Another excellent article by Lord Matt Ridley
UPDATE: Read it in full on Matt’s Blog. (ht Gordon/backslider/harrie/RPS/John)
Argument by ridicule is not just something that happens, it’s the main approach:
“In the old days we would have drowned a witch to stop the floods. These days the Green Party, Greenpeace and Ed Miliband demand we purge the climate sceptics. No insult is too strong for sceptics these days: they are “wilfully ignorant” (Ed Davey), “headless chickens” (the Prince of Wales) or “flat-earthers” (Lord Krebs), with “diplomas in idiocy” (one of my fellow Times columnists).
What can these sceptics have been doing that so annoys the great and the good? They sound worse than terrorists. Actually, sceptics have pretty well all been purged already: look what happened to Johnny Ball and David Bellamy at the BBC. Spot the sceptic on the Climate Change Committee. Find me a sceptic within the Department of (energy and) Climate Change. Frankly, the sceptics are a ragtag bunch of mostly self-funded guerrillas, who have made little difference to policy — let alone caused the floods.
On floods, the skeptics agree with the IPCC:
“Here’s what the IPCC’s latest report actually says: “There continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.”
No, 97% of “climate scientists” don’t agree it will be dangerous warming
“That consensus, by the way, has never said that climate change will necessarily be dangerous. The oft-quoted 97 per cent agreement among scientists refers to the statement that man-made climate change happens, not to future projections. No climate change sceptic that I know “denies” climate change, or even human contributions to it. It’s a lazy and unpleasant slur to say that they do.
The Skeptics were right.
“Sceptics say it is not happening fast enough to threaten more harm than the wasteful and regressive measures intended to combat it. So far they have been right. Over 30 years, global temperature has changed far more slowly than predicted in 95 per cent of the models, and has decelerated, not accelerated. When the sceptic David Whitehouse first pointed out the current 15 to 17-year standstill in global warming (after only 18 to 20 years of warming), he was ridiculed; now the science establishment admits the “pause” but claims to have some post-hoc explanations.
Full article: The sceptics are right. Don’t scapegoat them (Paywalled)
Theres no chance you can copy/paste the article here? Im guessing you wont be allowed. Have to subscribe to see the full article.
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Enlightenment and scientific critique/debate is some some of the basis for ending up with the right policy. In other words scientific based policies.
The problem the Western world is facing today is that we have ended up with more and more policy based science?
50
You can read it on Matt Ridley’s blog: http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-sceptics-are-right-don%27t-scapegoat-them.aspx
60
First they ignored us, then they laughed at us, now they’re fighting us and we’re going to win. Trite but true.
632
Remains to be seen. Lets just say I hope politicians like Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, checks his breakfast cereal with a Geiger counter. Nasty stuff, Polonium – seems to get everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
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UKIP know, we know yet how come there are so many folk out there who believe that “AGW is real” despite the fact that it is obviously not real. The only conclusion I can reach is that many folk out there have not graduated from their childhood mindset, ie still believing in Santa, the Easter bunny, tooth fairy and so on. Their IQ’s are OK but only in the “juvenile stage” of human mind development. Clearly these adults with juvenile minds can be easily manipulated by “populist mythical propaganda” like the “Theory of AGW”. I guess these folk with juvenile minds could be referred to as, in “adult terms”, brain dead.
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KG
You’re right – it clearly isn’t a logical response to the evidence available. Alarmism seems to have a strongly emotional element to it – I think of it as a religious cult.
Cheers,
Speedy
340
“Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen, 2011
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No, I think whats happening is the trendies have been stripped off ( so they can follow some other worthless cause ), and all that are left is the hard core Communists who are being clearly exposed as using whats provedn to be false – and want to take down our way of life. But now they have to get very nasty to keep it all going.
Watch this space – now it will get really ugly because the true face of evil that is this mob – they will now take off the mask & gloves and just being very open what they are – truly nasty.
The battle for happiness and our way of life, technological progress, a better life, is now properly underway.
As the Godfather would say – were going to the mattresses.
110
I think you are right.
20
Yes, it is going to get ugly, very ugly. Those that think they can slink away are already trying, those that know they can’t are going crazy.
The problem for the Professional Left is that every single one of them dived into the AGW hoax boots and all. Every activist, journalist and politician of the left has not just fallen for the crazed lies that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere would reduce its radiative cooling ability, they went so much further when they vilified sceptics to silence them. Only now are they waking up to the ultimate horror. They have done it all in the age of the Internet. The record is permanent. The shame is forever. They can scrub like lady Macbeth, they can even use the Scotchbrite, but the putrescent stain of global warming advocacy wilt not out.
For the Professional Left, global warming was the ultimate “gotcha” for free market democracy. This was it! This was the ultimate justification for global socialism! After 1990 many activist pseudo scientists knew something was very wrong with the AGW hypothesis, but the carrot was dangling oh so close. Faced with a choice between pushing on and lying or retreating to try again, they ignored the rising power for freedom, reason and democracy – the Internet. After all they had gotten away with the Montreal protocol. What could possible go wrong?
Everything is what. They had control of the “narrative” in the lame stream media, but they couldn’t control new media. The Alinsky methods no longer worked in the age of the Internet. The Internet empowers the voice of the individual over the crowd. For a lie this big to work in the age of the Internet, they needed to silence everyone who could tell the truth, not just most. They had billions of dollars and the megaphone of the lame stream media yet they lost to a handful of bloggers.
For years the Professional Left have touted themselves as society’s intellectual and moral elite. In pushing the global warming hoax and vilifying sceptics they have proved for all time they are neither. There is no hope now of trying to slink off to some other manufactured eco crisis like bio-crisis, sustainability or fresh water. Sensible folk would purge their ranks of the compromised, acquire new people and above all apologise for their actions. The Professional left are not sensible, they are craven and venal and have no wish to surrender their trough privileges.
In their foaming rage and desperation for survival, the Professional Left will try to create a new crisis to kick up enough dust to obscure their rout on global warming. They are going to try to “trash the joint”. Observe their ALPBC going all out to engineer conflict with Indonesian. It is going to get ugly.
160
I agree, but as you know a cornered animal is dangerous…
30
The Internet killed the global warming star.
30
That’s a fantastic question and I’ve a plausible answer in the psychology of religion. Religions from around the world all have similar mythological motifs…resurrected heroes, world creations, and also apocalyptic floods and salvation. The AGW “story” is so believable to the more imaginatively inclined and less scientifically literate because it resonates with the primal mythological motif of the Flood Story. It goes something like this…the weather will be wrathful, and the seas will rise in a great flood due to mankind’s “sin” of using using fossil fuels which is a transgression against mother earth (goddess) and only through repentance (carbon tax, driving electric cars) can one be saved. We are not witnessing a scientific debate here but the spontaneous imaginative creation of a religion. It’s difficult if not impossible to argue rationally against one’s religious conviction, which is why true believers are so incorrigible.
60
There’s a hilarious Climategate email in which an alarmist discusses making a press complaint against UK skeptic Christopher Booker, for daring to suggest there might be a pause in Global warming.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=4890.txt
Dear Phil,Happy New Year!
I am forwarding an exchange of e-mails I had with David Whitehouse last week about the Met Office’s press release on 2008 global temperatures. You will see that he is persisting with his stupid argument that global warming ended in 2001 – he is still managing to sway people with his argument, and it is the same as Christopher Booker is using virtually every week in ‘The Sunday Telegraph’.
So I am planning to go public over my argument with Whitehouse and to take Booker to the Press Complaints Commission.
Ah the good old days of climate alarmism – back then you could claim the science was settled, and there was no pause in global warming, without anyone laughing.
750
Good points but I still won’t be satisfied until at least the leaders of the global warming alarmists are behind bars for committing the biggest scam of all time.
220
Many have been stupid (or mistaken).
Many have been ignorant (or accepted wrong explanations).
Many have blindly accepted what was said with authority.
Some didn’t care either way and took advantage of the situation.
Some did know CAGW was wrong, but pushed it for alternative reasons (population control, wealth distribution, political control, money).
It’s this last group I would like to see have some retribution. Particularly the Politian’s that have forced a huge cost upon the very people they govern, when we can not opt out of their madness. Many thousands have already lost their lives due to what politicians have implemented (suicide, freezing cold).
150
Were fighting the direct implementation of Communism in Australia now.
No quarter will be given, nor expected.
130
Let’s hope we don’t end up like the Ukraine where a civil war has just erupted.
20
Were fighting the direct implementation of Communism in Australia now.
No quarter will be given, nor expected.
Now I have seen everything. Nine people (thus far) give the thumbs up to this lunacy.
10
Eric Worrall, the funny thing is that when that email was sent to Phil Jones on 07/01/2008 we already had this from Phil Jones!
Then in 2009 Dr. Phil Jones says:
Then it became a flood of acceptance about the temperature standstill [up to this year too].
160
‘Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
The trend for the last 15 years is the same as for the last 35
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1958/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/normalise/scale:0.5/offset:0.02/plot/uah/from:1979/trend/plot/uah/from:1999/trend
10
Eric, there’s nothing like historical perspective is there?. I wonder if that unnamed alarmist now has the humility to acknowledge the dick he once was or does he still exist in his peculiar mixture of arrogance and ignorance.
30
Sadly Bob Ward is still going strong – partying like its still 2009 😉
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/14/uk-floods-climate-change-rainfall-storm
40
Particularly large and fruitful public teat he’s sucking on then I suppose.
20
At Bishop Hill I posted the following comment:
“On reflection, I think I would slightly disagree with the statement that sceptics “have made little difference to policy”. I can’t think of any policies that sceptics have had any effect on. I would be interested if someone could find any.”
Nobody has yet come back and told me of any policies in the UK that have been altered in any way, shape or form by sceptics. Anybody know of any?
141
Lets say there’s a gathering storm – the rise of the openly skeptical UKIP shows that climate mania is losing its grip on popular thinking. And Cameron’s statement he will restart dredging could be seen as a policy concession – the suggestion that the floods were due to climate change seems to be faltering in the face of accusations that the floods are down to eco-lunacy.
460
Would this eco-lunacy of which you speak Eric, would it bear any relation to European Commission o’ lunacy ?
240
Isn’t Eric referring to his Irish alter ego, Eric o’ Lunacy (Ec for short).
60
Isn’t Eric referring to his Irish alter ego, Eric o’ Lunacy (Ec for short).
50
Another formerly unheard of EC Bureaucrat letting her Federalist slip show.
Viviane Reding a Vice President of The Commission (as if one wasn’t enough), who said the 18 eurozone countries should form a full fiscal and political union, in a lecture to Cambridge University’s law faculty .
110
They’re utterly clueless. Bringing all of Europe under one central government will not provide the stability they want. The USA can’t provide a sensible fiscal regime to all her states – an interest rate which stabilises inflation in New York destroys jobs in New Orleans. Europe is simply too diverse to have a single currency.
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@Eric Worrall
February 18, 2014
‘restart dredging could be seen as a policy concession’, but:-
Dredging is not the answer!
‘…there have been repeated suggestions that dredging rivers could have limited some of these problems especially in Somerset, well a report out today suggests dredging could actually cause more problems than it solves. So how do we stop future flooding…is the head of policy at Chartered Institute Of Water and Environment Management, whose report claims there are inherent problems with dredging…’
Watch for yourself:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AW-jfRX4lI
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He said rantingly.
I suppose, then, we stop Mother Nature from making rain?
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‘He said rantingly’ so can I assume you didn’t click on the link? Because if you had, basically you would have heard an expert reasoning why dredging is not the answer! Regardless of what Mother Nature thinks.
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Blackudderlyridiculous, yes you can assume I didn’t click the link. Dredging was the answer for years. When the dredging stopped, the flooding started. I call that cause and effect with empirical evidence to support.
What have you got again?
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Come on Mark, he has a collection of YouTube videos that even published papers can’t get near accuracy wise. Just ask him.
YouTube is his authority.
50
Heywood, I still don’t see what he’s got. Youtube is his propaganda resource but how many people fall for it?
20
@Mark D.
February 19
‘yes you can assume I didn’t click the link’, well that is unfortunate, because you may have learned something, from experts in the field of water management. But what do they know about anyhow?
13
BA$.. you know that nobody clicks on your links.
Why bother. !
You are just a waste of space. A mark on the underpants of the world.
30
Can you point out the ranting in his comment? It’s about the only comment I can see on this page that isn’t ranting (or raving for that matter.)
25
Perhaps if you had been visiting this blog for more than 5 minutes, you would know BlackIdiotthe4th’s history.
