Climatology is the idol of the Golden Calf, so I think I’ll just leave it alone. In time, they will have to deal with their own stupidity.
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I’m a Christian, and I know many other Christians and even priests that don’t believe in Global Warming.
It had me stumped when the Catholic church put out a proclomation that they believed it. The bible tells them how the earth is going to end, and warming is NOT in the bible. I don’t know how they reconcile that one.
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I’m afraid you are right…too many trendy bishops and fellow clerics are on the ‘guilt, guilt’ AGW bandwagon. I’m a Christian and get really fed up with all the PC rubbish and mindlessly banal ‘worship’ and ghastly ‘worship songs’ they spew out these days.
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Well, I’m a Christian and I Am a skeptic.
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I am a Buddhist, and it will be different next time.
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From John Cook’s Skeptical Science:
And there’s John Cook’s Christian cartoon website A Time To Laugh
I don’t think John Cook will do the survey. But then again, hypocrisy has never stopped him before.
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John Cook, the Astrophysics PhD, discouraged by his academic experience turned to Scifi and church bulletin cartooning, is not a neutral expert here.
His Guardian interview and Emmanuel College lecture make his own religious motivation clear.
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Typical of the majority of alarmists, there are loads of links to opinion pieces, but no direct link to the original piece. Nor are their extensive quotes, or any attempt to replicate the argument. The reader is encouraged to follow the extreme prejudices of the author, and not to question. When people resort to this sort of attack, it usually shows their own inferiority. Hiding the lack of concrete evidence behind a lot of bluster also has parallels with the previous post on Tamiflu and the hockey-stick graph.
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It is said that a lie has got halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on.
This is still true in the age of the Internet. However now the truth arrives mere moments later wearing hobnail boots with steel toe caps.
Gergis, Karoly and Turney took 3 years and $300, 000 of taxpayer’s money to produce their “Australian hockey stick”. It lasted about 3 hours on the Internet. Their sorry effort has been withdrawn from publication in a cloud of burning shame.
It is also said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The Internet now provides this for free, 24/7. But the internet insures not just vigilance, but also vengance. The Internet remembers what the lame stream media would love to forget.
This is the reason for Readferns bitter little rant. Global warming was a hoax and his record of vilifying scepics to silence them is permanent. His squeeling leftardulent shame will burn on the Internet forever.
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I was doing a blood test @6.30 this morning, in the waiting room with the TV on.
A story on the freezing USA weather came on, and an elderly man, approx age 70, said, “There isn’t much global warming there.”
There was a silence, I said, ” I’ll speak up. Global warming is the biggest fraud ever perpetuated.”
The elderly man then quickly rattled off some global warming observations.
He then added they were from 1910, saying nothing had changed.
I shrugged, no-one said a word, then I was called in.
A satisfying start to the day.
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Well done!
I used sarcastically to observe to passing villagers, when we had snow every morning last year (in England) ‘Hey ho! more global warming!’ Not one disagreed with me; they all thought it a scam.
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Truthfully made me laugh 🙂
Almost five years after climatgate, it becoming very clear that the climate scare is propaganda.
What we should see in newspapers should be something like this post by Judith Curry
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-for-agw/
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Isaac Newton believed in God, and alchemy.
I never did believe all that gravity stuff!
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Me neither – gravity sucks!
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Sucks, or pulls?
00
No wonder I can fly!!!
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Redfearn has condensed 25 years of Climate Science development into 600 words of ad hom.
No small feat for Redfearn considering that, for most of that time, the ‘Science has been Settled’.
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Our climate is always changing. Many people are concerned that global warming is very serious and a threat to the future of the planet. Many accept that mankind can affect the climate but believe that warming claims are exaggerated. Both camps have legitimate views and in time, scientific data and debate will resolve these differences.
A smaller, but significant number of people believe in catastrophic climate change with a fervour and passion normally only seen in a religious context. They will never ever accept evidence that challenges their belief.
They are members of the Church of Climate Alarmism.
Some alarmists seem to have elevated global warming from an unproven hypothesis bedevilled with massive uncertainty to a position beyond post normal science and more akin to a fanatical religion complete with demonisation and persecution of non-believers.
It is not clear whether their faith is born of self righteousness, fear or a conviction that they are saving the world. However, it does seem to blunt their ability to listen, reason and assess factual evidence without bias.
Another aspect that is unclear concerns the different psychological and political dynamics that define the various factions. The high priest layer in the hierarchy consists of some true believers who are genuinely fanatical about the cause. It also contains many who proclaim themselves to be true believers but are actually employed in furthering a particular cause which may be political, financial or purely personal.
These people are particularly dangerous because they care nothing about the science, but devote all their resources to perverting it for their own reasons. They are clever at manipulating and controlling the other factions. Let us label them the “manipulators”. These activists rally the more junior factions and also seek to influence and recruit from the huge pool of agnostics beyond the boundaries of the movement.
The faction we shall call the “specialists” are those with particular skills relevant to the science. These fall into two categories, those who are voluntary believers and those who will be banished to hell if they dare to display sceptical characteristics. The former mentioned bias their work to support the cause and swear allegiance at every opportunity.
The latter category lives in constant fear of discovery. Like the witches of old, any observed deviation from the true path will result in career death and eternal damnation.
Finally, we have the foot soldiers. These are the faithful. They obey all layers of the hierarchy, though they do not possess the skills to evaluate objectively that which they are told to believe. The action of believing apparently provides much of their satisfaction and the vilification of the non-believers provides the rest.
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Hi Schrodinger’s Cat
You say …
For the fanatical believer I think the psychological dynamic is as follows.
[1] A deep existential internal emptiness – nothing to stand on within themselves – when forced to look within they suffer vertigo and a deep feeling of being lost, alone and deeply threatened by a cold universe. This experience is never admitted to, and is avoided by an urgent and ongoing quest for external referents of certainty, significance and control which are most easily found in fundamentalist belief systems.
