It’s another pious scientist. Sigh.
Why do good researchers sometimes throw their professional standards to the wind (or in this case, just blow them right up?)
Fiona Stanley has done great work in the prevention of spina bifida with folic acid, and with indigenous health problems. The new big state funded hospital in WA is named after her, and she’s another Australian of the Year. (Is that award the worst thing that can befall a good scientist? Post hoc, they seem to think the world wants to know their personal feelings on topics they know nothing about.) Cue Professor Fiona Stanley who assumes all fields of science “work” even though she herself says climate science is politicized.
Stanley goes so far as to say that being skeptical of the IPCC view is like “child abuse”. But isn’t it a form of child abuse to throw away the Scientific Method, to sacrifice the next generation’s quality of life, their careers and then burden them with debts to the the God of Wind-farms and the Saint of Pink Batts? Don’t we owe our kids the transfer of a culture of logic and reason that was handed to us?
At least Stanley admits she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and is making a faith based statement:
“I’m not a climate change expert but I do trust the incredible scientific evidence, although no science is ever perfect,” she said.
So she’s a religious follower, which she’s entitled to be. And the evidence is in-credible — we quite agree. (I don’t think she meant to say that.) With a true sense of fair play she even admits the scientists she “trusts” don’t know, and can’t be expected to know precisely what is going on.
“To expect science to be able to predict something as complex as what is going to happen on this planet, given human activity and other things, is extraordinarily challenging and I think it is pathetic of people to criticise the imprecise nature of the science.”
But look out, there’s contradiction ahead.
Professor Stanley said the data was very compelling, particularly about the extremes in factors such as temperature.
So the data is compelling, but the scientists aren’t precise?
Obviously she didn’t look at the data herself, but trusted those other experts to look at it and tell her accurately and without omission what is going on. (So suppose it’s 1614 instead of 2014. Who are you going to trust, the Pope and his experts or that little man from Padua?)
Duck for cover, here comes the sermon:
“It’s like child abuse and neglect, we don’t actually know if it’s on the rise but all the risk factors for it are on the rise,” she said. “The way we are living on this planet is unsustainable, and that’s why I’m worried for my children, and my grandchildren and their children.
I presume she means temperatures may not be rising, while “risk factors” are — supposedly the greenhouse gases. What Fiona Stanley doesn’t seem to realize is that obviously we don’t know what “all” the risk factors are — if temperatures are not on the rise, it follows that some actual factor is over-riding all her hypothetical rising risks. What could it be? Don’t ask a climate scientist — they don’t know, but they can give you a dozen possibilities. When good scientists speak so irrationally, that’s when I worry for my kids.
Don’t read this next one literally — it’s a spiritual thing looking after a ball of magma:
“This is more than about climate change, it’s about health and the survival of the planet.
Professor Stanley said people could do their bit by eating less meat, driving cars less and using public transport more.
And is there any chain of evidence, or even a chain of assumptions that suggest that if every Australian became a bike-riding vegetarian that we would get nicer weather?
“My frustration is that when these issues become politicised, we need science more than anything, and yet scientists are being denigrated.”
Yes, Prof Stanley, good scientists are being denigrated. Some people call them “deniers”, and they get ostracized, exiled and blackbanned. Bad scientists are hiding data and declines, pretending adjustments are neutral, using mysterious methods, avoiding debates, and clinging to theories that are proven wrong. They pretend red is yellow, and ignore 28 million weather balloons. It is politicized. That is exactly the problem.
In fairness, she’s not trying to disguise her faith, nor to hide the hype:
“I’m not a climate change person, but this is our biggest challenge in public health.
So deficits in aboriginal lifespans, childhood abuse, addiction, heart disease, cancer, are less important than “fixing” the weather? People dying of these things right now are not as big a challenge as people who might die from something that hasn’t happened? Why waste money on the new Fiona Stanley Hospital when we could spend it on free bicycles for the population of Perth? Shouldn’t we get our priorities straight?
At a time when we need science to be used more than ever people are sort of denying the science and the second thing that’s happened with this politicisation of the climate change agenda is the denigration of scientists. – .smh
When will Fiona Stanley stop denigrating people who ask for the data? Who denies “the science” and which Science God (or bureaucratic appointed committee) decides what “the science” is?
“My whole life has been dedicated to getting the best data, the best information to try and prevent problems
There’s nothing wrong with scientists speaking outside their specialty, except when they have not done the most basic research. I bet Fiona Stanley hasn’t looked at upper tropospheric water vapor, nor the assumptions about positive feedback. It would even be fine if pulpit scientists just admitted this was their after-hours hobby, like fishing or Macramé, but they have to put their foot in it, and make out that they are “scientific” even as they trash the scientific method.
Quotes from stories in The West and The Sydney Morning Herald.
H/t to Anne-Kit and Barry Corke
Despicable stuff. Well-spotted. Well-exposed.
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You wouldn’t say this John, so I’ll say it for you.
I recommend that people click on John’s name and see his post, and then ask, who are the real child abusers in this global warming religion.
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Why did you get the thumbs down Max? I think people misunderstood your point.
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Mate, you tell me and we’ll both know.
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Looks as though most of the comments have a red thumb – I think someone’s bored and on a mission.
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Just ignore the red thumbs, easy.
Not a fan of the thumbs.
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Love the thumbs!
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LoL, someone doesn’t like the thumbs. You got a red 🙂
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ06RKGcPBI
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Without them, we would not be able to use tools.
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So the red thumb is the opposed thumb? That means they’re useful….hmmmm
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@Mark D. – Even red ones are useful. But I was merely commenting about thumbs in general. 😉
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Scaper, I love thumbs! It’s the only way I know people are listening to what I have to say. I especially love getting a red thumb because I know then that I’ve peeved John Brookes. That is something I live for 🙂
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It’s funny. I’ve always suspected that it was John who did the red thumbs too.
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Try hitch-hiking with a finger, ..
00
While on the subject of child abuse, this mural was produced by “coordinated” local primary school children. It is located on a property wall near the centre of the Victorian town of Castlemaine.
The fact that Professor Stanley is a member of Doctors for the Environment Australia, a member of the ABC board and has continuing ties with UWA gives a pretty good inkling of where her beliefs on “the science” of climate science might reside?
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So mere skepticism is “like child abuse and neglect” but dragging your kids off to be indoctrinated like in some kinderkult is not?
She is quoted as saying “I’m not a climate change expert but I do trust the incredible scientific evidence, although no science is ever perfect,” and “we don’t actually know if it’s on the rise but all the risk factors for it are on the rise”
So to recap, she admits i) we don’t actually know, ii) she is not a climate change expert , iii) no science is perfect but that is good enough to accuse skeptics arguments of being “like child abuse and neglect”. Sound more like lets just accuse them of it and watch them try and deny it which is hardly the stuff of science but the stuff of muckraking. I wonder what the basis for her considering the scientific evidence as being “incredible” is?
What a buffoon. Go back to your lab professor.
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John,
You have an excellent blog.
Congratulations!
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Smartarse.
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Doctors have a responsibility to first do no harm…..
She needs to be called out publically to be taken to task on what could almost be termed libellous……
Last time I looked , holding an opposing view against someone isn’t a crime.
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Actually I just re-read her comments and ROFLMAO
Where do they find these people?
I think it’s beyond cool aid….are they possessed?
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Actually I just re-read her comments and ROFLMAO
Where do they find these people?
I think it’s beyond cool aid….
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If you can read it, re-read it, roll on floor guffawing, and then get up and re-read it yet again you are a sucker for punishment.
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While you and I may at first view Fiona Stanley’s comments to be satirical, there eventually comes the frightening realization that she is being serious.
Worse, she gives the impression that her impassioned beliefs are immutable; imprevious to reason.
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Very disappointing. What is it with these people?
I suspect that she is like many who feel they need to make politically correct statements so that the Alinskian Green-Left thought police don’t single them out for “treatment”.
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Someone put something in their soy latte!
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All these noble scientists think they’re doing is asking us fat cats in the developed world to slightly modify our lifestyles, without every thinking of the real human impact well downstream of their stylish intentions.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/a-journey-up-the-river-and-into-the-heart-of-darkness/
Pointman
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To some “denier” is a word that means “climate bogey man”. Most users of the word, I am increasingly convinced, don’t know what we actually stand for.
I answer some questions on Yahoo Answers most days. Although Believers and Sceptics fight like cat and dog every day we seem to have a lot of common ground. Often, it seems, we are violently agreeing but we never admit that.
For instance, both sides think the models are not accurate and we both think that AGW will not be catastrophic. Some believers admit that some peer-reviewed literature is not to be believed. Many believers just consider “the science” and any other consequences e.g political and economic, should be ignored. Many just live in an academic vacuum away from the real world.
The last point might explain why some academics are so arrogant. They have reached the pinnacle of the only world they know about. They think they are on top of the world but, in fact, there are other much bigger mountains to climb.
Perhaps all sceptic blogs should have an “I believe” page to set the record straight?
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“I believe” should never be mentioned in a scientific context!
My thoughts or opinion on X issue is even pushing it a little.
In science you can only really agree or disagree and then explain why.
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Your point on academia nuts reminded me of something seen on the inter-webs. I’m embarrassed I can’t give proper credit due to my failure to note the source.
Roughly then: Academia is a wonderful place to stash people of moderately high intelligence who are completely useless. Otherwise they would drag down the productivity of the useful.
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I was of the understanding that all scientists were skeptics.
that is, until they, or people they worked with could follow the same procedure
and obtain the same results.
Now all we hear is “peer review”,which, I gather, stands for “I have briefly read through your ramblings and can find no fault in how you got to your results”.
To all Peer Reviewers, please conduct the experiment. Post haste!
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Ah, well.
She’s just (rather belatedly) joined the long list of “haven’t looked into it myself but I trust heart and soul Mike Mann and all the other geniuses – you know, what’s their names?” so-called intellectuals/celebs who’ve jumped on this bandwaggon as a cheap way of keeping their faces up there.
Pathetic.
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Unfortunately the rise of pseudoscience is largely the fault of science not keeping their guard up.
Science should have been fighting tooth and nail against pseudosciences such as psychology. Instead we let them become respectable opening the door for other opinion and expert fraudsters.
Our only hope now that critical thinking has been replaced with herd mentality dogma in schools, is that the gen z kids naturally rebel as youth is want to do. The information age certainly helps in that respect. Social media may be a beast of the opinionated left they they come to regret!
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Fiona says this is about the survival of the planet, that we are currently living in an unsustainable way, but then lists some piddling personal lifestyle changes. Yet she said nothing about the cause celebre of unsustainability, overpopulation in developed countries.
Fiona apparently is ignorant of the peer-reviewed 9331 tons of carbon poison she has added to her own carbon footprint from each of her children.
Apparently Fiona is unable to connect the dots, McKibbenesque, between her dead-certain extreme weather events, her own fecundity, and her selfish hypocrisy of expecting her children to be allowed to have children and grandchildren.
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People will read this post and say: “OK we’ve been here before, we know these people, however able in their own specialist fields, are just mouthing off feel good support for a scientific inanity.
That’s the nice interpretation.
The not so nice take on all this is the attempt to politicise science and make sure that the MONEY keeps flowing to themselves and their friends.
One of my pet hobby horses is a “what if”?
What if all of the money that has been wasted (and that’s being kind when so much corruption is involved) on the Global Warming Dialogue was instead turned directly to research into alternate power generation.
If Universities could do pure research and CSIRO could do pure research on “alternates” where would we be now?
No need to direct 25% of your time. grant money, and energy into the usual “lip service” to the God Of Global Warming, just good old basic research.
I suspect that we may be very much closer to closing the cost per kWh gap which currently makes “alternatives” a joke financially.
So here we go again; and it is really great that this type of article keeps coming back on this site; we all need reminding of the problem.
The problem is that the story of CAGW must be told to the wider public and that is not proving easy at all.
Frustration levels are high.
There must be a package that can be placed before Joe Public which shows the current waste, corruption and utter lack of scientific basis for the CO2 based mythology of Human Induced Warming.
What would get the public’s attention?
