” Labor vacated the arena of argument. The sceptics and deniers have turned the 70 per cent-plus belief in climate change into a minority because no one has engaged them.“
— Graham Richardson, Friday May 22nd, 2015
No one has engaged them?
That’s right Graham, we unfunded bloggers and the few surviving skeptical scientists not evicted and blackballed from our universities (yet) have tricked 20% of the population because no one has put forward the climate change arguments except for: The Climate Commission, CSIRO, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Royal Dutch Shell, GE, Panasonic, The ABC, The BBC, The Guardian, Fairfax, The Australian government, most universities, The EU, The UN, The World Bank, and the IMF.
With a budget of nothing we’re winning. Why? We have nature on our side.* The world isn’t warming, the models can’t predict the real climate, and half the population have wised up to the propaganda. The main arguments of those who would control CO2 are not scientific, but insults and bluster, shutting up and disqualifying critics rather than answering politely, and producing the evidence. The University of Queensland offers a whole course in namecalling to train people to “engage” deniers. But the public know that the endless drought ended, the dams filled, the predictions were wrong and that “denier” is not science. Namecalling isn’t working anymore (so keep it coming Graham, it helps the skeptics 🙂 ).
No one will debate skeptics
Obviously it’s a David versus Goliath battle. If Richardson means that no one will debate the skeptical arguments, he’s right.
Dear Graham, why don’t you invite one of Prof Sherwood, Prof Pitman or Will Steffen to debate Dr David Evans on your Skyshow? That’s when you’ll find out how they run scared of real debate. You are welcome to argue your case here too.
Others have tried to arrange these debates. On behalf of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia, Bill Crabtree invited Prof Pitman and anyone he cared to nominate to debate David Evans and Bill Kinnimonth a couple of years ago. Pitman refused, saying he wouldn’t debate “someone who denies gravity”. David Evans: PhD, M.S. (E.E.), M.S. (Stats) [Stanford Uni], B.Eng, M.A., B.Sc., University Medal, [Syd Uni]. Bill Kininmonth: Headed the National Climate Centre at the Bureau of Meteorology from 1986 to 1998. Andy Pitmans: BSc (Hons) PhD (1988) Liverpool Uni. UK Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Leadership (2000) Macquarie Uni.
Andy Pitman isn’t stupid; he knows what would happen if he debated Dr David Evans. He knows that their 95% certainty rests on broken models, and iteratively homogenized, reanalyzed, and readjusted data.
Andy Pitman and I debated each other in emails back in 2008 before I even published the Skeptics Handbook. I wanted to make all those emails public. Andy Pitman refused.
I debated Prof Glikson in 2010, through five rounds of to and fro, but he clearly had no idea the models depend on assumptions about water vapor that we know are wrong. The offer remains open for him to send in his reply, which he asked to be published on my site. I welcomed it (like all the other replies), but he didn’t send anything.
Graham Richardson, The Australian “Silence of the political lambs”
Here’s the relevant paragraph in context:
It is only a few years ago that Kevin Rudd massacred Howard. Rudd was the hip new kid on the block who actually used Twitter and Facebook. What is more, he told us all that climate change was the big issue facing the world and he would do something about it. Then along came Copenhagen, and the Chinese and the Indians played him off a break. He returned chastened, with his thumb in his mouth and sulking. Since then, Penny Wong and Greg Combet as environment ministers didn’t know what to do with climate change so they avoided the issue. A ludicrously overdone carbon price meant even Peter Garrett stopped talking about it.
Labor vacated the arena of argument. The sceptics and deniers have turned the 70 per cent-plus belief in climate change into a minority because no one has engaged them.
The Greens have been too busy talking about various social issues and refugees. They spend most of their time finding newer and wackier ways to spend our money. These days they are far more red than green, sadly, and they too rarely debate the science. Just because some of the science was decidedly dodgy doesn’t make the overwhelming amount of it wrong. We have a Prime Minister who is a sceptic at best, yet now Labor has announced a renewed commitment to carbon pricing. It does not understand that you cannot sell an impost without selling the reasons for it.
You need not worry, dear readers. This fearless correspondent will continue to wage war on this issue even when all my comrades have surrendered.
Dear Graham, you will need to be fearless if you are going to get real debate on your show. We are happy to help, but the global Worriers will not be. They’ll offer lots of excuses about how this is complex, and “deniers” can seed doubts. Notice how their answers all depend on the public being too stupid to listen to both sides and make up their own minds? The public includes meteorologists, lawyers, doctors, geologists and engineers, and this well educated slab of society is increasingly unconvinced by the weak namecalling and bluster. See the qualifications of 400 skeptical readers here. The polls showing that there are more skeptics among the wealthier, better educated in the UK, than among the unskilled.
And of course, unlike your Labor Parliamentarians who “vacated” the climate debate, you no longer need our votes.
*OK, technically Nature doesn’t pick sides. But it’s no accident nature seems to support skeptics, because skeptics are following empirical observations. Whatever side nature was on, skeptics would be on that side.
An interesting article in, of all places, The Age regarding Bjorn Lomborg: http://www.theage.com.au/good-weekend/too-hot-to-handle-20150522-gh5zwx.
A real indicator of engagement, or lack of, in so many ways.
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Very interesting.
So many academics just HATE the fact that Lomborg talks at least some common sense.
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Debbie for me Lomborg always talks common sense. He is always on very firm ground when he highlights the insanity of spending billions $ for SFA return on the investment.
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I do wonder what the chant from the alarmists will be should, despite all our total inaction, the temperatures plummet.
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Just listen to Nicholas Reece on the Bolt Report (24th May 2015).
“one eyed”, “Blinkered”, “unintelligent”, “no idea of reality”, “towing the party line”, comes to mind.
R-COO- K+
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Ron it used to be toe-ing the line. Standing with your toe to the line on the ground.
Getting pedantic in my old age.
That Reece bloke didn’t leave much room for listening, did he?
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Sorry Ted, you are right. Slip of the finger ‘w’ next to ‘e’ on the key board. I should read before posting 🙂
R-COO- K+
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I wondered if it might have been the predictive text. I haven’t found out how to turn it off.
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However buried under babbling nonsense it may be.
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You must be joking, Lomborg’s two tomes have been rightfully pilloried in both scientific and economic terms and he offers nothing much else of academic merit. We merely hear and read the same disturbing litany of failed assumptions, bastardised statistics and a plethora of absurd hypotheses. Richo had it right, these so-called sceptics can’t sustain any actual scientific arguments and are merely a mob of psuedo-scientific ningnongs to put it mildly.
Let the FORCE X be with you!
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As usual. A lot of bluster, and not one single fact or argument to back it up. Thanks for being the case study sillyfilly. I really appreciate you commenting here.
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So good to see your moderators in perfect tune with freedom of commentary. Whoops! what happened to those RATPAC data graphs I linked yesterday, falsifying your no warming absurdity? Must have been lost in the ether. You’re running scared and it’s great to witness.
[Your graphs were a non starter. You continue to contribute nothing useful. You continue with a putdown at every chance. And you continue in moderation until you have something better to say.] AZ
(The article was about how debate is being framed in public,you wanted to go off topic about temperature trends,this is why you are here in the moderation bin) CTS
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Oh how unexpected and convenient that the evidence is denied by some poor underling!
(It is fitting that you make clear you have no interest in staying on topic,provide a counterpoint,drop the name calling here) CTS
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Ah but mods, since real talent in the global warming fan-club is too afraid to comment here, silly is all we can get. The anonymous non-sequiters and namecalling are getting very boring, but I suppose it’s worth publishing it just to show that we welcome debate, we just wish the fan-club could write logically instead of all the faux outrage.
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Apologies Silly. I didn’t think you could possibly be serious. The link you posted, shows a graph of the stratosphere with no cooling trend since 1996. Humans have put out a third of their CO2 emissions, so all those emissions have apparently had no effect at all on the stratosphere. The other half of the graph shows the lower trop and surface, which is not where the hot spot so is irrelevant.
Your comment, which I trashed was the usual uninformed insult, and conspiracist speculation. Given that we are talking about the upper T, and the graphs showed the opposite of what you suggested I figured you must have been joking and posting the comment for the fun of it.
Here is the Silly Filly scientificy commentary I deleted: “If any graphs don’t agree then they probably been bastardised by the need of the denialist lobby to misinform the general public on the science and evidence.”
