The ABC bias is now so obvious, everyone with an open mind and an Internet connection knows that the ABC report the parts that suit, and hide the rest. They even edit the words of skeptics to produce sentences that were never actually spoken. But what I saw last night was a flagrantly wrong statement, counter to the truth, reported as if it were so above question it did not even need explanation, qualification or substantiation. It’s time to squeeze the ABC for accuracy.
One of the Big-Myths in this debate is that the opinions of “climate scientists” equals the opinion of “scientists in general”. All over Australia last night hundreds of thousands of Australians heard this statement as narration in the main news bulletin:
“World’s scientists reckon the climates never felt anything like them in close to a million years…” — 4:40mins ABC News report Nov 3, 2014
Ignoring the point that the sentence is grammatically incoherent, it is misleading and demonstrably false. The “World’s Scientists” don’t reckon anything, they have never been surveyed, have not voted for a spokesperson, and inasmuch as anyone could estimate the “world’s scientists” opinions, actual surveys show that skeptics would outnumber and outrank the believers.
The fact is (and any genuine reporter would find this out easily) almost half of meteorologists — fergoodnesssake — are skeptics, survey after survey shows that two-thirds of geoscientists and engineers are skeptics, and most readers of skeptical blogs (who chose to respond to surveys and list their qualifications in comments^) have hard science degrees. Dan Kahan conducted a survey of 1,500 people and found people who knew more about maths and science were more likely to be skeptical. In other words, skeptics were better informed about science^. If we had to name a list of skeptics versus believers, the skeptics number 31,000, yet there is no list of named scientists who believe that comes close — let alone a list of 300,000 which would imply some truth to the statement that the science is settled, and the world’s scientists agree.
A tiny percentage of total scientists would call themselves “climate scientists”. They have never been able to convince the tens of thousands of other scientists with their bizarre theory about a trace gas being the dominant driver of our climate. Around the world climate scientists say one thing, but tens of thousands of physicists, engineers, mathematicians, chemists, and medical science leaders disagree. Skeptical scientists have won Nobel Prizes in Physics* (and we don’t count “Peace” as a prize in science) and they’ve walked on the Moon, flown around it, and returned to Earth. Unskeptical scientists have wasted billions of dollars, predicted warming that didn’t happen, asked for desalination plants that were not needed, and told everyone to stop the storms by building windmills.
Only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter that mattered in the IPCC Assessment Report 4, and presumably the numbers wouldn’t be that different in the latest report. The ABC’s careless attitude to reporting accurately portrays the opinions of a few scientists (who have a bad record of predictions) as if they represent the opinions of an entire profession numbering in the order of 10 million. The ABC staff are reporting what they would liketo be true.
UPDATE: Only 43% of certified climate scientists agree with the IPCC “consensus” that man-made CO2 is the main driver of climate change.
Science is not a set of discrete subjects with separate rules
The same laws of logic, reason and physics and the same limits of statistics apply to every sub-branch. If one tiny group of scientists has a theory they should be able to convince the rest. If they can’t explain and verify their theory with nuclear physicists or geologists and atmospheric chemists there is something wrong with the theory. The ABC’s Catalyst program, supposedly produced by a “science unit”, made the same mistake a few weeks ago.
The ABC has become a naked propaganda unit for big-government. It is beyond saving. The sloppy research standards and the culture of gullibility regarding government and official press releases are endemic. Sell if off for the good of the nation. (We can pay off some big-government debt.)
In the meantime, for entertainment, people can write to the ABC asking them to provide substantiation of their statements that the “world’s scientists” believe the IPCC pronouncements. If they name scientific associations, ask them whether that association actually surveyed its members. Almost none of them do. Members of the largest and most influential associations have risen up in protest at the official declarations produced by “committees of six” self-appointed association fellows. See the American Physical Society, The Royal Society, American Chemical Society, and Aust Geological Society.
If we have to have a public broadcaster (and I don’t see why we do) they can start again with people who meet the low bar of being able to speak in accurate English, with defined terms, and who can substantiate everystatement or issue a correction and apology.
PS: your support makes a big difference via Paypal or Direct Deposit and Chq
to put more public pressure on sloppy and unskeptical science commentators. (Thank you!)
________________
* Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize in Physics 1973, Robert Laughlin, Nobel Prize in Physics 1998. NASA Apollo Astronauts, Buzz Aldrin, Harrison (Jack) Schmitt , Walter Cunningham, Charles Duke, Richard Gordon.
^Added the brackets. Fair point. Thanks to Dry in comments. Respondents to surveys and people who chose to make comments are self selecting. I added the note about the Dan Kahan study which also supports the theory that skeptics are better with numbers than believers. His was not self selecting.
It’s “their ABC” not “our ABC.” The truth is a stranger to the National Broadcaster, the broadcaster that fails to follow its own charter.
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As we enter the dog days of this ‘debate’ between leftist, warmist thugs in the media and out of it (!) and mostly decent sceptics, it is worth remembering that IPCC pseudoscience is based on 50 years’ incorrect physics’ teaching in the atmospheric sciences. Carl Sagan started this collapse of objective science; as a post doc. he made three bad mistakes.
1. Confused Radiant Emittance with real energy flux, the origin of ‘back radiation’ and imaginary Enhanced GHE. Real flux is the vector sum of Irradiances at a plane.
2. Claimed lapse rate warming is caused by the Enhanced GHE; it is from gravity.
3. To get sums right when he incorrectly applied the ‘two stream approximation’ to Venus’ surface and atmosphere, he introduced imaginary downwards energy flux from clouds; later aerosol optical physics, integral to the IPCC models, is wrong.
4. Houghton, Fig. 2.5 of ‘Physics of Atmospheres’, shows no radiative heating of the lower atmosphere by the surface as lapse rate means no temperature difference. However, via the IPCC he later pushed Sagan’s incorrect physics.
5. 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf; claims a single -18 deg C 360 degree OLR emitter, 238.5 W/m^2 down IR flux to offset imaginary ‘back radiation’. This emitter does not exist. The models are a Perpetual Motion Machine; 40% more energy than reality.
6. They also introduced a hidden cheat, only discovered in 2010. In hind-casting, higher temperature to give more evaporation is offset by 35% more low level cloud albedo than reality. By making it cooler under clouds, average temperature seems OK but exponential evaporation gives the imaginary higher humidity.
Bottom Line: the Enhanced GHE does not exist; science fraud. The water cycle reduces CO2-AGW to near zero. The IPCC is scare-mongering in extremis. There is no warming problem; ocean acidification will be self-controlling. $169 billion has been spent on junk science by junk politicians and unprofessional scientists.
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” $169 billion has been spent on junk science by junk politicians and unprofessional scientists.”
Well at least it’s kept them off the streets.
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Kind of expensive way to keep the road clean
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Doubt that they would earn much out there, either. !!
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Social security might have been cheaper right enuff, but look what this has done for their self esteem.
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turnedoutnice, thank you for the concise analysis, and congratulations too.
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Wow, that’s amazing! You have an obligation to humanity to write this up and get it published forthwith. Turnedoutnice has overturned 150 years of climate science with a single blog. This will be big and we saw it here first.
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So.. still nothing to add to the conversation, hey Fin.
A large amount of 150 year old science has been overturned since 150 years ago..
Probably more than 97% of it.
Its called PROGRESS and LEARNING !!!
Try it some time. ! 🙂
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Hardly 150 years of Climate “science”, just the third rate rubbish that poses as science that has been around for 30-40 years (depending on when you think it got taken seriously by the gullible).
By the way, NONE of the pioneers of climate studies ever regarded CO2 as the cause of anything except mistakes.
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Please don’t thank me for doing my job as a humble metallurgical engineer, with an applied physics PhD, who just happens to have been trained and practised as a heat transfer expert with probably the best in the World. All I have done is to use my experimental knowledge which is that in steel hot mills, the strip has to be above about 100 deg C for radiant heat loss to exceed convection. For aluminium it’s about 300 deg C because the alumina does the emission/absorption at two bands. We developed the World’s first two-colour pyrometer for this task. Coupled heat transfer has been studied for over a century by the best applied physicists. This knowledge was ignored by US atmospheric science.
As to the hurt feelings of the atmospheric scientists, you have for ~50 years been taught incorrect radiative physics. Sagan was to blame. He influenced Goody who taught Lindzen the incorrect Enhanced GHE and put it in the text book. Here are MIT course notes: http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node134.html
This is wrong; the S-B equation predicts Emittance (W/m^2), the potential radiative energy flux to a sink at 0 deg K. The next module incorrectly claims it is Emissivity (dimensionless). Many people with whom I discuss this on the net have been taught Emittance is what I know as Emissivity. These mistakes have led to the atmosphere scientists slamming other disciplines, correctly taught, as ‘deniers’. It has to stop: atmospheric science has to change textbooks and teaching. Any professional would have done an energy balance of the heat generation in the models. Atmospheric scientists did not do this basic check.
As for the atmosphere self-controlling, this will be published. Essentially Miskolczi was right in the outcome, but wrong in his physics. The mechanism requires a good knowledge of IR physics but we developed that in the steel industry; the atmospheric sciences have messed that up as well and were told this in 1993, but were too arrogant to listen.
This is an amazing saga; the sheer level of vitriol I get when I explain standard physics to the modern generation who can’t go back to basics is amazing. I went back to Planck to derive the bit of physics he missed out; Claes Johnson did the same. The last stage of the game was realising that Houghton got the heat transfer right in Fig 2.5 but has supported Sagan’s version, the black body emission claim, when that would require us to be waling around in insulated space suits as we tread through solid air. Yes, it’s that stupid!
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Fin, I’m puzzled. Why do you come here to make a fool of yourself?
You and your ilk send the CAGNW meme backwards because you highlight the general ignorance of the average climate cultist.
Do you realise how much damage you do to your cause ?
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I sincerely hope he never realizes the damage he does. You go, FIN, keep being stupid.
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Just like the BBC…
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Equally indistinguishable from the unrelentingly dumb bias of the MSM in NZ, TV 3 MediaWorks and TV NZ (TV1) who have recently excelled themselves focusing on the (?)serendipitous juxtaposition of high pollution levels in some Chinese cities and the recent UN IPCC extravaganza.