30
Please Heywood, don’t wish that on us.
BA4, MtR/HJ, etc bring more than enough moronic idiocy.
10
It’s right there in front of you! (hint!)
10
Dredging worked in the Levels for 300 years, and Holland would be underwater but for a comprehensive dredging program. The Thames valley and the Medway basin flooding would have been mitigated if the main rivers and drains had been kept in the traditional manner. Ideological idiocy has in fact resulted in the deaths and loss of habitat for many more animals than would have been lost otherwise. In other parts of the country, where the traditional methods of flood control have been left lately untouched, not so much flooding. Our floods are exacerbated by exactly the same mindset that makes Australia’s bush fires so devastating – an underlying hatred of humanity masquerading as concern for the environment.
501
This is simply a different consideration. It doesn’t make it correct.
So this idea needs to be considered, as well as the idea that dredging would have prevented/reduced the fooding. And one or the other, or a comprimise between the two, to be made.
Your statement
Is wrong and silly, and based on something that “could”.
100
Somebody needs to inform Tim Flannery who is making appearances claiming that CC is the reason for the UK flooding. What a pest he is.
170
An AMOEBA would have a greater IQ than flannery !
91
hi Phillip
There has been a move towards reducing subsidies for renewables. And some improvements in the planning requirements in the UK. It doesn’t amount to much in itself but it does send a message I think. Particularity if you add the award issued to John Hayes MP and ex energy minister for campaigning against wind farms.
Clearly, I would like a lot more.
290
One difference that has been made is they’ve ensured the warmists know that there is a contrary view and that view is at least as robust as the orthodox. Not hard. One other is the fact that there is also a popular view that goes against the orthodox. Humans aren’t that stupid. Most humans. Some of them. You can fool…
It’s good to know that they’re there and have real support but there has to real action. I don’t know what’s happening in the UK but in OZ we have a brand new government which is prepared to challenge the orthodoxy.
One instance: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-sceptic-dick-warburton-to-head-tony-abbott-review-into-renewable-energy-target-20140217-32vve.html
Because this was apparent to our former government they laid on the most persistent and despicable character assassination ever launched at one person. They knew they were history if he succeeded.
He did.
They are.
The world is turning.
(In fact, they knew they were screwed when he stared down the Prime Minister over the ETS (‘the greatest moral challenge in our lifetime’ if I remember right) way back in 2009.)
230
Its odd how society has long regarded skeptics as somehow bastions of scientific truth when we offer opinions on UFO’s, religious miracles, psychic powers and the like. But when we express doubts about whether humans are driving a mass extinction scenario by way of CO2 production, we are suddenly “nut bags”.
Many times throughout history the few have proven to be right in the face of the mockery of the many, especially in science. However this lesson never seems to get learned and as I have said before, its deeply hurtful to a questioning mind to live in an age where curiosity is regarded as stupidity.
I wonder if someone could do a model of world economies and energy production assuming that no one was sceptical of CAGW and every single proposed policy of warmists was just taken up immediately. How would the world look? Im guessing it would be darker than it is now because no one could afford what small amount of electricity was available. I mean lets keep in mind the kind of the policies we are referring to.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-12/greens-demand-nsw-coal-power-closures/2791086
Thank all the fictitious gods for skeptics. We may not have had much of an impact, but by crikey we are making life miserable for some. I often get a warm little glow when I think of the seething hatred people like Milne and Flannery have for people like us. They give us an extraordinary amounts of their mental energy and time and lets face it, they have lots of mental to spare.
410
All the big mass hysterias I can think of postulated a crisis – with Witch burning, it was the imminent ascendancy of Satan on Earth, with Eugenics is was the rise of the genetically unfit, forcing humanity back down the scale of evolution. With climate change, it is carbon pollution, destroying the world.
In each case they had a crisis and a scapegoat, and plenty of advocates screaming in public that we don’t have time to be sure, we have to ACT NOW.
I believe it is a faultline in our psyche – a hangover from our evolutionary ancestors. If you caught a glimpse of something which looked like a lion jumping at you, it was more important to jump out of the way, than to spend a few seconds working out if it actually was a lion.
We seem doomed to repeat the same sad pattern, again and again.
210
Absolutely correct, Eric.
The herd mentality is an inherent weakness of cognition which lies vestigially within the DNA of Homo sapiens, and may well be the greatest (and possibly fatally insurmountable) limiting factor in the further advancement of humankind, IMHO. This flaw, or at least structural weakness in mankind’s cognitive responses, has therefore been ruthlessly exploited throughout the ages by religious leaders, zealots, charlatans, monarchs, despots and dictators, and by governments of all political stripe, in one way or another ever since the dawn of humanity.
This is further manifest by the extreme social prejudice and recrimination against those “heretics” like ourselves who hold firm opinions contrary to accepted norms, such that vigourous discussion or disagreement in a social context is a complete anathema to the status quo, to the point of actually marginalising or ostracizing those of us whose beliefs may be even slightly controversial to the collective majority, no matter how well argued or rational that opinion may be.
Fortunately for skeptics, stubborn persistence is winning this particular ideological war, as the lack of evidentiary support for alarmist contentions becomes patently obvious to the common man in the street. Anger is simmering below the surface, and I predict that should alarmists persist, it is they who will taste to “sweet kiss” of the inevitable backlash.
261
Not so sure about the ‘herd’ mentality Winston, although I acknowledge it exists (football fans for example). Humanity is too diverse and too intelligent to exhibit ‘herd’ mentality for long. The human psyche embraces the need to be individual as it does the need to belong, in typical bell curve tradition. There will therefore always be those individualists and those of the herd persuasion.
The absence of the MSM in your list of usurping tyrants seems a oversight to me. I lay the present day furore of green hysteria soundly at the feet of a feckless, low intellectual wattage, politically biased, acritical MSM. They have pumped the hysteria and catastrophism for all its worth, with all their might for a variety of vested reasons.
They play not to the herd instinct but to the hard wired ‘threat’ instinct. That is what unites all of us and may potentially at least, keep us at the back of or returning to, the cave. We are naturally very attentive and preoccupied by any threat, real or imagined.
The answer to ‘threat’ is rational, reasoned, factual debate and disclosure of the truth. And that is exactly what those threat mongers and destructive, revolting lefty green activists absolutely don’t want. They have no heart, no ear, no intellect and no spleen for the truth. Why?
SImply, it will destroy their cause.
120
Well said Manfred, but the herd insect is a protection against the threat you mention?
KK 🙂
30
KK, I’d ike a few noxious herd insects with a penchant for Green!
The herd may well convey an illusory sense of ‘protection’ against threat – ‘strength in numbers’. Nonetheless, the evolutionary arrival of an impressively sized cortex has ensured that there are sufficient of indviduals prepared not to herd. The survival and flourishing of the species is fortunately not entirely at the mercy of the ‘herd’ response is it?
20
On reflection, ‘the herd’ may have arisen less out of overt threat than out of an progressive MSM politically pumped guilt driven aspiration of ‘save the planet’. The institutionalisation of ‘save the planet’ arose from a political perception of being seen to promote no one could in their right mind appear to disagree with. There was of course the added attraction of a stupendous new source of tax revenue.
In reality, the ‘fear’ was always bit fudged and reeked of being socially engineered. It was also prone to rapid goal post changing out of a necessity, in order to maintain some coherence with empirical observations, so ‘warming’ morphed to ‘change’, which in turn is morphing to ‘disruption’. Out of necessity, largely imperceptible ‘climate’ change became ‘weather’.
The whole shaky thing is an ‘epic’ travesty of all that is good in science, intellectual pursuit and the beneficent nature of humanity, and it began to seriously fall apart when the motives of the dank, grasping cash ‘n control, green fingers could no longer be hidden from plain view. The sad thing is that it will have manufactured doubt and uncertainty, and it will have ‘injured civil society’. I imagine it may take time to recover wisely and intelligently placed ‘faith’.
60
Wow,
Just read that second comment.
Absolute 97% proof vitriol.
And as to the other issue of misspelling “instinct” as you pointed out all I can say is that I am glad I didn’t say herd insert instead.
That would have given me nightmares about hundreds of cows and bulls all herded together.
KK
10
I think Winston is correct about the “herd mentality”. Manfred, I agree that the MSM play to our hardwired “threat instinct”, they also do a lot of playing to the herd mentality that is seen at the time as positive.
The 1920s bubble, the Poseidon bubble, the 1980’s stock market bubble, the dot com bubble, the US housing CDO bubble, the Kevin 747 bubble, the Gillard bubble, The Obama bubble, and the many bubbles that are yet to crash like the sales of statins and Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors. Clothes fashion is nothing more than a rapid cycling bubble and bust, bubble and bust.
The majority of people behave not just like a herd in response to their threat instinct but also when they strive for money, status, guilt suppression and living longer.
30
Maverick you have mentioned one of my pet peeves; SSRIs.
Got to be one of the biggest conns outside of Global Warming.
Serotonin in Big Pharma has assumed the position of CO2 in CAGW and both of these memes have caused great human damage.
My favorite analogy about Antidepressants is that they are like filling up a leaking car radiator with water. Not a good analogy but a good start to a useful discussion.
KK
10
Fair point – most of the mass death shooters in the USA had been on anti-depressants at the time.
I recall reading somewhere that some anti depressants can make people psychotic.
00
Steve,
my own personal view of antidepressants is simply the difference between the young and old.
Old people who go on SSRIs know from experience that things often get better. When the SSRIs don’t work they just shrug their shoulders and feel a little disappointed.
Young people on the other hand feel like sh@t, are given antidepressants and told that these are the best and most effective cure for depression.
When they don’t work, as they can’t, the youngsters , without any past experience to fall back on assess their situation as follows: ” I have just been given worlds best treatment; it didn’t work; I must be a very bad case.
result: youth suicide.
KK
00
A brilliant comment Winston: the first para needs to be engraved somewhere, perhaps on Prince Charles’ forehead for all to read.
The herd mentality was certainly a benefit to all animal groups but has become less valuable
since the arrival of that dangerous mental construct and entity;
“Politics”.
KK
30
Also I remember hearing a psychologist on the radio explaining that it takes between 3 and 5 pieces of contra information, at least one of which must come from a trusted source such as a family member to undo one fear related piece of information presented to someone.
On the one hand this is obviously a great evolutionary trait because it no doubt has saved our smarter ancestors from being sceptical about the likelihood of encountering a giant bear in a cave when someone who was there yesterday tells them to look out. But on the other hand it makes people somewhat easier to manipulate with fear if you know this and are in a position of authority with the ability to communicate en mass.
So CAGW is a gimme for fear mongers. Its a pretty believable correlation argument to the average Joe and when it comes from seemingly reputable sources (to most people) such as Government science organisations and the like, its probably going to take some time for anyone to undo that fear. Basically if you were a full on warmist the only way your going to get that idea out of your head is if your brother is John Christy and your Father in Law is Richard Lindzen. Otherwise, once its in your brain, your probably screwed.
190
Quite true but the counterpoint is that can you imagine the utter discredit that will be visited on science, universities, political parties and all other fellow travellers on the CAGW gravy train when reality catches up? Not to mention the laughing stock that western society will become around the globe in international fora and how it will give a free kick to all the thugocratic regimes out there.
How is that for a scary story?
160
Sadly I doubt it. When Eugenics fell, it didn’t take them long to move on to (back to?) population growth and resource scares.Then along came climate to keep the gravy flowing.
The next scare will be tech related – some high tech doomsday scenario, biotech, nanotech, AI, robots taking all the jobs, kids ruining themselves playing ever more compelling and realistic games, take your pick.
101
or alien invasion……
10
Alien invasion scares have been tried, several times, but they didn’t get enough traction to provide a decent pot of gravy.
Still the academics listen in hope, they haven’t completely given up on the idea. Imagine what a signal carrying blueprints for alien technology would do for the SETI budget. If only they had a bigger radio dish… 😉
11
Sounds like you are talking about Ms 2% or is that 3% Senator Sarah Hansen-Jones. No wonder the green vote % is dropping with such an air head as spokes—- the greens. I am sure common sense or even general knowledge doesn’t exist in her make up. How she is the mouth piece for everything that happens in this country is beyond me. The media needs a new mouthpiece. I would suggest she is responsible for the rise of the sceptic and the demise of the groups she supposedly represents. Perhaps you are talking about John Kerry. Now that’s a flash piece of intelligence. Bet he couldn’t tell the meaning of his own speech today to the Indonesians on climate change. Must have a pretty good speech writer.