Righto? Clearly I should have posted it as more of the “case study” in the intellectually weak mentality of those defending man-made global warming. If you know any fans smarter than you silly, please tell them to come comment here.
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“so-called sceptics can’t sustain any actual scientific arguments”
Is that the reason the warmest bedwetters won’t debate, the sceptics are too far beneath them.
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I totally agree with you Fly. But for wildly different reasons.
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Notice the writer is Paul McGeough an extreme Leftist whose specialty is Middle Eastern politics.He obviously is clueless about climate science and the gaping flaws in the catastrophic human caused global warming scam.
Why are Leftists so incredibly dumb when it comes to their own investigating skills? Given their crass stupidity the answer appears to be that they are taking sides against their symbol of capitalism. Fossil fuels.
Graeme Richardson though closer to the political right is another intellectual pigmy.
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I would give the article a degree of credit in that it presents, intentionally or not, Lomborg as a human being, reveals truthfully how Lomborg feels about the climate debate and how it should be tackled, and raises issues about both sides of the debate. I find all of that very interesting to say the least.
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Though McGeough outlines Lomburg’s history, from his alarmist position to a focus on what Lomburg presently considers to be more pressing global economic issues, I suggest these two excerpts indicate McGeough’s unthinking embrace of the catastrophists:
1. As revealed in the increasingly strident reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), from which the UN takes critical scientific advice, ( McGeough implying the IPCC is composed of scientists who’ve stopped debating the science rather than acknowledging that the IPPC is a UN puppet) the debate among scientists is over. By one count, 97 per cent of about 2000 peer-reviewed papers published in the past 20 years affirm that humans cause global warming. Dozens of national and international scientific bodies agree. But if the scientists have consensus, corporations and politicians don’t.
2. The setback bodes ill for his fiercely competitive standoff with the scientific and environmental lobbies – and with Al Gore. Lomborg’s Cool It may have been a direct challenge to the American’s dire warnings contained in his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, but measured in the celebrity currency of our time, it’s Gore who is winning the argument. Gore’s film won an Oscar and he has a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
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I guess what I found interesting about the article, coming from The Age, is that it didn’t go into its usual rant trying to put down anyone that disagrees with the current approach to addressing this supposed global warming. There weren’t any ad hominem attacks or the like. I didn’t stop reading after the first paragraph like I usually do, where articles tend to start with an anti-sceptic diatribe and which sets the scene for the entire article and conclusion.
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Strange how these dummies will quote the IPCC ad infinitum but totally ignore what is just outside their window, the facts of nature. Like Trenberth and Co the reality is wrong and the models are right. We also have the Commander in Chief who is also an idiot, believing CC is a bigger threat to world peace, than the head loppers and rapists of the Arab world. We are surrounded by idiots and syncophants who are too dumb to call them out.
I am angry and I just wont take it anymore.
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I usually just quote Dr John Chrities submission to the 2012 US Senate Committee of Public Works that compares actual measured surface temps ( using weather balloons and satellites ) – the data completely trashes all the IPCC models.
Drives warmists bonkers…..and they have no come back….
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I think we’ve been trying to understand the Leftism disease from the wrong perspective – that of rational understanding and facts. The Left is allergic to this way of thinking. They have no rationale, and no logical thought processes. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Left are actually a throwback to early mammals and their forebrains have become atrophied from lack of use. They can only engage with their feelings. They feel, therefore they are. Feelings are WAY more important to them than intelligent reasoning and deduction.
Perhaps we should adjust our debating technique as it’s blatantly unfair to argue on the basis of critical thinking.
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As a political operative “Richo” was up there with the best.Pity he can’t enquire too much on climatescam.Too difficult I guess..
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Richo needs to wise up, but he appears to be brainwashed and can’t see beyond the mantra.
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Another side of the fortress is cracking. The Green Blob is exposed on one side and a second side is cracking. Good news twice.
Sweet to be in the majority. Sweeter yet to know it is because of solid science.
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Gangrene has set in.
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Richardson will not touch this any further, apart from the rhetorical extent we see in the Aus of May 22
He has no need to, and by now his colleagues have reinforced the “Do not debate in public” axiom
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Agree with you. Richardson hasn’t a clue about the “Science” but is very skilled in presenting the right spin.
This is just spin. If he can get the usual suspects to endlessly shout “the sceptics won’t debate’ then he thinks he will win.
This will be taken up by some of the short sighted Gulls for a while; perhaps long enough for Cook to claim that 97% of posts at SkS support the ‘consensus’ and Lew to claim that this proves 97% of deniers are scared to debate and believe in faked moon landings (with or without green cheese).
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Spin indeed G3.
Richo is so bent he makes Murali’s elbow look straight!
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And he could also observe that there have been no dissenting letters in the SMH, which must prove…
Cheers,
D
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Graham Richardson knows that he’s safe making such a call because it will never happen. The alarmist arguments are so weak they wouldn’t stand the embarrassment of losing the debate so easily.
So good luck with calling him out Jo, but IMO the well funded (from Big Government coffers) propagandist will stay in their comfortable ivory towers bleating their ingenuous sophistry to anyone foolish enough to listen.
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While I think you are correct, the proper thing to do is to respond to the challenge of a debate with a clear “absolutely, let’s go”.
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Paul McGeough has done a second, more shocking attack on Bjorn Lomborg, which i have just posted on jo’s previous thread, comment #34.
McGeough writes, in part:
***Asked if there was something ***unseemly about the narrow economic focus in his methodology, Lomborg responded: “You do need to have the economic part of the conversation and it becomes a wonderful way to compare across a wide range of areas”…
McGeough even quotes Graham Readfearn and brings up Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld!!! u have to read it to believe it. shame on Fairfax.
i argue that ABC/Fairfax/Guardian (and Graham Richardson obviously) like to pretend they understand the science and that the MSM should, instead, be providing people with the economic realities behind the suicidal CAGW policies being proposed, and not encouraging people, on pseudo moral/ethical grounds, to allow their Super Fund managers to throw their retirement savings into the likes of Hanergy, Solyndra et al.
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They’re running scared. They don’t want the costs published. Mitigation schemes,subsidies, costs to business, aid to the 3rd world, etc, etc. We’re talking trillions.
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Cost of household solar has outweighed benefits: Grattan Institute report
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Hawkey introduced us to the notion of a “Pilgerised” view of events and McGeough is pretty much from the same packet of stale old cracker biscuits.
To McGeough:- Verb:- to confect a highly coloured, trivially shallow and essentially defamatory analysis because you can and you can get quite well paid for it in certain circles.
All just my opinion of course, Jo. 🙂
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I’ve been engaging the natural climate change deniers since 2007.
There have been regiments of them to deal with so to suggest they have not been engaging sceptics is bizarre.
They have penetrated every blog and media outlet for years in order to try to swamp any sign of a sceptical viewpoint.
It was their efforts to intimidsate, confuse and lie about real world measurements that caused the rise of blogs like this which are the only places where honesty about the issue can be found.
Established science about hydrostatic balance within atmospheres, the effect of conduction and convection on photon flows, the role of convection in stabilising radiative imbalances and all manner of natural climate variations has been ignored in a perversion of the study of climate and weather that I have loved since I was a child over half a century ago.
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“the natural climate change deniers”
touche’ Stephen Wilde.
That is the perfect description and return of fire.
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Richo drank from Bob Brown’s kool ade cup way back when and it was perhaps the moral high point of his public life if not his life.
“No one has engaged the deniers”? No they just ban them, refuse to share an interview table with them, start a pogrom whenever one looks like getting some air time.
Richo, maaaaate, there is a very good reason that ‘no one’ will engage the ‘deniers. Its because when they do they lose the debate in spades and that is because the CAGW case is a joke.
The CAGW case has more in common with a KKK cross burning and lynching than anything else when it comes to rigour, objectivity and evidentiary basis.
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Don’t take it too seriously. Richo is just a gun for hire. There are many coming out of the woodwork, attracted by the enticements.
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I could get really angry about what Richardson has to say on this topic, particularly where his black past has been.
However, The man is very ill, so I will respect this condition of his.
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I am still waiting for ABC or Fairfax to sponsor a serious debate involving climate scientists who advocate legislated intervention on carbon dioxide and other climate scientists who dispute the need for fear and hence legislation.