[2] Due to the foundational weakness of the personality, the fanatical believer needs to establish Certainty, Significance and Control, and therefore
[2.a] makes a strong defensive attachment to specific externally sourced beliefs within their community or true believing affiliates (in this case – such as – man is dangerously heating the planet) that offer certainty (verified within the belief structure, and by close affiliates), significance (humanity is the major force on the planet, your actions matter) and control (others must bend to the will of the fanatical believers or the world is doomed) within an ambiguous and threatening world. The beliefs are made certain as they are immune to questioning by the believer and are also held by their own close affiliates, and
[2.b] maintains a deep seated admiration, and reverence for those people (Alarmist prophets, CAGW spokespeople, Al Gore, etc…) who can articulate the beliefs with certainty and contagious conviction, and
[2.c] maintains a deep aversion for contrary evidence that debunks the beliefs and which exhibits ambiguity, doubt and uncertainty – the fanatic believer attacks or ignores such evidence as opportunity permits.
When opportunity permits – such people make excellent Death Camp Guards.
You also say …
They’re Psychopaths – pure and simple.
When opportunity permits – such people make excellent Death Camp Wardens.
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The joys of Religion,Ignorance Intolerance Hatred Violence.Just remember a belief in God HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION.Ignorant morons begging(praying) in church or grovelling on mats several times a day are just pretending,Their God is not my God.<:o)
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Precisely. Also, I hope this thread does not become a bashing thread for Christians. There are also a lot of atheists who believe in the global warming crap but I don’t expect any critiques about them here. The truth is skeptics and global warming deniers include all types, just as the alarmists do.
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Only the likes of Lewindopey could draw a bow on that link..
using 10 people.
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WE won’t mention the Millions of Fundamentalist Christians in the USA,mostly armed to the teeth.Praise the lord and pass the ammo.ALL Religion including CAGW is a POX on humanity.<:o)
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There is belief in God, and there is religious belief.
I’m not sure which one you’re poking a stick at, but I find religious belief of any kind is not healthy.
I do believe in God though.
50
Belief in god?
Which god?
There are so many . . . . . . . I really can’t choose one.
Maybe Ganesh, the Indian one with the head of an elephant: he seems a fun guy . . . . . .
YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS! – John McEnroe
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Michael Smiths reckons his VB fridge is “better than religion” and he could be right.<:o)
21
For those who can’t decide which religion to accept, the UN has creted Unity Church just for you. It incorporates belief systems of all major religions, making a blended and acceptable faith for everybody.
It’s that’s too much UN for you, I’d suggest pastafarian.
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And membership is only $100b per year?
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Amen, George.
10
One of the supporting comments on Readfearn’s piece is “Creationism does not deserve the title theory. It is a hypothesis based on unfalsifiable religious doctrine.” submitted without any apparent awareness that is the exact problem with CAGW.
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One long ad hominem; attack the man, not the argument.
The commenters are little better:
So intent are they in their vitriol that they cannot see such blatant flaws in their argument… or perhaps they can, and that is what they believe?
As far as I could stomach the commenters, not one of them actually attacked the argument scientifically – all went for the man with hyperbole, insult and emotional response.
As realisation begins to dawn on the unwashed masses, we can expect to see more of this, and worse.
112
Exactly.
I’m all in favour of anti-right-wing material, but far less enamoured of racist (without a superfluous “s’) and ageist material.
But none of it is even remotely to the point.
Neither are the qualifications of Readfearn or Spencer.
Only the data are relevant to the argument.
17
RoHa, and my point in posting the qualifications of both is the hypocrisy of those who say we should believe the ‘experts’. There was nothing of worth at all in Readfearns piece, no science, no data, no logical exposition and no evidence that his opinion on Spencers work is remotely worth publishing.
The false arrogance whereby those who bow at the Cult of the Experts feel free to attack other experts no matter how ill-informed they are is part of it’s appeal. It’s about the tribe, not about the talent. The idea feeding Readfearn who has no notable intellectual achievements is that he is mentally superior to people like Spencer. Thus do the false elite seek to aggrandize themselves without effort or achievement, while at the same time exposing that they have no respect at all for experts, for education or for experience, it is merely a facade.
241
Dunning–Kruger effect.
Unskilled and unaware.
I was looking for a science paper I saved on this subject from some years ago, but I can’t identify it unong my library of pdfs.
10
Pointing out double standards and intellectual dishonesty are worthwhile in that they reduce the rhetorical force of the “we should believe the experts” claim. But by invoking such issues we run the risk of committing an argumentum ad hominem of our own.
Double standards and intellectual dishonesty do not make Readfearn wrong. We simply have no reason to believe he is right because, as you say, he presents no science, no data, no logical exposition.
20
just as ridiculous:
10 Jan: Guardian: Richard Schiffman: Harassment of climate scientists needs to stop
Climate change denialists are suing scientists, seeking access to their private emails. They will stifle inquiry and scientific progress
When Michael Mann chose a career in science, he didn’t think that he would be denounced on billboards, grilled by hostile legislators on Capitol Hill and in the British House of Commons, have his emails hacked and stolen, receive letters laced with an anthrax-like white powder, and become the target of anonymous death threats.
Mann also did not imagine that he would be spending quite so much time with lawyers and in courtrooms…
Media outlets including the Washington Post, the Associated Press, NPR and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have filed friends of the court briefs on behalf of ATI. Strange bedfellows indeed – the mainstream media teaming up with a right wing climate change denialist organization! The media groups aren’t siding with the denialists on their trashing of climate science, of course. But they argue in their briefs that the public’s right to know trumps the need of scientists to conduct their business outside of the glare of the public eye.