50
Yes, it’s safety’s-sake pattern-finding where none exists. Its recent counterpart is “wiggle-matching,” the seemingly endless proliferation of sciency papers showing two variables varying in tandem, except where they don’t–interesting, but usually without an accompanying hypothetical mechanism to test.
OTOH, I’m not so sure I’d call something that served us well for millions of years a “faultline.”
40
So Eric… what is the “evolutionary scale”? Do you mean less adapted to the circumstances? Click on my name and admit to yourself at least that you don’t understand it – it is highly visible in what you’ve written.
06
Im an MSDS groupy and by the way they are called SDS’s now to align with the changes in the model Act and Regs which combined dangerous goods and hazardous substances into “hazardous chemicals”…. all without a single explosion 🙂
http://www.thelaw.tas.gov.au/tocview/index.w3p;cond=;doc_id=%2B122%2B2012%2BAT%40EN%2B20140219000000;histon=;prompt=;rec=;term=
Chapter 7
40
thanks Safety – I know about the change in name and the changes in the new Act. We all adapt.
Throw MSDS into a search engine though and you get what you expect whereas “SDS” ends up with bubbles.
14
Yeah exactly, its going to take time to work through and I am still saying MSDS and writing it in documents etc. Seems like change for changes sake mostly.
50
The Guardian? How low brow can you get?
A few points. Lactose persistence is a number of mutations, not just one, and it reduces to different degrees as people mature rather than it goes away completely.
Many cats can drink milk as adults. It is not that unusual a trait in animals.
The diet of Scandinavian people used to be highly dependent on dairy during the winter. It is also a very important part of the diet of the Masai but a survey found that 62% are lactose intolerant, and still drank milk. It might be a case of only those who could live off just dairy who dared to ventured that far north rather than natural selection.
Dogs were domesticated 17 000 years ago and mature within a year, so that is 17 000 generations. Despite all the breeding rather than natural selection to give a very large assortment of breeds, they are still grey wolves.
Otherwise, I agree with you that people do not appreciate how natural selection works. I know one group of people who claim to have evolved to be a smarter population because of their hard lives in ghettos. I’m not sure why they want to advertise that they were into eugenics because only that could have caused ‘evolution’.
10
sorry I can’t follow what this means either in context or as a stand alone?
01
To breed a smarter population (increase average IQ) you would need to kill off the dumb ones before they breed, although this doesn’t make the top half any smarter.
Nobody does that. You’re safe.
00
Vic, you aren’t suggesting Eugenics are you, or worse (eg WWII).
They have done that !!
We may be safe for now, but there are radicals out there, in power now, who might actually decide to try something similar.
00
ps.. from several years of teaching it seems that the dumb ones are breeding much faster than the intelligent ones.
00
Ok… I was not sure whether the ghetto people were misusing “evolved” to mean that they themselves (not their offspring or offspring’s offspring) had become smarter or if the population was smarter.
They might also be claiming that the stupid people had failed to reproduce since smartness is needed to survive in a ghetto (according to them), leaving only the smart ones to produce the next generation, which as a consequence (according to them).
This would not be eugenics but it doesn’t show a much better understanding of quantitative genetics. Given the multi-gene, multi-allelic and multiple interaction (within the genome, between gene and environment etc) nature of just the genetic component of intelligence, imagining that tough ghetto conditions, or any other thing, could assist breeding for an intelligent population is absurd. This is not even considering the environmental factors. However intelligence has evolved and has done so in our ancestral populations/species. I wonder how?
00
second paragraph should end with “… as a consequence() increased population average intelligence.
00
No, Griss. I believe that the education system doesn’t come close to getting the most out of the students as they are. I also believe that you should be judged by how moral you are, not how smart. The work I do now could be done by someone of below 100 IQ but I’m stuck with this because I pissed off an a*hole.
Yes, Griss, there are people still thinking that eugenics is good for everyone, and that their kids should rule the world.
And Gee Aye, our intelligence evolved over tens of thousands of generations that viewed other tribes as no better than other animals. Evolution could have occurred in ghettos, to a minute extent, but by growing the a*hole gene as much as the intelligence gene. I was just pointing out that its a silly thing to be spreading such an idea around (and people were).
00
Please Mr Ridley, “post-hoc explanations”?
Not even a rational optimist would refer to the desperately concocted, rationalising fairy tales spun by the CAGW loons as “explanations”.
140
Never underestimate the capacity of an English gentleman to make his case with studied over-politeness. I would have added, “ad hoc” to, “post hoc”, or even,” winging it”, “bloviation” or, in extremis,” misrepresentation”, but then I’m only a gentleman courtesy of Her Majesty.
100
And never underestimate the capacity of an Australian gentleman to point out to an English gentleman that, from time to time, he is being over polite. That said, your last suggestion of “misrepresentation” as a categorization of the desperate, CAGW post hoc fairy tales is quite acceptable although I would add a preceding qualifier of “gross” or even “grotesque”.
70
Can we agree upon 2 nations divided by a common language? I rather like,”delusional misrepresentation”. as it infers a cognitive weakness.
80
Not completely separated but just enough to create some creative perspective. ”Delusional misrepresentation” is just about perfect.
But “cognitive weakness”!? Just think of Stephan Lewandowsky let alone some of the other beacons of evangelical absurdity and clearly that is a significant understatement. “Cognitive disconnect” is better but how about “synaptic dysfunction” or “serious loss of synaptic function”. How about “indication of a new sub species evolving from the brave new world of ecomania, ‘homo sub-sapiens'”.
I’ll have breakfast now.
60
I think the word “fool” covers it much more neatly.
40
People who are essentially fence sitters with the AGW fraud have to realize this insulting and threatening behavior of the warmists is not only directed at “Sciency” or “Academic” types but them also, the old saying of leading a horse to water has never been more poignant than this tragic situation and if these horses still won’t drink after being shown so much of it there will be little chance left to curb this madness.
One could compare various ridicule or ad hom’s thrown from both sides but the greatest difference is the true intent of this ridicule both in it’s content and desired final outcomes, regardless of what happens I’ll never regret the stance I took and hope others stay like minded, we should never lose or forget our Panache.
160
As a South African human resources consultant once said to me Yonnie.
(insert South African accent)
“Peter, you can lead a horse to water, but sometimes you have to shoot it”
150
Funny. Pete, but we have two sides thinking along the same lines and it will not be horses that get shot.
30
The new Wopplemann et al study finds SLR during the 20th century was only 4.3 inches in the SH and 7.9 inches in the NH. Or 10.75cm SH and 19.75cm NH for 20th century.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/new-paper-finds-20th-century-sea-level.html
Just adds more doubt again with all the other more recent SLR studies about so called CAGW.
50
That is strange!
I always thought that water finds its own level (at least after a while). So how did the Sea Level Rise by 7.9 inches in the Northern Hemisphere and only 4.3 inches in the Southern Hemisphere?
Is there some sort of Strange Attractor for water in the NH?
Or is the uncertainty for sea level measurements more than 7.9 inches in both hemispheres?
10
When looking at the mean of levels at stations, they should take the mean of the middle 50% or maybe look at look at how the mean flattens out when removing a certain percentile of the stations with the largest changes (pos and neg). Land subsiding or rising is too large for some to assume that they cancel each other out over a large sample size.
10
Gravity anomalies (mountain ranges and troughs in the earth’s mantle), plus ocean currents, plus wind; push the water around unevenly over the surface of the earth. The water level is in constant flux and never consistent at any one location.
20
Is there some sort of Strange Attractor for water in the NH?
Maybe because more people need more water.
92% of the population of Planet Earth live in the Northern Hemisphere.
So, that’s 6.65 Billion people living above the Equator, and 0.58 Billion living in our Hemisphere.
Spooky, eh?
So, umm, is the World top heavy?
Could this lead to a, er, tipping point?
Tony.
62
If you have ever read the “HAB THEORY”, maybe the world is bottom heavy, causing the world to wobble more and eventually we will reach the tipped point when the world (outer shell) will roll moving the arctic and antarctic into the equatorial zone. Talk about an end of the world scenario…this could possible be the next issue the greens could tackle!!!
10
Maybe because more people need more water.
92% of the population of Planet Earth live in the Northern Hemisphere.
So, that’s 6.65 Billion people living above the Equator, and 0.58 Billion living in our Hemisphere.
Spooky, eh?
So, umm, is the World top heavy?
Could this lead to a, er, tipping point?
Tony.
42
There is also more land in the NH.
A large proportion of rain events are driven by, and triggered by the land/sea interface.
10
I haven’t checked but I would not be the least surprised if a perusal of the Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and the Abel’s Medal [ not the less prestigious but much better known Field’s medal ] in Mathematics weren’t by the far all regarded as Skeptics in some way by their peers in their disciplines.
It is the skeptics who because they are out on the fringes of thinking and who regularly challenge the conventional consensus thinking on a subject who usually make the big breakthroughs that create the sudden shifts upwards in the progress of our civilisation from the caves and tents of some 15,000 years ago to today.
As a side line, there are often questions asked as to why Alfred Nobel never made provisions for a prize for mathematics, a discipline which is the one absolute fundamental and underlies every single advance of modern civilisation.
It seems that Alfred Nobel just plain wasn’t interested in mathematics so to put a myth to bed;
The Reason There is No “Nobel Prize for Mathematics” Had Nothing to Do With Any Wife/Mistress of Alfred Nobel
If, as we are so often seeing in climate science, the researchers do not understand statistics or even the fundamentals of modelling or so many other mathematical angles of climate science, their research usually these days after great trumpeting of their scientific and research prowess is very shortly shown to be little more than just plain crap of no real value to science or anybody else.
Thats the message I get from the likes of Lucia’s blog, Steve Mc’s analysis , Judith Curry’s denizens and many other climate blogs.
But if anybody wants to look through history for the great breakthroughs I think that they will find it is indeed rare for the consensus science followers to uncover and develop the great advances in science, in engineering [ the greatest respect in the 18th and 19th century was for the engineers, not scientists, who built the machines and the infrastructure , the roads , the rail roads, steam ships, ports, water and sewerage systems mills and industrial systems upon which so much of our civilization is still based ] in the chemical industries that are also a fundamental underpinning of nearly everything we touch and use today and just about every advance that we have seen over the last few centuries.
It is the maverick skeptics who have made the big breakthroughs
Most have failed but they or others try and try again until one or a couple acting for the most part on their own volition finally achieve the big goal and breakthrough that shifts society and civilisation to a new level.
And perhaps there is another such breakthrough on the near horizon which most of us may be around to witness and that is the Lockheed Martin Skunkworks hopefully mastering and harnessing of the Fusion Reaction process which if it is a viable operating energy production system will totally revolutionize energy production, energy use and energy based processes which is most, in ways we cannot even begin to imagine today.
And those who know a little of the Skunkworks history and it’s successes way out on the ragged edge of the known and just achievable today will know well that the small tight knit teams of Skunkworks researchers are anything but consensus followers of the present order in the world of aviation, fusion energy and who knows what else.
Hail to the Skeptics for without you the world would be a much worse place for humanity today
181
And the disgrace of it all is that people like Christy, Lindzen, Curry etc are lampooned for holding a contrary view. I have seldom been so appalled in my life as I have been at the treatment of reputable scientists in the 21st century. I mean how does anyone in this debate DARE to call this man a flat earther???
http://youtu.be/KDFH0Hs4Q8s
People like Prince Charles DARE….. DARE to even speak in such terms of a man like Christy. SHAME!!
150
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round,
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound…..
100
You mean Columbus & Edison who recognised that things go in cycles.
You can only go on forever by going in cycles.
60
That must explain the warmist giddiness.
Denying the cycle and hence trying to prevent their heads disappearing up their own rectums.
90
They all laughed when Flannery said it will never rain again and even if it did it wont fill our dams………….oh sorry you both were being sarcastic my mistake.
140
yea, they always draw a straight line between two points and declare “in 100 years it will be thiiiis big”.
20
It was the Flintstones wot dun it, “ancient DNA scientist” says we should worry, SNWA embellished and in Nature?
30
They laughed at Columbus for thinking that Asia was 1/4 of the distance from North Africa than it really was.
They were not that stupid less than 1000 years ago. India back then was the land east of the Indus and he was trying to get to an Island off the east coast of Asia (the Indies, as in Indonesia, Indochina, the East Indies). The American Natives do look like East Asians because they are closely related. He was not that thick.