It seems that the global warmers’ argument against any debate of this polemic is the mantra “the science is settled”. Empirical measurements have all but defused the climate modellers’ outputs.
“Deniers” are branded as flat earth advocates.
How the wheel turns!
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This Richardson fellow admitted to lying to the Aust people through the Parliament end of credibility!
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“LIES” is all that the “AGW Religious Zealots” engage in as their “modus of operandi” – let us examine two famous quotes from Abraham Lincoln which encourage “TRUTH” and denigrate “LIES”.
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended on to meet any natural crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
“You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.
I have no doubt that the great Abe Lincoln would be rolling around in his grave listening to the “AGW Scare Mongering” which is at total odds with “Real Global Temperature Data”. Yes the IPCC, many Govt leaders & the MSM are engaging in “LIES” ad nauseum which is diametrically opposed to the high principles of the great Abe Lincoln. Instead these days we have the likes of Obama & Cameron.
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that’s a bit unfair. He only lies when his lips move.
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I’ve been engaging the CO2 is a pollutant protagonists for a decade now.
Most recently a discussion with my ex aunt (a retired teacher and a climate kool-aid drinker) almost ended badly! My friend, a professor and a sceptic, took up where I left off and later observed “your aunt appears to be bigoted”
Truth is the global warmists are very much like the fact earthers in Galileo’s time. There is absolutely nothing one can do to dissuade them from their religion. They are convicts in their own minds, limited by their lack of imagination and cobbled in the prison of climate alarmist doctrine. Poor souls!
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“A retired teacher …. Bigoted”
Sadly the vast majority of teachers are on the left spectrum and very often on the extreme side it too. I know that for a fact as I was going out with one of them for many years and on regular basis was surrounded by the teaching crowds (at the end of the semester parties) as the only one defending the free speech, capitalism, and asking questions about global warming scare. Teachers that are supposed to be open minded encouraging free debate, individual thinking. How wrong I was about them.
Flannery is a teacher too, not a palaeontologist as many lead us to believe. No wonder that the new generation is far more dumber than the previous one.
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Flannery’s degree was in English. How you end up with a Science PhD with no physical science at all is a matter of concern. Real paleoentologists bloggists here consider he is a fraud. Teacher? No, Science Fiction writer and his most successful fiction is Global Warming. He was simply lucky to score the second biggest Australian drought in 100 years. Now he is all at sea without a drought or a paddle.
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Dariusz,
Sorry about your falling out with your Aunt but you do know that intervention in her cult addiction is best for her don’t you?
It’s very hard to break this addiction because it is fueled by the seratonin spikes of the dogooder. She is almost chemically addicted, it is however possible to deprogram addicts but you need to take on the philosophical need to be seen to be good. Without replacing that it’s virtually impossible. Here the mistake is made by trying to undermine the science hoping that will invalidate the aim, but the aim is not to cut CO2 it is to feel worthy, superior. Focus on the downside of global warming action the death and destruction that success in decarbonisation would deal, then refocus on the plight of the third world that can only be solved with reliable energy supplies, as a crusade to replace the CAGW one. Make it a choice between gaia or humanity.
Maybe that will work
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This was Peter,s (#13) aunt, I was talking about my girlfriend of many years. But really that does not matter as she also cared so much about eg the Ethiopians. When I told her about my communism past, hunger, degradation, constant fear, she was not interested. Somehow her serotonin would cut out automatically.
When I paid off my own house from my own savings her testosterone overdrive kicked in fighting for every penny she could get, even threatening that she would force me to pay for her children from her previous marriage (her husband did not pay anything but was going regularly on holidays). She thought since I always paid then I would continue just the same even after we split up.
When I look at this now, so naive, so stupid I was. Never again.
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Close shave in more ways than one Dariusz. There may be small comfort in the knowledge that many others have shared a similar life experience.
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They may think…who really cares to debate when our morally superior position is
enshrinedprotekted by the prekautionary principle (PP) and we have our ‘get out of goal free card’, exonerating us of the eco-marxist hijack of intelligent applications of common sense and reasoning, particularly when expressed by empirical science and dissenting perspectives against a UN vision facilitated by the pre-defined UN term, “klimate khange,” the term that necessarily underpins the PP and its central role in global regulation and taxation.71
Obviously, the “Strong Precaution”, complete with “no regrets” as to costs, is objective nonsense. For example, Michael Crichton pointed out that the generic PP must be applied to itself [and to the “precautions”] and so on ad infinitum. As to the possibilities and precautions relating to any act, no one would know whether to get out of bed in the morning, or not. And why the possibility that the alleged “cure” could be worse than the alleged “disease” would not also fall prey to the “Strong Precaution”, is a mystery only those [lunatics] touting the “Strong Precaution” can ignore. What they want to do is to apply the “Strong Precaution” only to their own pet cause, including overt phobias, which can then lead to “a possible risk to health, safety, or the environment”, just as we’ve seen in the case of “CO2-Climate Change”, thus producing the exact thing they say they are trying to avoid. They seem to be as lost and even panicked by the idea of trying to construct a good old “cost-benefit” analysis as they are by having to practice real science.
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Surely Richo is taking the pi$$, “no one is engaging them”? well here’s a few analogies to put the skeptics plight into context.
– Standing in your corner of the ring looking over at the empty one.
– Waiting in the clearing at dawn for your challenger that never arrives.
– Looking over the net at an empty half court with no one to give a serve to.
– Making a first move only to watch an opponents game clock never move.
Seriously how hard is it to get cocksure experts to publically debate?, you’d have more chance of resistance from picking a fight with a handicapped pacifist than these sages of “the science”, well said Jo you and your good husband have every right to take umbrage to the weasel words of a spineless lefty simp, the only benefit is their continuing cowardice highlights the contradicting hypocrisy even more glaringly, they will be judged poorly by the masses.
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I don’t think you get the point. When they say no one is engaging them they mean that we are not listening to them, agreeing with them and converting to their way of thinking. They don’t want to debate, they want submission and agreement. They are not interested in addressing resistance but in seeing the resistance crumble. They want us to feel great, like they do, by feeling morally superior to the rest of the non-believers. Its all about their feelings. Not about science.
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I said it a few days ago and I will say it again.
Somewhere around late 2013 and then through 2014 and you can argue the exact time frame if you wish, a very subtle but very, very significant shift occurred in the rhetoric from all sides in the catastrophic global warming debacle.
The climate catastrophe pushers and scammers started to become a lot more agitated, a lot shriller, far more strident, and a significant escalation of murderous threats and showed far less confidence in their position and about their claims of an inevitable catastrophic warming of the global climate that was about to happen or was already happening.
All this as the realisation sank in that just maybe the global temperatures hadn’t really risen over the now close to two decades in the way in which their scientific sources had endlessly claimed for a couple of decades past, the utter inevitability of those catastrophic and immediate global temperatures rises in line with increases in atmospheric CO2 levels, aka. “Carbon”.
After all their very own alarmist scientists were forced to publicly admit that global temperatures hadn’t risen, maybe it was hiding in the oceans or somewhere else, it just had to be there because thats what the models said.
And all this despite steadily increasing emmissions of that dreaded by the catastrophists pushers, the life giving CO2 aka. the ignorant and grossly mis-labelled “Carbon”.
Its a bit hard to get around that scientific admission when it comes from your very own alarmist scientists that the alarmist catastrophe pushers were using as the source of their angst and information in their drive for absolute power and control over the rest of the world’s peoples so as they claimed, to “Save the Planet”, a term that appears to have fallen rather suddenly out of favour .
**********
On the other side of the ledger or coin as you wish, the Skeptics have become far more confident and secure in their claims and their willingness to confront , challenge and usually destroy, using facts thoroughly based in science, the many works of scientific climate fiction from third grade” scientists” [?? ] that are purported to be science based papers supporting the catastrophic climate warming scenarios.
Just think how many very recent purported research papers supporting the catastrophic climate warming theme that have been heavily publicised on Skeptic blogs, on climate catastrophe believing sites and in the MSM which after being thoroughly and scientifically and embarrassingly dismantled by the skeptics at every level were usually laughed out of existence by those same skeptics to the point where even the believers no longer used those papers as sources for their arguments.
Just about every one of those catastrophe global warming papers have just disappeared from view probably never to be seen again in any reputable scientific publication.
Although “reputable scientific publications” is another item that is becoming ever harder to locate.