In NZ at least, it seems that the wider political love affair of UN driven climate change is a echo function of the limpet-like policy alignment of NZ with the UN.
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And Canada’s CBC, conservative news outlets like the SUN NEWS have been calling out and correcting biased reporting by Canada’s broadcaster for many years.
Seems to be a common thread with public broadcasters and the left, it must be in the A21 manifesto……
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The charter is not just a direction, it is the entire justification for a public service media, scrupulous independence from the government of the day and unbiased, balanced and accurate reporting. It was created before television, before jet travel, before even transistor radio and before the internet but everyone is taxed to pay for it. Now a billion dollars a year. For what? A private media for an elitist left with 1,000 journalists who all agree with each other? There is no balance.
In the last decade, the ABC has gone totally off the rails, using this very independence to act as an extreme left government in waiting while on very substantial public salaries. This has been obvious in foreign affairs, domestic politics, green activism, boat people and anti Israel Islamic activism and this political extremism is most obvious in promoting the global warming scare. They openly ridicule or utterly ignore any other point of view.
The ABC has lost its purpose utterly, while having funds and media reach which would be illegal for any commercial media. It has now become the advertising free, extreme left broadcaster for the few, paid for by everyone. Any pretence of impartiality has been dropped. It is their ABC, not ours. The free ride for the caring left is over or as favorite Green Senator Sarah Hansen Young said when asked about the 1200 drowned families, “accidents happen”. Sell the ABC.
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My point is that with Global Warming, as with boat people, the pretence of actually caring at all is a total sham. It is all political activism by an organization so large, so influential that they believe the government will not dare try to stop them or criticize them and in fact will just keep handing over more money.
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And they’re correct in that belief … “freedom of the press”, you know. If Govt tried to influence the ABC publicly, the collective MSM howling and shrieking would be easily heard on Mars. Similarly for trying to sell it – the din would deafen Pine Gap
But making it subscriber only, user pays stuff. Maybe …
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Agreed. The government is understandably being very cautious, especially under Turnbull. They had to promise not to make cuts but even the lack of growth was hailed as a savage cut, when the same organization had just received a golden handshake of $100Million from Gillard for a new HQ when everyone else had to suffer big budget cuts. They were even awarded the Australia Overseas contract having failed twice at the public tender.
The previous ABC chairman Maurice Newman publicly attacked the ABC for being gripped by group think, especially on climate change. That would be the kindest view. The reality is extreme political activism and using their immense resources and public trust even as the voice of Australia overseas to attack and vilify the government on every issue, demonizing the government as the trusted voice of Australia, unnecessarily publishing information which deliberately damaged our relationship with Indonesia, even setting up a web site to keep boat smugglers informed of their success. The ABC involvement in the riot in Canberra on Australia Day has never been investigated.
Sell the ABC. It has outlived its purpose. People should not be forced to pay for Green propaganda posing as balanced and factual reporting.
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Sel the ABC?
Who would buy it? Not those who are the targeted audience as they believe the rest of us should pay for them.
Incidentally I note that whenever there is a threat recently they counter with “Peppa the Pig” will go. That indicates to me that it is the most popular and most believed show they broadcast.
Disclosure: Under the ABC claim that anybody tuning in for 5 minutes a day is a viewer I am one. At night I switch on the “News” for the weather forecast. How many of the 43% that are counted do much the same?
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All ABC stations are on “skip” on my TV station program list.
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Who would buy it? Everyone. It is extremely valuable and we Australians have invested many billions in it.
‘Their’ ABC has very expensive infrastructure, TV stations, Radio, reach and most importantly, dedicated listeners who pay nothing currently while the whole country indulges them. There would be an ABC phone service, if that was possible.
ABC should be floated like the Commonwealth Bank, the State banks, Trains, Water, Shipyards, Electricity Generation, Electricity Distribution, Australia Post, Telstra, Medibank, Ports and Harbours, Freeways, all manner of infrastructure…
Governments simply have no business owning TV and Radio stations and Internet web sites because of exactly what has happened. The charter is just tissue paper and is now blatantly ignored.
Then as the ABC do not allow advertising, it is all funded by taxpayers and they will send three TV crews to a story when the evil Murdoch press sends a junior reporter with an iPhone. Besides, who really needs 1,000 journalists? Yes, any attempt to touch their ABC and Peppa Pig will be publicly beheaded by ISIS. We have already been warned my Mark Scott. Then any country services. Then any Australian shows. Then any BBC shows. The last to go will be their Green propaganda shows, still presented as independent unbiased opinion by independent unbiased adjudicators who ridicule anyone who does not agree with them and stack audiences with their own folk. Sell the ABC. Get our money back and pay off some debt. How many poor people actually watch the elitist leftist ABC anyway? None?
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There’s probably enough infrastructure for 3 or 4 commercial TV networks plus a whole heap of regional radio stations etc.
Maybe just one of them could have a conservative ideology.?
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I can’t even get ABC radio properly here. I like ABC Classic FM but it’s not for the likes of us country bumpkins! I daresay I could get it on my computer but should I have to when we live less than two hours’ drive from the middle of Melbourne? Pathetic.
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1,000,000,000 thumbs up.
10
This is the result of a Left dominated education system and a Left dominated media system – incoherent, often down right wrong, and poorly educated. In short – a shambles.
Problem is , a lot of the people who are now adults were brought up being heavily dumbed down by the System as well, so its a kind of blind leading the blind situation.
This is why the public or so easily swayed – they havent been trained to think, they deliberately want people who dont think ( easier to manipulate ), they want people not to question ( better as drones that way ).
You can see us teetering on the edge of a calamity unless education is purged of the lefties….
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The case against them will look like sour grapes if CAGW is the only bias. What other topics does the ABC report about wishfully rather than accurately?
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Anything to do with Australian Politics …
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The ABC has over the last 40 years drifted from being a strictly non partisan organisation to a pillar of Marxist politics.
Leading up to to the 2013 election Tony Abbott promised that if elected the new government would not act to punish the ABC for a perception of bias. In doing so he placed a high degree of trust in the ABC exercising rational behaviour.
Ever since the election a year ago the ABC has stepped up its political attacks on the new government, including personal vilification of the Prime Minister. Clearly the ABC is sheltering behind that promise, even goading the government, daring them to retaliate, whereupon the ABC intend to scream: “You Broke Your Promise!”
The actions of the ABC have so far breached the trust placed in them when making that promise that the promise should now be voided.
Any business which allows its servants to slag off the boss in the manner in which the ABC does since the election won’t stay in business long. The government must act.
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ABC News Watch said basically the same thing.
40
Ted:
While I agree that the ABC should, at the very least, be sold, that would require a government with a pair and a spine.
Unfortunately, this bunch of clowns, who I regretfully voted for, are both spineless and ball-less.
Don’t expect any kind of action soon; but do prepare for a change of government at the next election.
14
No, they are slowly bringing the ABC to heel, despite Turnbull’s ultra cautious handling. The Australia Overeas contract is cancelled. Now we do not need to pay for the ABC to vilify the elected government overseas while acting as a public support system for people smugglers. In fact with the internet and mobile phone growth, the very idea of Australian short wave radio and special TV broadcasts is just silly.
Then the current government have dared not give the ABC what they want, continuing growth in funding. It may not seem like much, a few % but that generated fury and threats of vengeance. Both sides of politics have to be very careful with the ABC, as Mark Scott on twice the salary of the PM has threatened to kill Peppa Pig. There is still some hope that Peppa can be saved, even sold off to a commercial station which would care for Peppa. The Government has had secret talks with the SAS to see if a rescue can be organized. There is even talk that the charter might be found and rescued and read to the board, like the Magna Carta. It will be a slow process. Pray for Peppa.
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“Slowly bringing the ABC to heel?”
Maybe, but by the time there is any noticeable effect, the new Labor Government will be firmly entrenched.
In the meantime, the ABC continues to function as the propaganda arm of the Labor party. They know who is really driving the political agenda in Australia; and they have demonstrated political maturity in having hitched their wagons to the defacto government.
While the Comrades, under the protection of the Manchurian candidate Turnbull, treat the Liberals with undisguised contempt, the Liberals just put a silly grin on their faces and bend over.
It is painful to watch a once serious advocate for true Libertarian and conservative values reduced to the pathetic, scared and spineless rabble we now have.
Even more sad is the fact that Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison, two people of outstanding talent, will be relegated to the dustbin of history when this rabble is dumped at the next election.
13
And what, pray tell, would be wrong with knocking Peppa Pig? It is not an ABC production, it is imported. If Mark Scott wants to highlight it, perhaps there is good reason to knock it. Too expensive? Too partisan?
10
re:
“If one tiny group of scientists has a theory they should be able to convince the rest. If they can’t explain and verify their theory with nuclear physicists or geologists and atmospheric chemists there is something wrong with the theory.”
Well! well! guess science wins. So there’ll be no more rubbish here about climate changed before, no more rubbish about the sun did it, no more rubbish about no warming, no more rubbish about lack of an anthropogenic cause, no more rubbish about the Antarctic ice, no more rubbish that how good is CO2, no more rubbish!
Of course with nothing to offer scientifically, you choose to can the ABC and answer in chorus: Hallelujah! hallelujah! “Global warming resolved” Hallelujah!
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“No more rubbish”….
… yet here you are, with more of your pointless, meaningless, garbled donkey braying.
And yes, the truth of science is starting to win against the rabid political, socialist lies and misinformation of the CAGNW agenda.
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There Stupid Horse, I fixed it for you.
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This tainted mule seriously needs to be sent to the knackery..
Its brain has ceased to function due to a 97% diet of Locoweed.
(glue products only. not for dog food)
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At least she demonstrates that she read and understood our arguments. That’s better than some I know of.
22
I’ll go with “read”… understood, not so sure.
Certainly the truth of our arguments hurts her a lot.
Otherwise, why the incessant manic braying.
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In your haste to comment as high as possible in this thread, you have totally missed the point of what Jo was saying.
The Climate
ClownsScientists have a duty to respond to their sister disciplines who ask to see their methods, observations, data, calculations, findings, and conclusions. All should be made public, since it is the public purse that has paid for it over the past several centuries. None of the data, nor the computational algorithms are proprietary, so there is no impediment to that happening.And yet, the fact is that every request for data, or method descriptions has been met with a flat refusal. When this happens, it is taken as a clear indicator that there is something to hide.