His amateur mistakes might not have been real either, but an attempt to get funding without admitting that he new another land was closer to Africa (wood from different trees being washed up on African beaches). One of these was to refer to the Bible when arguing that Asia was close enough to reach.
00
Matt Ridley report available here.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-sceptics-are-right-don%27t-scapegoat-them.aspx
30
Reality check to self……….I am called a denier , but I spend a huge amount of time all over the web, trying to find one single piece of evidence that CAGW is any real threat. I guess this is doubting Thomas syndrome.
At a certain age one appreciates that Politicians lie some of the time , Lawyers lie most of the time , and CAGW enthusiasts lie to themselves all of the time.
So from the blog of Stefan the denier, I take huge comfort that the Troposphere has been regulating our atmosphere ever since man crawled upon this Earth and only something really Catastrophic could alter that.
From other sceptic blogs I see a belief in some AGW but a doubt as to the extent or harm it could cause.
What I do not find anywhere is absolute proof for any of it.
So the null hypothesis remains my baseline warming/cooling, what where ? With an efficient Troposphere , and surely this is just physics , warming somewhere =cooling elsewhere and vice versa?
140
Here’s Sue from HotWhopper at her scintillating best:=
Anonymous = me
AnonymousFebruary 18, 2014 at 9:26 PM
Peter Lilley MP summed global warming up very well today when he asked Dr Emily Shuckburgh (at an Energy and Climate Change Committee hearing) whether the fact that half of all the CO2 ever emitted by man had been emitted since 1997 and coincidentally there had been no significant warming since that date, had altered her confidence in the IPCC’s longer term predictions.
Reply
Replies
SouFebruary 18, 2014 at 9:45 PM
Correction: “Peter Lilley MP illustrated global warming denial and his ignorance of the use of statistics in climatology…”
AnonymousFebruary 18, 2014 at 10:01 PM
man , you really are funny , why dont you just say “nananananaaa! so there”
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Amazing
the impact that the IPCC has had.
30
What I find interesting…John Kerry refuses to debate us skeptics because he doesn’t have time…ha ha ha
50
The full article, no paywall: http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-sceptics-are-right-don't-scapegoat-them.aspx
30
Nic Lewis’ comments on England’s recent paper about “unprecedented trade winds pushing heat into the deep ocean” are a real treat
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/2/14/england-oh-england.html
Highly recommended
40
Oh geez!…. they can’t be ruining a perfectly good paper and “hypothesis” with something as scientific as REAL measurements…. surely?
20
Thanks Harrie.
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Thanks Harrie very good read.
20
take heart everyone, slowly the tortoise wins the race.
eg,
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/gore-vs-wuwt.png
traffic metrics
page views
wuwt up 5%
climate realityproject down 25%
global reach
wuwt up 1%
climate reality project down 18%.
40
Take heart, we’ve been winning the battle since the climate change madness peak in 2007.
Look at google search history for the terms “climate change” and “global warming”.
Dropped by 80% over the past 7 years.
http://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=Climate%20change%2C%20Global%20warming&cmpt=q
That’s a 1:1 correlation, as time goes on people care less and less about the great big lie.
At the very least this is a FANTASTIC bit of data to show all your green idiot friends.
70
Article without paywall. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-sceptics-are-right-don't-scapegoat-them.aspx
20
Sorry for posting the link after it was done twice already. The other links did not show up initially.
[No need to feel sorry, they were all caught in the moderation filter. It’s good that you made the effort. Thank you.] ED
20
Sonny,
very interesting!!
20
Hillary Clinton On Energy And Foreign Policy: We Need To ‘Address The Very Real Threat Of Climate Change’
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/19/1047081/hillary-clinton-on-energy-and-foreign-policy-we-need-to-address-the-very-real-threat-of-climate-change/
In a speech on energy diplomacy yesterday afternoon at Georgetown University, Clinton talked about the importance of sustainability and climate issues on the international policy agenda.
“We…have an interest in promoting new technologies and sources of energy – especially including renewables – to reduce pollution; to diversify the global energy supply; to create jobs; and to address the very real threat of climate change,” said Clinton.
————-
Hillary Clinton Exposed, Movie She Banned From Theaters –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOy6ZagodUE
30
When your economy is 16 Trillion in the hole and you have no prospect of turning it around, your going to clutch at every straw of revenue you can. The USA continues its experiment with transforming the largest free market economy in the world into a patchwork of socialist nonsense at the same time as China transforms its patchwork of socialist nonsense into a free market economy.
America continues to display the characteristics of a society that they themselves would attack if any other nation was behaving in this way. Not only do they have almost 1.5% of their population behind bars, the work conducted by those prisoners would be regarded as slavery if it took place in any other country.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289
They are as a nation a complete disgrace. The land of the free is now the land of the hypocrite. They occupy the lowest position of morality on the planet yet crusade with force to impose their insane systems and values on other sovereign nations. We should have as little to do with them as possible if we really believe in the things they used to stand for.
42
Hillary Clinton…….one stupid B.TCH !
30
The shrillness is becoming terror.
I like.
The meme will rapidly degenerate to;”Burn the Witch”.
It is getting funny, the consensus clowns have projected their own mendacity upon their imaginary enemy from the beginning.
The evil sceptic is everywhere, if you doubt the true faith, you are evil.
The cries from within the ranks of the cult will become ever more strident and delusional.
Their problem is plain, having their fixed idea on what motivates people, they can only project their worst fantasies upon the public, being the worst, they expect the worst.
The coming back stabbing, betrayal and violence will surprise most sane citizens.
I will be cheering them on.
60
That’s pretty shrill all right.
17
Glad you like it.
How do you benefit from this scheme, robbing the many to enrich the well connected few?
We have all seen and heard the blessing the cult members wish upon all who question their divine wisdom.
The constant barrage of presumed motivation, from these name calling wits.
What will you do when you lose your faith?
Cause faith is all the CAGW cult has.
If you actually had science, you would be the hero of the cause.
Shame eh, all these years, all that public tax treasure wasted, but no empirical data to support the magic gas delusion.
Course you may believe you have some empirical data, a workable hypothesis defining the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration as cause of the non warming of these last 17 odd years.
If so, send it to the IPCC, they need your help.
Nobel prize and payola to follow.
70
[…] There are two articles published today that are related. Bishop Hill posts about the “reverse Cassandra effect” and Jo Nova comments on Matt Ridley’s article in today’s Times on THE SCEPTICS ARE RIGHT. DON’T SCAPEGOAT THEM. […]
10
The insulting of climate sceptics is perfectly understandable as an example of the Cassandra effect – speaking the awful truth and not being believed. Consider the example of Ignaz Semmelweis. He showed that doctors washing their hands between examining patients saved lives. The implied awful truth that every experienced hospital doctor in 1840s Vienna had to accept was that, due to their ignorance, they had killed people when their vocation was saving lives.
Many politicians must be in a similar position. They started out wanting to make a positive difference. They thought they could be part of “saving the world”. Maybe not as spectacularly as James Bond, or Flash Gordon, but they can still expect to receive plaudits and a place in history. Or at least some praise in the Guardian and opportunities to rub shoulders with World Leaders and Nobel Laureates at exotic locations. Now they realise they have endorsed policies that are harmful and regressive, for, at best, a trivial problem. They might be feeling a bit like those poor doctors in 1840s Vienna.
91
Sources:
The-man-who-wants-to-northern-rock-the-planet
The run on the Rock
Northern Rock sunk by poor leadership
Matt Ridley becomes Chairman of Northern Rock, a solid northern English bank.
Northern Rock embarks on a risky, and unusual, policy of sourcing most of its funding on the wholesale market to maximise profitability.
Northern Rock’s risky funding policy causes it to be particularly vulnerable to the sub-prime banking crisis.
Ridley contacts the UK government to arrange a bailout after his bank becomes the first bank in 150 years to suffer a bank run; this is to save investors and depositors from losing all of their savings.
The taxpayer bails out Northern Rock to the tune of £27bn.
The House of Commons Treasury Report on the collapse of Northern Rock singles out Ridley for criticism, saying he failed “to provide against the risks that [Northern Rock] was taking.”
Ridley publishes a book called The Rational Optimist. “He uses it as a platform to attack governments which, among other crimes, ‘bail out big corporations’”
Ridley writes an article in the Times claiming that “sceptics” are correct on climate change. He claims that climate change isn’t a risk and that measures taken to combat it are “wasteful and regressive”.
JoNova immediately writes a post praising his “excellent article”.
A bunch of people go online to agree and vent their rage at ‘alarmists’.
Anyway, my question is: Is it true what they say about lemmings?
116
Anyway, my question is: Is it true what they say about lemmings?
That depends on what sort of lemmings:
Is it time to join the ‘preppers’? How to survive the climate-change apocalypse
Uncovered 16th Century Hallucinatory Images Suggest That Today’s Climate Science Is Nothing But A Persistent Human Mental Disorder
~ ~ ~
What sort of lemming is Will J. Browne?
A ‘prepper’ it would seem, suffering from “16th Century Hallucinatory Images.”
60
Oh boy. I sure hope this is tongue in cheek humour. It’s difficult to tell.
20
Nice ad hom. Can’t attack the argument so attack the man.
50
If you’re considering advice from someone on assessing a risk, do you not thing their track record on risk management is relevant?
05
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/2/14/england-oh-england.html
Now – where, oh where to find a plausible argumentum ad hominem on Nic Lewis ?
Be careful Will, Nic has supplied peer-reviewed papers to the IPPC by invitation 🙂
20
It takes one to know one.
00
I must have missed the part in the article where Jo Nova praised Matt Riddleys’ “excellent bank”.
20
INTERVIEWER (JoNova?): Hello Mr Ridley. We’re looking for an expert to advise us on the risks posed by climate change. Can you give us an example of where your approach to risk management has resulted in a positive outcome?
MATT RIDLEY: I certainly can. When I was chairman of Northern Rock, and chairman of its Risk Committee, we embarked on a highly risky policy of accessing most of our funding on the wholesale market. There were a lot of old fuddy-duddies who were worried, but I assured them that there was no risk.
INTERVIEWER: And what happened?
RIDLEY: The banking crisis hit. It turned out that our policy was so risky that we suffered the first bank run in the UK in a hundred and fifty years. People’s life savings were about to go up in smoke; our employees were about to lose their jobs; even worse, we were about to drag a lot of other banks down with us. We were a danger to the whole economy.
INTERVIEWER: Good God! And what happened then?
RIDLEY: we got a government bailout. It cost the taxpayer £27bn.
INTERVIEWER: How is that a positive outcome?
RIDLEY: I hate the government, they’re a bunch of self-seeking fleas, and I cost them £27bn (laughs). Things always work out in the end.
INTERVIEWER: It sounds like you’re the man we’ve been looking for. Welcome aboard!
04
INTERVIEWER(John Cook): Hello, have a seat. Mr Brown-eye is it?
WILL J. BROWNE: No, just Browne.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, sorry, it’s just that you look like… nevermind. I see here that you have applied for a position on the SkepticalScience Denier Blog Trolling team. May I ask why you are interested in the position?
WILL J. BROWNE: Well Mr Cook.. or is it Dr Cook?
INTERVIEWER: Umm no. Just Mr. I never did get my doctorate. Spent too much time drawing cartoons.
WILL J. BROWNE: Oh. Ok. I have had an interest in climate change since I watched ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Man, that Al Gore is one convincing and handsome guy! I didn’t want to give up my car or other creature comforts but I felt had to do something to help the cause so I thought this would be ideal.
INTERVIEWER: So what makes you qualified for the position?
WILL J. BROWNE: Well as I said, I am a devotee of Al Gore, and have SkS as my home page. I believe that consensus rules in science and that anyone who disagrees is just a filthy denier.
INTERVIEWER: ‘Denier’? What exactly do they deny?
WILL J. BROWNE: Ha! No idea. It just sounds nasty and kinda compares them to holocaust deniers.
INTERVIEWER: Is it accurate?
WILL J. BROWNE: Who cares?
INTERVIEWER: Well you have the condescending ar$ehole attitude down pat. You seem like our guy Mr Browneye…. Sorry… Browne.
WILL J. BROWNE: Wow. How much does the job pay?
INTERVIEWER: Just an overinflated sense of self satisfaction.
WILL J. BROWNE: Awesome! I’ll take it.
INTERVIEWER: Great! Welcome. I would like you to meet Michael Fab who posts as Michael the Realist…
MICHAEL: No boss, Heeby Jeebies now remember?