KK
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OOPS. Fat-fingered a down-finger. Totally unintentional.
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KK:
No, I don’t think that “renewables” will come down to the same cost as conventional methods.
Firstly, the electricity grid we rely on has to be balanced AT ALL TIMES.
Yes there is redundancy, spare capacity, rolling reserve etc. added for problems of supply, and pumped storage in hydro schemes for excess supply, so some fluctuations can be tolerated. Advocates of wind turbines rely on this, but seem to think it can accommodate endless disturbance, which is not so. Both the Danish and Spanish authorities have (belatedly) realised that around 17% is the maximum. ERCOT (in Texas) runs on less reserve but has to issue regular alerts about supply problems because of lack of wind. This means that conventional backup has to built to make them usable, and that cost should be included in the costs of “renewables”.
Since wind, wave, tides and solar are all intermittent they all add to this problem. Geo-thermal less so, but Australia is in the wrong spot i.e. not on an earthquake and volcano prone plate boundary.
Secondly, energy density. Wind and solar are quite weak sources and therefore require very large areas of collection, which makes them costly. Wave and tidal sources have higher energy density; sometimes enough to strew them over the coastline. Wave generation is prone to fluctuations depending on the weather and tides vary considerably and the best sites (in Australia) are too far from any large users to be practical.
Claims that the costs of making wind turbines are dropping is nonsense, as is the idea that making them larger would do so, as anybody with a knowledge of material science would realise. Solar has dropped a goodly amount in cost but there is nothing to suggest that this will continue much longer. Photo-voltaic depends on rarer elements or energy intensive construction, and it will require real breakthroughs to go further**. A considerable portion of the spectrum reaching the ground lacks the energy to drive the typical PV cell. Solar heat is a better bet, but it is at least 4 times the cost of coal, and that only available through industrial sized plants.
So, I don’t think that “renewables” will come down to the same cost as conventional methods anytime soon, if at all.
** though see recent german work converting IR into visible light.
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Hi Graeme, a great outline of why renewables aren’t cost effective.
The problem with public perception is that everyone can see and understand the logic that wind and sunshine are Free.
What we need to do is show the public and taxpayers that the cost of building the machinery to EXTRACT that energy is the major, unsolved issue.
Every cynic taking a share of the tax funded Global Warming scam knows that the public cannot go to two step logic which is: Sun and wind are free but extraction costs for energy from those sources is way too high for anything other than experimental plants and political gain.
In politics there is no amount of money that can’t be spent, no amount of money that can’t be borrowed to buy votes at the next ballot.
We got a big problem.
KK
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KK:
Agreed. I will slightly rewrite a proposed letter to the local paper on this subject i.e. why spend $472 million building a pilot solar tower plant ?
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Is that the one recently opened by the local uni to heat the pool?
KK
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Sorry , ours was only $1.7 million.
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It’s low-quality energy because it’s level is only slightly above the background level (IOW, it’s diffuse.). That makes it very inefficient to extract because the “harvest area” needs to be very, very large in order to yield a useful output. That means that it inevitably gets very expensive because the machinery to harvest has to be big, requiring lots of material and energy to implement and possibly to operate.
While small-scale plant may be feasible if other energy sources are too distant to connect economically, the small-scale operation does not scale economically. It doesn’t get any cheaper per unit of energy harvested to scale up to the requirements of even a small town with light-industry needs. Even the local shops would struggle with e.g. refrigeration requirements; they would have to displace energy requirements to e.g. more frequent deliveries to avoid the risk of too much food spoilage in case of the wind not blowing enough for 2 days or more.
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Particularly like the term “harvest area” Bernd.
It’s something that the average punter can relate to.
They understand the cost of real estate even if the plant cost is hard for them to relate to.
KK
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Forgot to comment on the “Virtue” of the available natural energy sources; wind and sun.
Virtue is the “quality” or intensity of the energy and you have rightly pointed out that another obstacle in the way of using sun or wind is that both are low virtue energy sources.
Concentrating that IS expensive.
KK
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KK spot on and unfortunately we have repeatedly been here before, today I ask “what if” fraudulently acquired “climate money” was channeled into promising medical research, would I be attending an old friends funeral this week that died from MS after a decade of fighting it?
Well what’s done is done and I’ll never know the answer due to selfish narcissists posing as a professional authority on a non existent problem, [self snip] for the rest.
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Hi Yonnie,
Your example is sad but only too relevant.
So many real issues have been sidelined in the Political area because people were led to believe that CAGW was the ONLY problem worth fixing.
This suited both the Climate Activists and Politicians because the activists got fed off the deal and pollies were able to dismiss most projects because they were dealing with the catastrophic emergency of CO2 induced warming.
Who wants to do the hard stuff when there is a Straw Man to hide behind.
KK
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Someone needs to talk to this lady. She’s done too much valuable work and real science to end up like Flim Flammery.
The Spina bifida cause and effect could be a starting point. Coefficient of determination incorrectly indicated potato blight as the cause, but Stanley was one of the team that found the connection with folate deficiency.
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Huh.
I tried to take a look at her published papers but there are over 300 of them so I gave up and fell back on good old Wiki which can at least point to primary sources. So I’m relying on that.
I became aware of the folate/spina bifida link back in 1981 when Laurence and colleagues published in the BMJ. Stanley’s paper came out in 1989.
I’m reminded of Newton “If I have seen further than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”.
Not knocking the good lady, she’s done some good work, just putting this folate thing in context. She certainly didn’t discover the link, certainly wasn’t one of the team that did.
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I have a strong recollection that folic acid was a recognised essential part of a woman’s diet during pregnancy as long ago as the 1940s.
The “folate” research may be just a case of confirming well established dietary wisdom or less kindly “re-inventing the wheel”.
KK
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Ah, yes, vague “adequate vitamin intake”.
Certainly when I was a student in the 60s everyone was speculating. Renwick put up an initially appealing but ultimately wrong case for green/rotten potatoes and for a time pregnant women wouldn’t even enter a chip shop.
Spina bifida is terrible, we owe considerable debt to Laurence and co-workers.
As far as I can make out what Stanley did in 1989 was to confirm these findings in WA.
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If only Prof Fiona Stanley a person we need many more like, did as Jo suggests and gives the evidence a good look over as I’m shore she does in her own field of study. Use her intelligence and years of Scientific experience and see for herself what’s going on. I’m shore she will be shocked and dismayed at whats been aloud to go on, and heart broken at the massive waste of money that I have very little doubt she and many other great people like her could of done amazing things for the betterment of our society and its citizens. Just a idea but maybe Jo could invite Prof Fiona Stanley to meet with her so she could show the Professor the other side of the evidence on Climate Change so she could have a more balanced understanding of the issue. Just an idea. It may just change her mind on the issue, sorry didn’t mean to plug that ABC show Jo. They didn’t treat you very good on the show now do they.
PS I hope ever one of you have a safe and happy Easter. Please enjoy as much Chocolates and hot crossed bums as you can I know I’m going to try to bye everyone.
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……bit worried about the “hot crossed bums”??
What you do in your own time is your own concern!
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Melt.
You could have ruined my day but after meditating for half an hour the image of “hot crossed bums” has been erased from my memory.
Damn.
Now it’s back ; should learn to leave well enough alone.
KK
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You get them from chilli laced chocolate, boom! boom! (or is that bum! bum! ? )
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“hot crossed bums” is what you get from sitting on a hot BBQ.
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Or a sexy lady with her legs crossed.
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That was supposed to be hot crossed buns everyone. Its Easter after all. Good to see some people still have a dirty mind thou. Stay safe on the roads everyone bye.
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I don’t mind a hot crossed bum if my wife is involved.
00
I noticed your spell checker is working well.
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Our children and our children’s children!
And our children’s children’s children!
And our children’s children’s children’s children!
Where is Reg to prevent such laboring of the point?…
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“Professor Stanley said people could do their bit by … using public transport more.”
Well I was going to just sit around today meditating and emitting minimal CO2 but instead I have decided to go and clog up the local bus service.
Jeez!! What is the point of even trying to take these drone clones seriously?? This person is one of our leading scientists in a high profile position and all she can do is regurgitate the mantra whilst appearing totally oblivious that she is unwittingly talking about herself.
AAARRRGHH!!!!!
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It’s zombies all the way down, on the alarmist side, no matter how “expert” the righteous harangue (they are merely desperately trying to sell the world a worthless and tyrannical idea, with nightmare images having no substance whatsoever). As I have been saying since late 2010, ever since my seminal Venus/Earth temperatures comparison (whose utterly simple and definitive demonstration has been determinedly denied by even the “lukewarm” skeptics, including you, Jo Nova) there is no valid climate science, and no competent climate scientists. Anybody who says, “Well, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and will warm the atmosphere by SOME amount”, just doesn’t know the first thing about the problem of atmospheric warming–which, as the Venus/Earth comparison shows, is by direct absorption of incident solar IR radiation, not by heat from a warmed planetary surface. Uneven heat from the surface just drives the weather, as it seeks to escape to space; it doesn’t affect the global mean surface temperature of the atmosphere, which is due to a stable vertical temperature distribution (quantitatively known, for a century or more, in the Standard Atmosphere) caused entirely by a predominant hydrostatic condition of the troposphere, not by the detailed makeup of the atmosphere (including CO2 or other “greenhouse” gas levels, or even cloud cover) or planetary albedo. Simply: The “experts” cling to false theories and thus know nothing, and so the system is broken–that is the tragedy we are living through now, and the reality everyone is avoiding, each in their own way.
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Well said Harry. 🙂
I do think we have to be a bit careful how we state this concept.
I prefer to look at it as the atmospheric pressure gradient being the CONTROLLING element.
Earth and Venus work differently because the Earth’s atmosphere could be called semi-tenuous, and allows solar energy to reach the surface. Under this circumstance, the atmospheric gradient acts as a cooling mechanism. It does try to spread extra energy, but the vertical gradient acts too well, hence higher latitudes and non-sunward side cool quickly.
Venus on the other hand allows minimal solar penetration to the surface, so any heat is retained and spread as evenly as possible. even allowing energy to seep downwards. The massive atmospheric pressure at the surface (and maybe the added radiative transfer from all that CO2) means it maintains a more even temperature even on the non-sunward side. Convective cooling does not come into the picture.
But on either planet, temperatures are regulated by the pressure gradient.
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Thanks.
20
Hear, hear! Simple study of electron energy levels in GAS MOLECULES (not liquids or solids) will show quite clearly CO2 can only cool the atmosphere.
The only time CO2 is dangerous is in a crowded theatre where levels above 2,000 ppm can induce a sense of panic in people if they become alarmed by anything.
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Hi Richard
Submariners regularly deal with up to 8,000 ppm.
Humans can handle high levels of CO2 but do not fare well at low levels.
Panic at 2,000 ? Isn’t it the reverse?
Low CO2 levels in the bloodstream usually are associated with panic.
KK
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I had this debate with a medical doctor, well meaning, a new mother, smart and well intentioned and very concerned about the next generation. She told me about the acidification of the oceans too. Then I pointed out that they are alkali. She understood.
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Quote Fiona Stanley (20.13 minutes):
“We don’t really know the link between smoking and lung cancer.
We don’t know the mechanism, but it’s not going to stop us from stopping people from smoking.”
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, 17 April 2014, 3.42am:
“The tobacco industry is now known to have “conspired” against the public in their efforts to undermine the well-established scientific evidence linking smoking to ill health.”
. . .
We have an appointment for Ms. Stanley on Prof. Lewandowsky’s couch.
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The ill effects of smoking were established using statistics rather than science prior to any knowledge of DNA.
The Ames test for mutagenicity on the other hand does establish a scientific link between Smoking and cancer as it can demonstrate that a substance can damage DNA!
Fred singer was wrong on this one. (passive smoking)
12
I thought that Ames had reversed much of his earlier thinking on the Ames test. Skaky ground extrapolating from rodents to humans. Are you referring to a tighter concept of a substance producing a measureable human cellular change?
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Fred Singer, as far as I can remember, merely pointed out that the statistics used to “support” the risk of “passive smoking” were so bad as to be inconclusive. He made no comment as to mechanisms/links.