This is a shortsighted view. Surely we don’t need to pit freedom of the press against academic freedom. Reporters know how vital it is to communicate with their sources confidentially – the work of journalism would scarcely be possible without this guarantee. They should be willing to grant the same protective right to privacy to the scientists who they report on.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/09/denialist-harassment-of-climate-scientists-needs-to-stop
comment by Bob_Helpful:
Given that climate change deniers are often so very keen on the freedom of speech, they seem to spend an awful lot of time shouting others down / trying to deny them the right to voice an opposing opinion.
By getting Michael Mann so entrenched in legal proceedings they are effictively denying him a voice
comment by vraaak: The BBC has calmly balanced almost every interviewee on climate change with a denier, even though the consensus is now well over 95%.
U HAVE TO LAUGH.
141
“Mann also did not imagine that he would be spending quite so much time with lawyers and in courtrooms…”
He is the one who is looking for it. He is the one who sues everybody. He likes that.
131
Readfearn has form. In the now classic debate with LM Readfearn was so traumatised he hid for some time afterwards. See the debate here.
Ian Plimer was on LM’s side and Barry Brooks on Readfearn’s.
It was a debacle with LM and Plimer wiping the floor with them.
On one of the LM tours Readfearn rang me. I had the impression that anything I said would be twisted into whatever narrative he wanted.
Personally I don’t want to say anything about Readfearn. But he gets entre to the ABC, the Guardian, Fairfax and every other media outlet which supports AGW. So he is, in fact, one of the leading journalists promoting AGW. He does so, as this latest article shows, in the manner of a bitter little school boy, which is I think an appropriate image of the AGW supporter, man or woman.
332
Thanks for the excellent link cohenite.
I would say that Readfern is more of an AGW stenographer than a journalist, that’s not an Ad hom just a personal observation.
60
So Philip Shehan,
Please explain why Graham Readfearn’s response is not an example of a Warmist attacking the man and not the message – and failing to provide any scientific rationale for his rebuttal? Surely only Skeptics do this, don’t they?
Thanks.
160
William,
Don’t forget that as a devout leftist, Readfern holds himself to a higher moral code than us evil den**rs. To him, and people like Brian (Philip Shehan’s real name), Michael the Activist, Mat, Brian Hother etc, their cause is so righteous they see absolutely no issue with using whatever tactic they feel to achieve their desired outcome.
To them, it’s whatever it takes, regardless of how hypocritical, inappropriate, rude, insulting etc.
Just don’t use the same tactics back at them, they’ll scream bloody murder.
211
Don’t forget that our point is so worthless, it’s not worth spending time to reply with accuracy of argument. So a quick “you’re wrong and stupid” is good enough.
Having said that; I do dispare at the number of times we call them nasty names, like blackadderthe4th #9 above.
30
Dr Brian? Philip? Hellooooooooo…. Are you there?
00
Gees.. Let sleeping dogs lie !!!
00
(Jo says, if anyone finds God through Google, do let us know.)
I attempted this at your request and all that Google could come up with was “page not found” thus for me confirming my atheist views have been correct all along:-)
Seriously what has the religious views of a scientist got to do with their scientific achievements? Some of the greatest scientists have held strong beliefs in the existence of God whilst others have been agnostics or aetheists. To respect a persons religious beliefs or lack of them is what makes us civilised.
My view is that if there was a God he would be perpetually sad at the evil human beings do and are capable of. If he came to earth we would surely kill him. Apologies to Camus.
62
You can find anything on Google.
30
Finding anything of importance is another matter entirely. <:o)
40
Proof of existence denies belief.
This is where the devout cAGW believers are muddled in their religion because they accept everything as proof of their belief. If everything is proof, then it doesn’t require belief.
61
Religions speak with one voice on climate policy
20 June 2013
* An open letter from Australian religious leaders
Many religious groups – Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Uniting Church, Baptists, Salvation Army, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Baha’i – have statements upholding humanity’s responsibility to protect the environment on which life depends.
While these statements are often not well known or widely proclaimed, increasingly these traditions are beginning to appreciate the importance of protecting the environment, and especially facing up to the urgent question of climate change caused by carbon pollution.
. . .
There you have it.
The ‘creationists’ are on the side of man made Global Warming.
God ‘believes’ in man made Global Warming.
Only a ‘blasphemer’ would deny that.
51
Hand of God’ Spotted by NASA Space Telescope (Photo)
11
Certainly in the protestant realm, the only so called ‘Christians’ who believe in AGW are those ‘socialists’ more influenced by Marx than Jesus. As always these totalitarians migrate to positions of power where they can control others where even God himself gives us the right to choose. These mini-fascists are then the ones to sit on committees and promote typical pseudo-enviro causes under the guise of compassion whilst real Christians do the work.
60
Graham Redfearn used to have a green column in The Courier Mail. One night he was in a broadcast debate re’ AGW. He and another person were for the warmist side and Lord Monkton with another on the other side. Monkton did well as usual. Redfearn was last to speak. Apparently he performed so poorly for his side that the audio of his effort went ‘missing’…it must have been so embarrassing.
121
Not only that, the idiots’ idiot had a blog on a Murdoch site and he closed it down the next few days after having been used by Christopher to wipe the floor.
A classic example of a warmist, turns to water when face to face. Left a trail of many such on the global warming subject.
30
Gaia and sundry other gods are probably being beseeched right now by the Spirit of Mawson scientourists/journalists (including Guardian and BBC) who are crammed into the Aurora Australis in ever extending voyage time in Antarctic waters.
The Aurora Australis is still under way and holding off Casey base – perhaps today’s 91km/hr winds are a reason. Unloading looks like it is delayed.
Boredom, frustration, anger and embarrassment (not to mention thirst on a reportedly dry ship) are likely to be growing among the motley passenger contingent. Prof Turney’s discomfort level may well be maxing.
Then again, however, the intrepid scientists may be finalising their much awaited papers that they claim will add to the peer reviewed knowledge base of Antarctic sea currents and climate.
It is ironic that the MV Akademik Shokalskiy may soon be unloading the expedition’s remaining bulky gear in NZ or Tasmania – perhaps long before the expeditioners themselves turn up.