INTERVIEWER: Oh yes. Of course. Michael is the recipient of our condescending w@nker of the month award and is one of our most qualified trolls. I’ll leave him to show you the ropes. I think we will assign you to Jo Nova’s blog since Michael has just been banned from there… Again.
MICHAEL: *Groan* It’s not my fault that Jo uses logic and common sense! Come on Browneye, I’ll introduce you to BlackAdderthe4th, Chester, Margot and Brooksey.
WILL J. BROWNE: Great! I have some great ad homs to use straight up!
40
Boss, it’s me, Agent Browne. I think they’re on to us!
04
Funny, I was so seized by convulsive laughter after reading your witty “Browneye” quip that I almost missed this classic line. Pure comedy!
05
Do you remember the GFC? A lot of institutions needed to be bailed out. He was chairman of the board for a few years before it so he presided over the period when the policies for a decade came to a crunch.
He didn’t do the risk analysis. It was the employees that the board put their faith into who made the mistakes. If anyone is now qualified to spot employees who can’t do the job, it is him.
10
I wonder who was insulting whom when this happened 😉
Kerry Burnishes Green Badge in Asia as Volcano Disrupts Trip
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-16/kerry-burnishes-his-green-badge-in-asia-ahead-of-keystone-call.html
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said global warming is as big a threat as terrorism in a speech in Indonesia, the world’s largest exporter of coal for power plants, seeking to burnish his credential as a climate champion before deciding on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project…
…The speech came against the backdrop of the eruption of the Mount Kelud volcano that disrupted air travel in the region and forced the cancellation of Kerry’s planned meeting today with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
“We’ve seen here in Asia how extreme weather events can disrupt world trade,” Kerry said to an audience of Indonesian students and business leaders. “In today’s globalized economy, the entire world feels it.”
20
John Kerry just proved why VPs are irrelevant*. He seems to be taking hyper-bloviation about the climate to new levels. We haven’t seen the likes of this since Al Gore left the climate change podium.
* In truth we knew this for some time … anyone remmber Mr Dan Quayle?
20
This looks like it might be a fun read 🙂
30
ps.. for the link concerned.. Its a link to Tim Ball’s new book on Amazon
00
pps.. you will luv the title 🙂
10
For Extreme Weather, 2013 Was an Unextreme Year
http://science.time.com/2014/01/07/data-shows-that-extreme-weather-was-u…
Weather has been dominating the news cycle the past several days, as much of the U.S. has suffered through record-breaking cold. But while it might seem as if we’ve all been sucked into a polar vortex of weather news, 2013 was punctuated by coverage of major natural disasters like Supertyphoon Haiyan in November, massive floods in India in June and the Category 5 tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma in May. No wonder so many people felt that extreme weather was on the rise.
Except that wasn’t the case—at least not in 2013. The reinsurance company Munich Re came out with its annual assessment of natural disasters, and found that 2013 was an unusually quiet year. Catastrophes like floods and storms claimed more than 20,000 lives around the world, and caused more than $125 billion in damages. While that’s clearly a lot—and the number of deaths from disasters rose over 2012—both figures are well below the 106,000 in deaths and $184 billion in losses that were experienced on average over the past decade. Though the total number of loss-causing catastrophes—880—was above the average over the past 10 years, the damages in both financial and human terms was less. “There was no large-scale natural catastrophe event in 2013,” said Carl Hedde, head of risk accumulation for Munich Re.
30
The Idiocy Of “Blaming It On The Weather” Exposed
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-18/idiocy-blaming-it-weather-exposed
This morning’s catastrophic drop in the National Association of Hope Home Builders sentiment index has rapidly been spun as due to the weather… of course, makes perfect sense, right? What would happen if these drops were actually real fundamentals? If the status quo, the “common knowledge” was shown to be full of shit (once again). Well, riddle us this Batman… if weather was to blame, then why did the “West” region plunge the most? In fact, why did The West plunge the most on record? Too much sunny dry weather not good for sales? In fact, even the entirely indpendent provider of real estate research Trulia said that weather is not to blame…
…But sure, as opposed to face up to reality, keep blaming the weather…
20
I love Zero Hedge, great site!
30
Hi, all,
With the alarmists calling us all sorts of insulting names, I have concluded that we could re-name our side as the “Truth Squad” What do you all think?
Joanne, thank you for what you”re doing for the truth of the GW. you and David are terriffic, keep up the great work.
Gordon Williams
(Howick, Auckland,NZ)
50
>“flat-earthers” (Lord Krebs)
The White House (Obama, Kerry) appear to have settled on that particular line of denigration too.
But Kerry’s latest diatribe re “shoddy scientists and science” should not go unquestioned, i.e.
Who (of the scientists) is John Kerry referring to specifically, and why are they shoddy?
What (of the science) is John Kerry referring to specifically, and why is it shoddy?
I’m inclined to think he would have no answer to either question and he’s just indulging in slander because his arrogance and his office allows him to get away with it and not because he has any understanding of AGW-contra science that would enable him to actually back his accusation.
The irony being that it is CO2-centric climate science that is now being forced to explain the unpredicted 21st century temperature flatlining (which indicates the real shoddiness of scientific conjecture I would have thought).
Those subject to denigration for pointing out THE ONE BIG PROBLEM with the conjecture just get to sit back and watch the squirming.
30
Slingo has made a real fool of herself.
Her delusional rants have to seen to be believed. But how can any scientist be so irrational and stupid?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/18/newsbytes-why-the-met-office-has-hung-its-chief-scientist-out-to-dry/#more-103472
30
Jo,
Australia has been the victim of the wrong headed eco-nut policies that lead to major fire hazards around homes. Now we have the UK flooding and EU/eco-nut lunacy that lead up to it.
Holland is the next target of eco-lunacy.
2/17/2013 Flood Control in the Netherlands Now Allows Sea Water In
There is more on this from the university that educated Obama: Making Room for Rivers: A Different Approach to Flood Control
Dr. Ball is correct, these people are out to kill us!
30
I reckon the Dutch know exactly what they are doing here.
04
The Dutch have run out of little boys smart enough to know where to stick his finger.
20
Most skeptics are also wrong, because they just think we need to tone down the radiative forcing estimates.
Climate models that are based on the completely false physics that radiation from a colder atmosphere can actually help the Sun in raising the temperature of Earth’s surface are a complete fiction. It cannot do so. Physicists will tell you (if you even bother to ask a specialist in thermodynamics like myself) that such radiation undergoes what they call “pseudo scattering” in which it is immediately re-emitted in a resonating process, without any of its electro-magnetic energy being converted to thermal energy. This provides some of the electro-magnetic energy in the SB calculation for the warmer surface, and thus slows radiative cooling, but it can have no effect on molecules colliding at the interface and transferring thermal energy by conduction and evaporative cooling.
But none of this is what really determines planetary surface temperatures anyway. The base of the Uranus nominal troposphere is hotter than Earth, and yet it receives no direct solar radiation worth mentioning.
Valid physics can be used to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that a gravitationally-induced temperature gradient will always evolve spontaneously in a vertical plane in any solid, liquid or gas that is exposed to a gravitational field. This happens at the molecular level where molecules swap kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy when in free flight between collisions. No one has correctly rebutted this, and wires outside cylinders also develop thermal gradients so no perpetual motion can occur.
There is a predetermined thermal profile in Earth’s atmosphere caused by gravity which, without water vapour or greenhouse gases, would intersect the surface in the vicinity of 25C, but then water vapour reduces the gradient (due to inter-molecular radiation, not the release of latent heat) and we end up with a mean of about 15C.
It is natural cycles, probably regulated by planetary orbits, which are the primary determinants of climate. That’s why it’s not carbon dioxide after all.
45
so you’re saying if we turned the sun off the earth would remain the same temperature as it is today?
One does wonder why all the actuall physicists are not telling us this btw. I have a physics degree myself and while no guru can only assume that the various professors who tried to educate me might have mentioned this kind of stuff?
29
they didn’t teach you “valid” physics.
31
Doubt Matt actually learnt much at all..
…obviously not enough to actually use it.
41
No Mattb, I am not saying that. It seems you also misunderstand my explanation. For example, a small region on the Venus equator cools by 5 degrees during the 4-months of darkness. If the Sun did not warm it back up by 5 degrees the next 4-month-long day, then Venus could easily have cooled right down, its atmosphere solidified and collapsed and its surface temperature reaching less than 3K, that being about the background “temperature” in space and probably a typical temperature for a stray meteorite.
33
but you mentioned “a gravitationally-induced temperature gradient will always evolve spontaneously in a vertical plane in any solid, liquid or gas that is exposed to a gravitational field.”
that sound pretty independent to there being any solar warming?
20
I didn’t realise that Venus’s atmosphere was so static that air from the sunny side never moved to the dark side.
00
Mattb, I think that our visiting physicist is referring to the temperature change with altitude. The starting temperature at the surface would still be dependent on the Sun (the overall energy in the atmosphere).
11
visiting Physicist ,
i know nothing about physics and dont know what you are talking about but taking a quick look at gravity, no not the film,
“In physics, a gravitational field is a model used to explain the influence that a massive body extends into the space around itself, producing a force on another massive body”
you feel like some kind of energy/heat must be formed.
02
Here is something you wrote earlier
I’d say, “Stop pretending that you understand physics”, but clearly you have to start something to stop it.
27
Yet you can only ever imagine understanding physics.
In your most unlikely of dreams.
32
No, Richard. Lesson one in physics is that a force is not a source of new energy. I learnt that over 50 years ago. Didn’t you? It seems you misunderstand my explanation.
30
I think my line , I know nothing about physics should have alerted you.
No wonder I misunderstood. But thanks for thinking I should understand.
00
More evidence that Labor’s barking mad co2 tax is helping to wreck business in OZ.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/green_policies_are_killing_manufacturing_and_for_what/
And as in the EU the poorest people pay the highest price for the elite’s stupidity. But every year it’s okay to export as much coal as we can to China, India etc so they can build more industry and create more jobs for their people.
30
Don’t forget about this one either……….
Now Alcoa closes, too. Labor’s subsidies fail and its carbon tax kills:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/now_alcoa_closes_too/
21
Election now!
01
A few people above commented on article access. The entire article is available to read, for free, on Ridley’s Blog
Thanks Andrew! – Jo
30
Reuters Point Carbon top headline today is: Wild weather puts climate back on global agenda before 2015 deadline. the kind of Pt Carbon piece SMH is more than happy to carry.
19 Feb: SMH: Reuters: Wild weather puts climate change back in the political debate
VIDEO CAPTION: Storms set to hit Sydney’s peak hour
Motorists are urged to drive safely as thunderstorms are expected to hit Sydney on Wednesday afternoon.
Bitter cold in the United States might appear to contradict the notion of global warming, but with Britain’s wettest winter and another hot summer in Australia, extreme weather events have pushed climate change back on the political agenda…
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry went furthest, calling climate change “perhaps the most fearsome weapon of mass destruction” and ridiculing those who doubt that climate change is man-made…
With wild weather hitting some of the most developed parts of the world, politicians in rich nations are once again under pressure to address the issue…
“Attention has been increasing … sadly because of the increase in the frequency and intensity of natural events and disasters,”, U.N. climate change chief Christiana Figueres told Reuters…
British opposition leader Ed Miliband said at the weekend that Britain was “sleepwalking to a climate crisis”…
“It’s very good that international leaders are increasingly recognising the threat of climate change,” Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s climate commissioner, told Reuters.
“But leaders must walk the talk with concrete and forward-looking actions and pledges.”…
But those pushing for action are encouraged by the change in rhetoric. “The pace is starting to pick up,” said Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/wild-weather-puts-climate-change-back-in-the-political-debate-20140219-32z88.html
self-interest for Fairfax, yes; however no other MSM is even carrying this story:
19 Feb: SMH: Michaela Whitbourn: Carbon credit certificates issued to ‘world first’ school were ‘fake’, Supreme Court finds
He claimed to have helped a Sydney school to become the first in the world to go ”carbon neutral” by saving a Malaysian rainforest from logging, and to have generated more than $1 billion in carbon credits.
But on Tuesday the NSW Supreme Court found businessman Brett Goldsworthy and his Westleigh-based carbon credits company, shift2neutral, had lied and that carbon credit certificates issued to Oakhill College at Castle Hill and others were ”fake” and ”valueless”.
The decision of Acting Justice Henric Nicholas draws a line under a costly and drawn-out defamation battle between Mr Goldsworthy, his company and Fairfax Media.