20
Sigh. Another highly credible health scientist tarnishes her professional integrity by catching the Green Disease, aka GRD (Green Religion Disorder). Perhaps Prof. Stanley would have been better to have devoted some energy into developing a vaccine to immunise those who are
gulliblesusceptible to the religious fervour of “save the planet”, “climate emergency” and other serious “green” disorders afflicting neuronal pathways, where the infected lose the ability to apply cognitive sound reasoning and enquiry using the scientific method as a guiding principle.Such a pity. Her father, Neville, (whom I collaborated with on his encephalitis and stromatolite interest) was well grounded, very personable, and a practical and professional scientist in every respect. Lets hope Prof. Stanley recovers soon from the disorder and regains her sensibility so she can clearly separate her personal religious beliefs (which is fine and respected) from scientific principles that guide rational enquiry and evaluation, on which one’s professional reputation rests. I wish a her a get well card on behalf of all sceptics.
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Well said.
KK
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I just hope the good professor doesn’t put such nasties like mercury and formaldehyde in her vaccine like most of the others that abound supposedly to save us all. Perhaps she could extend her medical knowledge to the published papers that “clearly” show a link between vaccines and autism. The IPCC’s recent junk publication shows such a “clear” link in their supposed high level knowledge of ‘climate change’ aka warming. What’s the difference in the hypothesis?
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Addendum: Perhaps the good professor can explain to us common plebs how 100% of the recent measles outbreak in Qld were immunised. She could also explain why 94% of the recent whooping cough outbreak were also immunised. She could also explain why there are over 300 class actions (in USA) against the makers of cervical cancer vaccines for the deaths and severe side effects of young girls who have had this vaccine. She could also explain the huge number of deaths suffered by children who have received the polio vaccine in India.
Please explain professor using your medical knowledge if you can, but leave the climate debate alone which you obviously know nothing about.
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In many cases the effectiveness of a vaccine is directly related to how severe the side effect will be.
Whooping Cough vaccine is the obvious example.
The original whole killed vaccine was extremely effective but caused lots of side effects.
It was replace with a recombinant vaccine which consisted of only one component and didn’t have the side effect, but the protection wont be nearly effective or long lasting as the original. Then you add loss of herd immunity and you have a big problem.
Polio is similar, the live attenuated vaccine is more effective but can revert back to the wild type at a rate of 1 per million.
Measles outbreak could be either a faulty vaccine or a new stain of the virus. Again the solution is a better vaccine.
Vaccines are not about eliminating risk but reducing it. The only way to eliminate risk is death (or in the case of vaccines total eradication)
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I take it Boris that you mean for Ms-Dr Stanley to get in and clean up her own backyard before mouthing off on stuff she has no qualifications in.
Recent events like the couple of deaths from flawed vaccines a year or so back do not help the cause of vaccinations.
If one of my children or grand children had been the victim I would have been extremely angry.
On balance everybody needs to be vaccinated but I worry that public health comes a poor second to profits when a bad vaccine is discovered.
Every ampoule should be dumped and destroyed – not just re-packaged and sent off to a third world country.
Dr Stanley could do a great public service by restoring confidence in vaccinations by more rigid control and scrutiny of the production and testing of all vaccines.
After she fixes that, maybe then she could look at Global Warming.
KK
10
Unfortunately there is always a percentage of people, when you cloak something in morality, will tend to fall for fabrication. They assume that because something is moral, it can’t be incorrect, or exaggerated, or simply fabricated.
It never occurs to such people, that the ‘science’ they know and hear, seems so overwhelming, precisely because it has been carefully orchestrated to be that way, it has been specifically moulded, touched up and shaped to appear to be as solid and coherent as possible.
It also never occurs to them, that not only is there always a percentage of people who will mistake a moral cause for scientific accuracy, there is also a percentage of people who will use such a moral cause to pursue their particular political idea, usually a belief that the system as it is cannot solve or save itself, and therefore one must get outside the system and use the forceful language and methods to push science in a desired direction.
There is a continual stream of moralists who come to loath those who are sceptical, they see them as obfuscating the desired moral outcomes, rather than pointing out that science should progress by data and observation, and not pre conceived causes and ideologies. They actually come to think that science should progress through pre conceived ideas, causes and ideologies.
Socrates was one those who fell victim to the misguided moralists of the day, who accused him of ‘corrupting the youth and turning them away from the gods’. All he was doing was pointing out the errors and weaknesses in their beliefs and in their over confident certainties, something which they, like the Professor above, altogether failed to appreciate or understand.
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Don’t overdo the analogy Jo, very few people have personally done all of the experiments whose results form the basis of modern science, they take it on trust from textbooks and lecturers, ie arguments from authority and faith.
I am a professional physicist and this is not an anti-science comment, just a gentle request not to push an analogy too far.
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Hi Anton,
I’m not exactly sure what you mean there.
Within each specialty in science there is a very well established base of knowledge which supports further research and enables progress.
Within each specialty there are also areas of confusion and ignorance and hope of future enlightenment of those topics.
A scientist who is expert in a particular field can tell the difference between the base reality and the deeps dark wells of the unknown.
Where science has currently broken down is that scientific experts are moving out of their areas of expertise and pontificating on things which even the experts in the field can’t handle.
For example; there has never yet been a model made which links CO2 levels to atmospheric temperature.
From an engineering modelling perspective it is a nonsense to suggest that there is a link to start with and then that it can be modeled.
ps. The size of the computer is irrelevant even though many “climate scientists” will point to the size of their computers to add
support to the claims.
People with the requisite knowledge of modelling, chemistry, physics, engineering and astronomy know that any suggestion that a model has been created is preposterous but for some strange religious reason models are still a big part of Climate Science.
What I am saying is that Ms Stanley has no right to assume that the scientific basis of CAGW is firmly and accurately established simply because many politicians, economists and climate scientists are True Believers.
As an aside, I once spoke to an atmospheric scientist from a large Australian organisation, CSI–, who had no understanding of geological evidence which pointed to past glaciations and thaws here on Earth which confirmed very strong cyclical behaviour of orbital patterns over a very long period.
That an astrophysicist would discount orbital mechanics as an explanation for Earths temperature variations is amazing and very scarey.
KK
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A scientist is a person who utilises the scientific method in their area of study. Any scientist is therefor qualified to look at any field through the use of the method.
It is the fact that climate pseudoscientist refuse to listen to scientist form outside their field that is one of the major problems here.
As for orbital forcing that is another area where scientist struggle with which i refer to as Tolkeinism, the inability to recognise that one thing might not rule them all!
30
How many scientists go advocating well outside their field of experience without even the most basic due diligence? It beggars belief Anton. I think Jo is a forceful debater, but equally I don’t think she has overstepped any mark. Fiona Stanley is well of the reservation preaching about a subject in which she is clearly ignorant. It’s not just a passing comment by Stanley after all, but a full blown sermon.
211
Let me clarify. I agree with Jo that part of my subject (physics), namely atmospheric physics, has become politicised, and support her publicising that dangerous anthropic global warming is a myth. I’m complaining about the excessive contrast she makes with religion in this post, and the claim that scientists base their views on experiment, religious persons on authority. In fact most scientists take most of their science on authority. The point could be expanded on in a number of directions but I don’t want to do that here; I’m making a very specific point that is purely about rhetoric.
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That line of reasoning smacks too much of the “I was only following orders” defense. Sure every scientist is not expected to replicate every experiment from first principles, but if a paper or claim sounds fishy where is the scientific curiosity? We take it on faith because it is peer reviewed?
Claiming catastrophic climate change is nigh after 17 years of no significant change in global average temperature despite steadily increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is simply daft. Clearly the models are not accurate and a layman can see it with a cursory examination, and yet the esteemed Ms Stanley cannot?
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Hey Bulldust, I wasn’t “defending” myself or anybody else, and I agree with you re AGW.
I have been on both ends of peer review of scientific research and I regard it as like democracy – lousy but can you find anything better?
90
Trust me … just having a healthy debate
60
🙂
30
Hi Anton,
I can see where you are coming from in terms of physics.
When I was student we dealt with the Bohr model of the atom with s, p, d and f levels and + and – spins.
These concepts were there so that people could understand nuclear behavior, combination of elements, nuclear reactions and so on. There was a very strong practical link which worked.
Modern atomic theory is probably the best example of what you are saying.
Nobody , not even Dr Carl, yes sarcasm, has explained just what the new atomic theories mean or imply.
I’ve tried reading the stuff and never got any notion that the authors know what they are doing.
So I can agree that in physics your comment is true for people doing string theory.
The situation is though that CO2 induced Global Warming is an engineering problem where all of the major factors can be known or estimated to some degree.
What is wrong with Ms Stanley’s support for CAGW is that she is supporting a model which incorporates the least influential factor (CO2 levels) as being the major and ONLY active ingredient.
Any model proposing man made CO2 especially as the driving force in Earths temperatures is physically incorrect.
A public scientist, purporting to represent Science cannot behave on such a sloppy manner:
It just isn’t science.
KK
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Re Dangerous AGW I agree with you.
When you say that “Nobody… has explained just what the new atomic theories mean or imply” I think you mean subatomic theories? In fact I am more with Peter Woit (skeptic) than Lubos Motl (adherent) about the excesses of string theory. Woit’s book “Not Even Wrong” does a good job of explaining string theory and why it is close to science fiction.
NB spdf orbitals are described by 1920s quantum mechanics, not the Bohr atom of the previous decade.
23
Hi Anton,
among other sources, I borrowed a book from the library and tried to read Stephen Hawking’s explanation of the “new physics” as opposed to my previous concepts Based on Bohr and spdf type quantum mechanics.
Much of his book was a rehash of basic high school quantum physics which was eerily the only sensible part of the book.
Then he got onto the “new stuff” and COULD NOT EXPLAIN IT.
From my point of view a good scientist should be able to explain concepts in simple analogies or whatever.
I suspect that people who can’t do this are perhaps not being too honest with themselves and others.
I don’t think we can get much value out of implying that CO2 based Climate Science is so complex that there is anything that we need to take for granted.
All the variables are known and can be approximated.
Any scientist with their thinking cap on knows this.
Ms Stanley cannot be excused for her unscientific comments and ongoing Oscar Winning Performances on behalf of Klimate Science.
She needs to be censured because it is obvious she is a religious extremist on this topic.
ps. Being on the ABC suggest that money might also be involved besides fame and public acclamation for “saving the planet”.
KK
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Anton and KK,
I wonder what you think of the work of Miles Mathis? Here is a guy that earns a living by being a professional artist and so has no agenda other than solving problems with Relativity (which he fundamentally agrees with), exposing errors in calculus and most relevantly here, gives a much simpler model for quantum mechanics that does not require quanta to be in two places at the same time.
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Hi Truthseeker,
Lot of heavy duty reading in that!
May wait till the middle of winter to look at it.
My comments were mainly about Anton’s allowance of some scientists to base new work on work they do not understand and presumably are unable to check.
I don’t think that is the scientific method.
Quantum theory and Bohr model worked well in enabling an essentially invisible process to be broken down into steps that could be confirmed by experiment.
The CO2 – Global Warming paradigm is so visible in its’ forcing components that we don’t need the same sort of abstract models there.
This means that all those putting up CAGW as a process are obliged to work through it and understand it before making important statements that affect science and taxpayers.
The fact that nobody on the Climate Change side of the fence has “discovered” the lack of credibility in the CO2 paradigm is a scientific catastrophe or evidence of religious fervor or corruption or a mix of all.
KK
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Keith,
Forget the Bohr atom. It gave the hydrogen atom spectrum but was only an (increasingly poor) approximation for multi-electron atoms, and it couldn’t deal with molecules. 1920s quantum mechanics could.