172
Perhaps they will get hungry enough to try some CHRIStmas Turkey with Fogbound gravy!
10
Apologies… the steering on my mouse went awry and I gave you a red thumb. 🙁
10
I doubt that Readfearn has ever truly gotten over having his hat handed to him publicly by Monckton in devastating fashion a few years back. That ended his gig on the Courier-Mail, but these activists are, well, always active.
His bile is partly due to trying to get his own back and soothe his ruffled self-esteem. What a piece of work.
103
And yet you can be thrashed in a debate and still be right…
01
Maybe some hope on the horizon for future school children:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pyne-tackles-bias-in-classrooms-with-national-curriculum-review/story-fn59niix-1226798789616#
The Coalition realises tha tthe extent of remedial classes being required at universities is unreasonable. There is likely to be an increased focus on english, maths and science because Australia is falling behind relatively less developed countries.
A generation with a better grasp of science … I like that notion.
141
I can tell you that a significant number of students coming into Engineering at uni really don’t have the necessary mathematical tools to cope easily.
Many find themselves doing remedial courses just to try to keep up.
The lack of basic maths skills and understand makes it that much harder for them to grasp basic engineering principles and concepts.
70
whoops , left the “ing ” off ‘understand’.
10
In a former life … well 20 years ago … I was teaching at a mining school in a regional town in the state (kinda narrows it down 🙂 and we had the same problem. There had to be remedial courses in maths, english, physics etc.
I guess I was lucky because I went to a private school in Holland (The British School) and we were fully prepared by the time we hit O & A levels and university. But I have to wonder what goes on in high schools these days…
60
Probably since the late 1970’s in Australia, it’s been getting more and more dificult to recruit science and mathematics graduates into teaching those subjects in high schools. Curricula have been adjusted accordingly. The result is that many science and maths teachers can only teach according to the book and may well have a poorer understanding of the subject matter than some of their more “geeky” students.
There is no time for the knowledge to “sink in” because it’s a prerequisite for subsequent semesters. While students may be able to mechanistically apply techniques, their fundamental understanding has been handicapped because an appreciation of taught knowledge needs to be related with physical experience before that knowledge becomes part of understanding how it relates to the physical world.
As you note, many tertiary institutions have been forced to increase their teaching loads by providing “remedial” science and mathematics in Engineering and the Physical Sciences. Students spend a substantial part of their first semester (if not longer), catching up to the what the first “Year 12’s” in Western Australia had to know in order to be accepted into such University courses. It’s not just the final two years of high school; it’s in all years of schooling where science and mathematics has become “too hard” for many schools to teach properly simply because they lack the teachers.
The education system needs a “reboot” to be able to prepare students for independent life; not just for further education. Independent life requires that they have fundamental understandings of mathematics and science; sufficient to be able to objectively evaluate the information that is before them and, if they choose, to have the foundation upon which they can independently develop an understanding of particular “technical” matters.
Not everybody is afflicted by “The Knack”. (Video, “just” for fun.)
00
It is a growing problem. When I went to uni, if you hadn’t done the right subjects in high school, you couldn’t study certain subjects at uni. Now there are a lot of bridging units so that you can come into uni and catch up on what you missed in high school.
In some ways this is bad. Students who do the catch-up maths units tend to struggle. Its simple really. If you didn’t do advanced maths in high school, its probably because you weren’t that good at it. And that probably won’t change at uni.
But there are other cases where students only realise what they really want to do once they are at uni, and then it is great that they can do bridging units.
There has been a tendency to water down maths and science units. Student in maths are supposed to describe how they solved problems. Students in physics have to remember facts about the history of the subject (in NSW at least). This is particularly annoying. These are not the important things in maths and physics. They distract from the important things. I’m not sure why these things are considered important.
But I’m old fashioned, and I love problem solving. I think that most students prefer the modern way of doing things.
10
OMG, this is a serious issue..
I find myself agreeing with basically everything you have said. (in this post).
Someone send me a psychiatrist … quick !!! 🙂
10
ps.. Having taught maths in high schools for 20 years, at all levels from ‘oh no, someone save me’ to ‘gees, these guys are pretty darn good’, I saw a decline in what I guess is the motivation of students to want to tackle the harder maths levels.
After a break working for Optus, and now teaching civil engineering of different varieties at Uni, I see this lack of mathematical and scientific foundations even at the Uni level.
20
i.e. having somebody else do it for them or not getting it done properly. Striving towards mediocrity. From both directions.
Which is insufficient to sustain a society reliant upon “high technology”, keeping that working and developing new stuff based on insights gained by observing and thinking about what is going on in the real world.
There is a vast repository of knowledge and insight gained in the century before 1980. Comparing a few of them to what is promoted as “new” nowadays is something of a let-down.
The ideas of the 1920’s to 1960’s especially have not yet been fully developed. It takes a great deal of time for “supporting” industries to be able to deliver the requisite goods and services necessary to enable the inventions. Some of it is due to the chain of technical lagging but it seems to me that much more of it attributable to the statist management and bureaucracies shielding the larger organizations from change.
The pace of “exploitation” of ideas (not just marketing ideas) seemed to drop sharply during the 1980’s. That’s when the big corporations appeared to stop milking old research and began to embrace “new paradigms”. It’s easier to make money producing stuff where the only product change is a veritable “fresh lick of paint”.
00
Clearly, Readfearn thinks that he’s on an important mission. When I read his blathering, my mind tends to stray.
Readfearn and the other Grauniads don’t seem to recognize that their payroll is funded largely by dirdy polluders using Autotrader to spruik their wares. Because the masthead “Guardian” itself is something of a loss leader for the corporation.
50
I am skeptical about God as well but since he is not trying to tax me, tell me how to run my life or decide what sort of lightbulbs I can use I have no problem with him or any of his followers.