It has been a clear pattern throughout the history of science, that the pseudo scientists, and the fraudulent scientists, have always been the ones who refuse to expose their workings.
In what way are the actions of Climate Scientists somehow different from any other field of real science?
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Answer: They are not good at sharing and playing nicely.
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Yes, public access to Roy Spencer’s UAH series model and justification for all those model and temperature adjustments to the satellite data, now that would be interesting.
Of course we have the Oregon Petition AGAIN! Nothing more than dressed unscientific rubbish! We have Lindzen V Royal Society so much for Lindzen AGAIN: somebody else from the ACS: APS changes little and still stands by this AGAIN(2007):
The sorry scientific hole of the failed sceptic, every broadening every deepening!
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“Global warming is occurring”
Again more donkey droppings. !!
Global warming IS NOT occurring !!
They were wrong in 2007, and they are still wrong.
That’s because its a POLITICAL statement, not a scientific one.
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And I just love the way Richard Lindzen gets under the alarmista skin…
.. he speaks COMMON SENSE and CLIMATE KNOWLEDGE, and that really bugs them, because those are two things most of the alarmista so-called climate scientists can only wish they had heard of
You KNOW he’s on the right path when he says things like…
“….. It’s more a kind of religion.”
How true that is! and how much it hurts the climate blatherers,
..as we can see from the ranting and braying from the malignant mule.
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I particularly like this one….
“That said, it should be recognized that the basis for a climate that is highly sensitive to added greenhouse gasses is solely the computer models. The relation of this sensitivity to catastrophe, moreover, does not even emerge from the models, but rather from the fervid imagination of climate activists.”
— Dr. Richard Lindzen
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and this one
““Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. The opportunities for taxation, for policies, for control, for crony capitalism are just immense, you can see their eyes bulge,”
There’s a very good reason its called the INTERGOVERNMENTAL PCC
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You have tangible evidence, of that? If so please present it.
And you are using previous refusals to release data and methods (2007) as justification for the current refusals to release data and methods, as if that sets some form of precedent.
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So, dopey donkey, I strong recommend to listen and learn, if indeed you have that capability.
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dopey donkey???
That’s what I call my sheep, or dog, when the grand kids are about.
40
If the IPCC adheres so rigorously to the scientific method, as you seem to believe, then why do they allow non-scientists to dictate the wording and content of their reports? Why do they allow the IPCC ‘observers’ – most, if not all of whom, are lobby groups of various sorts (pro-business, or pro-environment) to have any say in it whatsoever?
Do you not see a problem with this?
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It comes from an authority on the subject, therefor their statements can not be wrong.
This is what we are up against. We’ve got to not only be correct, but somehow teach critical thinking at the same time.
40
Similarly, we had Galileo v The Church.
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“The ability to speak scientific truth to the powers that be is the Society’s
only raison d’etre, but even this has now been usurped: there is nowadays
a network of science advisers throughout the government machine – if the
government and the bureaucracy already have scientists’ advice on tap,
why should they need the Royal Society? The answer is, of course, that the
Royal Society is an independent voice – or at least it was until swamped with
taxpayers’ money, when it became something more akin to a government
department. Without its independence, there is no point in the Royal Society.”
It seems that the once-Royal Society can’t accept the truth about themselves, so would rather attack the messenger than remedy their own situation.
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Where Lindzen and his other Galileo Movement acolytes represented the church!
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No child, there is only one side that treats “climate science” as a religion, as your cult-like ranting ably illustrate.
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You seem to have a comprehension failure there sillyfilly.
Linzen v the Royal Society, was one argument. Whereas Galileo v the Roman Catholic Church was a separate, and preceding argument. Preceding by several centuries, actually.
So quick were you to point the bone at the Galileo Movement (who may have taken inspiration for their name from the great Galileo himself) that you have, once again, made yourself look like a totally incompetent idiot.
I may pay you to slow down a bit, and do a little research around what you want to say. Or is that concept too “sciency” for you?
80
There has been no global warming for 18 years… but global warming is occurring!
70
Plain dopey. Question being:why are most climate/political entities so clueless?
251
Glen, there are 3 or 4 really clueless ones that drop into Jo’s place occasionally.
Why, and what they hope to achieve, I can’t say, because they always end up going backwards, and showing new visitors just how moronically dim-witted and ignorant the average warmist troll is.
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Oh dear daft-donkey,
Amongst your diatribe you list a load of different ideas and facts that sceptics often discuss e.g. the very high levels of Antarctic sea ice and the recent acknowledged lack of warming.
Perhaps you have listed them because they help to shatter your faith. Truth hurts, doesn’t it?
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The very high levels of Antarctic sea ice are miniscule in relation to Antarctic ice mass loss.
Even though combined land and ocean surface temperatures have not warmed since 1997 or whatever, they certainly haven’t cooled and as any fool should know that is not the only indicator of global warming.
“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
030
““Truth hurts, doesn’t it?””
Which explains why you are braying in agony..
“icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses”
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While these articles are interesting in themselves. It’s still a “relatively” small number at a point in time. So these sorts of articles won’t convince anyone of anything.
It’s the trend that should tell us what ultimately is happening, over a long period of time. And even then it only tells us what the ice is doing, not why it’s doing it.
100
Something more recent from:
Science 30 November 2012:
Vol. 338 no. 6111 pp. 1183-1189
DOI: 10.1126/science.1228102
•Research Article
A Reconciled Estimate of Ice-Sheet Mass Balance
“We combined an ensemble of satellite altimetry, interferometry, and gravimetry data sets using common geographical regions, time intervals, and models of surface mass balance and glacial isostatic adjustment to estimate the mass balance of Earth’s polar ice sheets. We find that there is good agreement between different satellite methods—especially in Greenland and West Antarctica—and that combining satellite data sets leads to greater certainty. Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by –142 ± 49, +14 ± 43, –65 ± 26, and –20 ± 14 gigatonnes year−1, respectively. Since 1992, the polar ice sheets have contributed, on average, 0.59 ± 0.20 millimeter year−1 to the rate of global sea-level rise.”
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Gees, look at those piddling amounts and the errors.. roflmao !!
Then look at a longer history.
And note that they HAVE to include the small period that it was actually warming a small amount because of strong solar cycles..
so funny that you don’t see that. Your ignorance again on display for ALL to see.
As I have said so many times before.
There is NOTHING UNTOWARD happening to the climate.
EVERYTHING is well within NATURAL VARIABILITY !
122
“as any
fooldonkey should know that is not the only indicator of there not being any global warming”there, fixed for you.
100
The crackpot chook on the soporifics as ever. Can’t even read a temperature graph.
116
Apparently neither can you. !
Your vision is seriously flawed from that Locoweed you are addicted to.
81
Oh, you have the numbers then?
Let’s have them.
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SillyFilly says: “…no more rubbish that how good is CO2…”
+++++++
Ok if you think CO2 is bad (versus good) then please accept my challenge for you to live in a biosphere for 1 year growing your own food stuffs with no CO2 in the dome. You can take anyone else that thinks as you do with you into the dome.
210
In that case I challenge you to live in a chamber containing nothing but CO2 for about a few seconds. Harmless eh?
020
Fin, you wear your ignorance as a hoody !
140
Whereas you wear your ignorance as a head!
114
Poor child-mind.
Kindy jokes will not help you.
Just keep up the PANIC and RANT.. its what you do so well 🙂
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You don’t have a clue.
In pure oxygen you would be dead at STP in about 15 minutes.
In pure CO2 you might also die in the same time: I’m not sure but in BOTH cases you would die.
What is very certain however that if I had to choose to be either in an atmosphere of 8,000 ppm CO2 for a few hours or pure oxygen I would take the CO2 rich atmosphere.
Absence of CO2 in the bloodstream is certain death!!
KK
121
The human body is obviously adapted to NATURAL levels of CO2 in the range of about 200 – 4000 ppm, just like all other modern life, plant or animal...
Most plants struggle considerably below about 250 much preferring considerably higher levels, but some plants have managed to adapt to the very low level of the last 800,000 years by having an extra process (C4).
Humans alive to day are more used to breathing rather low CO2 level, but we can still re-adapt to higher levels that used to abound on the planet as our species developed, as submariners have shown.
141
If the CO2 levels in the bloodstream ever get to zero you are dead.
You cannot draw breath if there is NO CO2 in your blood because while low levels will trigger breathing there is an optimum.
Lower than that and the brain stops functioning and we die.
By contrast there is a great range of natural condition where CO2 can be very high and we still keep going.
Low CO2 is dangerous to humans.
Kk
70
Offhand, do you know the lowest atmospheric value humans can exist in ?
I mean, we are always burning carbohydrates to create CO2, so the situation you mention could never actually occur, could it ?
(Note, for the uneducated… carbohydrates are part of the carbon cycle of which CO2 is an absolutely essential part. The current atmospheric CO2 level is still rather low. We need to push that value up to 700ppm at least)
41
Hi Griss
Some 15 years ago I studied Neuropsychology at Uni and as mentioned previously there was an optimum level of CO2.
The main thing I took from this, and this is my own idea which stems from the fact that I am a metallurgist, is that
Cheyne-Stokes Breathing pattern, which many people go into at the end of life, is a way of reducing CO2 in the bloodstream
until there is insufficient to trigger the next breath.
CO2 MUST be present to trigger the next breath.
If all CO2 is removed from the blood then we die because the next breath cannot be initiated.
I have seen it happen.
The opposite of Cheyne-Stokes is in singing where a sudden intake of breath is followed by a longer period of release.
This causes a buildup of CO2 in the blood and makes us feel more relaxed.
This is why singing is good for us.
the breathing pattern produces higher CO2 levels and we relax.
KK
70
Additional to your query Griss, the lowest levels of CO2 may not be a problem as long as there is some CO2.
We would probably adjust our breathing rate and pattern to suit the level presented.
??
KK
30
Hi KK,
I can’t comment on this one way or another. However, while we’re alive our bodies are constantly creating CO2 which is the end result of “burning” carbohydrates to produce the energy every cell needs to do its job. So I’m wondering how zero CO2 in the blood could happen, even in a pure O2 atmosphere.