Writing science for the layman is a completely different skill from writing up (and doing) research. Hawking does not have it. I also think that “quantum cosmology” – applying quantum mechanics to the whole universe, as is necessary in the early stages of the Big Bang – is extremely speculative, and this is never stated in the popular books about it. You need both general relativity because gravity is so strong, and quantum mechanics because the universe is so small, but we don’t have a theory that successfully combines the two, only approximate ones which cannot ultimately be trusted. Personally I think that we should walk before we try to run, and we (and quantum mechanics) cannot even predict which way an electron with a particular spin wavefunction (the quantum description) will go through a “Stern-Gerlach apparatus”. it is the task of physicists to improve testable prediction and if we learn to do that – and don’t believe those who say it can’t be done – then we might get a better handle on things. (To physicists reading this: Yes, I know it means hidden variables, but all of the purported no-hidden-variable theorems just rule out certain CATEGORIES of hidden variable.)
As for AGW, the warming effect of CO2 would be easy to calculate if the atmosphere and the earth were totally dry. That calculation was first done a century ago by Arrhenius. But include water vapour and clouds and the system becomes so complex that we still don’t understand it today. The IPCC says it does but it is lying for political reasons.
You wrote: “My comments were mainly about Anton’s allowance of some scientists to base new work on work they do not understand and presumably are unable to check. I don’t think that is the scientific method.”
I’m sorry but I don’t recognise your description of what I was saying in my own words. We have the same understanding of the scientific method so do say more.
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Truthseeker,
Mathis complicates what is already understood. I looked at this
http://milesmathis.com/ln.html
and he does indeed present a derivation of the derivative of the logarithm that gets the right answer by wrong means. But there is a different and perfectly good derivation that gets the right answer using standard mathematics that he derides. Just use the Taylor expansion of ln(1 + d/x) for small d (which is convergent) and then take the limit. If he’s missed that then I have no confidence in him on all the higher stuff. And special relativity is definitively phrased using Clifford algebra in the work of David Hestenes.
10
It is easy enough using Excel or any computer language to verify that the instantaneous slope of the curve y = ln(x) is indeed 1/x.
set delx to say exp(-11). calculate x-delx and x+delx and the respective ln() values.. then find the slope.
eg… via Excel…there are of course errors due to computer mathematics, but the same thing could be done in double precision in any computer code
2
x -/+ delx…………………….ln(x) ………………………del y………………………………del x……………………………..slope
1.99999999999000000000 0.69314718055494500000 0.000000000010000000827404 0.000000000020000001654807 0.5000000000000000000000
2.00000000001000000000 0.69314718056494500000
00
Hi Anton,
It should be said that my basic understanding of Big Bang and Quantum theory and atomic physics generally is at the “functional;” level, unlike yours which is obviously highly developed.
My comments were basically to confirm that models such as Bohr model and Quantum mechanics theory are useful because they allow scientists to relate to invisible processes at an engineering level.
They seem to have paid their way.
Putting up complex analogies about Climate Change is not necessary because CO2 in the CAGW paradigm is not an invisible process in any sense and all of the components of the “process” can be measured and tested in real time.
The reason I am trying to differentiate between the two problems above is that in the first, Quantum Mechanics, there may be an excuse to sit on the shoulders of those who have gone before.
There is no such need in climate science where all of the factors are identifiable.
Ms Stanley has no excuse for saying that she is trusting climate scientists to have “got it right”.
The problem of CO2 and Earth’s temperatures is not that hard to assess.
I must admit I was a bit concerned about your statements regarding scientists in general that :
“they take it on trust from textbooks and lecturers, ie arguments from authority and faith”
and
” the claim that scientists base their views on experiment, religious persons on authority. In fact most scientists take most of their science on authority”.
Perhaps in your area of pure physics it is necessary to rely on authority but for CAGW that is not the case.
CAGW is an engineering problem and any engineer who does not fully understand the full context of all factors in an analysis is playing with fire.
Planes may crash, buildings and bridges may fall if the engineer is a guesser.
Ms Stanley doesn’t even guess, she seems to have religion.
I think maybe that approaches to pure physics are very different to engineering and perhaps need to rely more on other work and authority because of the often expensive and intangible nature of the problems.
Finding Higgs Boson particle is an expensive task; not everyone needs to repeat that experiment.
KK
10
Sorry Anton, but in that “ln derivative” paper, this Miles guy shows that he has an artist’s understanding of mathematics.
I’d take anything else he says to do with physics with a grain of salt.
00
Take for instance where he says this
“But there are other problems: even the first equation
dln(x)/dx = limd→0[ln(x+d) – ln(x)]/d
is false.”
This is usually written with a ‘h’ on the rhs, like this… dln(x)/dx = lim h→0[ln(x+h) – ln(x)]/h
This is NOT a false statement.
It is the basic formula for a secant between two points on the curve with the limit taken as the upper point gets closer to the lower point.
It derives the slope of the tangent at the lower point if the limit can be taken.
The fact that he doesn’t even seem to know this, and thinks that ‘h’ has to equal 1, really is a worry !!
10
ps
He also does not understand the maths that allows lim u→0 [ ln ((1 + u)^(1/ux)) ] to equal 1/x
Again, a fact easily shown using basic calculation in Excel.
eg set x = 2 and u = 0.00000001 and see what you get when you calculate it.
The movement of the ‘lim’ to inside the ‘ln’ is a perfectly valid operation.
00
Well Anton and Griss, if what you say is true about Miles’ mathematics then you should email him and discuss it. He does actually respond to emails and is polite and cordial and will welcome any corrections that you can give him.
01
Why would I bother ?
10
Chuckle.. Just had a look at the “ln” paper..
Hilarious in its ignorance.
Would would rather funny to see what he tried to do with y = sin(x) 🙂
10
Mathis is right that there are errors in the derivation of the first derivative of log(x) which he gave, and that these errors compensate to give the answer 1/x (which numerical experiment confirms is correct). So he is right that this proof is bogus. But he ignores the fact that there is another simple proof (which I outlined in this thread, above) which is NOT bogus.
Why don’t I correspond with him? Actually I have corresponded with several people who hold vaguely similar views in other parts of physics and maths, and they simply do not listen. Typically they have too much invested in their “lone genius against the world” viewpoint.
00
Agree with your comments on scientific expertise and specialisation. I get the sense that there cannot be such a thing as climate science, with the understanding that a full synthesis of so many specialities is necessary to fully explain a deviation from the null hypothesis vis a vis temperature variation.
For example, fluid mechanics play a vital role, yet we even have trouble explaining storm development on the most minor of scales.
Yet we have ‘climate scientists’ who are not physicists telling us that the science, somehow, is done and dusted.
A public scientist like Fiona Stanley has a responsibility to keep silent on matters that she does not understand. What’s worse, in her case though, is that she is using the cachet of her expertise in a specialised medical field to confer her imprimatur on something quite unrelated as if the word ‘scientist’ somehow conferred authority in all fields.
Work must be done to disclaim the legitimacy of the term ‘climate scientist’, another instance of language appropriation by the warmist PR machine, and ultimately that is all ‘climate science’ is. Very similar to ‘environmental scientists’ churned out by our institutions. I’m sure we can find ‘environmental psychology’ too at some 3rd rate institution. Science it ain’t. As Sir Rutherford so memorably stated (approximately) ‘in science there is Physics; the rest is finger painting’. Happy Easter
20
Markus, my physics teacher at high school told me that Rutherford said the rest was stamp collecting. For the next 30 years I took the same view, but I think that the synthesis of molecular/genetic and fossil and body-structure evidence for evolution is now equally fascinating.
20
🙂
00
I was having lunch with some fellow science teachers and the computer tech. I asked whether the Large Hadron Collider was a scientific experiment because it was prohibitively expensive experiment for any sceptics to repeat.
The science teachers thought that it was an interesting point, still realising that you had to be pragmatic. The computer tech went off in a huff. Prof Stanley is behaving like the latter.
41
Bizarre stuff really but not the first time and not the worst I have seen of this sort of thing.
I first heard/saw the “denier” epithet used by Professor Peter Doherty, Nobel Laureate no less, as keynote speaker at a Melbourne Uni big ideas type event a few years ago acting as a ventriloquist’s dummy for David Karoly who sat behind him. It was broadcast by the ABC.
It was a powerpoint slide with a list of flouride, immunisation, holocaust and AGW “deniers” that got my attention.
It was aimed at Professor Emeritus Ian Plimer no less who also had a professorial chair at Melbourne U and it was gutless, treacherous, cowardly and disgusting. Not only was Doherty allowing his prestige to be prostituted he was sliming someone with far more qualifications to be commenting on climate change.
That was my epiphany re climate change, or rather the moment I became engaged. It was like watching some paedophile feel up a kid in a park in terms of outrage.
211
How do we engage the general public so that they can understand and see what we see.
Seems like mission impossible at the moment.
KK
51
I have an impression that roughly half the population of Australia are somewhat skeptical of the AGW scare,so hang in there Keith,we have to plug away at it. No doubt there is a hard core green element that will never ever question the assumptions behind their moral and religious vanity. The people who worry me are friends and acquaintances who have scientific training and believe the scary stuff about climate change,I just give up with some.
61
So I suppose that advertisement some time ago where children were blown up because they were skeptical about global warming was true, eh? AGW alarmists are really sick in the mind and need help. What really saddens me is to see so many scientists fall for this crap. They really should be ashamed of themselves.
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“…So deficits in aboriginal lifespans, childhood abuse, addiction, heart disease, cancer, are less important than “fixing” the weather? People dying of these things right now are not as big a challenge as people who might die from something that hasn’t happened? Why waste money on the new Fiona Stanley Hospital when we could spend it on free bicycles for the population of Perth? Shouldn’t we get our priorities straight?”
This is why I remain a supporter of this site, Jo. Writing like this exposes the inherent wickedness of the climate zealots so effectively. When are you going to write your book, Jo? I really, really want to buy it!
231
Reads like doctors closing ranks to me – though maybe I’m just a touch too cynical ahead of the long weekend.
81
FF, you might be the cynic but if medical doctors are “closing ranks” it would, in my opinion, be because of some external force. On average, physicians are not very good with engineering or physics and would be vulnerable to Authority based manipulation.
130
Stanley was speaking at a function organised by the pro AGW 350 degrees group and Doctors for the Environment(DEA) at University of Western Australia. DEA was established by some dedicated leftist hacks included a failed Greens candidate,to capture membership from the young medicos and use the medical profession’s name to gain credibility for a leftist Green agenda that uses Agenda 21 as its cloak.Stanley is on a list of professional speakers and is rolled out as bait for media. She would likely have been given speech notes if not the full speech these days. The pity is that what reputation she has as a scientist will be soiled by her muddled woman’s weekly style outpourings. It’s sad really. There were probably only two people and a dog at the address she gave but the press release was planted with pro warmist media that are now beating it up into a big climate story. Did you know she is on the ABC Board!!
191
Fiona Stanley is an ‘eco warrior’ from way back and is a ‘noted’ supporter of ‘Doctors for the Environment Australia’ (DEA) see here: https://www.facebook.com/DocsEnvAus
They claim to be Independent, but if you look at their Facebook pages, they are keen supporters of the IPCC dictums, anti-fracking, anti GM crops, anti fossil fuels, pro renewables, pro Clive Hamilton, Tim Flannery, anti-whaling etc. In other-words whether they admit it or not, or intend it or not, the DEA is a PR society for The Greens Party.
This is clearly shown in this promotional pre-election material and picture here in Western Australia: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152351388733331&set=a.179538088330.125043.82125138330&type=1&theater
“The result of this election is critically important Vote for strong climate action on April 5th,”
What political party could they be suggesting?
It comes with this note:
This Saturday’s Senate Election in WA is a critical moment for climate action to protect our health. Please LIKE and SHARE this image, proudly supported by beloved Western Australian Dr Fiona Stanley.
141
Seriously … what are these doctors smoking and/or drinking?
61
It should be remembered that most of these “doctors” haven’t Doctoratal qualifications. Just double pass bachelor degrees.
10
Prof Stanley is on the Board of the ABC. So there’s a problem.
191
Ah!
The plot thickens.
KK
101
So she wants all her funding for research, on what we can all admit is a noble and VERY worthy cause, to be withdrawn and used for climate mitigation?
Just wondering, has she gone senile?
111
The first thing I thought of when I read this classic misdirection tactic from Fiona was that the greatest risk to life as we know it is the exponential rise in health costs.