The businessman and his company brought defamation proceedings against Fairfax in 2011 over two reports in the The Sydney Morning Herald in April that year that exposed the company as issuing worthless carbon credits to Oakhill College, the Sydney Turf Club and the Professional Golf Association of Australia (PGA)…
Acting Justice Nicholas said that, on the face of it, the plaintiffs should pay Fairfax Media’s costs. If they cannot reach an agreement, there will be a hearing next Tuesday.
Read the full judgment at http://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/action/PJUDG?jgmtid=169709
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/carbon-credit-certificates-issued-to-world-first-school-were-fake-supreme-court-finds-20140218-32yft.html
00
Media Watch on the future of newspapers. As in, there’s a future?
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3946698.htm
Audit Bureau of Circulation figures for the last 3 months of 2013 show another huge fall … with Fairfax Media’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald down by a shocking 17% from the same period of 2012.
News Corp’s Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph fared slightly better, but still fell 12%, after even bigger falls in the previous quarter…
In absolute terms the Herald and Age are now selling not much more than 130,000 copies each a day.
Meanwhile, the mighty Herald Sun has sunk below 400,000 and the Daily Telegraph below 300,000…
But … the news on advertising revenue is even worse… Fairfax Media’s 2013 results show that print advertising revenue for its two big Metro mastheads—the Herald and the Age—fell by 25% last financial year, or by almost exactly $100 million…
Fairfax has shed some 2,000 jobs , announced the closure of its two biggest printing plants, shut down magazines, moved to a tabloid format and got rid of some its best-known writers .
On the plus side, the Age and Herald have put up paywalls on their popular websites… Last year Fairfax’s digital ad revenue rose by only $5.5 million, while its print ad revenue fell $100 million, or almost 20 times as much.
Also on the plus side, which Barry fails to mention, is that the Herald Sun has more readers than ever, when on-line figures are added.
11
17 Feb: Redd-Monitor.org: China Development Finance Corporation is a transparently obvious scam
China Development Finance Corporation is cold calling people and offering to sell their near-worthless carbon credits. The company is a transparently obvious scam.
Here’s the evidence that the company is running a scam:…
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2014/02/17/china-development-finance-corporation-is-a-transparently-obvious-scam/
China expected to hold back controversial carbon offsets -analyst
BEIJING, Feb 18 (Reuters) – China is likely to avoid issuing carbon credits from controversial industrial gas projects, a Thomson Reuters Point Carbon report showed, in a move that would allay concerns of a flood of “junk offsets” in the country’s emission markets.
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4167926
LOL:
19 Feb: Bloomberg: Louise Downing: China Exceeds U.S. on Energy-Efficiency Spending for First Time
China spent more on energy efficiency than the U.S. for the first time, accounting for almost a third of the world’s total with $4.3 billion invested.
Global spending rose almost 5 percent to $14.9 billion, according to data released yesterday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. North American investment declined as much as 33 percent to $3.6 billion…
China has installed almost 250 million so-called smart meters, while Europe is expected to have 180 million meters installed by 2020 from 55 million now, according to BNEF.
The meters enable customers to monitor energy use and provide immediate feedback to utilities that are able to use the data to set pricing and smooth fluctuations in demand…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-18/china-spends-more-on-energy-efficiency-than-u-s-for-first-time.html
00
8 Feb Updated 10 Feb: UK Daily Mail: Exposed: Barclays account details for sale as ‘gold mine’ of up to 27,000 files is leaked in worst breach of bank data EVER
Cache of personal and financial details stolen and sold to rogue traders
Unscrupulous dealers ‘used information to pressure investors into scams’
By Ian Gallagher and Stephanie Condron and Simon Watkins
In the worst case of data loss from a British High Street bank, highly sensitive information, including customers’ earnings, savings, mortgages, health issues and insurance policies, ended up in the hands of unscrupulous brokers.
The data ‘gold mine’ – also containing passport and national insurance numbers – is worth millions on the black market because it allowed unsuspecting individuals to be targeted in investment scams…
The leak was exposed by an anonymous whistleblower who passed The Mail on Sunday a memory stick containing files on 2,000 of the bank’s customers.
He claimed it was a sample from a stolen database of up to 27,000 files, which he said could be sold by shady salesmen for up to £50 per file…
One of the victims, 69-year-old Janice Snowling, from Maldon, Essex, said: ‘I’m really angry. I think we should get some sort of compensation. It’s outrageous. The banking industry is the pits.’…
The perfect money-making opportunity for many of the brokers came during the recession when people’s savings were hit by low interest rates.
Potential investors became susceptible to the broker’s questionable approaches and promises of sky-high returns.
I worked at a type of brokerage known in the industry as a ‘spank shop’, operating from rented offices outside London or even in the City.
The brokers ‘spank’ or punish people over the phone by advising them to invest in certain commodities which make lots of money for the broker, but not the investor.
The broker sells the commodity for such a massive mark up that it eliminates any opportunity the investor has to make money…
***At one time carbon credits were the top commodities sold. Investors paid £6.50 for the credits – in fact worth nothing.
Now the spank shops are selling diamonds and rare earth metals. Brokers can quickly get greedy…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2554875/Barclays-account-details-sale-gold-27-000-files-leaked.html
00
Secretary of State John Kerry told Indonesians on Sunday that global warming is now “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”
Ha ha. I am in Bali at the moment and the weather/climate seems the same as all the 44 years I have been coming to Indonesia. It is as warm as before and the monsoon rains are here as normal. The plants are happy and healthy. Indonesians only know of two major seasons, the wet (musim hujan-rainy season) and the dry (musim kemarau-drought season).
And for Kerry to blabber on about mass destruction of climate to an audience, who experience disruptions in their daily life through volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis, is a joke. Probably the generally polite nature of Indonesians saved Kerry from being laughed at.
40
***u gotta appreciate the “over time”!
18 Feb: CNS News: Melanie Hunter: Obama: ‘Unchecked’ Carbon Pollution Had ‘Severe Impacts on Our Weather’
While announcing new fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said “unchecked” carbon pollution prior to his administration’s efforts to raise fuel economy standards “was having severe impacts on our weather.”…
“Some are already making cars that beat the target of nearly 55 miles per gallon. They’ve got plug-in hybrids. They’ve got electric vehicles. They’re taking advantage of the investments that the Recovery Act made in American advances in battery technology, so cars are getting better, and they’re getting more fuel efficient all the time,” Obama said.
The new goal: doubling the distance cars and light trucks can travel before needing to refuel…
“We’re gonna double the distance our cars and light trucks can go on a gallon of gas by 2025. We’re gonna double it, and that means – that’s big news – because what it means is you got to fill up every two weeks instead of every week, and that saves the typical family more than $8,000 at the pump ***over time,” Obama said….
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/obama-unchecked-carbon-pollution-had-severe-impacts-our-weather
Arup – Warburton declares he’s not even a “climate change” denier, much less a “CLIMATE SCEPTIC” – so u just keep repating the slander over and over and over again:
18 Feb: SMH: Tom Arup: Climate sceptic Dick Warburton to head Tony Abbott review into renewable energy target
VIDEO CAPTION: Climate sceptic to head review
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has fueled speculation the government plans
to scrap the renewable energy target after announcing climate sceptic Dick
Warburton will lead the review.
The Abbott government has launched a formal review of Australia’s 20 per
cent renewable energy target, choosing senior business figure and climate
change sceptic Dick Warburton to head it…
An earlier review of the renewables target by the Authority in 2012 found it
should not be changed because it would hurt investor confidence in the
sector. The Authority also recommended the next review of the target be
pushed back to 2016, something the former Labor government failed to change
in law…
“A self-declared climate change sceptic, Mr Waburton told Fairfax Media on
Monday that he still maintained those views…
”I am not a denier of climate change. But I am sceptical about some of the
aspects of global warming, and more particularly what might be causing it,
and I don’t resile from any of those comments,” Mr Warburton said…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-sceptic-dick-warburton-to-head-tony-abbott-review-into-renewable-energy-target-20140217-32vve.html
00
Fairfax is a private company, but how can taxpayer-funded ABC get away with this “denier” crap?
18 Feb: ABC AM: Warburton defends climate views
CHRIS UHLMANN: The man chosen to lead the Federal Government’s review of the renewable energy target says he’s sceptical about human induced global warming, but isn’t a climate change denier…
NAOMI WOODLEY: The Greens and some environmental groups say that you’re a climate change denier and that this will influence your approach to the review. How do you respond to that?
DICK WARBURTON: Well, I’m not a climate change denier. Simple as that.
NAOMI WOODLEY: In 2011 you told Lateline Business that you were a climate change sceptic, not a denier, but you did believe the science isn’t settled, and that was why Australia shouldn’t be pursuing a carbon tax. Do you still believe that the science isn’t settled, and will that have an influence on the way that you conduct this review?
DICK WARBURTON: Yes, let’s qualify the terms. I am not a denier, nor a sceptic actually, of climate change per se. What I am sceptical is the claims that man-made carbon dioxide is the major cause of global warming. I’m not a denier of that, but I am sceptical of that claim…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3946806.htm
30
A good article of many studies and graphs showing the MWP and LIA from around the planet.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/how-climate-fraudsters-tried-to-get-rid.html#comment-form
10
REPORT: ‘NOAH’ FIXATED ON ‘OVERPOPULATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION’
“Further, THR spoke with several people who saw an early test screening in Southern California’s Orange County and who identified themselves as religious. One viewer, who declined to give his name because Paramount required him to sign a nondisclosure agreement, echoed the sentiments of others by criticizing the depiction of Noah as a “crazy, irrational, religious nut” who is fixated on modern-day problems like overpopulation and environmental degradation.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/02/12/noah-movie-christian-audiences-noisy
From the Sun News Network here in Canada, they reported that this new ‘Noah’ move had ‘climate change’ as a theme within the movie. Talk about the BS that Hollywood is producing and feeding to the public!
20
When the CAGW doom speaking is over, the one sin the cult member will never forgive of those who were sceptical of their faith?
Being correct.
Knowing other people know you for a fool, corrodes the soul of a small person.
The lack of a sense of humour being one give away.
Though they accuse all who question of being deniers, we haven’t seen denial yet.
As with all the projection,of distorting science, fabricating evidence, lying, cheating, profiteering, these cult members will show us all how denial is properly done.
40
Somewhere deep within every CAGW-er is a little 10-10 video playing 24 hours a day.
30
Coastal experts say FEMA cut corners on flood mapping
http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20131210/News/312109738
Independent coastal experts who reviewed Marshfield’s flood insurance data say the federal government used wave methodology better fit for the Pacific coast in drafting new flood maps, therefore likely over-predicting the flooding that would occur in a 100-year storm for much of the state.
10
Although I’m a constitutional monarchist, further reference to Charley Windsor will be just that until he cleans up his act.
Charley needs a good boot up his less-than-royal brain repository; his slurring of his more intelligent would-be subjects is rattle-brain stuff; when the tomatoes start flying he’ll have no friends left.
50
TonyfromOz –
just saw your responses to the ABC Breakfast interview with John Grimes of the Austn Solar Council on the Koch Bros thread. still no transcript on the ABC page. how do they get away with letting people say anything, no matter how ridiculous, providing it goes along with the CAGW narrative? couldn’t energy companies make an official complaint? being ignorant is no excuse for these highly-paid ABC presenters.
meanwhile, our daily fairfax:
19 Feb: SMH: Steve Jacobs with Leesha McKenny: Sydney swimmers to strip for environment
However, their costumes will only be removed once they run from the beach into the water and no stickybeaking is allowed.
The Sydney Skinny, a nude ocean swim in its second year, is a private ticket-only event at the secluded Cobblers Beach in Mosman, on Sydney’s lower north shore, from 8am.
Only participating swimmers are allowed on the beach and spectators are not allowed…
The Sydney Skinny was founded by the co-founder of Earth Hour Nigel Marsh…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sydney-swimmers-to-strip-for-environment-20140219-330a9.html
more Malcolm Turnbull than Tony Abbott!
20
The full article – no paywall
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-sceptics-are-right-don%27t-scapegoat-them.aspx
00
notice the accepance of CAGW from the headline to the last line in this ridiculous Huffington Post piece picked up by News Ltd:
19 Feb: News Ltd. Australia: ZOLTAN ISTVAN: Some futurists aren’t worried about global warming or overpopulation
IT’S almost impossible to view the news anymore without seeing something negative related to global warming, overpopulation or environmental degradation of the planet. The facts speak for themselves. Pollution is rampant in many cities. Entire forests are being cut down. And the human species is adding over 200,000 new people a day to the world. Environmental scientists have warned for years that the human race is dramatically affecting the planet and its ecosystems. Humans are changing the climate of Earth, consuming all its finite resources, and causing the disappearance of over 10,000 species a year.