Increasingly the skeptics are offering to debate the whole global warming, climate catastrophe meme with the catastrophe pushers of every stripe and colour but those same pushers head for the hills and fast as soon as debating skeptics is suggested.
Through 2014 there was a very subtle but far reaching increase in confidence appearing in and on the skeptic blogs amongst both the blog owners and amongst the blog commenters.
There was a feeling arising on the skeptic blogs through 2014 and into 2015 that the skeptics had the climate catastrophe pushers on the run as they increasingly appeared unable or unwilling to both engage and debate the skeptics arguments.
Even more so and particularly as that most inconvenient item called “Nature” has seemingly refused to co-operate with or consider in any way, the beliefs and the claims and the desires and demands of the climate catastrophe pushers in climate science or in their unthinking, unimaginative and incoherent herds of science challenged acolytes and their running dogs in the MSM.
There is still a long way to go but it is now the Skeptics and not the climate catastrophists who are increasingly calling the tune to which the world is slowly beginning to dance to.
And as that dance grows in numbers and the skeptic band gets more confident and Nature we hope smiles on the new regime, the climate catastrophists will become the wall flowers as nobody wants to dance with a sour faced, nasty even at times vicious and ugly disaster predicting old witch [ bitch ? ] that is cast in the likeness of the climate catastrophists.
And as we all know ugly, nasty fear creating wall flowers eventually just wither away and die and nobody laments their passing.
The Great Wheel of tide, time and human history and man’s affairs rolls on into a new time and a new phase and the old will be cast into the embers and the new shall be the guiding light to the future.
And we as always and as ever will continue to exist and live according to the dictates of the great natural world around us.
It was ever so
And it will be ever thus.
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Yes, it was around December 2013 in Melbourne that Pachauri agreed that the planet had not warmed for years. The IPCC position shifted dramatically, even if they call eighteen years a decade and insist rapid warming is still underway, like Flannery’s and the BOM’s continuing drought and El Nino interrupted only by floods. The current excuse is undefined ‘natural variability’, which was not possible for the warming in the first place.
However, beware that it is far from over. Facts are now simply irrelevant and debate will not be entered. The IPCC is storming onto Paris and Christiana Figueres is adamant that Climate alone will create a new world order based on her ideal of Communist China, the generator of 50% of the world’s industrial CO2 and which is doing nothing at all about it.
So you know what it is about, an unelected communist UN takeover of gullible world governments based on a fantasy Green scare with the support of the industrialists. Hitler and Lenin grabbed power democratically on a 25% vote too. It’s all you need for power.
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Dead on ROM, im my case it was Climategate that finally made me speak up, and each year the shrieking became louder, the more confident I became in speaking against it. It was obvious to me, that politics had taken over the warmist side by 2013.
Hey Richo, what really did happen at the Offset Alpine fire, wasn’t that a scam too?
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Spontaneous Combustion!
00
Conflating CO2 with Carbon just begs deceit.All that evil black smoke emanating from Coal-Fired stacks.Quel Horreur!! Of course we all know nuclear stations have vapour unlike coal! The real clincher was Gores little show regarding some inconvenience;that rattled my cage and a volte face.I saw I was deceived previously.
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While we are considering the possibility of a debate against the best arguments that the gullible Alarmists can mount. what about helping our team out with a summary of all the failures of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory.
I will start off with this one:
No one has demonstrated the Greenhouse Effect in the Laboratory.
Greenhouse in a bottle type demonstrations all fail.
Robert Wood did a comprehensive experiment and was unable to trap heat in his hot boxes.
Prof Nasif Nahle has repeated the experiments with the same result.
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/Experiment_on_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf
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Peter C, well said!
I too have often said as much and more — greenhouses do not require special (magic?) gases to operate, also as a model the greenhouse represents a very poor analog of this planet’s atmospheric operation.
Greenhouse gases? Greenhouse effect? Enhanced Greenhouse effect?
These are all just sets of words ill-defined by the alarmists, and designed to confuse the innocent public into believing the BS about our atmosphere and its operating mechanisms. Those skeptics that insist on using this sloppy language further compound this grievous error.
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Perhaps not much enthusiasm for the debate subject list, however here are some more:
2. Jo’s missing topical tropospheric hot spot
3. Models are hopeless at forecasting
4. Failed predictions about the ever impending catastrophe
5. Accumulating heat predicted by models is nowhere to be found
6. The “pause”
7. Correlation between CO2 and temperature is almost nonexistent
8. CO2 residence time in the atmosphere seems to be far less than previously announced
9. Climate sensitivity to CO2 increase is far less than announced and may be negative
10. Polar Ice levels stable or increasing.
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Peter C: Your item “6. The “pause” ” I disagree with (not you personally but with the use of this word).
When a cruise ship comes into port to disembark passengers, it does not pause and it does not go into hiatus. It comes to a full and complete stop. That is what so called global warming has done.
Currently, the regional climate is doing what regional climates do. It will get cooler or it will get warmer, eventually, and we humans have absolutely no direct influence on what the regional climates will do and when it will do it.
Personally, our local climate appears to be going into a cooling phase as spring temperatures have not been as warm these past two years as they have been in the past. This spring coolness is a repeat of what was experience in the 70’s or 80’s, I can’t remember, but what is happening now is nothing new.
Climate and weather is cyclical, will always be cyclical and the chaos of all the inputs that drives regional climate and weather will be what it will be. How any thinking human can believe otherwise I find totally baffling.
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G’day Peter,
I submit that, at your #7, it is valid to say that there is no corelation between increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperature at all, i.e. the correlation is zero. And exactly zero.
Cheers,
Dave B
20
a climate debate in Belgium, with skeptics Bas van Geel and Marcel Crok
40
Read Larry Pickering about Graham Richardson. He has published pages of damning allegations especially in relation to the $53 million Offset Alpine printing fire and insurance fraud which caused Graham to hand his resignation to Paul Keating. His motto is ‘whatever it takes’. Political power.
Richardson’s only concern is that Labor under Shorten is still chasing a Carbon Tax, still pushing the Green barrow of Climate Warming and this means lost votes because few people still believe it. Otherwise, he does not care a jot. As for science, no one who pushes global warming cares a jot either. This was always a made up political device which has morphed into a world wide $300 billion mega business. Companies in Australia now need the windmill business just to stay solvent. Who is paying for 30,000 people to fly business class into Paris to discuss a tax on flying? Warmists? Charlatans. Carpet baggers.
[TdeF, words like damning are what gets a comment into moderation. In this case the usage is certainly within Jo’s guideleins. But avoiding such words in the future will avoid getting into moderation. Thanks.] AZ
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I have an idea for some time that the skeptical side needs to shame the alarmists into a public debate. But how? I finally came up with a dream of a public debate where the winning side got to donate some large amount of prize money to their favorite charity. Do it for the kids! Shame on you if you won’t debate for the children’s benefit!
It could work.
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It’d be a lot easier for them to engage with us if they’d
A) Stop banning us from their forums (aka propaganda outlets).
B) Have the guts to turn up at places like here.
Pointman
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I think Richo has noticed that the MSM does not publish sceptical opinions. He thinks this means there has been no debate but, in fact, there has been vigorous and heated debate in other forums. He needs to read more widely.
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The only thing that Richo cares about is Richo. Ex-labour bulldog with an ambition to be a powerbroker and know it all. His lack of understanding of climate scam betrays his indifference. It is about his ratings and the next meal for him only, not about the debate. He wants be the first one to say that I was the first one to engage, I am open minded, impartial and fair. He is a joke.
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Let’s put it this way, to understand why CAGW cannot be true one needs to be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide and find the natural log of a number on a calculator. If one can’t do those things one is likely to be a warmist.
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God forbid they should multiply.
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I’m not sure about Combet but I remember your (Joanne) reporting of the presentation made to Penny Wong in her office as Minister for the Environment, Climate Change or whatever it was called back then… I remember thinking; “Penny has gone very quiet on the ETS and all that – I think Bob Carter et al must have had an impact and set some doubts into her mind.”
After that even on Q&A she seemed to tread very softly and skirt around the issue whenever it came up.
You and the other skeptical climate bloggers have certainly had an impact way above your pay grade.
As a Labor insider Richo must certainly have known about this – he is either very forgetful or totally dishonest. I wonder which??