“It’s like child abuse and neglect, we
don’tactually knowifit’s (health costs) is on the risebutand all the risk factors for it are on the rise,” she said. “The way we are living on this planet (health department) is unsustainable, and that’s why I’m worried for my children, and my grandchildren and their children.There you go – Fixed it for her!
Fiona must also be lamenting that there are no sceptics denying (the rise in) education costs.
81
Huh? That doesn’t make much sense! This is from someone who has spent most of her life involved in statistical analysis (populations and public health)???
I looked into Stanley’s background. It seems she got more into politics and into her ivory academic tower at around 2002-2003. It then became about advocacy, lobbying Govt to do something, research grants, and being in all sorts of boards. ie: member of the ABC Board, Alcohol Advertising Review Board (founder and Director), etc.
Her profile on ABC Board
=> http://about.abc.net.au/profile/professor-fiona-stanley-ac/
(ABC…The very same taxpayer-funded media complex that continues to push the Climate Change issue? I’m shocked! *sarcasm*)
What she said, reminds me of a proverb from a Jewish friend of mine. It translates to the following (Hebrew to English)…
Anyone notice its a certain type of person of status, influence, and power that always pushes the Climate Change issue? (And its always FEELINGS based! Its emotive exaggeration. Either to scare the general public or to attack those who stand in their way. Its NEVER about proper debate or intellectual honesty.)
Its like they believe they have some god given right to say all sorts of things without thinking and expect everyone to blindly believe them! Like suffering from some sort of moral superiority sickness! They act like they are the all-seeing and all-knowing. They know what’s good for all.
I’ve seen this before in human history. eg: Communism. Where the privileged few rule, while everyone else are treated like a non-thinking, “working resource”.
No thanks!
191
That is the beauty of the “feelings based” advocacy. It is completely unaccountable to logic or reason cos its just “vibe” based. It “feels like” the “moral” thing to do. The counter agument is simple it may well feel like the moral thing but will it have moral outcomes if you impement it? Reality vs intent. No one need take responsibility for “moral” intentions but who takes sesponsibility for the actual outcomes, especially the unintended ones such as a growing disrespect for science let alone billions wasted on scam technology.
31
sorry for typos:-
‘…simple. It may…’
‘… implement…’
‘ takes responsibility.
00
“It’s like child abuse and neglect, we don’t actually know if it’s on the rise but all the risk factors for it are on the rise,” she said. “The way we are living on this planet is unsustainable, and that’s why I’m worried for my children, and my grandchildren and their children.
Bearing in mind that climate change caused civilizations in the past to be wiped out,the UN predicts the world’s population will increase to 9 billion by 2100, half of this will be African, her children, grandchildren and their children will have a lot more people to discuss it with.
41
If Fiona Stanley falls for this crap perhaps it’s time to question some of her previous work.
141
[…] “I’m not a climate change expert but I do trust the incredible scientific evidence….” […]
40
Jo,
I’m glad that you posted this blog article before I got to making my draft fit for publication.
Her comments about “evidence”, credible or incredible, does make me worry about her ability to assess evidence in her own field, which is also rife with poor statistical practices, experimental methodology and using the output of computer models as “evidence”. Dr Michael Crichton, also a medical doctor, could smell a rat.
Dr Tim Ball blogged 2 articles recently: IPCC Scientists Knew Data and Science Inadequacies Contradicted Certainties Presented to Media, Public and Politicians, But Remained Silent and Climate Alarmism? Of Course! The IPCC Was Designed To Create and Promote It. They are primers on how politics over-rules all reasonable science; puts it in chains and shackles and facilitates only Lysenkoist output.
“The Science” is so bad that it’s not even wrong. It is largely science-fiction; with the results only reproducible in the virtual worlds of computer models.
Stanley says: “The way we are living on this planet is unsustainable”. She is correct, but her “solution” will only increase the poverty that makes our existence unsustainable. It is poverty that is the cause of most deaths in developing countries (and increasingly, in developed countries). And a lot of that poverty has been wrought by the planet savers via e.g. bio-fuels exploitation making food crops much more expensive for poor people to buy (or impossible to grow as their land was taken over for fuel-cropping) and in “offsets” that resulted in some farmers on the Indian sub-continent being paid to turn off their diesel pumps and to deploy their school-aged children to treadmills to pump water between rice fields instead of doing their homework in the fading daylight.
I consider her statement “It will mostly be on our children, because they are more vulnerable because their immune systems are still developing and they’ll be exposed to climate change and things like air pollution for much longer over their lives,” to be pure politics. Climate change occurs slowly in the one place. But I have survived massive climate changes, even as a child; originating from Germany which has a vastly different climate to that of Western Australia; most times several degrees warmer. Also; air and water pollution was much worse in developed countries in the 1960’s to the 1980’s. Old folks in Germany used to tell me about how clean their world got when motor cars became available; e.g. they no longer had muck piled up against their walls; up to the window sills.
I’m amazed that Fiona Stanley sees no flexibility in the existence of humans; to quickly acclimatise to a changing world and to manipulate their immediate environment for survival and comfort (“quality of life”) by application of their individual intelligence.
191
The Sydney Morning Herald quotes Fiona Stanley as saying: “politicisation of the climate change agenda“. (sic) (Second quote from the bottom)
What climate change agenda is she referring to that she thinks shouldn’t be political? Surely, the climate change agenda to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through legislative action could be nothing other than political. I suppose there is a scientific climate change agenda to understand the factors that influence climate, how it changes, and how changes in climate affect the rest of the world; the politicization of that agenda has certainly damaged the credibility of at least this particular field of science due to some scientists choosing advocacy over the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Who does she think politicized climate change? Not us. Those “scientists” who call for political action based on cherry picked sets of data while omitting data that doesn’t fit their favorite political action (Zohnerism) are the ones who’ve caused the politicization.
101
The best tell that a political hack, even one that used to be a scientist, is bu!!sh*ting is when they pull out a reference to the children.
111
There must be something in the water causing this. There has to be. Otherwise why do sane critical thinkers capable of Stanley’s accomplishments suddenly jump off a cliff?
She picked up the nearest as yet unused big stick and started beating away at random just to make herself a member of the “in” crowd.
I’m stunned by this one. And we have racist, sexist, homophobic and some other choice epithets left to go.
I want a refund of all the money wasted on this charade?
161
When it comes to the religious and a knowledge of what constitutes child abuse, Id say, takes one to know one.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxUZq-oWGcY2TFZtdjVrMno3SG8/edit?usp=sharing
What these people really mean when they say child abuse is, their children, in their country. This is about ensuring the ascendancy of the 1st world at the direct expense of the 3rd world in their minds. As long as “my great grand children” are ok, the rest is just little genocidal details baby.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-17/world-bank-to-stop-funding-coal-fired-power-stations-in-develop/4826928
Enjoy your dung fires kids, we will send you a sponsored goat at Xmas.
51
Obama and the World Bank — two peas in a rotten pod.
41
Prof. Stanley, Be very, very careful with this.
As Mark Steyn found out, mentioning climate change and child abuse in the same sentence can get you a lawsuit from Michael Mann.
91
Jo asks, “… it’s 1614 instead of 2014. Who are you going to trust, the Pope and his experts …”
A third choice, and my favorite: King James’ appointed committee and their contribution to both intellectual enquiry and the English language – The Bible, KJV.
With less than a century of access to many ancient documents and, IIRC, not one Jew living in England, this crew composed a jewel.
11
If children is the issue, people banning coal power plants in the poor areas of the world, could learn something by visiting a mud school.
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-03-08-00-forgotten-schools-of-the-eastern-cape-left-to-rot
“The toilets do not offer the privacy, running water and other facilities needed to manage menstruation hygienically, so many female pupils just do not come to school when they have their periods”
30
There’s another obvious medical angle to this which I’m surprised nobody has nominated yet – or maybe it’s just such hackneyed low hanging fruit that nobody could stoop to doing it.
The Hippocratic oath.
How sure is Dr Stanley that that no harm or economic hardship will result from the mitigation policies being planned for Earth’s minor fever?
To say nothing of questioning whether Gaia’s temperature is up due to an infection or simply recent normal physical exercise.
111
One can easily change the name from Fiona Stanley to David Suzuki in this write up.
91
“Professor Stanley said the data was very compelling, particularly about the extremes in factors such as temperature.”
What real world data is the Professor referring to exactly?
60
Fiona Stanley is inadvertently dead right – the scientific evidence IS “incredible” (ie, unbelievable).
121
C’est incroyable!
KK
20
What, a quote from Malthus? Or was it Ehrlich? Or perhaps `Chuckles, Clown Prince of Wails.`
Mind you, Malthus was correct – if the only change in the future of the world of his time before his projected disasters was an increase in the numbers of humans. Ehrlich, similar. Less so the IPCC “Summary” politicians, who seem to write the summary without paying much attention to the science reports.
31
John, I doubt she has ever heard of Malthus.
The green movement blunder through their stupid lives believing their views are somehow new or dare I say it “progressive”. They have no idea that their entire mind set and argument base has been devised and debunked 100 years ago. The belief that taking society back to some sort of hunter gatherer, low population “harmony with nature” is provably flawed.
Technology and industry have delivered all of man’s life and welfare improvements, from medicine to education, from housing to flight and everything else. These people tweet their hatred of modern society from their fossil fuel extract constructed iPhones and never realise either the sheer irony or the fact that they are just parroting a century old failed ideology.
“The stupid are far more interesting to observe than the intelligent, after all intelligence has it’s limits.”
Anon
61
Another brainwashed eluded fool. Bring on that solar minimum solar cycle 25.
21
“Bring on that solar minimum solar cycle 25”
The only possible reason for wishing that is because you think it might kill off the CAGW meme.
Sorry, but it won’t, because it has nothing to do with climate.
Climate is just the vehicle, they will just steal another car.
92
“I do trust the incredible scientific evidence” Hmm
31
Sceptics are abusing children? GET REAL!
It is the warmists that are abusing children through preaching the gloom and doom, especially through the education system.
The bottom line in Australia is that the carbon tax will go, not a cent will go to the UN and the warmists will be systematically weeded out of government departments.
The warmists are in a state of delusional denial!
41
Forty Year Cycle Of Scientific Psychosis Discovered
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/forty-year-cycle-of-scientific-psychosis-discovered/
“The nutcases are at it again” pretty well sums up Global Warming.
31
why does the Prof remind me of this?
17 April: NPR: Mark Memmott: One Man’s Pee Pushes Portland To Flush 38 Million Gallons Of Water
Though they concede it’s unlikely the public was endangered, officials in Portland, Ore., have decided to drain 38 million gallons of water from a reservoir after a young man was observed urinating into it on Wednesday….
According to The Oregonian, “Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish says flushing 38 million gallons of water after a man urinated in the Mt. Tabor Reservoir system is the correct call, even if it prompts complaints that the city is overreacting or wasting water.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Fish said, according to the newspaper. “I don’t have the luxury of slicing it too thin when there’s a potential risk, however small, to public health. Frankly, it’s one of those calls where you know you’re likely to be criticized no matter what. The professionals who report to me all said, ‘Dump the water. Don’t take any chances.’ It’s the conservative but correct call.”…
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/04/17/304128931/one-mans-pee-pushes-portland-to-flush-38m-gallons-of-water?ft=1&f=1001
20
“People just need to stop driving cars, cycle to work, grow their own veg, stop eating meat and we can save the planet”
Yet another well off, left leaning, upper middle class intellectual preaching austerity for the serfdom, from her architect designed ivory tower.
Stand back, I may be sick.
81
Worry No More!
Quote Dr. Fiona Stanley: “The way we are living on this planet is unsustainable, and that’s why I’m worried for my children, and my grandchildren and their children.”
~ ~ ~
Dr. Fiona Stanley can sleep well at night.
The evil, murderous, racist pogrom that is at the core of her Cargo Cult of Global Warming is well underway.
The mind-set of killing children & adults who don’t agree with how you think is well documented.
So it’s “Good Friday, Good News” for Dr. Fiona Stanley & her fellow Global Warming travellers:
“Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money have been spent on a programme that has forcibly sterilised Indian women and men.