The AGW religion on the other hand is getting far too big for its boots.
140
Well said !!
40
That’s pretty much what caused my attention to shift. As an atheist I had researched the Bible and debated Christians for many years. Eventually I realised, that while Christianity was dying, something far less benign, something insidious in fact, was rapidly growing and was already imposing itself onto my life.
Global Warming is just another denomination of the greater religion (or quasi religion), Political Correctness.
30
I wrote this some time ago. Courtesy before Political Correctness. An excerpt:
00
His representatives on earth are trying to tell you how to run your life. And sometimes they end up in power and make laws that force you to do (or not do) certain things.
01
Oh John you mean the Democrats?
00
Scratch that, Democrats are representatives of Satan
00
WUWT: Australian Antarctic Division head Tony Fleming says they’ll make efforts to recover the cost of #spiritofmawson rescue
Tony Fleming, director of the Australian Antarctic Division tells Louise Maher the AAD wasn’t linked to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition despite an implication by the expedition head that he had an “official stamp of approval”…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/09/australian-antarctic-division-head-tony-fleming-says-theyll-make-efforts-to-recover-the-cost-of-spiritofmawson-rescue/#comment-1530960
matches this!
9 Jan: Australian: Anthony Bergin: Saga of Shokalskiy breaks ice on much-needed polar conversation
(Anthony Bergin is deputy director, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and honorary fellow, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre)
The head of the French Polar Institute has called the Russian ship’s cruise, with its assortment of tourists and Australian scientists, a “pseudo-scientific expedition”. It’s interesting that the voyage isn’t part of the official Australian Antarctic Science Program, and was taking paying passengers. The cruise is badged by its operators as the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, appropriating the name of the Australasian scientific team that explored part of the cold continent between 1911 and 1914, led by Douglas Mawson. It’s a bit like stealing the term Anzac for a tourist visit to Gallipoli…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/saga-of-shokalskiy-breaks-ice-on-muchneeded-polar-conversation/story-e6frgd0x-1226797645337#
50
The Guardian is in serious panic/damage control/afraid Britain will catch the disease over Maurice Newman’s op-ed.
They had half a dozen articles on it.
Any attempt at a touch of humor in comments is met with an immediate life ban.
In fact the Brits have in the government Peter Lilley whose opinions on climate are more or less the same as Newman’s.
50
The main point is that creationism is a personal belief.
While AGW can bring a whole country to ruin.
60
“We’re watching evolution happening,” he said. “The viruses, the parasites have a pressure put on them from the drugs.
Disease resistance to antibiotics at tipping point, expert warns
Prof Jeremy Farrar said the effects would be gradual and would be seen not just in resistant new infections but in everyday medical practice and the treatment of everything from *diabetes to minor wounds at risk of turning septic.
“This is happening now,” Farrar told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“It’s been happening for the last decade or so or more and it will continue to happen.
01
ouch. Writer, David Roberts is the author of an account of the 1913 expedition called Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration (W. W. Norton & Co., 2013):
8 Jan: National Geographic: David Roberts: Opinion: Rescued Antarctic Group Aren’t Heroes
The passengers aboard the stranded ship felt oddly entitled, writer argues
The 52 scientists, journalists, and tourists on the ship acted entitled instead of being embarrassed by their entirely avoidable predicament.
The members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013-2014 (AAE)—who intended to re-create a very small part of Sir Douglas Mawson’s original monumental expedition of 1911-14—seemed strangely blasé—even giddily upbeat—during their ten days stranded in the ice…
They even seemed to relish their crisis. The BBC quoted Tracy Rogers, the team’s marine ecologist, as saying, “It’s fantastic—I love it when the ice wins and we don’t. It reminds you that as humans, we don’t control everything …
For many seasoned adventurers, the team’s attitude was hard to swallow. It seemed to betoken a new kind of entitlement, in which folks who get into serious trouble take it for granted that other people will risk their lives to save them…
Perversely, for the general public, the hapless passengers seemed to emerge as the heroes of the story, even though they did nothing but twiddle their thumbs and wait for the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long to come to their rescue, which ended by trapping the much bigger vessel in the ice. The U.S. sent another icebreaker, the U.S. Polar Star, to rescue Xue Long and Shokalskiy, but that mission was recently called off when the ships were able to break free from the ice.
The real heroes of the story were the 101 members of the Xue Long, the 22 crew members of the Shokalskiy who stayed with their ship, the crew of the Polar Star, and that of the Australian ship Aurora Australis that powered south to receive the airlifted refugees…
Still unreckoned is that gigantic financial cost and who will pay for it.
***It seems unlikely that the dilettantes who signed up for AAE 2013-14 would soon fork over the funds to pay for their perilous and expensive rescue. They’re still too busy congratulating themselves.
As expedition leader Chris Turney blogged on January 3, safe and snug aboard the Aurora Australis, “The AAE team have been fantastic. ETC ETC
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140108-antarctica-ship-ice-trapped-rescue-history-science/
70
Evolution or creationism, both require “birth”.
WATCH: Lake Michigan Waves Birth Giant Ice Balls
21
who would have known? Expedition spokesman Alvin Stone, (who also put out the “4 degrees” media release during the AAE fiasco), was only a VOLUNTEER!
And who can explain how “climate change” could cause the simultaneous disappearance and build-up of sea ice? Alvin Stone, media manager for AAE and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, gave it his best shot, blaming global warming for the incident…
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2014/01/warmisms-titanic/
LinkedIn: Alvin Stone
Current:
Media and Communications Manager at UNSW ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
(The Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is a major initiative funded by the Australian Research Council)
Past:
Media and Communications Manager at Australasian Antarctic Expedition
November 2013 – January 2014 (3 months) Sydney
I volunteered to assist University of NSW’s academics Prof Chris Turney and Dr Chris Fogwill with media as they led an Antarctic expedition made up of researchers and members of the public in the footsteps of Sir Douglas Mawson.