30
Hi Roy at 2.4
It may not actually be necessary to actually get to zero.
I used zero for emphasis and to substitute for a set point where if CO2 gets too low then the neural trigger for the “next breath” may not fire.
ie all we need for death is that “too low” point and as you say there may be some residual CO2 but just below functional level.
KK
10
Don’t forget that CO2 getting too low starts to cause symptoms that are very unpleasant. Every kid probably has tried hyperventilating and found out the hard way what happens.
20
USA Navy submarines aim for a CO2 level around 8000ppm.
20
I imagine that takes a while to re-acclimatise to. 😉
20
Bad example, FIN. I have done that. I have lived in a chamber for something in excess of a minute, breathing nothing but pure CO2. I entered that chamber from a larger environment that contained about 70% CO2, so it wasn’t much of a change, really, given that I had previously spent a couple of days at that concentration.
I am, of course, referring to life on a nuclear submarine, and the drills you go through in the unlikely event that you will need to abandon the boat.
The best bit was being ejected from the boat in a huge bubble of CO2, that carries you up to the surface. They ought to have them a theme parks – tremendous fun.
But I suppose that was not what you wanted to hear, was it? Bummer.
70
“in a huge bubble of CO2”
A champagne event, so to speak 🙂
50
Hi RW
I think exhaled breath under STP is about 40,000 ppm CO2 and when we take in we bring in CO2 at about 400 ppm from normal air.
Exhaled CO2 is therefore only 4 or 5% of the atmosphere.
Roy Hogue, in a previous post, pointed out that pure oxygen at high altitudes is not dangerous although I believe it would be very dangerous at ground level.
The reverse might apply in a sub where pressures are way above normal so that large amounts of CO2 would not be a problem.
I am just looking at the concentrations of CO2 you quote.
They seem really high??
KK.
ps I don’t think I envy you in doing the escape routine.
20
Good morning KK,
In a sub the pressure is not necessarily anything significantly above atmospheric. There is no reason to use increased pressure, although the old diesel electric boats would vent compressed air into the boat to test that all hatches and valves open to the sea were closed before submerging. I don’t know if this is still the practice in the nuclear boats of today but I doubt it.
The U. S. Navy permits up to 8,000 PPM of CO2 in submerged boats as a regular practice and apparently no one ever notices it. I suspect that at a higher concentration the CO2 scrubbers can more easily remove the stuff. In any case, at normal atmospheric pressure 8,000 PPM appears to be quite harmless.
20
Hi Roy
The context of RWs outline was that they were doing escape drill which would either need additional pressure to allow acclimatisation before going out of the escape hatch or a suitable gas mix, which may have been what he was talking about.
To summarise both you and RW it seems that :
1. You cant get too much oxygen at low pressure/ high alt.
2. You cant get too much CO2 at very high pressures.
Not sure what this means but human respiration is extraordinarily complex.
KK
10
The underwater escape always requires pressure inside the escape chamber to equal sea pressure outside or you can’t open the exterior door. So the pressure you’re subjected to is always depth dependent.
In pure CO2 you are essentially holding your breath so you can’t stay in it very long. You take a breath before you enter the chamber and the as you rise you exhale because the gas in your lungs will expand to the point of doing fatal damage if you don’t. As the contents of your lungs expand and you exhale it’s continually reducing the partial pressure of the CO2 so you can escape the urge to take a breath (or should?). My guess for why CO2 is used is to eliminate the possibility of the bends as you go up rapidly to the surface where you can breathe again.
Perhaps Rereke can add detail or correct me if I’m wrong.
20
QUOTE: “In that case I challenge you to live in a chamber containing nothing but CO2 for about a few seconds. Harmless eh?”
Only if FIN sticks it’s head in a bucket containing nothing but H2O for a few seconds for about a few seconds, Hydrogen is harmless, eh?
50
Yep!
Water and the hydrologic cycle is essential.
But good luck trying to breathe it !
10
We breath water vapour all the time, same as we do CO2. (except maybe in the driest deserts.)
I don’t know the values, but I’m pretty sure we breathe out more water vapour than we breathe in, I doubt in the same ratio as in to out of CO2, though..
Remember, it takes CO2, H2O and energy to make carbohydrates, and when the reaction is reversed, that’s what we mainly get back.
10
Maybe I mix in the wrong circles. I am a scientist and a sceptic.
I know another 30+ scientists, none of whom believe in CAGW. We obviously believe in curbing pollution harmful to the environment, but do not believe for one moment that CO2 is an evil gas.
While I would dearly love to see most ‘climate scientists’ join the ranks of the long term unemployed, this seems unlikely to happen with the ecoloon establishment so well entrenched in so many western governments.
All I ask is for someone to show me just one instance, outside of normal climate cycles, that demonstrates global warming in today’s world.
The problem for alarmists is examples only exist in obviously manipulated data and dodgy computer models, where the required results are built into the programs.
411
Well said. I too am a scientist and a skeptic so make that 31+. Judging by the knowledge imparted in this blog most if not all the skeptical bloggers are scientists or have a great deal of technical expertise.
R-COO- K+
170
I understand that the UK Met Office is unable to demonstrate that recent past and contemporaneous climatic variation lie outside the range of natural variation in a manner that could be construed as being statistically significant.
As a scientist and skeptic, I find myself recurrently drawn to the idea of ‘Bernie the bolt‘.
30
Whereas we have all these fools indicating a natural cause without any scientific evidence. Your not a true sceptic merely a scientific lemming. Let see anybody who’s a fan of the nature argument explain this naturally.
Note the trend line for the “hiatus”: that, according to the scientific idiot brigade, is a harbinger of the end of warming.
013
So sillyfilly. You think you know what drives the climate? Explain these bumps.
141
Perhaps you might look at this for something more recent. Good to examine geological timescales, but what how about the current influences, which you conveniently ignore!
016
Actually they in rough agreement, showing the medieval warming, the little ice age but Jo’s graph puts it all in context and scale and shows clearly that unless there were neolithic motor cars, there are much bigger forces at work than CO2. CO2 driven temperature change is busted.
160
” but what how about the current influences”
You mean urban heating effects, land use changes, data manipulations etc …. causing +ve trends in the land based data?
or do you mean changes in ocean currents etc… causing small step changes in atmospheric temperature?
or do you mean the very sleepy sun etc.. starting to cause a -ve temperature trend, hopefully not too steep or long.?
60
Also geological time scales? Really? Very silly, so in a way appropriate. A tiny 9,000 years? Hardly geological, more very recent human history from about time mankind discovered agriculture and the wheel.
Aborigines have been in Australia for 50,000 years. The end of the last ice age was 22,000 years ago It has been getting warmer since the time when glaciers covered most of Europe and the melting ice increased sea levels by 100 metres, flooding the Black Sea around 5,000 years ago, an event remembered in the Bible. Must have been be those paleolithic scooters responsible or someone burnt the toast, which had just been discovered too. Vegemite however had not been discovered.
50
“without any scientific evidence”
You are right, there is NO scientific evidence that the current stability in the climate is anything but NATURAL.
130
DOH, read up on El Nino.
Its NATURAL release causes a NATURAL step up in temperatures under strong NATURAL solar cycles.
Again, after that El Nino step finished by 2001.. THERE HAS BEEN NO WARMING.
Pity we aren’t likely to get too many more.. maybe one, perhaps, might be happening at the moment.
Sliding back to a mini ice age is not going to help the world’s population one little bit.
100
Go to Carter paper on ENSO, he had to detrend the data to make ENSO fit his hypothesis. Hypothesis failed. You take the cake for both dumb and dumber!
016
Your problem is that your mind is 9/10 asleep, and closed to the NATURAL reality around you.
There is NOTHING untoward happening with the climate, the tiny changes that may actually be occuring are all well within the range of NATURAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY.
There is no need to INVENT some other cause.
The temperature is actually still somewhat on the LOW side compared to periods like the MWP and RWP, and particularly the Holocene OPTIMUM .
Extreme event are happening around their usual occurrence, or maybe slightly less often than “normal”. Droughts are probably less severe than they have been during other periods over the last few hundred years.
Hurricanes in America have decrease so much that they had to invent a new category to make “superstorm” Sandy sound like it was something unusual.
All in all, the current climate is actually pretty stable and benign compared to what history tells us it can be.
The coming cooling phase may change all that, though.
As well as that, your posts indicate that you are probably not old enough to have ever actually experienced any so-called global warming in your semi-aware lifetime, its all just a story to you.
You were obviously just a small child in 1997/8 when the only actual tiny amount of so-called global warming from that El Nino, actually took place.
80
That is a good point, Griss. Before anybody in general, and Sillyfilly in particular, starts jumping up and down, pointing to change, and apportioning anthropogenic blame, they first need to show why the Null Hypothesis, i.e. that is is just natural variation, can be totally discounted.
90
You don’t understand de-trending, do you..
Oh well !! 🙁
Start junior high again.
50
“but the JGR critique of MDC was not only heavy on empty rhetoric, but also contained incorrect claims about the content of the paper and focused on peripheral issues rather than on the paper’s substantive scientific conclusions”
“a leading professional journal, JGR, failed to provide those whose research they had originally seen fit to publish with a right of reply after other scientists with an AGW conviction agenda specifically set out to discredit the research.” (That was the Tamino idiot, iirc, the ever ignorant Grant Foster)
enuff said !!
No real rebuttal ever happened just another inaccurate, misdirecting, alarmist rant..
note that..
“the latest research literature now reflects what has all along been the reality – which is that once natural climatic variation is properly taken into account, it is difficult to discern any measurable human influence on global temperature whatsoever; also, that the ENSO oscillation is one of the most important natural influences that needs to be taken into account”
50
It’s called the null hypothesis.
If you want to prove that climate related events are induced anthropogenically you have to produce evidence sufficient to show that is case. Otherwise the null hypothesis (it’s natural) remains intact.
Hint: 18 years of no warming does not constitute sufficient evidence.
30
32+
20
And just for the record.
1. Climate has changed always changed, its been remarkably stable over the last century.
2. The slight warming from the series of high solar peaks of the second half of last century has come to an end, cooling is the most probable scenario over the next few decades.
3. Humans do cause local temperature effects, such as UHI, land use changes etc. These often are reflected in the surface data but because the satellite data is much more spatially consistent, local effects are not a major contributor.