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David said that her expression changed when he showed her the Akasofu graph (which has a rolling cycle of warming coming and going since 1850). The IPCC extended the last upswing, but obviously it was not much due to CO2, but a trend that was running all along.
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When the Gillard government announced it was going to introduce a carbon tax, the line was “Australian were the highest emitters per capita in the world!”
I emailed Combet (CC Tony Abbott) objecting to the statement because it was untrue and he should desist. Within hours one of his staffers emailed back, citing Garnaut as their source of the statement.
I replied, citing evidence from the World Bank and the UN as proof the statement was false, CC Tony Abbott and others. That line was dropped within days…all fun and games. I’m pretty sure I gave a blow by blow account here at the time.
I’d say it was my second best achievement against the Labor government. The best? March 2010, the opposition was floundering and I decided to email Greg. Advised that Tony should attack Rudd.
Use the “Dr Death” line on Rudd because he was the architect of the demise of the Qld health system with the evidence of such. Greg replied promptly that he passed it on to Tony and he will run with it in Parliament.
I closed down site early next day to watch Parliament and Tony did not disappoint. Almost word for word, Rudd’s ego was dented and he legitimised by challenging Abbott to a series of debates on health. The beginning of Rudd’s demise within his party.
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CO2 per capita is a twisted way of looking at things which puts smaller countries like Australia near the top, just above the US but leaves China, responsible for 50% the world’s industrial CO2 at the bottom. Incredibly the CO2 generated by their 1.3Billion people just breathing (3 tons per person per year so 3.9Billion tons) is 10x greater than our entire CO2 output but we have to pay a carbon tax?
That suits the unelected UN communist agenda nicely. Cripple Western economies. Australians have to deal with 98% of the CO2 coming from overseas, 80% from the Northern Hemisphere alone but we are supposed to pay them? China earns Carbon Credits for building dams we are not allowed to build by the same Greens. This is all rigged and the usual suspects include the same world merchant banks responsible for the Derivatives scam which caused the GFC. Natural Variability is not an explanation until the Greens need it.
60
I found it on the old desk top.
First exchange. Pretty fluid that night.
00
Found the email to Combet.
Dear Greg,
I write with great concern re: your statement yesterday that Australia is the highest per capita emitters of CO2 in the world.
This is blatantly false. You are either willingly deceiving the public or ill informed.
Here are just three links, of many as proof.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi_percap-environment-co2-emissions-per-capita
Here is another by the World Bank.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC/countries
And Finally this link.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/383922/carbon_emissions_the_world_in_2010.html
You will observe that all the graphics were reproduced from the World Resources Institutes (WRI) Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) Brochure for COP-15, Copenhagen (based on CAITv.7.0). Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
How did you come to the conclusion that Australians are the highest emitters? Why is your government attempting to shoulder Australians with guilt based on a false statement?
I will endeavour to seek these answers by applying pressure to yourself through other mediums.
Regards,
40
Penny Wong has had more positions on climate than the Karma Sutra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_KVBwKU7B8
40
“No one will debate skeptics”
Of course they won’t accept a debate! Because they know they are pushing out a con! If the con is revealed to the public in its entirety, their remaining support will evaporate!
This is why they keep pushing and pushing with their endless campaigns/propaganda, but the way they’re pushing has not substance. The moment you start asking where and how they got their numbers is the very moment they start sweating. Observe carefully the sudden change in confidence, body language, and facial movements. You’ll sense a sudden deflation in their demeanour…They act like they’ve been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
When someone makes a grand claim, we just want to know the truth at how they came to that claim. That’s all. And if they don’t tell us, then one can safely assume they’re hiding something. One shouldn’t be too surprised that its often a politically-oriented agenda.
Its no different to donating to charities. You only want to donate to those who have no problem opening up their books and showing you the real, long term good they do. Honest, upfront, and open. You don’t donate to those who are vague about their honesty and produce poor results.
As for Richo, just look at his life. He is of the political and union class of society. They used to go to him because he knew how to get money for their causes. Now he’s a political pundit on 2GB Radio, Sky News, and offers an occasional opinion piece in The Australian. The only good thing about him, is that he will admit being wrong and is willing to listen to other people’s opinion. Compare him to someone like former Greens leader Christine Milne…Who won’t listen or talk to you if you happen to not agree with her views. (Anyone see her retirement speech on Sky News? That woman is a full blown loony! Once she stepped down from her leadership position, the mask came right off! Holy Cow!)
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I like to ask them where they feel their strongest published ‘clincher’ is, you know, The Paper that really drives the unequivocal causal nail home into CAGW, UN klimate khange (catastrophic anthropogenic climate change), The One publication that would rescue me from The Dark Side. Failing that, how about their all time top five papers?
Never fails.
While it appears there is no truly compelling literature there is however, an inexhaustible stream of invective.
Enjoyable and sad as this may be, it remains a distraction.
The precautionary principle (see post #14 here) permits, nay encourages and endorses any and all action, with a minimum evidential requirement of speculation. The vulnerability to political whimsey or sock-puppet politicians of whatever persuasion appears infinite, though presently it is the turn of the eco-marxists.
The Precautionary Principle is incarcerated in European Law as a General Principle. It is the political vehicle de jour. It is The Ministry of We Know Best For Your Own Good.
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As warmists aren’t skilled to relate,
To science; must shun all debate,
As they know they would lose,
On those skeptical views,
When their arguments carry no weight.
201
See spot run, jump and dodge the question. What a circus!
I really don’t like this kind of shorthand but when the shoe fits so well, what else can you do?
ROFLMAO once again. 😛
They have eyes but can’t see. They have ears but can’t hear. They’ve been around for the whole of human history. Why should they change now?
140
The longer debate is postponed, the longer uncertainty is maintained.
130
James Cameron, whose movies show great imagination, imagined he could debate a “denier”. He said he was going to:
The debate was all arranged for, then Cameron began proposing change after change in the format. All the changes were agreed to…
…then someone apparently realized the skeptics would mop the floor with Cameron and his gang of Kool-Aid garglers. He backed out the day before the debate, afraid to continue.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/23/james-cameron-backs-out-of-debate-with-climate-change-skeptics/
There are probably dozens of examples of warmist refusal to debate skeptics. Given this history, Graham Richardson’s statement is nothing but bizarre and ludicrous.
130
If the Richos and ABCs of this world really wanted to show up the dumb deniers for what they are, they’d conduct a very public, even handed debate covering the major issues including the funding thing) with several prominent sceptics.
Someone should get a very visible social media campaign up and running calling for just that.
70
Making sure that this campaign reaches it’s target, could be a good first step.
00
Sorry, broken link!
https://www.gofundme.com/BjornLomborg
10
In one sense the “engage” comment is true: The High Priests of Climate Science won’t engage (ie openly debate) well qualified skeptics except for the rarest of circumstances where they have no choice. This is especially true the fringier and dodgier their “research” and alarmist claims are. I’m talking here about Mann, Schmidt, Santer and so forth down the green food chain.
It’s gotten so bad that just about every major establishment publication heavily censors any contrarian views, including reader comments. This is true, no matter how well documented comments are from cited refereed journals or credentialed experts. The Guardian, NY Times, Slate, The New Republic etc have all greatly restricted comments that deviate from the party line.
Here’s a new one. Today I posted several comments on the EOS- AGU site article “https://eos.org/articles/tracking-the-missing-heat-from-the-global-warming-hiatus”
The article was actually quite balanced and reasonable. Naturally it sparked lively debate. Every comment I submitted was posted EXCEPT those that contained data, charts or graphs that originated with sites run by Bob Tisdale, Anthony Watts or Jo Nova.
Some of these data displays are conveniently (and legally) extracted from the primary sources in the scientific literature. Others represent original work, such as this very useful graph that Jo constructed on stepwise warming/ stasis (or cooling) cycles.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
The neo-Stalinists censored the comment that includes Jo’s graphs. Without data, the conversation just degenerates into a glorified food fight.
All this shows is that the Climate Catastrophists and Hysterics have lost the debate and lost badly. It’s true that in the US the public (especially the upper end bourgeois professionals) will parrot back the CAGW line. But once the “remediation” menu that consists of artificially jacking up energy prices is proposed, support for the Green Agenda collapses.
For the Skeptic Faction, we can at least enjoy the spectacle of Lewandowsky and Orstes types turning on the High Priests of Climate Science themselves who run the IPCC, the niniversities and the reset of the Big Green Machine. Delicious. Poetic Justice.