This work included producing media releases, developing lead-up stories with interested media and looking after a range of communication aspects around the voyage. It rapidly escalated into 12 days of non-stop crisis communication after the voyage ran into trouble on Christmas Eve.
The team were repeating and extending Mawson’s scientific work in Antarctica when the Expedition’s ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, was trapped in the ice.
For 13 days, I looked after all media communications for the expedition by myself in a story that went around the world and persisted at an extremely high level of activity for 10 days. This included more than 1000 media requests for interviews and images.
Until they were rescued by the Aurora Australis, I looked after all media running on around five hours sleep a night, at best. I arranged interviews, kept abreast of social media and suggested certain video uploads. I communicated with the leaders using SMS, Skype messages, email and satellite phones when the weather was good but communications were intermittent and delays in response could be as much as 12 hours.
I also acted as spokesman for the Expedition when it was out of contact with the rest of the world and was interviewed by major news organisations in the US, UK, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the Middle East. Because communications were, at best, intermittent, interview blocks with crew members regularly blew out and often had to be rescheduled.
This level of intensity only eased two or three days after the rescue.
On January 5, a University of NSW team took over media communications, 2-3 days after the rescue, so I could resume my full time position with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science…
Media and Communications at WWF-Australia
I played a major role in the communications of WWF-Australia’s climate change media.
Editor, Assistant Editor, Features Editor, Sub Editor at Fairfax Community Newspapers
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/alvin-stone/41/146/625
20
“Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me……….”
Alvin, there seems to be a common theme in your little diatribe. What a self-important little weed. Poor diddums.
60
Even funnier when their ship Akademik Shokalskiy arrives home, long before their former passengers, now stuck at Casey … if only they had waited, they could almost be home now …
50
Tom
Yes, but they’d be getting pretty hungry by now. They only had enough food for 5 more days when the Chinese pulled them off the ice. Do you think they’d replicate Shakelton’s exploits in roasting a few penguins? Or could the world survive without a few more Climate Change PhD candidates? Decisions, decisions…
Cheers,
Speedy
50
Actually, they had another 14 days’ of dry rations.
Which is why the rescue wasn’t of the passengers, but a rescure of the crew from the passengers before they ran out even the wrong sort of milk shakes.
00
11 Jan: UK Spectator: Mark Steyn: Global warming’s glorious ship of fools
Has there ever been a better story? It’s like a version of Titanic where first class cheers for the iceberg
But still: you’d have to have a heart as cold and unmovable as Commonwealth Bay ice not to be howling with laughter at the exquisite symbolic perfection of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition ‘stuck in our own experiment’, as they put it. I confess I was hoping it might all drag on a bit longer and the cultists of the ecopalypse would find themselves drawing straws as to which of their number would be first on the roasting spit…
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9112201/ship-of-fools-2/
30
I waded through about 100 of the posters on Readfern’s rant. They really are suffering that their precious Green/Lab government was booted.
They seem to be suffering the end of the world as we know it syndrome, projecting on to the new government the worst excesses of Ghengis Khan. The poor little precious creatures have had a rug pulled out from under them.
One brave young lady over there keeps poking them with a stick of facts, answered only with hate and no facts.
This man and his followers will need some serious help when their idols are pulled down,not my problem as useful idiots are usually the first scape goats. To me the followers of useful idiots like Readfern will fade and sulk for many years that is their problem.
Too much money has been wasted on these idiots already, let them find their own way back to reality. Reality seems to be catching up to the ship of fools already.
90
Glad to hear it Wayne but I wonder if these deluded twits will suffer anywhere near some of fates foisted upon innocent people as a result of blind selfish arrogant ideals that they supported and implemented, I hope there’s a lot of instant Karma going around for such types.
70
Yonnie, Karma has it’s way of biting very deeply the bottom that offends it, something like revenge is a dish best served cold. Turkey and his mob may find the future a little bleak.
40
Fairfax Media, who claimed the Expedition as their own, & had Nicky & Colin on the Aurora Australis,
Nicky Phillips/Colin Cosier:
Follow Fairfax Media’s Antarctic expedition here
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/antarctic-expedition-leader-relieved-but-sad-to-leave-russian-ship-20140103-308wx.html
looking for ice cores, but diverted,
Christmas on an icebreaker (00:52)
VIDEO: Nicky says unfortunately they won’t get to wherever they planned to go to study ice cores, which is one of the main reasons she and Cosier have been in the Antarctic for 3 weeks. because a ship is in distress in Commonwealth Bay & they have to go rescue them.
Credits CAMERA/EDIT: Colin Cosier
http://media.watoday.com.au/news/national-news/christmas-in-antarctica-5037954.html
has been doing quite a PR job for CSIRO all week, as the Turney Antarctic Exhibition falls apart:
8 Jan: SMH: Ben Westcott: CSIRO ‘apologises’ for lack of research on dragons
“This morning when the film crew left, Sophie said ‘I forgot to tell them they can come back when we have a dragon’,” she said. “I told her they can’t do it now, it might be very long time but they’re looking into it.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/csiro-apologises-for-lack-of-research-on-dragons-20140108-30ggg.html
9 Jan: SMH: Ben Westcott/Matthew Raggatt: Queensland girl’s Christmas inquiry fires new passion at CSIRO for dragon studies
”All her friends are now saying they want to be a scientist and Sophie says she now wants to work in the CSIRO. She’s saying Australian scientists can do anything,” she said.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/queensland-girls-christmas-inquiry-fires-new-passion-at-csiro-for-dragon-studies-20140108-30hv4.html
10 Jan: SMH: Ben Westcott: CSIRO builds Sophie a dragon
PHOTO CAPTION: CSIRO in Melbourne has created Sophie her very own titanium dragon, modelled after Toothless from the Pixar movie How to Train Your Dragon. Photo: CSIRO
Queensland’s Sophie Lester asked for a dragon – and the world delivered…
Scientists spent two days designing and printing the dragon, using their state-of-the-art 3D printer…
CSIRO said they had received a number of offers of support since Sophie’s story went viral on Wednesday.