4. Antarctic sea ice and mass is at all time high, Arctic sea ice is rebounding because of the drop in solar activity after a series of strong cycles.
5. CO2 is highly beneficial to all life on Earth, and is the major building block of all plant life. It has been very low for many hundreds of thousands of years, but THANKS to human activity, is finally climbing from these perilously low base-line subsistence levels. CO2 has effectively ZERO warming effect on global temperatures.
These are the truths that so desperately hurt the CAGNW meme, and why they are becoming so desperate to get their agenda in place before too many people wake up to these facts.
180
1. Temperatures rises, GHG rises and the evidence of the instrumental and reconstructed data disagree.
2. PMOD puts that to bed!.
3. Satellites show warming
4. Study to dispute as above
5, 800,000 years at 280PPM or below and now 400ppm over the last century. CO2 may be goods for some plants Yippee Yahoo something apparently close to correct.
The fantasies of the anti AGW brigade.
016
1. Very tiny temperature rises before 1998.. then nothing.
2. Thanks for the graph, you prove my point that the slight warming was caused by the peaks before 2001, since then, solar activity has fallen markedly, and it is already starting to cool a bit. Now go hunt for a graph of solar magnetic activity.. maybe, perhaps, you might just learn something. 😉
3. Again the stupidity and mis-direction of HAVING to go back to before the 1998 El Nino to show any warming.
None since 2001, as you well know… but keep up the propaganda, its funny.
Not realising, because of basic ignorance, that things have changed since then, even though your own graph in 2 shows that to be the case.
4. Study shows basically nothing is happening….. but go ahead and think it shows something if you want to.
5. The planets biosphere has expanded by a significant percentage after struggling on the equivalent of stale bread for a long, long time, As far as plants are concerned, they can start breathing slightly more freely again. The biosphere thanks us. 🙂
And they will be much happier once we push the atmospheric CO2 up well passed 700ppm. 🙂
100
John Christy shot down the AR4 models by showing that they were wildly inaccuarate, showing increases of 0.0-0.2C from surface temperature satellite and weather balloon observations versus the hysterical 0.4-1.2C predicted in the IPCC AR4 models.
Observations ( hard data ) versus fairy land….
110
CO2 may be good for some plants? Consistently silly.
Plants are made from CO2 and H2O and precious little else. Without CO2, you have no plants, no life on earth? In case you are wondering, it is why wood, peat, coal, oil, gas are hydrocarbons unless you believe the Carbon which is 80% of the dry mass of a tree came from the soil? Then there would be a very big hole around a 50 ton tree.
In fact at under 200ppm, most plant life on earth would die and so most other living things.
50
If you doubt this, look up the 400 year old Van Helmont experiment. He did not know of the invisible gas CO2 so he concluded trees were made entirely from water.
40
So its not just the BBC that acts as the broadcast propaganda wing. The latest from the BBC is a report by Roger Harrabin which went more or less like this (with a sneering tone):
“First THEY (sceptics) said temperatures were not rising, then THEY said it was not caused by man, but now THEY agree more or less with the IPCC”. This appears to be based on a recent dinner during the visit of Anthony Watts to the UK, which included Nic Lewis (sort of sceptical climate modeller) and a few “mainstream” climate scientists.
Leaving aside the misrepresentation of the views of sceptics the most shocking thing is the demonisation by the BBC. Can you think of any other group of people that could be spoken about like that without an uproar from the liberal left?
180
From Watts re: BEST reconstruction:
“I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. The method isn’t the madness that we’ve seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU. That lack of strings attached to funding, plus the broad mix of people involved especially those who have previous experience in handling large data sets gives me greater confidence in the result being closer to a bona fide ground truth than anything we’ve seen yet.”
That didn’t last long, because it proved all his nonsense about station biases including UHI inept.
The urban heat island effect is locally large and real, but does not contribute significantly to the average land temperature rise. That’s because the urban regions of Earth amount to less than 1% of the land area” and
“Stations ranked as “poor” in a survey by Anthony Watts and his team of the most important temperature recording stations in the U.S., (known as the USHCN — the US Historical Climatology Network), showed the same pattern of global warming as stations ranked “OK.” Absolute temperatures of poor stations may be higher and less accurate, but the overall global warming trend is the same, and the Berkeley Earth analysis concludes that there is not any undue bias from including poor stations in the survey.”
013
“Not any undue bias”?
In the last 25 years there has been an accelerating reduction in thermometer counts globally with the pace of deletion rising rapidly in recent years. Over 6000 stations were active in the mid-1990s. Just over 1000 are in use today.
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-strange-death-of-the-themometers
Unbias that.
60
Unlike silly filly I picked the winner…..?UNFORTUNATELY the ABC and its acolytes will not access opinions that are rational and challenge this nonsense. For crying out loud!
150
The winner of the cup?
In the old days, when a horse broke down it was sad. If the favourite broke down, it was suspect.
If a horse died it was tragic. If the favourite died he was nobbled.
100
A story from the ABC once investigated questions surrounding Phar Lap’s death and discovered during the autopsy a splinter of wood was found in the horses rectum, this led to the suspicion of Arsenic and Tommy Woodcock as cause of death.
20
Climate science as a singular discipline is a relatively recent phenomenon.
It now demonstrates a major cultural cringe when it ignores or dismisses counter hypotheses from renown exponents in more fundamental sciences of geology, physics and mathematics. Its continued pushing of man-made computer modelling outcomes that have been discredited by empirical climate data of global dimensions over the last 15 years is simply outlandish.
That it is so reliant on recent soft social technology pushed by the likes of Lewindowsky and Cook for credibility says much in its disfavour!
The public is sick of alarmism cloaked falsely in science costumes.
510
Well put.
111
On the TrenberthtThread on The Conversation, where Trenberth again claims to have found “the missing heat” his acolytes display what it means to be a “true believer”. Just listen to this nonsense:
Apparently Trenberth can and has measured something which cannot be measured using “robotic submersible thermocouples” that the scientific community know nothing about! The term “abyssal ocean depths” refers to depths beyond that of Argo buoys.
120
Just how does this heat, which you cannot see or measure, get down to the ocean depths and then/hide stay there?
Answer: by a mixture of pixie dust, physics defying currents and a fertile imagination.
120
Peter Miller: Don’t you know that Scotty beams the heat down into the depths!
70
Seriously, just how turbid are the oceans? I suspect that the answer might be surprisingly not very.
A farm dam in summer becomes hot on the surface, but below about a metre of depth is colder. The same applies in a river which has little flow and waterholes of some depth, i.e. where the speed of the flow is slow.
In the atmosphere layers of air frequently, maybe always do not mix much. I am sure that I have at times seen four different layers of cloud moving in different directions. Two is common.
20
“Just how does this heat, which you cannot see or measure, get down to the ocean depths and then/hide stay there?”
=================================================
And making the wag that it did, how does some tiny fraction of a degree warmer water escape the deep ocean and, defying basic entropy, reconstitute itself and cause catastrophic global warming?
10
Assuming he’s measured the head in the deep abyss.
What was the temperature before he measured it?
50
Clumsy fingers, Trenberth measured heat, not his head…doh!
30
I don’t know how for a moment anybody accepts that the atmosphere is warming the ocean.
The ocean constantly loses heat to the atmosphere.
The sun warms the oceans. The oceans govern the World’s climate.
50
You mean the dog does wag the tail? (AMO to NHT detrended)
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/mean12.png
00
I noted today one of the first groups to lend their support to the latest IPCC report was Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA).This group supposedly reports on behalf of the medical profession when it comes to environmental matters and particularly climate change. In Australia it was set up by Dr David Shearman a University Professor, GP, failed Greens candidate, activist and author of some rather interesting and in my mind disturbing eco political publications (world government can only save us and leadership is required to lead us to survival sort of eco fascist stuff).Amazingly he is also an IPCC reviewer? At least that is what I read in his bio. This makes me wonder who else is involved with the IPCC. Are they all far left nut cases? Has anyone made a list and biographical listing of IPCC authors and reviewers for each country? Time it was done because I’m starting to really wonder who and what is driving this mad movement.
310
“Are they all far left nut cases?”
At least 97% of them….. intersecting with rabid green anti-environmentalists and so-called entrepreneurs/socialist bureaucrats waiting for the next ‘alternative’ energy tax-payer funded subsidy.
100
If you go to Donna Lamframbois’ site, Nofrakkingconsensus, http://nofrakkingconsensus.com and peruse her archives you will find a lot of information on authors, reviewers, activists and hangers on at the IPCC. Suggest you buy her books, too, if you have not done so already.
10
The ABC so called “report” is one more tiresome example of words being use as weapons rather than tools of thought and communication. It is all based upon the notion that reality cannot be known but that something called “social knowledge” can be. It follows that social knowledge cannot have any known connection to reality. Hence there is no need to verify fact or demonstrate validity. All one needs to do is assert any random series of words and it magically becomes “social knowledge”. What makes it much worse is they have the heavy hand and gun of government forcing everyone else to pay for their psychotic nonsense.
I suggest there is a kernel of good news in the report. When a psychotic is faced with dealing with the real world, he retreats more deeply into his psychosis and becomes even more dissociated from reality. That produces an ever increasing incapacity to deal with things as they are. It ultimately ends in their being totally non-functional. The demented left is rapidly approaching that point. The panic arising from their inability to function in reality is crippling what little mind they have left. Hence the linguistic, grammatical, and scientific gibberish they present as news. Their next step is destruction of themselves and everything their continued existence depends upon.
As always, our challenge is avoid being victims of collateral damage while they are in the process of destroying themselves.
260
Lionell, I’ll save you some ink.
They studied the Marxist texts, but they rejected the Marxist history.
Your good news? Very true. 97% is now 98%. That’s psychotic.
Collateral damage? Worse than that. As a small business capitalist I am viewed as the primary enemy. And the worst part of that is not only that the half of Australia’s farmers who have been forced out of business don’t understand this, but their political reps and lobby don’t either.
100
I suggest they are not out to get you in particular. It is what you represent that they wish to destroy.