Despite this, a growing number of futurists, many who are transhumanists — people who aim to move beyond the human being using science and technology — aren’t worried. While New York City, Boston and Miami may be partially underwater by 2100, many futurists don’t plan to be around in the flesh by then. And if they are, they’ll have the technology to walk on water…
Within a few years, humans will begin attempting to download their first thoughts into computers. Soon after, a software interface will bring to life our authentic virtual personalities. Eventually, especially with the help of artificial intelligence, we will complete a full upload of our brains, and our minds and its thoughts will freely move in and out of machines. We will be digital avatars of our biological selves…
Will this new phase of human existence require as many resources from the planet as we are currently using? Will we continue to eat food? Breathe air? Depend on water? Procreate? The answer is probably not…
There are probably zero futurists who feel good about damaging our beautiful planet. However, many of them realise that the benefit of the species’ rapid evolutionary ascent outweighs the harm progress is causing to Earth. Our planet is strong; it can handle climate change and an expanding human population while our species prepares for the transhumanist age. The evolutionary outcome of humanity will be better for turning a blind eye on Mother Earth. Exponential technological growth, increased prosperity from globalisation, and maintaining world peace are the critical issues of the future, not global warming, overpopulation or environmental degradation.
This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/some-futurists-arent-worried-about-global-warming-or-overpopulation/story-fnjwvztl-1226831221065
and i wonder why our media does not regularly publish an effective science communicator like Jo!
btw notice how popular Zoltan is with the MSM:
Wikipedia: Zoltan Istvan
He is best known for his controversial novel, The Transhumanist Wager, a #1 bestseller in both Philosophy and Science Fiction Visionary and Metaphysical on Amazon…
He’s explored over 100 countries—many as a journalist for the National Geographic Channel—writing, filming, and appearing in dozens of television stories, articles, and webcasts. His work has also been featured by The New York Times Syndicate, Outside, San Francisco Chronicle, The Daily Caller, Sail, BBC Radio, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, Animal Planet, and the Travel Channel…
Istvan blogs for Psychology Today (The Transhumanist Philosopher) and The Huffington Post…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoltan_Istvan
00
This article {Matt Ridley) appeared in my local paper much to my shock and pleasant surprise the day after an article about John Kerry’s speech where he stated that climate change was unequivocal and that only fringe scientists questioned it. All the locals here will plainly see all the absurdities in that sentiment. Kerry thought he should be a United States president FFS. The mind boggles.
10
visiting Physicist
as i replied to you, i do not understand physics or what you wrote,
but i replied
“In physics, a gravitational field is a model used to explain the influence that a massive body extends into the space around itself, producing a force on another massive body”
you feel like some kind of energy/heat must be formed.
visiting Physicist- you replied
“No, Richard. Lesson one in physics is that a force is not a source of new energy. I learnt that over 50 years ago. Didn’t you? It seems you misunderstand my explanation”
to be honest i do not understand the following, written in 2003, but it seems to contradict what you say,
http://www.novafizika.com/The%20gravitational%20force%20temperature%20dependence.pdf
extract- So, today there are experimental grounds to consider real the marked dependence of
gravitational force on the absolute temperatures of interacting mass.
Apologies if i am way of beam!
00
or is it saying that temp effects the gravitational force?
00
A little OT
A report on smelting activity in other countries.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-19/aluminium-industry-heads-to-lower-energy-cost-countries/5269664
Labour and the Greens just never comprehended the fragility of world markets. They claim to understand fragility in the climate and nature but failed to put 2 and 2 together on the fact that the global economy is also a complex system. So all the little straws they put on the camels back over 10 years just served to shift the jobs and the emissions off shore. Everything ventured, nothing gained and more importantly nothing learned.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/shorten-fails-to-fit-the-bill/story-e6frg7bo-1226830889674#
10
no surprise:
WUWT: Delingpole’s new landing pad, the inside scoop
As to why, I have the inside scoop.
I asked James directly, and in a nutshell it was three things.
1. They paid him poorly, ’nuff said.
2. They never seemed to appreciate the kind of traffic and exposure he’d brought. Remember, Delingpole was the first MSM columnist to break Climategate, and I’m pleased to say he got the scoop from WUWT. But, they didn’t really recognize the asset, even though he won an award for his Climategate coverage. When Delingpole’s column won the Bloggie award for “Best Weblog About Politics“, they didn’t even mention it in the print edition or in the online main page. Usually when a columnist or writer wins such an award, the paper crows about it.
3. Often, they didn’t like the content. As we know, James skewers the left and in particular greens. He reports he was getting increasing pressure over his environmental essays…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/18/delingpoles-new-landing-pad-the-inside-scoop/#comment-1571735
a Peter Mott posted this very funny piece from the Tele in the comments:
June 2013: UK Telegraph: Sean Thomas: When it comes to climate change, we have to trust our scientists, because they know lots of big scary words
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100222487/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-we-have-to-trust-our-scientists-because-they-know-lots-of-big-scary-words/
10
18 Feb: ABC PM: Climate change modelling in the spotlight after Australia’s hottest year on record
MARK COLVIN: “There have always been tough times and lush times”, said the Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday when asked about drought and climate change.
But the Bureau of Meteorology says 2013 was Australia’s hottest year on record. And few scientists now doubt that that is the result of man-made climate change.
That includes some ***former sceptics in the scientific community who formerly doubted whether climate modelling could be trusted to forecast warming.
Among them is one of Australia’s most respected agricultural scientists, Melbourne University’s Professor Snow Barlow.
I asked him if it was fair to call him a former climate change sceptic?
SNOW BARLOW: Just a sceptical scientist. I wasn’t a sceptic about the amounts of CO2 that we were putting in the atmosphere.
MARK COLVIN: But you were sceptical about the effects or the projected effects?
SNOW BARLOW: Yes, yes.
MARK COLVIN: Over what period have you changed your mind? And how have you changed your mind?
SNOW BARLOW: Two things have occurred. One, with the passage of time – and you will recall that it’s really in the late ’80s through the ’90s and into the ’00s – that global temperatures have increased quite considerably. So the evidence in my mind has begun to accumulate.
And also, at the same time, these computer models have got better. Various queries that other naturally sceptical scientists have raised about clouds, about satellites, have been answered.
And so I now have, you know, much more confidence in those. But a large degree of that confidence is around just observing what I see and observing what the impact of these increase in temperatures is on biological systems…
SNOW BARLOW: Particularly heatwaves.
We know that when you look at the way you calculate temperatures, as you move it up a degree – and the climate in Australia has actually moved up by 0.85 of a degree centigrade in the last 50 years – you move the distribution of temperature. That means that you get more events, very hot days. In other words: heatwaves. And not only individual days that are over 35, or in some areas 40, but sequence of days.
So instead of having an isolated day, you may have three or you may have five…
MARK COLVIN: But yesterday the Prime Minister was asked about climate change in Australia and he said, “If you look at the records going back 150 years, there have always been good times and bad times and farmers ought to be able to deal with the sort of things that are expected every few years.”…
SNOW BARLOW: I think those broad comments ***deny the detail….
So certainly there have been droughts but you’ve got to look into the detail, of which climate scientists do, to tease out what is actually natural variability, which none of us ***deny, and what is that extra variability and extra intensity that comes from global warming and climate change.
MARK COLVIN: Professor Snow Barlow from the University of Melbourne’s School of Land and Environment.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3947396.htm
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Mark Colvin – precisely when was Snow Barlow a man-made global warming sceptic? he’s been shilling for CAGW since 2008 – see below – so how far does one need to go back to find his SCEPTICISM? btw, Colvin, the ABC is finished as a credible, trustworthy, media organisation:
2008: Uni of Melbourne: Episode 49 – How We’ll Fare in the Global Food Crisis
SNOW BARLOW: There is also the ravages of climate change that will impinge upon the value of agricultural land in particular latitudes around the globe. For example, in Australia we expect southeastern Australia and southwestern Australia to become 10% drier in the next 30 years. Now, that is going to impact on how we can produce grain and we are exporters of grain. The unknown in all of this, is, what the effects of climate change are going to be – particularly in the northern hemisphere…
SHANE HUNTINGTON
Snow, I am curious when you talk about these shifts in climate and how it affects our ability to produce food in various parts of the world. Are we talking about changes in – I guess – seasonal periods, as in when spring starts and things of that nature, or entire bands of certain latitudes being unsuitable for particular food crops, or both?
SNOW BARLOW
Well, it is really both. You see, we know from the word called ‘phenology’, in other words, when certain perennial plants like apple trees, grape vines, burst their buds every year and flower and ultimately ripen, that these things happen earlier every year. For instance, you might be surprised to know that in the famous wine region of Champagne, the harvest has actually crept forward a whole month in the last 25 years. So these are the shifts that we are starting to see around the world. Now, what we see, the second thing in terms of grain production is the availability of water. With these perennial crops, in theory we can just move further north or south, so, we can move with climate change if we wish. But, we can’t do that with the great cereal bowls of the world. Where, they are constrained with – sitting in Australia here – to move south in Australia would be to move into the southern ocean. Not a very good place to grow wheat. So, there will be those constraints, of moving whole agricultural areas and the northern fringes for those of us in the southern hemisphere will be threatened by drying conditions. So, it is really the moisture that is probably going to determine it…
http://upclose.unimelb.edu.au/episode/49-how-we-ll-fare-global-food-crisis
2010: Uni of Melbourne: Episode 96 – The Wrath of Grapes: Wine Making and Climate Change
Viticulturist Prof Snow Barlow and Wedgetail Estate vigneron Guy LaMothe discuss the threats — and opportunities — that global warming poses for the wine industry in Australia and elsewhere. With science host Dr Shane Huntington.
“On top of that long term variability, we think there will be more extreme events. That means there will be more episodes of these heat related events. That means that vineyards will have to learn how to manage them.” — Prof Snow Barlow
Snow Barlow: …Then there are a couple of variants. One is in the Australian context, and particularly more recently, episodes of what we call extreme heat. They can be damaging depending on when they occur. They can be very damaging in the ripening phase and perhaps a little less damaging earlier as, you know we had a very high temperature event in November 2009, which was actually right before flowering. In general the impacts, at least in the regions that I know of, Guy. were not too extreme. There were a few impacts in the Barossa Valley that I know of. But if as we had the record heat in Victoria, which is southern Australia, there were extreme damages to grapes in that time…
SNOW BARLOW
We believe in the climate science that yes we are moving there. Certainly in Australia the climate has always been quite variable. But on top of that long term variability we think there will be more extreme events. That means there will be more episodes of these heat related events…
SNOW BARLOW
Yes Shane, one of the great ironies about climate change is that the very fact is the enrichment of the Earth’s atmosphere with carbon dioxide that is driving our temperature up. Indeed in my scientific lifetime, we have moved the carbon dioxide concentration up by about 20%. Plants are chronically short of carbon dioxide, an essential nutrient for them. So therefore with each increase in carbon dioxide technically plants will grow faster. Now, the sorts of plants, plants all vary and some plants will make use of that extra carbon dioxide to a greater extent than others, and the research my team, and the team within the Melbourne School of Land and Environment is carrying out, is actually in the field where we are testing different varieties of wheat at the sort of elevated concentrations that we expect to be in the environment in 2030 and 2050….
http://upclose.unimelb.edu.au/episode/96-wrath-grapes-wine-making-and-climate-change#transcription
2011: NCCARF: Snow Barlow, PIARN Convenor: climate sceptics and informed debate
An evitable consequence of this debate appears to be unsubstantiated blogs covering both the ‘myths’ of anthropogenic climate change and potential other sources of greenhouse gases and warming…
However I thought it may be useful PIARN members to be aware of some credible websites containing referenced answers to frequently asked questions. We have provided some links to these websites below for your information and use. They vary in complexity and ease of navigation, but all are well researched and referenced…
If you know of more useful websites please let PIARN know and we’ll add them to this list.
•Climate change: a guide for the perplexed New Scientist magazine
•Skeptical Science – ‘Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism’
•Facts and fiction about climate change The Royal Society UK
•Frequently Asked Questions from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
http://piarn.org.au/news/2011/aug/28/snow-barlow-climate-sceptics-and-informed-debate
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how differently ABC handled govt policy in 2011 – not a single sceptical voice allowed. will the Govt doesn’t complain about Colvin’s mocking of the Prime Minister on yesterday’s PM program, and the lying about Barlow being a CAGW sceptic?