One special offer came from the director of How to Train Your Dragon, who saw Sophie’s request and will now also be sending her a dragon to call her own.
Seven-year-old Sophie made headlines world-wide this week after she wrote to the CSIRO asking them to help make her a dragon…
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/csiro-builds-sophie-a-dragon-20140110-30lpf.html
00
Roy Spencer ! My new hero!!
40
Hey Jo
Was not aware that number of comments at a bog counted for anything. Mine has been running for a while, and I’m not so good at moderation, so I’ve accumulated a total of 129,584. Should this be advertised somewhere other than here in this thread?
[For overseas readers ‘bog’ is one of many Australian colloquialism’s for toilet, ergo some humour for Aussie readers from Dr Jennifer Marohasy’s typo. It is a huge ‘bog count’ 🙂 – Mod]
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Hi, And thanks for all the good work. 🙂
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Mod – are we sure Dr Jennifer wasn’t referring to the carvings, on the wall of her outside dunnie ?
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Someone else who looks at data and applies scietific method… rare breed this one. I am sorry to say I haven’t visited your blog before Jennifer. I shall have to make the time in future.
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wow, Jennifer, that bog must have more than a couple of stalls.
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Jennifer,
I used to check your site every day and then you ran off and did something else. I’ve forgotten what – job, new friend, stowed away on an ice breaker ?? – and I haven’t gotten back into that routine. As I recall, I checked a few times and you were sporadic with interesting photos. Now it seems your are back to a more regular schedule.
Don’t worry about the stats. WUWT has a running total but many of us check numerous times per day because there are many posts there – not all the host’s. I have a friend that does a blog on butterflies; it is beautiful stuff and she hasn’t been doing it too long so has only recently hit 30,000. She is from what the USA folks call the Northwest.
I’ll go read some now over there at your eponymous site. Regards.
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Thanks for your good work Jennifer
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It proves a following at least Jennifer, especially if you’ve built it up by yourself, whereas the pinnacle of Readfern’s career seems to have been picking up an already following at the Gruandian.
” YOU might have seen or even read already that I’ve got a new blogging gig with The Guardian.”
Bless.
Following which his own attempt has become somewhat neglected with only about 9 posts since May.
At risk of doubling his number if visits, follow at your own risk:-
http://www.readfearn.com/2013/05/new-blog-planet-oz-gets-a-slot-on-the-guardian/
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Hi Jennifer,
Flags to your articles used to appear in the Tom Nelson page and the Continuously Updated page of Climate Depot (go down to ‘Recent Articles’). I don’t think I have seen them there for a long while. Those two sites were the hubs I would use for all the Global Warming articles. The same with Australian Climate Madness. I don’t think I have lately seen it listed lately on either of those two sites. There is at least one more Australian blog that used to appear but no longer does, but it might have ceased activity.
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The number of people waiting at a bog can be critically importamt under certain circumstances, and the comments of those leaving can be pretty important for certain decisions, do I, don’t I, things like that.
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I have posted this little item here previously but will post it again as another reminder.
Soon after Climate Gate / Copenhagen in late 2009 on one of the climate blogs and darned I if I can remember which one, a commenter posted a short comment that he had seen a research paper on the media which suggested that it took the media about 7 years to switch over from one of it’s former hard held beliefs on a subject to the new and perhaps opposite way of looking at the same subject.
From Climate Gate / Copenhagen in late 2009 that would place the major portion of the media completing it’s changes in attitudes to the catastrophic GW/ climate change meme from one of outright support of the CAGW / climate change meme to one of full on skepticism by about 2016 -17.
Just looking at the media and reading other commenter’s reports on a number of climate blogs plus reports on the contents of many of the latest climate orientated media articles, to me it seems that in the last 6 months or so there has been a very evident and ongoing shift and a serious backing away from the catastrophic aspects of the global warming / climate change with some media outlets even going further and starting to indicate they think it may all be a crock of #### in any case.
From a number of sources it is becoming apparent that there is a rapidly rising volume of a shrieking and discordant howls of protest from the alarmist ranks that the skeptics are gaining too much influence and that the media, all of it, according to the alarmist activists must be brought to heel and be made to recognise the terrible catastrophe that is just around the corner [ and has been for about 20 or more years now ].
The Skeptics must be fully and forcibly censored and refused any access to the media so as to prevent them spreading their words of comfort to the populace at large that all of those so called and claimed climate nasties are just entirely natural events that have all happened time without number on the planet before.
Failure to do so by the media according to the alarmist activists will cause the populace to no longer have that proper veneer of outright fear of the terrible consequences of global warming / climate change upon which the activists are relying so heavily to get action from the politicians to support and finance the increasing power and influence of their particular brand of a catastrophic climate ideology and cult.
The alarmists today are somewhat like a party high on the drugs of power and influence, which they were only a couple of years back, who are partying on the very top of a steep mountain when the local cops turn up in force to break the party up.
The party goers don’t use rational or calm negotiating tactics with the cops. they are too far gone on their power and influence drugs to ever do that and have too much to lose if the cops take their power and influence and fund grubbing drugs away from them.
No!
Those climate catastrophe party goers will / have started throwing rocks of every description and bucket loads of spittle and name calling as they realise that as the skeptical cops advance there is nowhere left to go or hide anymore except to crash off that mountain top down for what will seem an eternity into the deep deep ravines of community derision and hate for what they have done to so many for so long
There their corpses will lay until they have rotted away and anthropogenic catastrophic global warming / climate change will be no more than a distant and very forgettable and nasty episode in the history of the science and society of late 20th and early 21st century.
And folk in a couple of decades time will say in wonder and with derision and feeling, What ever happened to all those crazy idiotic stupid global warming / climate change cultists ?