You are part of that everything their continued existence depends upon. You represent someone who has accepted the responsibility for being fully human and have embraced it with vigor. You are productive and trade value for value without the initiation of force. They, having abandoned the effort to be human, resent such as being a requirement of continued human existence. Your example shames them. They hate themselves because of that. Being unwilling to accept self hate, they project their self hate outward and work to destroy you and others like you.
In the core of their being, they know their ultimate target is themselves. They have silently concluded that if they are not worthy of living, no one else can be permitted to live either. The irony of it all is that they need the cooperation of the likes of you to make their dark wish come to pass. Yet, all they need to do to get their wish granted for themselves is do nothing and for others to do nothing for them. If we stop feeding them, they will soon go away.
If you don’t have it, they can’t steal it.
If you don’t earn it, they can’t tax it.
If you are not there, they can’t find you.
They are thereby left with nothing to take, nothing to tax, nor anyone to be a human sacrifice to that bottomless empty pit that is their inner being.
90
Lionell, it is what they think I represent. Like I said, all theory, no reality.
50
Now I’ll waste some ink.
I (at 70) grew up in a society in which people set a very high value on personal freedom. By the 1980s it seemed to me that a great many people were not so much concerned that “I” should be free as that nobody should be any more free than “I” am. Their main concern is to stop other people from getting ahead. Jealousy, envy, and a fair bit of sloth rule.
For this I blame our subsidised education system. Which preaches, but doesn’t teach, “free markets”.
70
Well yes, I guess ask the Romanov family in Russia what it was like to succumb to the hard left when it had its head….
40
What can you say when confronted with such arrant nonsense? The ABC makes no sense at all. The IPCC pronouncements are in complete contradiction to the real world where it is agreed by all, there is no warming. Hiatus? Fact checking is almost absurd. There is no rapid catastrophic warming. In fact no warming at all and we are not hearing an explanation for abject failure of the primary thesis, just a plea for billions in cash?
So what to do? Yes, the Australian ABC is a cosseted group of 1,000 overpaid extreme left journalists who do not care about facts and push the communist line of the Greens. They are supported by a few faux scientific leaders who had boring jobs until Global Warming and are more than happy to go along with more funding. Prostitution is an underused word in scope. The Greens themselves want the destruction of the evil capitalist West, even if the result is domination by the evil Capitalist East.
However there is light at the end of the tunnel. The IPCC would not come out with such arrant gibberish if warming was still credible. Their only hope is to appeal to all those commercial forces aligned to global warming and to plead for a lousy 0.06% of the world’s wealth, a mere $50Bn a year. Science? It is irrelevant. Sadly, it always was.
240
Fact Checking the ABC
Reading in the last post by Jo one comment stood out
Tony from Oz highlights how little the ABC do check.
Yet no one corrects it
I actually listened to the Lateline Video & didn’t pick it up
Thank goodness for people like Tony and others here.
FACTS are not important with CAGW propaganda it seems
131
The ABC has become quite unpleasant to watch because of the increasingly extreme left bias and I have virtually stopped watching it after over 40 years of viewing.
160
Today the word “scientist” is just a suffix that anyone can use to make their work sound more important than it is:
Social scientist, political scientist, economic scientist, cookery scientist.
And “climate scientist” is just as meaningless. We could easily introduce some more:
Media scientist (a journalist)
Political scientist (a politician)
Sanitation scientist (a plumber)
So, when the media scientists in the ABC report on the political scientists in the IPCC who quote the climate scientists who say that the sanitation scientists will be flooded … it’s all science … it’s just totally meaningless as any kind of standard.
Sceptics on the other hand have this concept of “sceptic science” which is the scientific method. It means something to us, it’s a standard we want to be upheld.
But when media scientists and public-sector-university-admin scientists just fling the word around labeling anyone they like the look of as “scientists”, we have to admit that science doesn’t mean anything in public life any longer.
241
Oops . That was just a probabilistic, random thumbs down of no statistical significance whatsoever ( to dignify a clumsy mistake in Sciency terms).
80
I agree. If you look at the definition of science, it simply means “knowledge”. A scientist is therefore a person with knowledge in some particular area. These definitions do not imply any particular depth of knowledge, and they should not, because we cannot know how much we do not know.
In the case of Climate Science, the knowledge pertains to the techniques used in creating simulations of observed climatic patterns. In this regard, they are a useful research tool.
The real issue is that the simulation techniques have been co-opted by those who wish to create predictive models (plural) of possible future climatic patterns.
The results of the predictive models (which are not directly rooted in any observational data) are then used to draw a range of political conclusions, from which the “most appropriate” can be selected.
Perceptive readers will note that I draw a distinction between “simulations” as being based on observations, and “models” that are reflections of desires.
111
I like the way you have put this. Such simulations are indeed useful tools, however in and of themselves they are not “science”, they are as you say, a “tool” of science.
This is perhaps the biggest misconception among warmists, who believe that the modelling itself is science.
60
My personal definition Rereke is that science is the process of observation and analysis ie you see something happening and try to figure it out.
The only qualification required is an open and enquiring mind.
60
What can be done about that monster abc? Abolish it! 1bln $ yearly budget of public money. Who is responsible for this charade and who can stop these people? Why nothing is done about it? I want to take them to court for money embezzlement and Goebells like propaganda where lies repeated 100 times become the truth.
I want to get them for child abuse when my son is crying with fear asking if our house located on the hill is going to be flooded.
Surely there is enough of good will and people that can organise a class action against their abc.
And Sillyfilly? your name is enough for me.
100
It’s not just the ABC’s more obvious political slant, but there’s more subtle programming choices as well. The choice of topics to feature in news bulletins. The discreet insertion of Climate Change into programmes like Richard Glover’s Drive. The choice of interviewees. An interview with a poet on a poetry topic strangely changed to a CAGW discussion. By a weird coincidence he was a warmist. Wooda thunk?
140
Nice graphic, Jo. And thanks too. I always wondered where smog comes from. Now I know it comes out of my TV set — almost everything I see could be that black cloud boiling out of the screen.
50
So if 62 scientists reviewed the report and 97% of them agree, that’s 60.14 scientists who agree. I wonder who that 14 hundredths of a scientist is and how he manages to agree (or disagree) with anything. Hmmm! A new mystery to solve.
60
And more seriously — am I the only one who wonders why they stick with exactly 97%? Is it credible that over the years exactly 97% would continue to agree? Or would it be more credible that some would change position with time so that the agreement would be 96% or 98% or a few more or less reviewers would change the percentage in agreement? The constant use of the same number is suspicious all by itself.
For that matter, what’s of any use in using the percent who agree in the first place.
I have always doubted those who spout numbers to support their position rather than evidence or sound logical argument.
It looks like a bogus stat to me and that once they decided on 97% they’re simply stuck with it and have to keep it up no matter what. Some science, that. 🙁
70
The three percent is required so that they can point fingers and squark “Denier!!!”.
I would love to see them try and show that only three percent of scientists are skeptical of CAGW theory.
There is another thing. The warmists always get hot under the collar when the term “CAGW” is used, but of course if the consequences of AGW are not catastrophic, what then are they on about?
60
97% to 98% reminds me of my native Poland under communism. Anything less of 99% was a crushing defeat.
So don,t be surprised if they push this to 99%.
And the reason why they could not claim 100% was because of the deranged and sick in a head. Any parables with today’s situation?
30
Roy the 97% refers to the number of people that believe that the climate changes. But they want you to believe that it refers to the number of people that believe in dangerous man made warming.We all accept that the climate changes so the true figure should be 100% believe the climate changes but they cant use that percentage to refer to man made disaster as people would know it cant be right with all the sceptics out there , so 97% is as high as they dare go
30
DouptingDave and everyone,
My real problem with 97% is that it’s a fallacious appeal to authority rather than evidence supporting their position. Percent has it’s place but it’s not a supporting argument for a position claimed to be supported by science. It ain’t evidence. 🙂
10
John Coleman lets rip on WUWT !!
This is well worth the read, and I hope Jo can make it into a new thread. !
71
Damn you Griss I was looking to link this 🙂
Of course the left and any other CAGW proponents are slinging mud mostly regarding his credentials, I think it’s more fear of what impact a respected high profile US citizen can have in the public eye.
I mean if he’s just a silly old man why go to such lengths? I hope they continue with the attention grabbing noise, hehe….
70
Yep, the more the alarmista tragics wail and bleat and generally carry on like a pack of braying donkeys……
…. the more people like John Coleman will be heard. 🙂
70
It is the same thing with the elections we are having today. We have been inundated for months with commercials from various supporters of the Democratic party that are nothing more than character slurs and attacks on their opposition. Nowhere do we see or hear of the Democrats accomplishments, only attacks on the other candidates.
For those of us capable of critical reasoning we can only reach the conclusion that a) the Democrats have no accomplishments to speak of, and b) knowing “a” they are terrified of losing to the opposing candidates and have nothing but character attacks with which to defend themselves.
Their commercials did more to make me vote for the other candidates than they will ever realize. They did not instill fear or what those candidates might do if elected, they instilled loathing of the party responsible for those commercials.
No wonder liberals are so anti-gun, they realize if we give them one they’ll shoot themselves in the foot with it.
It is no different with the CAGW or whatever it’s called now proponents. They need us so they have a villain to rail against in order to feel better about themselves. I think what really upsets them the most is they realize that, in general, we aren’t afraid of them. Disgusted by them yes, afraid no. They on the other hand seem to be afraid of just about anything and everything.
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As I’ve said elsewhere, one does not “do” science. One does something scientifically.
Anyone can call themselves a scientist, but if they do not adhere to the principles of the scientific method they are not a scientist. Degrees, location, equipment, how many papers they have written, and so on mean nothing. Either they do their work scientifically or they do not. Those who do are scientists regardless of how many letters or acronyms come after their name.
This group of “scientists” being referred to, i.e. the climate “scientists”, have not been true to the scientific method and therefore I will continue to enclose the word scientists in quotes when referring to them as they are not doing things scientifically. Therefore they can call themselves whatever they want but they can’t expect me to consider them to be scientists until they begin acting like scientists.
Quite simply if observations do not support the hypothesis, change the hypothesis. Until they can do that they aren’t worth listening to.
40
OT, but very cool !! 🙂
Gravity rules !!
30
Whoops try that again. (Sorry, pasted something other than the link !)
Gravity rules.. a cool demonstration.