Many have died as a result of botched operations, while others have been left bleeding and in agony.
Court documents filed in India earlier this month claim that many victims have been left in pain, with little or no aftercare.
Across the country, there have been numerous reports of deaths and of pregnant women suffering miscarriages after being selected for sterilisation without being warned that they would lose their unborn babies.”
Luckily for the rich, white & educated Dr. Fiona Stanley, she has had her children, and they theirs.
Maybe the good Doctor Fiona Stanley (for a doctor she is) would like to join her fellow caring doctors fighting Global Warming on the front line? Who will think of the children’s children? Back to India:
“With officials and doctors paid a bonus for every operation, poor and little-educated men and women in rural areas are routinely rounded up and sterilised without having a chance to object.
Activists say some are told they are going to health camps for operations that will improve their general wellbeing and only discover the truth after going under the knife.”
Yet a working paper published by the UK’s Department for International Development in 2010 cited the need to fight climate change as one of the key reasons for pressing ahead with such programmes.
The document argued that reducing population numbers would cut greenhouse gases.”
. . .
The rest of the world only too recently has fought & won a war against this type of abhorrent behaviour.
And yet, here we are again.
Are you reading this blog, Dr. Stanley?
Care enough to comment?
101
Handjive you really hit the nail on the head mate. Its disgusting.
Well said and good on ya.
41
Gruesome!
Humanity at work.
KK
21
Hmmm… does primum non nocere ring a bell?
10
OK Bernd, you got me?
10
Hippocratic oath contains words to the effect of “(first) do no harm”.
30
Here in Europe the EU is planning to waste 180,000,000,000 Euros on ‘climate change’ nonsense up until 2020.
That’s a REAL climate disaster if ever there was one.
No doubt the good Professor could think of any number of medically beneficial projects that this kind of money could be used for, and that’s where I’d certainly rather see the money spent.
30
why does the Prof remind me of this?
15 April: Honolulu Civil Beat: Chad Blair: Al Gore on Climate Change: ‘We Are Going to Win This Thing’
By turns a university professor, a wry observer, a recovering politician, a joke teller and a Southern preacher, Al Gore fired up an audience of thousands at the Stan Sheriff Center to believe that global warming can be stopped…
He also managed to repeatedly gush over fellow Democrats Neil Abercrombie and Brian Schatz, who he singled out multiple times as leading the fight here at home and in Washington to tackle the environmental crisis head on…
“The Goracle,” as he is dubbed by many for his prophetic proclivities, spoke to an enthusiastic mix of students, faculty, enviro-types and VIPs that included faculty, Abercrombie officials and legislators. Gore’s speech was sponsored by the Stephen and Marylyn Pauley Seminar in Sustainability…
Gore did not disappoint. Grayer and with less hair, and with a slight paunch filling out his aloha shirt, in voice and mind he sounded as passionate as ever about the environment — a far cry from the inanimate robot label that has stuck to him over the years…
Gore also had plenty of local plugs. He says the evidence on climate change first became clear from carbon dioxide emission monitors on top of Mauna Loa some 60 years ago. He drinks only organic Hawaiian-grown coffee. And he stayed in a beautiful hotel in Waikiki where he lamented our eroding shoreline.
And Gore brought part of his famous slideshow, powered by a Mac laptop. The pictures and graphs were gorgeous — like the Earth taken from the moon in 1968 — and startling — a Bell Curve showing the number of hotter days over the past 80 years grow alarmingly disproportionate to the number of cooler days and days with average temperatures.
“The way we have to respond to this is going to require a set of changes that are beyond our routine,” he said, his voice growing to a shout. “I know that we are capable of that. Our way of life is at stake, our grandchildren are at stake, the future of civilization is at stake.” …
But Gore cited two “game changers” in recent years that will help. The first is the growing realization from even climate-change deniers that something seems to be strange with the weather. The second is the exponential growth in photovoltaic solar panels, driven largely by consumer demand for lower prices.
The “barriers” to doing something about climate change are business and political interests that profit off of fossil fuels — “dirty energy that causes dirty weather.” He compared fake science from polluters stating that humans are not to blame for the climate to tobacco companies that used to hire actors to play doctors who denied cigarettes were dangerous.
“That’s immoral, unethical and despicable,” he said of both…
Security at the Stan Sheriff was oddly strict for a man who has not held public office for 14 years and is unlikely to run again. Reporters were restricted to an area in the first level of the G section, far from the stage under the watchful eye of an usher…
The Gore event was organized by the UH Sea Grant College Program of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, on behalf of the UH Manoa Chancellor’s Office and (Democrat) Schatz’s office.
COMMENT by Noelle Kahanu: I felt hijacked. It was a half hour of speeches before Gore even took to the stage where we heard more about Schatz (when Brian was 16…) then Gore. A thinly veiled campaign event for Schatz with a few plugs for Abercrombie thrown in for good measure.
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2014/04/15/21808-al-gore-on-climate-change-we-are-going-to-win-this-thing/
21
Somewhat off topic, but it seems that the trouble in Nevada last week involved making space for smoke, mirrors, and stinking giant fans.
The conspirators had previously made attempts to re-home the desert tortoise (and euthanise it) so that plenty of that Nevada real estate could become home to millions of Chinese mirrors. Is there a more corrupt organisation that the UN? Yes, possibly, and it is located in Wahington, DC.
61
All environmental bets are off when building windmills Rod. I could tell so many stories…..
http://youtu.be/8NAAzBArYdw
31
guess Gore would find Hawaii more amenable to a CAGW rant at the moment!
16 April: CBS: John Dodge: It’s Mid-April And Coast Guard Is Still Battling Thick Great Lakes Ice
Almost one month into spring, and the U.S. Coast Guard is still breaking up ice around the Great Lakes.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more than 64 percent of Lake Superior was covered in ice as of Wednesday. Lake Michigan was 21 percent covered, Lake Huron was 31 percent covered, Lake Erie was 14 percent covered, and Lake Ontario was 2 percent covered. The entire Great Lakes system was 37 percent covered in ice…
The ice was preventing the delivery of coal to the area, needed to power local mining operations…
Ice in Marquette harbor was reported to be up to 24 inches thick.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/04/16/its-mid-april-and-coast-guard-is-still-battling-thickc-great-lakes-ice/
20
I’m sure we have laws against this kind of stuff in Australia:
Emotional abuse
This occurs when an adult’s behaviour towards a child happens repeatedly, and causes the child to feel frightened, ashamed, upset, alone and have low self-worth.
http://www.aifs.gov.au/cfca/pubs/factsheets/a142091/
61
–
“Professor Stanley said people could do their bit by eating less meat, driving cars less and using public transport more.”
–
I wonder how eating meat compares with international air travel in terms of atmospheric pollution, and Professor Stanley’s relative participation in either?
–
Quite possibly, Professor Stanley shares the same ideological views as environmental researcher and author Dr Joelle Gergis ( the provision of data notwithstanding.)
http://notrickszone.com/2012/06/10/german-scientists-joelle-gergis-has-lost-all-critical-distance-to-her-research-results/
61
***given the number of NGOs, at what cost have these 36,000 tonnes been “saved”?
18 April: Guardian: Mary Gallagher: Meet the women trading Sudan’s first carbon credits
Cleaner stoves have ***saved Sudan over 36,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and earned the country its first carbon credits
(Mary Gallagher is policy officer at Practical Action)
It is here that the Darfur Low Smoke Project, financed entirely by private sector money, was launched in 2007 by the WDAN, the international NGO Practical Action and the UK-based company Carbon Clear…
Setting up the project has been challenging. A year after it started several audit firms were contacted to check documentation and verify activity on the ground, an essential prerequisite for issuing carbon credits. All of the companies contacted refused to visit North Darfur, stating it was too unstable. Eventually an auditor was found but the site visits only took place in 2010, losing two year’s credits. This financial uncertainty meant the project was nearly wound up in 2009…
Over half of the stoves have been registered by the Gold Standard Foundation in Switzerland, meaning that their emissions savings are eligible to be sold as premium carbon credits…
Randa Faudul Ali: “… I think the LPG stove has saved my sight.”…
In Sudan, charcoal costs a household around £20 a month, while LPG costs roughly £7 a month. But, the initial cost of the stove and gas canister place them beyond the reach of most families. To overcome this obstacle, Carbon Clear introduced a micro-loan scheme, which is operated by the WDAN…
They have also set themselves up as the main dealers for the Nile Petroleum Company in North Darfur and have established a series of community forests…
The first credits from the Darfur project were recently sold to an insurance firm based in the UK.
“The Darfur Low Smoke Stoves Project demonstrates how businesses can successfully reduce emissions and make a positive contribution to communities,” says the CEO of Carbon Clear, Mark Chadwick…
“It is essential that carbon finance reaches poorer countries, regions and communities – and it must both deliver climate and development outcomes,” says Adrian Rimmer, CEO of Gold Standard. “Our goal is to drive finance into thousands more projects that will help to mitigate climate change and bring development benefits to millions of people in Sudan and around the world.”
COMMENT by tailspin: I am slightly baffled as to how swapping from wood (renewable) to LPG (fossil fuel) saves carbon and earns carbon credits.
COMMENT by canary2014 : Me too, that’s the direct opposite of what the IPCC were suggesting we should be doing
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/apr/17/women-darfur-sudan-carbon-credits
just one of the NGOs:
Practical Action – How we are funded
Practical Action depends on the support of individuals, trusts, NGOs and goverments to deliver its work to poor communities worldwide.
In 2012-13 Practical Action had an income of £26.2 million. Of this, 39% was raised from voluntary donations and legacies. Donations are received by individuals, small family trusts and companies.
A further 60% came from grants made by the UK and other governments for development assistance, by multilateral development agencies and other large funders such as international trusts with the remaining 1% from consultancies and investments
http://practicalaction.org/how-we-are-funded
21
pat mentions this here
Two days emissions of CO2 from Bayswater with all 4 units running.
Tony.
71
No. No. No!
We simply cannot tolerate a sense of proportion! 🙂
51
meanwhile, in the developed world!
17 April: Bloomberg: Isaac Arnsdorf: Arctic Opportunity
It’s warming faster than other parts of the globe, making ocean pathways and raw materials accessible for the first time in recorded human history. With the “last frontier” poised to become the next frontier market, competition is escalating among countries and companies seeking to stake their claims — without coming to blows or devastating a fragile environment…
Companies are already drilling for oil and digging for minerals across the Arctic on an unprecedented scale, and they’re expected to spend $100 billion there over the next decade, according to Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market…
That’s increasing access to a region that’s thought to hold about a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas, as well as gold, silver, copper, zinc, diamonds and fish. It’s also opened shortcuts for trade: The Northern Sea Route is 40 percent shorter from northern Europe to China than a trip through the Suez Canal. The countries with territory in the region — the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia — are developing plans to build infrastructure and bolster their militaries by adding surveillance systems, training troops in cold weather and strengthening ships to sail through ice…
Companies are forging ahead anyway, including plans by the largest U.S. oil company, ExxonMobil, to drill an Arctic well this year with a noteworthy partner: Russia’s state-owned giant, Rosneft…
http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/arctic-opportunity/
LOL.
10
lucky Nepalese???
17 April: eKantipur Nepal: Nepal selected for carbon market
KATHMANDU- Nepal has been selected as one of the four countries for promoting forest conservation by controlling deforestation and degradation as well as profiting off forest carbon stocks.
During the ninth meeting of Carbon Fund set up under the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and implemented by the World Bank (WB) from April 9 to April 11 in Belgium, Nepal was chosen as one of four countries best suitable for results-based payment system for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD plus) scheme, said a statement issued by the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) on Wednesday…
REDD plus, a UN finance mechanism developed for developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to insure monetary benefits by conserving forest and reducing emissions of harmful gases causing global warming and climate, Nepal along with Ghana, Mexico and Congo Republic were selected to utilise the Carbon Fund collected by WB.