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Global warming is to the Guardian what space aliens are to the Daily Sport.
Eugene WR Gallun
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You mean like this one ?
Double Decker found Buried at South Pole.
I guess Scott wasn’t so Lucky to have his ship wait for him while he recovered it .
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Correction:- That bus link to the South Pole is here
http://m.flickr.com/photos/23875695@N06/5824198584/lightbox/
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No, Jo! Readfearn is not right about Roy.
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Jo you won’t find God on Google,to find Him all you need do is ask,but you have to ask with a real intent.
God made it easy for those who want to find Him.
James 1:5-6 KJV
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
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Dr Spencer may believe in God (not a god, Christianity being monotheistic) but that’s not particularly odd or notable.
On the other hand though Graham Readfearn believes in “unnatural heat” as in:
Is that “dizzy” or what?
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I’m surprised anyone takes bantamweight Readfearn seriously. I can’t imagine a more inconsequential or know-nothing would-be journalist.
Several years ago when ‘lil Graham was ‘writing’ for the Courier Mail he breathlessly recounted how a group of Warmists had encircled the Federal Parliament building hand to hand.
When I asked how a very small number of activists could achieve such a feat he replied he was simply reporting what the leader had told him.
I asked why on earth he would parrot what he was told and not do some checking; the reply came back that by using the leader’s words he (Readfearn) would “make no mistakes”.
Please don’t waste space on the dear little chappy.
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So the Little TOERAG readfearn is still up to his same old vacuous insults….
I was hoping that he would have departed Planet Earth by now !!
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whenever I get confronted with the Spencer is a mad christian stuff I reply with this:
Taken from:
An Urgent Call to Action:
Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation
January 17, 2007
National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
and signed by:
James E. Hansen Ph.D.
Director
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Adjunct Professor
Columbia University Earth Institute
Judith A. Curry Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
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I’m sorry for Readfern I really am.
He just got in with the wrong crowd from the beginning..
After sharing Monckton’s heritage at the Yorkshire Post, here is his demolishing performance in Brisbane that seems to have set the mould.
(from 3 minutes in).
Graham Readfern one time of the (was it?) Brisbane Times demolishing someone.
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Readfern was embarrassing when he wrote for The Courier Mail. He promised to expose “greenwashing” (people/corporations using made up environmental claims to push/promote/sell something) but not once did he achieve that in any way, shape or form. Once he got onto the Global Warming jag, that was it. Pity – we need something like he was promising, sort of a Choice magazine/ ACA thing.
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And Roy was of course trashed by David Appell. Whose primary goal other than spewing nonsense, appears to be stalking skeptics. He has been banned from several blogs for stalking.
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Hate (not too much) to be a pedant Jo:
“let’s be ageist, sexist and rascist”
It’s racist. The ‘s’ is gratuitous.
As for the hapless, lost-lefty Readfearn, you’ve hit the bulls-eye on the poor schmuck’s forehead. Again. Besides having no sense of humour and an out-sized confected-outrage-meter, these lefty types have so little self-awareness that they are oblivious to how stupid they appear to rational people. Sigh. There really is no hope for Readfearn’s sort; their weltanschauung (don’t you just those those Germans?) is locked up in their sense of personhood. So no challenge to their extreme views can succeed, by definition, lest their whole identity comes crashing down around them.
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Retaliating against the Readfearn rascal almost seems a waste of time. There can surely be few fence-sitters that swallow Readfearn in the morning and sip JoNova at lunch. Shredding the rascal from here is moral support for Spencer but won’t convert the greenhorns.
Is this where the battle for hearts and minds takes us?
*sigh*
So many naked emperors with so many loyal followers.
They are running a fantasy football lotto with other people’s money. The sooner they stop their petty game the sooner we can put public money to better use (or keep it in our own pocket).
I despair at the thought that this spittle-strewn saga must blare boorishly for another ten years before it will become chillingly obvious to Blind Freddy that the warmists were wrong.
What say we crank out a few bars of our own footy tour song?
Ten years of cooling coming down the pipe.
Ten years of cooling to give warmists a fright.
And if one year of cooling should should turn their day to night,
There’ll be nine years of cooling coming down the pipe…
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I have never read Roy Spencer try to disprove catastrophic anthropogenic global warming based on a belief in God. Graham Readfearn however is silly to try to disprove someone’s scientific credentials based on their belief in God. Jo rightly points out he should rely on scientific facts. His article is devoid of them!
I have search as thoroughly as I can, and have been unable to find where Readfern critiqued the Climate Change beliefs of Kevin Rudd who claims to be extremely religious. Nor did he attack Graham Brown, Barrack Obama, or even the Great Gaia believing Tim Flannery, all who claim great spirituality.
It is blatantly hypocritical of Readfern to attack Spencer simply because he acknowleges his religious beliefs, it is unforgivable for the Guardian to aid him in his bigotry which could well have fallen foul of the draft Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 proposed by the Gillard Government in 2012 and so happily supported by many on the Left before common sense prevailed.
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Jaymez, I know what you mean, but the thought of lil’ Graham “attacking” anyone is funny; nibbling for a few seconds like a frightened mouse perhaps, but he is way out of his depth all the time.
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As he says he’s not a Scientist, which may have something to do with being so gullible.
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The Global Warming Religion has been successful in a way that Churchill would describe as “they go from failure to failure with equal enthusiasm ” this is a fact in their case.
By the way does anyone know what dates have been established for Turkey Season in the South Atlantic in the future.
The English Aborigine
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It may have been the North coast of Antarctica but but wasn’t it more South of the Tasman than South Atlantic.
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Just one point. That the attacks on fools like Newman have grown fewer is not because there is any chance of him being right. Its because its such nonsense that it really doesn’t deserve a reply. So maybe you’re right about Readfearn being stupid for trying 😉
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I thought I might reply to your thoughts, but it’s not worth it …
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