30
Hmm.. where does that little red line (representing the Arctic Ice area) think its going ?
50
Please add Skrill to your Tipjar
40
abc is always claiming the world’s top scientists say CAGW is alarming. so much to laugh at in the following piece, yet this is a taxpayer-funded organisaton, so it isn’t funny at all:
2 Nov: ABC: IPCC report warns greenhouse gas levels at highest point in 800,000 years, identifies fossil fuels as cause of recent increases
By environment and science reporter Jake Sturmer
***The world’s top scientists have given their clearest warning yet of the severe and irreversible impacts of climate change…
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said the comprehensive report brings together “all the pieces of the puzzle” in climate research and predictions”…
Last month Prime Minister Tony Abbott said coal is “good for humanity” and will be the “world’s main energy source for decades to come” as he opened a new mine in central Queensland.
IPCC vice-chair Jean-Pascale van Ypersele said while Mr Abbott was correct to point out the world could not end its reliance on fossil fuels for energy immediately, change was necessary.
“The continued usage of fossil fuel could damage not only the environment but more substantially even the habitability of the planet and could erode the possibility to keep this planet habitable,” he said…
One of the authors, Professor Jim Skea, said the document would be invaluable in future climate change negotiations.
***”The statements are much more powerful because they’re put together,” he said.
“The inferences that you can draw are just very obvious for policymakers now and I think that’s what the achievement is.”…
Christina Figueres, who will lead the climate discussions in Paris, said it was encouraging that governments, cities, investors, companies and individuals had started to act in response to the IPCC’s findings…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-02/ipcc-say-greenhouse-levels-highest-point-in-thousands-of-years/5861314
Figueres is a hoot.
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It is very obvious that this latest piece of toilet paper (although its probably printed on expensive high gloss straight from the tree) ..
…..is designed purely and simply as a propaganda last fart before the cooling sets in and the trough starts to dry up.
Aimed at dragging as much out of the tax-payer purse into the green/UN/socialist coffers as possible.
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Could someone please clarify for me what this statement is based on. My understanding of the survey referenced is that of those who chose to respond to the survey, most have hard science degrees. That may or may not equate to most readers.
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Yes, fair point, it would be more accurate to say that it depends on those who chose to respond. (I’ll fix and add a link).
See this post for the survey.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/02/almost-everything-the-media-tells-you-about-skeptics-is-wrong-theyre-mostly-engineers-and-hard-scientists-they-like-physics-too/
See also here where people were asked to list qualifications:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/monckton-honey-i-shrunk-the-consensus/
As far as I know there has not been a survey done that would adequately capture the number of readers who did not have degrees, or had arts/soft science degrees and chose not participate in the survey.
50
To support my case, I’ve added a note about the Dan Kahan study which was not self selecting. People who are more scientifically literate were more likely to be skeptical.
I could add another note about the UK survey that showed that skepticism is highest in the well educated wealthist classes and lowest in unskilled workers.
Yet again, that non-self-selecting survey shows that the best educated / most intelligent groups can see through the weak reasoning and propaganda.
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Interesting article. A couple of points.
When one goes to a DVD store, there is often a section for the BBC/ABC separated from the rest. This presents an interesting analogy to market forces versus government.
Very often, the BBC/ABC section has quite good stuff, quality documentaries, interesting (but rather conservative) social dramas, historical dramas, and so on. It tends to have a relatively low rate of ‘poor quality’ stuff, that you might get in the ‘market forces’ section, so to speak. (Leaving for now what ranks as ‘poor quality’, which is another complicated argument).
The ‘market forces’ section has more variety, that is its’ nature. But there are several curiosities. In actuality, the government section relies on taxes, whilst the market section doesn’t. Further to this, the government section’s quality partly derives from the health of the market section itself. (Can you imagine the government section in a place with a poor market, like North Korea.?). The market section is kept in check by ruthless competition, combined with gentle regulation and oversight (eg classification standards, licencing etc). For the market section to function well, low levels of corruption from the regulators has to be present, as well as freedom to innovate. It is an interesting dance.
However, there is another curiosity. There is a tendency, in history, for what is represented by the ‘government’ section to get out of control, and take over or nullify the market section. Because of its’ privilege in being payed by the taxpayer, it can attract psychopaths, ideological fanatics and free-riders, who like to think they are too good to operate within the market. These types tend to corrupt it and turn it into something else.
The USA doesn’t have a ‘government’-sponsored DVD section, so to speak (as far as I know). There is some rationale to this, which is partly derived from the deep distrust of big government from the founding fathers. Most of the good stuff within the government section can be absorbed by market forces. However, there is also at least some benefit to having a government section, it tends to have high quality documentaries and such like, which can be hard to wade through within a market. In the USA, organisations like National Geographic etc, receive funds from government sources the same way the ABC/BBC might.
You could do away with the ABC, however, there would still be some need for research societies (like National Geographic) and such like to produce documentaries, because the market tends to produce stuff that is so bad (think Erik Von Daniken, UFO conspiracies, and such like), that one can’t tell what is at least partly reliable from that which isn’t. People buy government documentaries because they know they are getting something which is at least, usually, of some quality and reliability. This argument extends to the reason for the existence of the ABC itself.
Another point:
I tend to think, from experience working within government departments, that people within it tend to be forced to conform to a similar pattern. There is more pressure to conform, than within the market. The corollary of this, is that ‘valid variation’ tends to be one of government department’s main problems. This is so acute that it is one of the main reasons we have a market in the first place (variation leads to innovation).
Data, theories, and so on, tend to be forced to follow a particular agenda or pattern, that is the nature of having low levels of corruption and high standards within government, but the downside is that valid ideas can be filtered out from a dominant paradigm, and moreover, people can become so attuned to following an ordered pattern, that they can no longer think outside the square, or independently, or depart from a central moral paradigm. The social environment actually affects the way the brain processes information.
The ABC has definitely lost its’ way. I don’t think however, that it is unfixable. What it needs is a complete overhaul, the same sort of way that democracy works. The ABC can’t be voted out, but it can perhaps be reformed from within government itself, since it is a government organisation. Not easy, and not sure exactly how one would do this, but there are people within government who recognise the problems at the ABC; not everyone within the public service is a mindless socialist following orders, nor ignorant of the benefits of free market forces.
But I also see the argument of abandoning the ABC altogether, the founding fathers in the US for example, might well agree with you. And I certainly think the ABC is a disgrace at present, it has lost all sense of balance and neutrality.
70
an abc two-fer:
3 Nov: ABC AM: Coal can’t be king by turn of the century: IPCC
CHRIS UHLMANN: The Prime Minister says coal is good for humanity, but the ***world’s top scientists warn that burning it for electricity will have to all but end by the turn of the century to avoid dangerous climate change…
JAKE STURMER: Now the ***world’s top scientists are back to do the talking, with the United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon launching the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4119984.htm
abc staff believe they attract a more intelligent audience, yet this is what they get for all those taxpayer dollars.
60
eleanor at it…and pollies must “manage climate change” – LOL:
3 Nov: ABC World Today: IPCC report warns time running out to manage climate change
ELEANOR HALL: The world’s top scientists have delivered their strongest warning yet about the dangers posed by carbon emissions…
RAJENDRA PACHAURI: The scientific community has now spoken…
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2014/s4120167.htm
30
To quote
“Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians.
The opportunities for taxation, for policies, for control, for crony capitalism are just immense,
you can see their eyes bulge,”
61
Just a subtle hint for the CSIRO guys looking at carbon capture and storage.
TREES !!!!!
61
Oh Ho Ho Ho!!!!!
Carbon Capture and Storage.
A bottomless pit with four Cat D9’s at the top just bulldozing money into the pit.
These fools actually think they can make it work, and talking heads at the ABC wouldn’t even bother checking to see if it is feasible, just blindly believing what they are told.
What a laugh.
Tony.
90
In all seriousness… it’s not a question of whether it is possible… clearly it is*, and has been done for decades. It is simply pointless and costs a lot of dosh. It’s a good way of cutting your fossil fuel resources in half (due to the energy required for the CCS).
Feasible? Technically, yes. Economically, not so much.
* http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/project/sleipner%C2%A0co2-injection
40
Bulldust:
In theory, and on a miniscule scale, the answer is ….. maybe.
From that site you linked to is this:
Just ONE typical large scale coal fired power plant emits between 17 million and 20 million tons of CO2 each year.
They will NEVER achieve capturing and sequestering that amount, and then consider that the ONE average coal fired plant has a projected life span of 50 years, so right there, you’re looking at 850 Million to 1 Billion tons of CO2 over the life of the plant, all that to be sequestered underground ….. FOREVER, never to seep back to the surface.
And that’s just ONE plant.
If that ONE plant has all its units in operation, then that’s capturing all the exhaust, separating all the CO2 by passing it through a solvent, boiling the solvent which gives off just the CO2, then freezing the CO2 to its triple point, making it a liquid, by compressing it at a fearful pressure, then pumping the CO2 at that high pressure and exceedingly low temperature to where it is to be injected into the ground, and during that process it converts back to a gas.
All of that at the same rate for each process of ….. ONE TON EVERY 1.3 SECONDS.
Good luck with that.
The process alone adds 50 to 70% to the original plant construction cost, and consumes 40 to 45% of the electrical power actually generated by the plant.
It will NEVER happen.
Tony.
120
Yes, as I’ve said before
The “capture” segment has been done for yonks with various filtration designs of varying efficiencies
But the transport/storage segment, on a 24/7/365 basis, for each and every power station …
20
Tony
Called “theoretically sound but practically imperfect” – which means you should have a good look at the theory as well.
Not IMO, one J.S. Mill did some thoughts.
10
Stop making sense!
I put it to someone last week…just manifold those dastardly exhaust gases from power stations into newly constructed greenhouses to grow trees. Harden them off and plant the things.
Hardly quantum science, one would think.
70
Better be careful what I say.
The Greenies and environmentalists are just as likely to start chopping down trees and burying them !!!
61
I can just imagine them de-nuding whole parts of the world just to bury the carbon dioxide in the trees !
Its not like they haven’t done that for wind turbines. !
51
btw, the Beeb has been at it for years:
BBC World Service Special: The Business of Climate Change
***The world’s top scientists have predicted that global temperatures will rise by up to six degrees over the next century, leading to more extreme weather conditions and a potential rise in global sea levels of up to half a metre.