70
For the king pins of AGW to avoid public debate on the science; it is a matter of strategy and tactics. Any Doubt among public perception is to be avoided at all costs.
Believers among common folk will happily begin to engage until they find a skeptic who knows a thing or two about the science and the politics, and then they quickly disengage.
In the US, for the time being, it plays to the skeptics advantage to not give warmists any additional free publicity. Climate change is way down the list of priorities for most Americans and most don’t take climate dooms day scenarios seriously. “Out of sight, out of mind.” This is very frustrating to politicos who were banking on it to further agendas.
A serious problem comes to the politicos when common folk realize it is they that would be footing the bill for the proposed solutions.
Avoiding debate and then blaming your opponent for it is a very old political tactic which is dishonest, but unfortunately can and does work to color perceptions.
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Richo is on with Alan Jones each week. Maybe approach Alan to recommend the debate be on their show? Alan would be supportive and given Richos commentary he can hardly refuse. But as we know the other side won’t want to debate it and that will serve to highlight our case.
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Another oddity of the Cult of Catastrophic Climate.
To shun the sceptical viewpoint is to have no argument at all.
What science is accepted untested,unproven, non replicated?l?
As every debater knows, the art of a focused coherent argument is to have considered all available information before the debate.
This fear of debate, now going into its 30th year?, sure suggests a bunch of posers completely unconvinced of their professed point of view.
81
OT: it’s that crazy time of year again, when the Greens protest against nature.
Bring on the witch doctors . Let’s have a rain dance.
https://twitter.com/kuminaidoo/status/602206943659319296
40
*OK, technically Nature doesn’t pick sides. But it’s no accident nature seems to support skeptics, because skeptics are following empirical observations. Whatever side nature was on, skeptics would be on that side.Oh, I dunno, nature tends to stay near truth more than untruth.
30
Truth is Nature at least in this sense of pursuing the natural laws. Aspects of human nature may be another matter.
20
Yeah its funny isn’t it. The so called consensus always wants to have it both ways. Just like their preferred PM they flop seamlessly between bully and victim depending on the audience.
I am a high school drop out and I would gladly debate the so called science, in public, with the most learned fool the alarmists want to put up. Its past being a question of nuance and unintelligible math now. The evidence is so simple, so clear, so unambiguous that the real deniers now are the alarmists. Desperately clinging to their ill gotten funding like their lazy lives depend on it.
I repeat. Watch Prof Salby from 3:00 to 10:00 wit particular focus from 6:00 to 8:00 and tell me if you still think we are able to influence the climate in any measurable way whatsoever. We are the parasite on a flea on an elephants back. Nothing more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g9WGcW_Z58
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I am curious about the identity of Red Thumb.
Red Thumb is an ardent reader of this blog and seems to respond to new entries within a short time of posting.
Red Thumb does not like many comments, especially if they contradict the settled science view. However Red Thumb is selective and clearly reads the entries carefully.
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I too have noticed this. I seem to upset them quite a bit, which tells me Im on the right track.
Hopefully they are learning something about reality.
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As an occasional reader of this blog, I think that particular red thumb or thumbs (seems to travel in pairs) are like a badge of honour or special commendation, reserved for comments that either hit the mark, or undermine the subdidy-engorged renewables wallet. If I had to take a punt, I would guess a graduate with a science or profesional degree in some way related to the offsets/renewables industry, who works for a climate advocacy or similar organization partly funded by the offsets/renewables/investment industries and maybe the odd trust. I guess a part of this job is to alert these vested interests in developments on the skeptical side of things, so that fires can be extinguished, and repudiatory press releases or papers for accommodating journals cobbled together. Links to Big Wind, Big Offsets, maybe even connections there like fossil and nuclear interests, would not surprise. Yet these careful readers, the dears, for I guess they’re only young, probably go about their task imbued with a planet-saving Deep Greenier-than-thou aura. Yet how many of us can say we didn’t want to save the world in the full flush of youthful idealism. They are none other than we, without the intervening years. Garner these particular red thumbs, these inflamed opposing (and arguably, opposable) digits, with tolerance and pride.
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Oksanna,
I have an idea about those who just use that red thumb.
They would probably really like to leave a comment, and it would most probably be to just use the ‘D’ word, you know, just to snipe at what was said rather than addressing it, and to do that under the cover of being able to use a screen name.
However, were they to use that Comment facility, they note that as part of being able to do that, they actually have to use a ….. valid email address.
Just that alone scares them, because now, all of a sudden, it’s not all that anonymous, as someone has their email address.
The red thumb IS actually anonymous.
Just another act of non engagement.
Tony.
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Good thoughts,
It would make a lot of sense if Red Thumbers were reluctant to leave their email address.
It could be the case that they work for NGO’s wanting to monitor the views of this blog, in order to come up with counter messages. That would account for the apparent carefully reading of the comments and the selective nature of the thumbs.
I might look to see if they try to cover their tracks by random thumbing in the future.
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Just gave ya one ! Touché!
52
We may be on to something here!
52
BBC’s “In the Balance” focuses on the economics, and displays as much BALANCE as BBC’s CAGW science “debates”:
BBC’s Simon Jack introduces panellists, including Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, one of the countries right at the “COAL FACE” of this problem. (De Brum is not included in the summary below).
Christiana Figueres gets the first question. says at one point “the planet might continue after us”. Gurria gets the second: “inaction is more expensive than ANY course of action”.
Simon Jack to the audience: who thinks that what’s good for the planet is good for business? basically everyone puts their hands up.
Jack singles out audience member who just happens to be the Chief Exec of Carbon Tracker who says when we crunch the financial analysis(sic), it is telling us the things that are good at addressing climate change are good for shareholders. and, increasingly, investments & projects that are bad for climate change, are destroying shareholder value, YOUR PENSION, MY PENSION…
the finale 50 mins 45:
SIMON JACK: it’s worth reflecting here that not everyone agrees with the premise of this summit. a couple of messages.
listener from Qld: what a hoax, it’s a lot of nonsense;
from a Texan: this big world is ever-changing, i doubt if man has anything to do with it.
JACK: and another directed at our organisation: when will the BBC understand we are sick and tired (A PANELLIST SNIGGERS)of this alarmist nonsense, peddling of non-solutions to non-existent problems and deliberately scaring the scientifically-ignorant with biased panels that ignore the real issues.
JACK: i’m sure that’s not directed to this panel. turns to World Bank’s Rachel Kyte:
KYTE: the science is overwhelmingly in consensus. the economics are now inccreasingly compelling, the question is where is the political action to come from.
AUDIO: 55 mins: 23 May: BBC “In the Balance”: Climate Change: The Business End
If you could put one question to key business leaders and policy people on climate change, what would it be? We put your questions and get you some answers at the Paris climate summit where our guests include Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Angel Gurria of the OECD, John Danilovich Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, the CEOs of Schneider Electric (Jean-Pascal Tricoire) and Solvay chemicals and the World Bank’s Rachel Kyte.
(Photo: A wind power generator)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02rqdyj
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“Just because some of the science was decidedly dodgy doesn’t make the overwhelming amount of it wrong.”
Spoken like a true person of faith. I guess we can expect the next IPCC report to be entitled “The New Testament”
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Or perhaps “The Book of Mormon.”
20
The book of Moron.
Probably gonna get me moderated. 🙁
(By itself I would have allowed it, but following the previous comment stating, “Book of Mormon” is not going to help things here) CTS
[Actually, I suspect Greg is suggesting that jorgekafkazar meant to write “Moron” and made a typo. Seems fair enough. – Jo]
00
Sorry…slaps wrist…couldn’t resist temptation just then.
00
Graham Richardson would probably enjoy the type of debate going on at the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in Wales, described by Bill Clinton in 2001 as “The Woodstock of the mind”, according to Wikipedia!
22 May: UK Telegraph: Climate activists targeting children with range of ‘cli-fi’ novels
Climate change fiction for youngsters is ‘taking off in a big way’ according to activists
By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
David Thorpe, author of the book Stormteller, said that children were more open minded and claimed that writers could ‘infect’ their minds with ‘seriously subversive viral ideas’.
He was speaking at the Hay Festival alongside ‘cli-fi’ authors George Marshall and Saci Lloyd.
“I like writing for children because their minds are still forming,” said Mr Thorpe whose novel is set in a coastal Wales ravaged by climate change and rising sea levels.