July 2011: ABC 7.30 Report: Scientists share their view on carbon tax
Many scientists have been calling for action on climate change for years now. 7.30 speaks to scientists to find out their view on the Government’s policy.
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Setting aside politics and economics, let’s ask the bottom line question: will this carbon tax have an impact on the environment?
A vast majority of the scientific community has been calling for action to reduce emissions for years…
MIKE SEXTON, ABC REPORTER: According to the UN Convention on Climate Change, the world needs to reduce its emissions dramatically in the next half-century or risk the planet’s temperature rising by two degrees. The Federal Government promises a carbon tax will cut Australia’s emissions by 80 per cent by 2050…
BARRY BROOK, CHAIR CLIMATE CHANGE, ADELAIDE UNI.: The carbon price alone especially at $23 a tonne’s not gonna do that, obviously. That’s gonna require a complete reinvention of our energy system. But you do need a trigger for change. If we are gonna reinvent it, we need to start now…
PETER COOK, CRC, GREENHOUSE GAS TECHNOLOGIES: It needs far more than $23 a tonne of carbon to bring in wind power or bring in solar power or bring in geothermal or bring in CCS…
SNOW BARLOW, LAND & ENVIRONMENT, MELBOURNE UNI: The nation is gonna have to adapt and particularly the land-based sector, which has seen some glimpses of what the future might look like, needs to continue with adaptation programs and indeed adaptation research, because before all these carbon measures click in fully, we’re gonna see a lot of climate change yet.
MIKE SEXTON: Professor Snow Barlow from Melbourne University’s School of Land and Environment thinks the carbon price will boost land management programs because there’s now certainty for selling carbon credits.
SNOW BARLOW: We’ve gotta get case studies of showing people how on the land how they can generate carbon credits. We have now certainty where they can sell them, but we’ve gotta demonstrate how they can develop them and how they can measure them…
BARRY BROOK: I think it’s a bold initiative from Australia and other nations need to follow suit. Then we can really lick this problem.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3267007.htm
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Mark Colvin/Leigh Sales/ABC: is this the CAGW sceptic Barlow of which you speak?
btw in the comments someone remarks that the MAP is fantastic, but it’s still behind a paywall. some of you may have access:
May 2013: Catallaxyfiles: Alan Moran: Taxpayers funding grants that help to reduce their living standards
Illustrating what everybody really knows about the corruption of the government grants process, certainly with the rivers of gold dedicated to bolstering the warmists, The Australian published a piece this morning which showed the way insider academics reward weach other with the loot from the taxpayer.
The paywalled article by Julie Hare says:
– An analysis by The Australian reveals the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s advisory panel chaired by Melbourne University professor Snow Barlow has awarded members or collaborators $23m from a pool of $77m in the first two rounds of a four-year program aimed at climate change mitigation and adaption in agriculture. –
It presents a map of the links between individuals who have published together and how the individuals who are awarded grants are linked to those on the panel.
Professor Barlow is also lead convenor of another group, the Primary Industries Adaptation Research Network. Its co-convenors include Professor Eckard and four other DAFF expert advisory panel members: Peter Grace, a senior research scientist from Queensland University of Technology; Ross Kingwell, chief economist with the WA Department of Agriculture and Food; Beverley Henry, who works with Professor Grace at QUT and Mark Howden, a lead researcher from the CSIRO.
Professor Barlow said as chairman, he spoke on behalf of the expert group.
“It is important to recognise that this is an R&D program with very specific priorities which applicants must be able to address if they wish to be successful,” he said. It is also in a relatively new area of science.
***“For this reason it is understandable the limited pool of researchers would be closely connected professionally.”…
Yeh right!!
All this funding going to warmista fanatics and their journeymen assistants ever willing to write what is necessary in order to remain within the sheltered workshop illustrates symbiotic relationship between politicians and large elements of the research establishment. Cancelling the grants involved would bring a double saving of less money directly expended and a reduced pressure on the economy from measures like renewable programs and funding of high cost green facilities that the research is funded to promote.
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/05/10/taxpayers-funding-grants-that-help-to-reduce-their-living-standards/
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Mortgage Applications Plunge Further – Near 19 Year Lows
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-19/mortgage-applications-plunge-further-near-19-year-lows
The past 5 weeks have seen mortgage applications crumble a further 16% – their biggest such drop in 14 months as the index for home purchase applications hovers close to its lowest level since 1995. Non-seasonally-adjusted, this is the worst start to a year in over a decade. Must be the weather?
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the url for the 2013 Julie Hare link i just posted, if anyone wants to look at the Map:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/grants-process-sent-to-auditor/story-e6frgcjx-1226637918163
MARK COLVIN, MAYBE THIS IS THE FORMER CAGW SCEPTIC BARLOW WITH HIS EMINENT REPUTATION TO PROTECT?
11 July 2012: Australia: Julie Hare: Climate panellist gets $10m in grants
AN expert panel charged with allocating $47 million in climate research grants handed $10m to a research centre run by one of its members.
Richard Eckard, who has denied any conflict of interest, runs the Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre, which sought funding for nine projects through the first research round of the federal government’s Carbon Farming Futures Initiative. It was successful with eight.
Only 58 out of 230 applications, or 25 per cent, received funding, well below PICCC’s 88 per cent success rate.
An international expert in methane and agricultural emissions, Dr Eckard is named lead researcher on one of the successful projects and is a member of the team on four more, attracting $4.2m.
PICCC, a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Primary Industries, helped prepare the other four proposals. The chairman of the 10-member expert panel, eminent scientist Snow Barlow, denied there was any conflict of interest…
Professor Barlow (chairman of the 10-member expert panel, eminent scientist Snow Barlow) dismissed the “halo effect” in which eminent researchers familiar to the panel were put under less scrutiny because of their reputation.
***“We all have our own reputations that we have spent a lot of time building up and we are not going to make decisions that would damage that,” he said.
Two Queensland University of Technology researchers, Peter Grace and Beverley Henry, were also members of the expert panel and successful grant winners on four projects…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/climate-panellist-gets-10m-in-grants/story-e6frg6xf-1226422922741
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MARK COLVIN: i think i’ve found the former-CAGW-sceptic-Barlow aka the previous Govt’s CAGW shill:
Feb 2012: ABC: Sarah Collerton: Farming and the carbon tax: what’s in store?
ABC News Online talked to key experts about what the carbon plan means for the land-based sector…
But the Government will shell out a cool $1.9 billion over six years to encourage farmers to cut emissions and to develop techniques for storing carbon.
There are various ways this money will be handed out, but much of the focus is on the research and development of storing carbon as well as carbon credits.
“The key components are $946 million over six years for a Biodiversity Fund and $429 million Carbon Farming Futures program,” said Professor Snow Barlow from School of Land and Environment at the University of Melbourne.
“This is about preparing the agricultural sector to begin to undertake activities that will serve them very well when there is a commitment for agriculture under any future national or global agreements,” Professor Barlow said…
Professor Barlow says there are various activities through which farmers and landholders can generate carbon credits. These include:
Planting forests or plantations;
Reducing methane emissions from animals;
Reducing nitrous oxide emissions from fertilisers;
Reducing emissions from savannah burning;
Management of native forests;
Revegetation of high conservation areas;
Culling feral animals.
Over the years, some of the nation’s top climate scientists have called for agriculture to be part of an Australian carbon pricing plan to help achieve emission cuts.
Professor Barlow says this could be one way to improve the Government’s current plan.
“One of the sleepers in this (Government’s carbon plan) is (cutting agricultural emissions) not being part of the commitments under the carbon tax and the ETS that starts in 2015,” Professor Barlow said.
“But some of us as researchers think that agriculture and food production can’t remain out forever because the fundamental equation in the globe is that agriculture is about 15 to 20 per cent of emissions.
“If you cut global emissions by 50 per cent, which we need to by 2050, agriculture’s going to stand out like a sore toe and people won’t allow that.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-15/carbon-tax-farmers/2795816
nice going, ABC. not biased at all, are ‘WE’?
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MARK COLVIN/LEIGH SALES/ABC: HERE HE IS…IN HIS ELEMENT:
16 Dec 2013: CarbonCredits:CarbonCaptureReport.org:
This page lists all blog posts relating to Carbon Credits…
[WATCH]: Snow Barlow Sustainable Farming System Forum Wodonga 2012 | sustainabletradingandinvesting.com
…… [WATCH]: Snow Barlow Sustainable Farming System Forum Wodonga 2012 by on Sunday, December 8th, 2013 | No Comments Professor Snow Barlow covers environmental opportunities in a carbon trading environment, future directions in farm management that can achieve environmental Related posts: Posted in Sustainable Trading Tags: Tech , trading [WATCH]: Sustainable competitiveness the solution ……
http://carboncredits.carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin//dailyreport_showlist?DATE=2013-12-16&norm=76&field=blogposts&sort=0&filter=&start=40
posted the above link for the description, but u can watch the video here:
VIDEO: SustainableTradingandInvestingBlog: [WATCH]: Snow Barlow – Sustainable Farming System Forum Wodonga 2012
http://sustainabletradingandinvesting.com/blog/2013/12/08/watch-snow-barlow-sustainable-farming-system-forum-wodonga-2012/
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fascinating to read this today:
(5 PAGES) May 2011: Queensland Country Life: Colin Nettles: What benefits from carbon?
LABOR’S latest consultation group will examine the potential land sector benefits and opportunities available under a carbon pricing mechanism, through the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI).
***The Land Sector Working Group will see about 30 stakeholders from various land and agricultural sectors, including meat, grains, sugar, cotton and natural resource organisations, discuss the design of a carbon pricing mechanism.
The Group’s advice will be used to help inform the Government’s position on the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee; another of the government’s carbon consultation groups.
The fist meeting is expected to be held next month in Canberra with other forums staged during the carbon legislation’s development…
But Carbon Conscious, which aims to convert marginal farming land into carbon sinks to add value by capturing carbon farming credits and reducing toxic gas emissions, said the CFI presented a number of genuine opportunities to increase agricultural productivity.
The company’s business model is distinctly different to an MIS in that it targets large scale investors like its major clients, BP and Origin Energy, who are looking for a genuine commercial return on their investments, as opposed to “mum and dad investors, looking for a tax break.
Mr Balsarini (CEO CARBON CONSCIOUS) said the company’s clients were large, smart investors who wanted to invest based on commercial returns rather than a tax break…
“Our business model looks at marginal land; land that should not have been cleared in the first place, on annual rainfall of between 250mm and 500mm, very low agricultural production land, with deep sandy soils.
“It’s land where farmers can’t earn much on it so we take that land back and make it productive…
“We see it as a positive that will allow farmers to release low value land and take out small parts of their farm to carbon credits under the CFI and there will be a whole range of environmental benefits under that system.”
***Members of the Land Sector Working Group: (includes)
Prof Snow Barlow, Member of Australian Landcare Council, Landcare
http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/what-benefits-from-carbon/2146303.aspx?storypage=0
former Carbon Conscious CEO Balsarini:
LinkedIn: Peter Balsarini
Director – Corporate Finance, Clean Technology and Carbon Advisory
Argonaut
Clean Tech deal origination and capital sourcing
Carbon advisory & trading services
Corporate finance transactions
Director
Stanbal Consulting
Independant consulting specdialising in clean tech and property sectors
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/peter-balsarini/31/811/680
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Seems you have learned how to copy and paste.
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Hey, leave pat alone.
He does an invaluable job “finding stuff” that many of us just would not have the time to search out.
It must take him hours.
Thanks , pat 🙂
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OK! Sorry Pat. And Griss. Keep on posting.
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I was talking to a cockie this morning who tells me that Carbon Conscious are putting their trees on the good productive land as well.
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‘When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser’ –Socrates
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Please stop sending us your ecofascists.
Thank you!
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Scientist: “Do you believe immersing a sphere heated in vacuum, into cold nitrogen makes it get warmer?”
Believer: “Yes.”
Scientist: “Do you believe physically reflecting 20% energy from a fire, the sun, away from sensors on an object, will make sensors all over the object, indicate more energy from the fire, arriving?
Believer: “Yes.”
Scientist: “Do you believe adding more reflective media, blocking 21% of energy from a fire to sensors on an object,
will make energy sensors indicate more energy arriving, than when you only kept 20% total energy from arriving?”
Believer: “Yes.”
Well, I guess the science is settled then LoLoLoL what a crock!
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