Al Gore, who made the Oscar-winning climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, calls it a planetary emergency for all of us…
This programme was first broadcast in April 2007.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1512_debates/page13.shtml
50
three in one for Joe, but then Think Progress is a CAGW-activist website:
2 Nov: Think Progress: Joe Romm: ***World’s Scientists Warn: We Have ‘High Confidence’ In The ‘Irreversible Impacts’ Of Climate Inaction
***The world’s top scientists and governments have issued their bluntest plea yet to the world: Slash carbon pollution now (at a very low cost) or risk “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.” …
***The world’s top scientists and governments make clear for the umpteenth time that the cost of action is relatively trivial…
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/02/3587485/climate-panel-final-plea/
at least it isn’t funded by taxpayers across the political spectrum:
Think Progress is a “project” of the American Progress Action Fund (APAF), a “sister advocacy organization” of the John Podesta-led Center for American Progress (CAP) and CAP’s entities such as Campus Progress. It also draws freely on the resources of the George Soros-funded Media Matters website edited by David Brock.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=7121
20
another ABC survey so far 49% are dismissive of global warming http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/
11
“…..survey after survey shows that two-thirds of geoscientists and engineers are skeptics,…” What would they know? They probably don’t even believe the earth is only 6000 years old! They probably didn’t believe in Y2K or the Silent Spring DDT killing the cute birdies or the mad cow disease (25 years later the Red Cross still won’t take my rare blood so others may die). What sort of right thinking people could deny the 97% prof and consensus? Oh, that’s right, once the earth was flat, the earth wa sin the centre of the universe, the sun went round us, taxes and giving money to poor countries makes everybody better, Their ALPBC is neutral.
40
Hey, the Y2K thing was great.. it enabled the computer manufacturing companies to make very nice profits. ! 🙂
And mad cow disease, has obviously cross species…… just watch for donkey posts ! 🙂
50
Now be nice, comparing filly to donkeys is an insult to donkeys.
30
Thank you Jo, I may be wrong, but I am getting the impression that the great climate fraudsters are getting more shrill. In addition, not to put pressure on you, but I rely fully on this site for my Climate “Education”,but not to worry, I have always found sandgropers to be inspiring, except for the ones with sand in their one eye.
50
“that the great climate fraudsters are getting more shrill’
absolutely !!
It would be so funny if they didn’t have the backing of a far-left media and the support and co-operation of socialist totalitarian governments.
10
WELL DONE AMERICA !
Looks like the Republicans are back in charge of the Senate.
Now, have they got the guts to use it (unlike certain centre-left governments in Australia)
81
the Griss –
rightwingers make mistakes too! LOL.
5 Nov: UK Daily Mail: Jason Groves: Now Britain could face extra £750million bill for foreign aid because of our expanding economy
Cameron pledged to spend 0.7 per cent of annual income on foreign aid
Due to Britain’s economic growth, the bill gets bigger each month…
Britain missed David Cameron’s flagship foreign aid target last year despite handing out an extra £2.7billion, it emerged yesterday.
The figures, buried in an official report, suggest the country could have to fork out up to £750million extra by the end of next month in order to hit the target this year – although Government sources insisted the final increase would be lower…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2821213/Now-Britain-face-extra-750million-bill-foreign-aid-expanding-economy.html
including prostitution and drugs in the GDP figures explains some of the UK’s success! the following piece is written prior to the latest 750m pound bill for foreign aid:
24 Oct: UK Telegraph: Bruno Waterfield: Explainer: Why must Britain pay £1.7bn to the European Union and can we stop it happening?
Britain is a victim of its own success, new European Union accounting rules and the open, services based nature of the British economy with a big financial sector…
Membership contributions to the EU are calculated on the basis of gross national income, if that goes up because the economy is doing well then so do the dues owed to Brussels…
This effect is emphasised by new accounting rules that include the black economy and service sectors that has previously not been counted.
This has tended to give higher gross national income figures for countries with big financial service sectors like Britain and the Netherlands, the Dutch are having to pay a correction surcharge of £507 million …
***Where does the UK’s illegal market fit into this?
Prostitution and illegal drugs are contributing around £10 billion a year to the British economy, according to official data released last May…
More than half of that – £5.3 billion – is attributable to prostitution, according to estimated figures from the Office for National Statistics. Illegal drugs are worth £4.4bn…
Other illegal activities, such a the smuggling of alcohol and tobacco, are already included in GDP and make up some £300m.
Illegal drugs and prostitution are worth 0.7 per cent of British national wealth, which is roughly the same proportion as agriculture, gambling and accommodation services which includes hotels, bed and breakfasts and caravan parks.
They are worth more than advertising, which is 0.5pc of gdp, and double the contribution of real estate activities, at 0.35pc…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11184605/Explainer-Why-must-Britain-pay-1.7bn-to-the-European-Union-and-can-we-stop-it-happening.html
25 Oct: HITC: Paying for bad habits: sex work and drugs lift UK’s EU bill
UK is not alone, of course, but it’s good to remember all this when u hear that EU economies are recovering:
16 Oct: Newsweek: Italy Saved From Recession by Prostitution and Drugs
8 Oct: Fortune Mag: Spain gets a questionable GDP boost, thanks to drugs and prostitution
21 Oct: Irish Examiner: Ireland to include prostitution, drugs, and smuggled cigarettes in GDP
there’s even a formula!
9 Oct: Romanian Insider: Illegal activities contribute some EUR 400 mln to Romania’s GDP
INS makes estimates of these revenues based on formulas recommended by the European statistics institute Eurostat. For example, in estimating revenues from prostitution, INS uses the assumption that prostitutes work on average 43 weeks each year. The number of prostitutes is multiplied by the average price of the service and by the average number of clients in the given period.
INS even calculates the value of exports from prostitution, which is represented by the revenues generated by foreign tourists who come to Romania and use such services. But, according to INS, the export is insignificant.
20
I seriously don’t understand why the UK has put itself at the whim of the non-elected EU.
Stupid , stupid.. !!
50
And the rest of Europe!!
40
Apparently exposing the fact that, regarding the CAGW/whatever it’s called rubbish, ALL those scientists supposedly supporting it turn out to be only a small fraction working in a relatively new field where the scientific method appears to be unknown.
Judging by the way sillyfilly is here frothing at the mouth that would seem to be something those supporting this nonsense are extremely afraid of people finding out.
70
“rightwingers make mistakes too! “
Yes, his mistake was the promise… a left-wing feel good gesture.
60
Republicans almost totally clobbered 0bama and the Democrats in yesterday’s elections.
They picked up at least 8 seats in the Senate, at least nine in the House of Representatives. And at least three net gain in governorships, including true-blue states like Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois.
80
And on the majority of news sites, which are typically left leaning, the bulk of the comments would make you think the world is going to come to an end and the United States will turn into a fiery hell etc. etc.
It is astonishing how well our media has vilified the Republicans and elevated the Democrats to some form of sainthood among the masses. Guess I’m not dumbed down and distracted enough from watching reality tv shows and reading People magazine since I take ANYTHING our media says as bs until I see proof otherwise.
80
Might be some wailing and gnashing tomorrow. Some comments from north of the border
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/2014-midterm-op.html#comments
10
The word down the pub is….
Patrick Moore was interviewed for ABC radio today and the recording is linked from Moore’s Twitter account.
Also it was a Great presentation from him tonight in Brisbane.
20
Off topic but…
WE TOOK BACK THE SENATE. YEA, GO REPUBLICANS! 🙂 But now we have to govern and that’s the elusive part. Winning elections is easy compared with the job ahead. I hope they’re up to it.
20
So does this mean that Obummer is doomed? Does it mean an end to the plutocracy?
20
I’m also curious as to your system, where the opposition can have a majority in both houses. Why do they then not govern?
In Australia a motion of no confidence would lead to an election.
20
Backslider,
The House and Senate can only pass bills and send them to the president. The president can sign them and they become law or he can veto them and they don’t. The only thing the president doesn’t have to sign is the budget. Congress controls that.
The president cannot make law. By Constitution he must enforce the laws as they are written. If he has a legislative agenda he wants enacted he has to go to congress and ask for it. If both House and Senate agree then they send the laws the president wanted to him for signature. Otherwise the president doesn’t get what he wants.
It’s a very stable system in that we know exactly when leadership is likely to change — only at election time. The fact that the president has the final say on what becomes law is sometimes bothersome but it works as a check on the congress, just as they work as a check on the president. The president is the sole authority on foreign policy but the Senate must ratify any treaty before it can become law.
The courts are the third branch of government and they rule on any dispute as to what a law means and whether it’s constitutional or not. They have overstepped their constitutional authority numerous times but the Senate has the power of confirmation over all appointed judicial positions which should act as a check on excesses by judges. Unfortunately a Senate that wants judicial activism can help the president stack the court with his chosen point of view.
All this works well when all the players are even reasonably honest because it’s hard for anything to get through if it can’t get at least some support from all the major points of view. But when there’s a completely dishonest president or leader in the Senate it breaks down. We have had both for far too long.
Being the majority party doesn’t guarantee that you can govern because if the president vetoes a bill, it’s dead. There is no equivalent of a vote of no confidence. And what Obama will do now is still to be seen.
Had to slap this out in a hurry but I hope it helps.
20
If you want to consider impeachment then you should reconsider. It would be very divisive and requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate to convict, which majority will be impossible for the next 2 years, after which Obama will be gone anyway.
20
[…] Jo Nova: The ABC bias is now so obvious, everyone with an open mind and an Internet connection knows that the ABC report the parts that suit, and hide the rest. They even edit the words of skeptics [link in original] to produce sentences that were never actually spoken. But what I saw last night was a flagrantly wrong statement, counter to the truth, reported as if it were so above question it did not even need explanation, qualification or substantiation. It’s time to squeeze the ABC for accuracy. […]
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During WW2 Lord Haw Haw broadcast propaganda from Germany into the UK, to help the Germans
During the Climate Wars the ABC broadcasts propaganda from FANTASY ISLAND into the Oz, to help the $Subsidy Mafia
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[…] Fact Checking the ABC — the Big-Myth about the “World’s Scientists” […]
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