“They are asking all sorts of questions about how the world is working. Their minds haven’t been tainted by ideological bias, they are still open minded about it.
“You can try to be seriously subversive and try to infect their minds with these viral ideas that they can explore on their own to make it exciting. When I was that age I loved having my mind boggled.”
Saci Lloyd, author of the children’s book, The Carbon Diaries, said it was important to write engaging stories for children while keeping climate change as an underlying theme, so it was not obvious that it was a central topic.
The book chronicles a year of the life of Laura, a sixteen-year-old student in London, as the UK imposes carbon rationing in the wake of weather-related disasters…
RELATED LINKS:
*The fiddling of climate change data is the biggest scandal ever
*The BBC’s climate change stance in brazen defiance of the law
*Britons believe in climate change but do they care
George Marshall, founder of the Climate Ourtreach Information Network and author of Don’t Even Think About It: Why our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, also argued that it was important to appeal to people on an emotional level because they were bored by the science.
“We need to get climate change out of the rational side of our brain and into the emotional part because that is where attitudes are formed on the basis of our values,” he said…
*** (David Thorpe, author Stormteller) “Climate fiction has only just begun. Any book from now on will have to have something about climate change in it.”…
Jane Davidson, the former (Labour) minister for environment and sustainability in Wales who chaired the talk, said that ‘cli-fi’ was ‘taking off in a big way.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11624736/Climate-activists-targeting-children-with-range-of-cli-fi-novels.html
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23 May: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: With David Cameron and Amber Rudd, we are looking at a long, cold future
The Government’s policy on decarbonising our economy remains a complete and utter fantasy
Two events last week confirmed that, in appointing his new Government, David Cameron made a catastrophic misjudgment by putting our energy policy in the charge of a minister who believes that only by “decarbonising” our economy can we avert the awful disaster of global warming. Our new Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Amber Rudd, is wholly committed to both these beliefs, saying that her highest priority will be the signing of that proposed global “climate treaty” in Paris next December.
One of these events was the announcement that yet another of our large coal-fired power stations, Ferrybridge in Yorkshire, is shortly to close, thanks to the way George Osborne’s “carbon tax” – five times higher than any other in Europe – is making coal, otherwise by far the cheapest source of electricity, wholly uncompetitive.
This follows the other recently announced, equally premature closure of the giant 2.4-gigawatts (GW) coal-fired power station at Longannet, the only one left in Scotland…
Last winter we could still rely on coal for a third of all the electricity we needed to keep our lights on: averaging 12.7 gigawatts, far more than any other power source. But we are now losing our coal-fired power stations so fast – seven will soon have closed since 2013, with only eight remaining – that in just three years our total capacity will have fallen from 24GW to just 15GW, with more closures to come…
But what was also made clearer than ever last week is that this treaty simply isn’t going to happen. China and India, already the first and third largest CO2 emitters in the world, haven’t the faintest intention of agreeing to it. In a recent joint statement, their prime ministers said they would be happy to build lots more “renewable” energy sources, so long as developed nations such as Britain keep their promise by 2020 to pay $100 billion a year to help them to do it…
But at the same time, to help raise their people out of poverty, they plan within five years to build 300 more coal-fired power plants, adding far more CO2 to the atmosphere every year than the total annually emitted by the UK. India alone plans to add 124GW of coal-fired capacity by 2020, more than eight times the entire capacity left in Britain.
So nothing our new Energy and Climate Change Secretary can do will make the slightest difference to the world’s output of CO2. She is so totally obsessed with the second part of her job description that she seems quite oblivious to the first. She fantasises that, without those horrid, polluting fossil fuels, we can somehow keep our now almost wholly computer-dependent economy running just by building thousands more grotesquely subsidised offshore windmills and solar panels and that solitary, equally expensive new nuclear power station we hope the French and the Chinese might be kind enough to build for us by 2024…
Last Tuesday afternoon we were still able to depend for nearly 25 per cent of all the electricity we were using on coal, while only a mere 1 per cent was coming from our 4,500 windmills.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11623407/With-David-Cameron-and-Amber-Rudd-we-are-looking-at-a-long-cold-future.html
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Pat says here: (my bolding)
The way these articles are written gives the (utterly false) impression that these plants are closing because of this artificially beaten up CO2 scare.
They are NOT closing because of that.
They are closing because they are ancient and time expired, most around 50 years old +.
And they have not been replaced.
There are those who wanted to replace old plants with new, but in the (wholly political) climate, the proposers of those new replacement plants knew that they had no chance of getting their proposals up and running.
The ONLY option they had was to run those old plants for as long as they possibly could, until costs of keeping them running surpassed the returns from the electricity they generated.
This will come back to bite ….. an awful lot of people, and when it does, it will be too late. It’s too late already.
And while this comment may seem off topic, it relates directly to the topic. People just do not want to debate this at all. It is so far totally beyond their comprehension that they cannot even understand the first thing about it, so why would they even begin to even think about debating it. I have serious problems trying to explain any of this in even the most rudimentary terms, and it’s useless anyway, as people just do not want to understand electrical power generation ….. of any type at all.
Electricity comes out of the hole in the wall, and, in their closed minds, it always will do precisely that.
Well it won’t!
And when the bovine waste product comes into violent contact with the rotating wind generating machine, all of them will say the one thing.
“Why weren’t we told?”
Tony.
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When the lights go out, the Greens will already have at hand a long list of other people to blame: Sceptics, corporations, UKIP, Conservatives. There will be no logic to this, but it won’t be aimed at logical people. Now is not too soon to counter these claims. The Greens have been flipping off switches for years; that needs to be made clear before darkness falls. GREEN = NO LIGHTS.
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Looks like Cameron has just handed the rope over to the SNP for Climate Change and Energy. I wonder how long before the trap-door springs.
30
coming to US TV screens in July – does it almost sound like a “debate”! not really.
23 May: TVNZ: Global warming doco involving Victoria University secures US TV deal
The small screen debut of the documentary, called Thin Ice, is set to cause a stir.
Despite the seemingly-overwhelming evidence of climate change, the debate rages on.
“It’s junk science and it’s part of a massive international scientific fraud,” a man tells a meeting in the documentary.
“There is no scientific basis whatsoever,” another man says in an interview…
Peter Barrett, Antarctic researcher and the documentary’s executive producer, says the film is making a clear stance ahead of this year’s climate conference in Paris.
“We really need to aim for zero carbon emissions,” he told ONE News…
Mr Lamb says it’s okay for governments to come to agreement. “But at the end of the day it’s the democracies, it’s the population, [that] have to give permission to the governments to actually do something. And they’re not going to give the permission if they don’t fully understand the problem.”
The filmmakers are working on a deal to market the documentary to an international audience in the hope of finally silencing the climate change sceptics.
“This ridiculous nonsense that manmade CO2 is causing global warming,” a man says in the documentary.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/global-warming-doco-involving-victoria-university-secures-us-tv-deal-6318934
20 May: NZ Herald: Gary Farrow: Global warming documentary makes US television
Thin Ice – the Inside Story of Climate Science is an award-winning documentary film on global warming, made by DOX Productions in London in collaboration with Victoria University of Wellington and Oxford University.
Victoria conducted a successful crowd funding campaign last year to raise funds to create a shorter version of the documentary for television. An hour-long cut has now been accepted by American Public Television, meaning it will be distributed to over 90 TV channels across 40 states.
The filmmakers have also scored an agreement with American Public Television’s international sales division, APT Worldwide, which will allow it to be licensed and marketed globally.
Executive producer Emeritus Professor Peter Barrett says the initial APT release date for Thin Ice, 1 July 2015, is perfect timing…
“Thin Ice will be screening in the crucial months before the culmination of efforts toward a global emissions reduction agreement in the 2015 Paris Climate Conference in December,” Barrett comments. “The film allows ordinary people around the world to meet leading climate scientists and find out why we need to aim for zero carbon emissions.”…
DOX Productions’ David Sington, who produced and co-directed the film, says it’s not often a film of this nature makes it to television screens. “It’s unusual for US television audiences to hear about climate science from the scientists themselves, so we’re thrilled that Thin Ice will be broadcast there.”