The Emission Reduction Programme Idea Note (ER-PIN) was submitted at the meeting by a high-level delegation team from MOFSC, led by Annapurna Nanda Das. Being selected for ER-PIN, Nepal will be now able to access funds worth USD 650,000 for preparing a Detailed Emission Reduction Programme Document…
The (World Bank) WB has initially agreed to buy the carbon stocks worth Rs 14 million, benefiting the country through forest carbon market approach…
ONE COMMENT ONLY: by Luke Whitmore: This headline is completely misleading. One is not “selected” for the Carbon Market. The Carbon Market is a free market and it is open to Nepal to participate in that free market at any time it chooses, and using any REDD methodology it chooses. But the big question is – has the Nepalese Government finally made up its mind who owns the carbon? Is it the people or is it the Government? If indeed any forest is saved, if indeed those forests save carbon from polluting, when that Carbon saving is sold, who will get the money? The forest owners , i.e. the people, or the Government, i.e. the bureaucrats and the politicians. WHO IS GETTING THE MONEY?
http://www.ekantipur.com/2014/04/17/capital/nepal-selected-for-carbon-market/388389.html
10
now for some realpolitik in the developed world:
17 April: Deutsche Welle: Klaus Deuse: Germany has no alternative to Russian gas
More than 70 percent of Germany’s energy supply depends on imports. Russia alone accounts for a quarter of Germany’s gas, oil and coal imports. And real alternatives are not yet in sight.
Just recently Chancellor Angela Merkel made it clear that “all of Germany’s energy policies must be reconsidered.” According to Germany’s Energy Balances Group (AGEB), imported rose to 71 percent of all sources of energy last year.
The most important energy supplier is Russia: It provides 38 percent of Germany’s natural gas imports, 35 percent of all oil imports and 25 percent of coal imports, covering a quarter of the country’s entire energy needs. There are no suitable alternatives in sight that could cover shortfalls of this magnitude…
Importing cooled, liquefied gas in tank ships from Algeria, Qatar or the US is an alternative – in theory. But US ports lack facilities to handle liquefied natural gas, and Germany does not have the corresponding unloading stations. In addition, it is very difficult to purchase large amounts at short notice on the global market. Supplies are already short because Japan has been importing large amounts of gas since the Fukushima nuclear disaster…
Dependence on Russsian gas imports has also increased interest in natural gas production using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking…
In Germany, only the northern state of Lower Saxony has decided to allow fracking, and then only under certain conditions.
Populous North Rhine-Westfalia has decided against fracking, even though a state geological service says more than 220 billion cubic meters of gas can be found in depths of up to 4,000 meters – significantly more than all of Germany’s known conventionally extractable natural gas reserves, which total about 150 billion cubic meters…
But in the foreseeable future there won’t be a political majority in support of it. Furthermore, the German government ruled out fracking in its coalition agreement if toxic substances are used. If this does not change, Germany will be forced to import all its gas in the foreseeable future…
Another reason there is no alternative to gas imports is that the German government decided to stop coal production in 2018. Germany already imports coal, and 25 percent of these imports are from Russia. Germany’s lignite deposits could last for the next 200 years at current rates of extraction…
But Germany’s dependence on Russian energy is due not only to imports, but also to the relations between energy companies. For example, Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom and Germany’s Wintershall, a subsidiary of chemicals firm BASF, agreed on a significant exchange of shares…
Gazprom and Wintershall also jointly own the 2,300-kilometer German pipeline network “Gascade.” But Russia now controls Germany’s gas storage – and with it, the safety margin of the German gas supply. The German economics ministry evidently has no worries about the deal…
German utilities company RWE is still waiting for the green light for the sale of its oil and gas exploitation subsidiary Dea…
But due to a debt burden of 30 billion euros, RWE desperately needs new funding. Therefore the electric utility has welcomed the 5.1 billion euros that Luxembourg-based L1 Energy is willing to pay. L1 is owned by the second-richest Russian oligarch, Mikhail Fridman, who has close ties to the Kremlin and state-owned Rosneft.
http://www.dw.de/germany-has-no-alternative-to-russian-gas/a-17574004
10
The Germans have forgotten that the term REALPOLITIK is a German word,and they need to do some fast re-learning otherwise they will be caught with their panties down if push comes to shove in Europe’s east.
The Germans know from past experiences that Ukraine isn’t the best place to be fighting Russians.
Could this turn out to be the unravelling of NATO?
Will Germany give up its economic superiority over the rest of Europe for the sake of Ukraine joining the EU,I’m pretty certain that France and Italy would love to see Germany cop a bloody nose?
10
If the Kremlin has its way, the objective of this exercise is precisely the unraveling of NATO.
10
Well, professor, let’s see your frequent flyer statement, your grocery bill, your home electricity bill and all the public transport ticket stubs you obviously must have.
I remember when a certain DVD-making climate change spruiker was busted for all the electricity used for external lighting on his opulent estate, he said something like, “It’s what I do. The important thing is the message I am putting out there.”
I remember thinking at the time:
– is he truly incapable of introspection and self-criticism; or
– does he feel such personal gratification for taking an apparently virtuous position on an issue that he genuinely believes he has achieved something; or
– is he a psychopath who is driven to make money and sees everyone else as nothing more than a means to an end; or
– when he engages in excessive conspicuous consumption but tells everyone else they should have less, is he maliciously seeking gratification by rubbing his prosperity in the faces of those who are less fortunate; or
– is he a well-meaning person who is genuinely concerned for the future but who either has not examined the science or is incapable of understanding the science; or
– has he blindly accepted the opinions of others without considering what their motives might be; or
– is there another reason that I have not contemplated?
You tell me.
PS
On the ABC (naturally) a couple of weeks ago I heard an academic outlining the Left’s new strategy for marketing the climate change scare. He said that people were not responding to the ‘science’, so they would have to appeal to their emotions. How do these people keep a straight face? Science? Since when are lies, fabrications, exaggerations, rigged data, hidden data, and unsupportable assumptions considered to be science.
But, my point here is that we should never, ever forget their past lies and hypocrisy. That being so, I just want to refresh your memory about the utterly absurd little girl screaming advertisement they ran at the Copenhagen first-class fly-in and feast.
71
Fiona Stanley, the Helen Caldicott of “Global Waarming”.
101
News Weekly, April 12, 2014
“(S)o many in the scientific community have been corrupted by a self-loathing for Western civilisation, what the French philosopher Julien Benda in 1927 termed “the treason of the intellectuals.”
Nature is kind, and we could seamlessly switch from rocks that burn in chemical furnaces to a metal that burns in nuclear furnaces and maintain civilisation at a level much like the one we experience now.
But for that to happen, civilisation has to slough off the treasonous elites, the corrupted and corrupting scribblers.”
~ ~ ~
David Archibald is a Perth-based climate scientist and energy analyst.
He is a visiting fellow of the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, where he teaches a course in strategic energy policy.
Here is the speech he delivered at an anti-carbon tax rally in Sydney on July 1, 2012.
51
Nope. This about the survival of reason.
91
Jo, I agree with yr comment on Fiona Stanley, but yr attempt to relate it to” Rosary’s” seems grammatically incorrect as well as obscure. Better not to have such diversions.
10
stop the presses (or whatever is stopped in the digital age):
17 April: North-West Indiana Times: Deborah Laverty: Students hear two sides of global warming debate
VALPARAISO | Hebron High School junior Kasie Sass said Thursday’s World Affairs Conference held at Ivy Tech Community College was the first time she had heard both sides of the heated global warming issue.
“It was pretty interesting and I definitely heard a different perspective. I am so used to hearing all the propaganda from the other side,” Sass said.
Chesterton High School junior Alyssa Bowker agreed.
“I learned a lot of facts that I’d never been told,” she said.
Sass and Bowker were among about 150 area students who took part in the Rotary District 6540 sponsored conference to discuss the Storm Over Climate Change.
The two keynote speakers, Steve Goreham and Jorge Ortiz, gave opposing sides of the issue at a gathering of other students in Manchester University in North Manchester…
Goreham, a policy adviser to the conservative Chicago-based the Heartland Institute, said those who believe in the claims of looming global warming are all wet.
Even on the heels of what he termed a “good old-fashioned northern winter,” some people are still saying the snow is disappearing and will stop unless global warming is stopped, Goreham said…
Ortiz, regional director for U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., spoke on the senator’s behalf.
In his speech, Ortiz provided definition of climate change and updates on how it is being handled in this country and throughout the world.
Ortiz said the Environmental Protection Agency defines climate change as temperature changes that have increased by 1.4 degrees.
***”More and more agree that the temperature is rising but there is no consensus on why,” Ortiz said.
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/valparaiso/students-hear-two-sides-of-global-warming-debate/article_733b8659-e1c5-54bb-86fc-ab65630e99c5.html
10
It is sad and telling when merely hearing both sides of an issue is considered newsworthy.
00
before anyone queries the dates – “on this day” refers to April 22:
17 April: Yahoo: Julian Gavaghan: On This Day: British scientist first to link C02 to global warming – but thinks its beneficial for humanity
Callendar believed this warming would be beneficial to humanity because it would help delay a “return of the deadly glaciers”
April 22: British scientist Guy Stewart Callendar became the first expert to link carbon dioxide emissions to global warming in a groundbreaking paper published on this day in 1938.
The renowned steam engineer was also the first person to acurately demonstrate that global land temperatures had increased over the previous 50 years.
But, counter to modern scientific thinking, Callendar believed this warming would be beneficial to humanity because it would help delay a “return of the deadly glaciers”…
“In hindsight, Callendar’s contribution was fundamental,” Dr Ed Hawkins, a climatologist at the University of Reading, said in a report published last year….
Callendar’s research, published in Royal Meteorological Society’s journal, was an incredible feat for a man who considered climatology only an amateur interest…
His findings have since been shown to be remarkably accurate, which is an astonishing achievement given that he didn’t have a computer…
He performed his calculations by collecting temperature readings from 147 weather stations scattered over the planet and working out a global average.
However, Callendar, who was born in Montreal, Canada, had little or no data from the Arctic, Antarctica or the oceans, where recent studies have found the most warming.
Yet, despite scope for further tests, other climate experts at the time largely ignored Callendar’s findings and would remain sceptical for decades…
Even after warming resumed in 1975, there continued to be doubts. But Scientific and public opinion began to change at the end of the 1980s.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had trained as a chemist at Oxford University, was the first global leader to voice alarm over climate change in 1988.
The same year, Americans also took notice when climatologist James Hansen told the U.S. Senate that global warming was to blame for a severe drought…
***Nevertheless, the general public and many governments, while acknowledging the effect, are much less inclined to agree with scientists that man is to blame.
But the fact that any debate or further research into the matter has been carried out remains an enduring credit to the work of Callendar, who died aged 66 in 1964.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/on-this-day–british-scientist-first-to-link-c02-to-global-warming—but-thinks-its-beneficial-for-humanity-161218843.html#UXCbsNz
00
ISTR a recent map of tectonic “uplift” indicating West Antarctica and regions of the Arctic and sub-Arctic rising “rapidly”. Perhaps geothermal needs to be accounted for in the “climate models”.
20
Sharp as always. Good job again Jo!
Does this doctor know that more and more children can eat bread thanks to rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere?
Those stubborn facts:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/197868080302950/615541991868888/?notif_t=group_comment
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Sorry, my apologies, wrong link.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/t31.0-8/10010270_694336073945420_4551158484771785113_o.jpg
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Professor Fiona Stanley only has to look back some 30 years in Medical history to see a prevailing belief debunked by a couple of skeptical scientists, and it was in her backyard of the University of West Australia and Royal Perth Hospital.
I quote from the official website of the Nobel Prize Organisation:
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ON ABC BOARD TOO
Professor Stanley also member of current ABC Board:
http://about.abc.net.au/who-we-are/the-abc-board/
Join the dots, dear reader.
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Oh, THAT board.
That marches to left left left to the beat of The Drum
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Oh, dear, that is terrible! Still it explains why she resorts to the same sort of comparison of sceptics which that other ABC alarmist Robyn Williams uses.
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“I do trust the incredible scientific evidence”. “Incredible” may have been the wrong hyperbole in this context, Fiona. Or the right one, depending on your degree of “trust” in a field of knowledge presently as advanced as medical science in the era before surgeons had to wash their hands. Remember all that “incredible scientific evidence” hurled against the ridiculed Semmelweis? Hand washing indeed!
Nonetheless, a greenhouse effect has been scientifically demonstrated by Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius etc. Consequently I am going to be very wary of any increase in CO2 and temps – when living inside large glass receptacles inside laboratories.
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It would appear as though science is now a religion,and as we have seen religious followers can be all types,some are devout and follow the tenets as they are meant to be followed, others tend to twist the tenets to their own particular bent , generally what they do is focus on one or two particulars issues and run with those instead of looking at the whole tenet.
But here is the rub where science and religion are so similar,when they can earn money from either they will do whatever it takes to make as much money as they can regardless of what has actually been taught,including fabricating the evidences.
Christianity didn’t spread until it was made the state religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great,climate change didn’t get a head of steam up until the UN,Universities and world govts favoured it as dogma,now it is the universal relgion regardless of its veracity,and once something becomes institutionalised there is no getting rid of it.
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Hi Jo
Given that today is good Friday, and that we are talking about a ‘religious’ belief, please forgive and old philosopher and teacher to make an observation about AGW Theology.
According to the church fathers, AGW adherents are fideists. Since the 12th Century, fideism has been proscribed as a heresy. That is to say, faith, in order to be valid, must be preceded by reason. Faith that precedes reason is not valid because it relies purely on appeal to authority; in the case of the church of global warming, climate models and scientific ‘consensus’ based on climate models.
Therefore AGW faith fails even on theological grounds.
The aforesaid heresy, however, is additionally based on a metaphysical assumption; namely that ‘science’ is the sole arbiter of what is or is not true. This is called ‘scientism’. Scientism itself rests (lazily) on a fallacy, as it argues that the Truth is what science itself defines as the Truth. An appeal to its own authority. In a sense, scientism lies at the heart of the rotten core of the diseased thing called ‘climate science’, itself an invention. There is no such thing as climate science. All there can be are disparate disciplines that need to collaborate in a project that can
only ‘hope’ to attain an explanatory synthesis concerning climate.
As anyone with only a passing familiarity with the philosophy of science knows, science is not a teleological endeavour. ‘Climate science’ is not the only branch of study that has awarded itself standing as an arbiter of good and evil. Public health sciences too are used to subjugate individual freedom to proclaimed scientific truths. However, the latter are merely ignorant. I would argue that the religion of the warmists is malicious.
Happy Easter Jo, and thank you and your husband for the courage to stand up.
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Judith Curry has a few words that Fiona Stanley should read.
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Great article Jo, hope you take the time to send a copy direct to Professor Stanley, along with the unedited footage from “I Can Change Your Mind About Climate Change.”
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There is a lot of similarity here. Copernicus did not get any grief for his heliocentric model. One of his friends was even given a reward from the Pope after a lecture on Copernicus’s model.
More importantly, Galileo did not incur any criticism from the RC or the Pope, initially. Some people behind the scenes (called the Pigeon League by a friend of Galileo) pushed members of the clergy to denounce Galileo’s ideas as heresy. They chose those who had more ambition than talent and the their first choice was a priest who decided not to do it. There were others, though, with less integrity(or more Mannism?). Even the 17th century Church wanted to keep science and religion separate but the more mischievous couldn’t let the opportunity slide.
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so what! here’s some more taxpayer money (ignore the deficits/debt etc):
17 April: Reuters: Valerie Volcovici: Internal report slams U.S. handling of Abound Solar guarantees
The U.S. Department of Energy displayed a “lack of guidance” in how it dealt with millions of dollars in loan guarantees to now-bankrupt Abound Solar Manufacturing, the agency’s internal watchdog said in a report on Thursday…
In a 32-page report, the DOE’s Inspector General reviewed the case of Colorado-based Abound, which filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2012 and laid off more than 100 employees, after receiving about $70 million of a $400 million loan guaranteed by the government.
Although the DOE said it had identified and taken steps to mitigate risks, and suspended funding when the company failed to meet certain milestones, the IG report said the loan guarantee program had not established “comprehensive policies, procedures and guidance for awarding, monitoring and administering loans.”
“We noted a lack of guidance in the areas of the Board’s reconsideration of loans, the processes for resolving differences in professional opinions among the Program’s technical experts, the nature and timing of financial and industrial analysis, and the management of distressed loans,” the report said…
Since the Abound situation, the DOE also set up a risk committee.
To read the entire report on Abound, see: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f15/DOE-IG-0907.pdf
Undeterred by problems with its loan guarantees, the Obama administration on Thursday convened a “Solar Summit” to promote the use of the technology by private companies.
The White House also said it would lend staff and technical support to other parts of the administration to expand the use of renewable energy in federally subsidized housing…
Some $15 million will be set aside for state, local and tribal governments to build their solar portfolios.
Renewable energy now accounts for around 5 percent of electric generation in the United States. Solar comprises less than 1 percent, although its use is on the rise.
http://news.yahoo.com/internal-report-slams-u-handling-abound-solar-guarantees-205710023–finance.html?.tsrc=opera14
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Stanley should avail herself of the opinion of respectable scientists without ‘grant skin’ in the game: http://judithcurry.com/2014/04/17/climate-change-what-we-dont-know/
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JC reflections
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Well done George Brandis you may not agree but you stand up for the for free speech ( http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-change-proponents-using-mediaeval-tactics-george-brandis-20140418-zqwfc.html?google_editors_picks=true )seems these lefties forgot all about that minor detail!!
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???why does he feel the need to say this, without some qualification, such as i believe, but that doesn’t mean the debate is settled, or something:
18 April: SMH: Lisa Cox: Climate change proponents using ‘mediaeval’ tactics: George Brandis
George Brandis has compared himself to Voltaire and derided proponents of climate change action as “believers” who do not listen to opposing views and have reduced debate to a mediaeval and ignorant level.
In an interview with online magazine Spiked, the Attorney-General also declares he has no regret for saying Australians have the right to be bigots and accuses the left of advocating censorship to enforce a morality code on the nation.
It comes as former Australian of the year Professor Fiona Stanley said climate science had been denigrated through politicisation and denial, and issued a stinging attack on the federal government for the absence of a specific department to tackle global warming…
???While he says he believes in man-made climate change, the Queensland senator tells the magazine he is shocked by the “authoritarianism” with which some proponents of climate change exclude alternative viewpoints, singling out Labor’s Penny Wong as “Australia’s high priestess of political correctness”.
He said it was “deplorable” that “one side [has] the orthodoxy on its side and delegitimises the views of those who disagree, rather than engaging with them intellectually and showing them why they are wrong”.
As examples, he points to Senator Wong and former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who he accuses of arguing “the science is settled” to shut down political debate on climate change.
“In other words, ‘I am not even going to engage in a debate with you.’ It was ignorant, it was mediaeval, the approach of these true believers in climate change,” he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-change-proponents-using-mediaeval-tactics-george-brandis-20140418-zqwfc.html
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Pot meets Kettle:
“The attorney general called the leader of the opposition in the Senate, Penny Wong, the “high priestess of political correctness”
Brandis said he was not a climate change denier and was on the side that believed in anthropogenic global warming and believed something ought to be done about it.”
~ ~ ~
“As for any politicians who have ever believed in global warming, or supported the carbon tax, or a carbon-constrained economy, there is no hope for them.
They are either too stupid or incompetent to be taken seriously.
Make their lives hell too, just as they wished a diminished life on you.”
. . .
You can’t be half pregnant, George.
In order to believe as George does, he ignores the observations, like the pause, as acknowledged by the UN-IPCC.
Spare us your faux scepticism.
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It is a fact of modern life that those who have the least qualifications such as economists, geographers, psychologists and now for Goodness sake, Doctors, who provide the strongest abuse of any scientist who dares to question the faith of the climate industry. No need for them to look at data, the hopelessness of the models, the IPCC reports which show the divergence between model output and reality and try to find excuses for the fact that in the seven years since 2007, none of their 120 models can pass an experimental test to verify their accuracy and competence.
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Maybe this has made the rounds already, but apparently ice coverage on the Great Lakes is at somewhat unprecedented historical highs, even to the extent that it’s affecting weather patterns…
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/anderson/latest-status-on-ice-snow-cover-and-soil-moisture/25746122
And eastern Canada is still get whacked by major snow storms.
No doubt all this will be stated to be further proof of global warming, eh?
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“I do trust the incredible scientific evidence”.
Hardly articulate!
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Jo, may I just say that:
is probably one of the best things I’ve heard about the AGW religion.
Thanks.
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If so called “risk factors” don’t correlate with the “risk” in question then they are probably wrongly associated in the first place.
The best known example of people doggedly clinging to, most likely, bogus “risk factors” being the so called “French Paradox”.
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I live in Perth where Fiona Stanley lives, this lady is just an academic and does not have a handle on reality
and only gets her name in the papers just to make her look significant.
The woman is a bore and should be ignored, the only reason she has had a hospital named after her is because
of her “academic achievements”, a better name for the hospital would be “Dr Fiona Wood” a skin specialist
and inventor of spray on skin or “Dr Barry Marshall” or “Professor Robin Warren”
who discovered who discovered what causes peptic ulcers.
Or at least have hospital name changes every 5 years or so to reflect others achievements in medicine.
Unfortunately I am probably fighting a losing battle.
Peter Hall
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I would advise Prof. Stanley that scaring children with false statements about the world boiling over and burning up, as is so often done nowadays in US and UK schools, is child abuse.
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[…] Jo Nova, who notes It’s another pious scientist. […]
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Actually – Gasbo (above) should check his historical facts, before he makes a blanket statement about the past! Christianity spread most rapidly in the first to third centuries, when Christians were often persecuted by the state and executed for their faith, and when they were pacifist, by and large – the growth of the early church was in fact quite remarkable, shown by the wide geographical spread of early translations of the New Testament. In fact, the Emperor Constantine was merely putting the stamp of approval on something that had already happened, i.e. the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, which was a brutal and oppressive regime under most of the Emperors, in which many of the freedoms we take for granted did not exist.
And preventing global warming is the perfect excuse governments in our own day (and the UN) have been trying to use to justify limiting our human freedoms. I think in this essay Jo correctly identifies the fact that Global Warming is becoming something akin to a state belief at the moment – it’s a “shibboleth” that people must say, in order to be accepted, a party line that everyone has to toe. I would say it has actually replaced Christianity for many people, as one of their fundamental beliefs.
To me (as a Christian) the reason why Jo Nova’s efforts at educating us all about the facts, the science, are so important – is that the truth really is important!
As Someone once said, “The truth will set you free…”
01
There is evidence of “science as a pseudo-religion” in Lewandowsky’s infamous “hoax” paper. This was an opinion survey conducted via alarmist blogs, that claimed “free-market” worldviews were connected with rejection of “climate science”. A follow-up US Survey claimed the same thing. I compared the two surveys. Compared to the US Survey, there was unsurprisingly much more extreme belief in “climate science”. These believers also had extreme anti “free-market” views. I then looked at evidence for the causation in the papers. There was absolutely none for “the overwhelming evidence of climate science revealing the necessary policies to save the planet”, but plenty evidence for “climate science being a vehicle to foist extreme and dogmatic political views on the vast majority”.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2014/04/21/extreme-socialist-environmentalist-ideation-as-motivation-for-belief-in-climate-science/
Lewandowsky’s latest missives on “increased uncertainty of evidence meaning mitigation policies are more vital” is further evidence of the pseudo-religious status of “climate science”. If CAGW is a “revealed truth” that we cannot perceive, then Lewandowsky is right. Lack of evidence, means greater uncertainty, so we cannot adapt to the consequences. If, however, CAGW is a scientific hypothesis that is constantly being contradicted by the data, then he is wrong.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2014/04/06/lewandowsky-climate-scientists-should-be-listened-to-because-they-are-wrong/
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/04/new-lewandowsky-study-finds-uncertainty-monster-under-his-bed-will-cost-billions/
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Good post, Panda.
I think the historical record proves you correct on that point.
However, both Gasbo and Panda hit the nail on the head: AGW is a Pagan religion.
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