The full version of Thin Ice has been released on DVD with subtitles in six languages since its initial release, meaning it is viewable by half of the world’s population.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/element-magazine/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503340&objectid=11451782
Wikipedia: David Sington (Producer/Director)
In 1983, had the opportunity to go to film school but instead, he started his career at the BBC World Service as a journalist. In 1987 he moved to television and produced 22 documentary films for the BBC. In 1999 he left BBC to form his own production company DOX Productions, Ltd. Since then he has made 17 films shown on the BBC, Channel 4, PBS in England, the US and in 22 other countries…His films on climate change have won him a Gold Hugo Award, 2 Wildscreen awards, 2007 Earthwatch film award, and the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2007. (examples: 1991 BBC Horizon: The Day the Earth Melted; 2005 BBC Horizon: Global Dimming etc)
30
Is there a website or database (preferably worldwide) where people can publicly nominate which side of the debate they support?
50
I dont think this should be about sides, there is one information stream, the problem is that different people are in different parts of it. Some “facts” contradict others at the moment, and different people have sight of different sets of information resulting in different interpretations. The problem with this information stream is that people get to choose where they swim.
30
The word skeptic defines the fundamental rationalist view of science introduced by Rene Descartes. All scientists must be skeptics. The Greens have realised at last that it is a compliment and respected position.
The word denier rather is reserved for someone who will not accept the evidence and there is no evidence at all of Global Warming, so debating what causes nothing is fatuous. So it is Richardson who is in denial and as he predicts, he might well be the last of his ‘comrades’ to hold to the policy platform of man made Global Warming.
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” Labor vacated the arena of argument. The sceptics and deniers have turned the 70 per cent-plus belief in climate change into a minority because no one has engaged them.“
— Graham Richardson, Friday May 22nd, 2015
“The main arguments of those who would control CO2 are not scientific, but insults and bluster, shutting up and disqualifying critics rather than answering politely, and producing the evidence.”
– Jo Nova May 23rd, 2015
So the strategy of disallowing debate, of silencing skeptics, of ridicule, public censure, ostracism, insult, and name calling, has resulted in the pro side of the CAGW divide being reduced to a minority of the population. How very gratifying it is to see that the bullies in our society are outnumbered by people who believe in civil behaviour. The strategy of bullying those who don’t uncritically accept the orthodoxy for the purpose of winning the public relations contest has failed, (oh my achy breaky heart/sarc). Bully boys and bully girls relegated to the sidelines by public opinion for un-sportsman-like behaviour! What poetic justice, karma at work, how deeply satisfying.
70
There is a good reason these people avoid debate. Its because losing has no relationship to your actual case.
I saw the debate between Ian Plimer and Gary Warden (formerly of BHP, but trained by the Al Gore school at great cost). Gary got his arse handed to him as he should, in front of an audience that must have been 60% geologists.
The disappointing thing was that there was no way of concretising that result. We should be able to use argument mapping, social media etc to get the efficient arguments and evidence where anyone can test the chain of reasoning and see where the case is broken.
HOWEVER, Ian Plimer is an old hand at argumentation and debating because of his experience with Creation Science nongs. Creation Science types would routinely appear to win debates with evolution/real science supporters because debate is vastly susceptible to good style, social confidence levels and rhetorical manipulation rather than careful testing of reasoning.
We need to work with published, mapped arguments that leave no doubt that the chain of reasoning is correctly tested.
91
Chris, have you got links to good examples of argument mapping?
60
further info re the earlier, shorter, 2013 version of “Thin Ice”, suggesting it had an “official” stamp of approval:
2013: GMA News: Meann Ortiz: Movie review: With climate change we’re all skating on ‘Thin Ice’
“Climate change” and “global warming” are terms we hear often these days. They are especially relevant in this year’s celebration of Earth Day, and also because they’re some of the biggest global issues that nations have committed to understand and address.
***Last April 22nd (also Earth Day) the Philippines’ Climate Change Commission, the Embassies of the United Kingdom and New Zealand in Manila, and SM Supermalls sponsored a film screening of “Thin Ice: The Inside Story of Climate Science” as part of a global initiative…
Climategate
In recent years, climate scientists have been accused of manufacturing the phenomenon of global warming, the implications of which are staggering. So it’s no surprise that there are some very vocal people who deny that it is actually happening, calling them a bunch of alarmists…
Lamb came up with three questions that he wanted his film to answer: Who are these climate scientists? What are they saying? And, do they know what they are talking about?
More specifically, what kind of studies led scientists to believe that humans are affecting the earth’s climate by emitting excessive amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide?
To answer his questions, he sought out the scientists themselves, hung out for months at their research stations, laboratories, and offices, and talked to them about their work…
Now you know
By the time Lamb’s journey ended, “Thin Ice” managed to present a convincing case for the reality of global warming by showing that climate scientists do know what they are saying and doing.
It was a smart move to get the scientists themselves to explain their findings in simple terms and to show them at work because it humanized them and made it easy to ***trust them…
FIRST TWO COMMENTS:
You tell a lie loud enough and for long enough and eventually everybody believes it. But this continual pounding does give one a headache…
Boycott the fear mongering climate blame media. Delete this site from your browser!…
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/305921/lifestyle/reviews/movie-review-with-climate-change-we-re-all-skating-on-thin-ice
April 2013: Yahoo: Manila Bulletin: Unearthing the story of climate science
The film begins with a ***toddler reading a book, seeing the predicted effects of climate change. The camera then shifts to the world’s most icy places…
British Embassy Deputy Ambassador Trevor Lewis observed that unlike other climate science documentaries, ”Thin Ice” presents science in layman’s terms by showing breathtaking visuals so viewers could see for themselves.
”In many cases, people (tend to be) more skeptical about the science-they’re not sure whether the science really ends up. It’s really interesting to me when you look into the film, it went from New Zealand to England, to America and Germany… and the people you see are of different nationalities… (This) is a clear indication that this problem is being tackled by many different scientists from different parts of the world,” Lewis said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Tabassam Raza of the University of the Philippines Diliman thinks that the documentary which caters to a wide range of audiences, can be an effective medium to teach climate science in various schools…
https://ph.news.yahoo.com/unearthing-story-climate-science-164000518.html
from secondnature.org website 2013: More than six years in the making, Thin Ice is a compelling look at the changes taking place in the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and ice sheets. It documents the hopes, fears, and sense of urgency driving the scientists studying these changes…
College campuses in the United States that are signatories to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) are arranging screenings throughout the day for students, faculty, and the public.
20
Green Planet Films: THIN ICE: The Inside Story of Climate Science
74 minutes, Extras: 57 minutes
The global launch of Thin Ice on Earth Day 2013 was a huge success. With the generous support of students, teachers, academics, scientists, and the public, Thin Ice was screened in over 200 locations around the world on that day. An additional 19,000 online viewings were made. People watched the film in at least 120 countries, on all seven continents – from Antarctica and Mongolia to Libya and Peru, Thin Ice reached around the world…
SCIENTISTS FEATURED…Myles Allen, Phil Jones, Stefan Rahmstorf, ETC
SPECIAL FEATURES: Additional Videos
VIDEO 18 MINS: Above is a recording of Simon Lamb’s TEDx talk hosted by Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand in March 2014. Simon argues that the importance of a scientific approach to the world is that we can use it to make useful predictions about the future – no other world view can do the same. This confers an enormous advantage to humanity, and Simon believes that we are all instinctively scientists. The scientific understanding of climate change is an example of how science can be used to predict our future climate, given the rate at which we burn fossil fuels.
http://www.greenplanetfilms.org/product/thin-ice/
Green Planet Films is, of course, a non-profit full of world travellers, connections to UN agencies, etc:
About Green Planet Films Org:
Founded in 2003, Green Planet Films is a Mill Valley, California-based non-profit distributor created to promote environmental education through the artistic power of film…
In 2011, Green Planet Films launched a companion site called Green Planet Stream to attract international viewership, and also to expand our reach to public libraries…our belief in the power of film to generate positive change in the world is the common vision of Green Planet Films and its partners.
Board & Team:
Treasurer: Lisa Mosendz
Lisa is a Fund Accountant at SolarCity, (also was Fund Associate Sungevity – LinkedIn) and lends her expertise to Green Planet Films…
Secretary: Christopher Mraz
From Turlock, California, Christopher Mraz is a wine aficionado and owner of Threshold Wine Company, importing and distributing wine from places like Argentina, Uruguay, and France. He is passionate about seeing the world and spent his younger years backpacking through Latin America and living in Cali, Colombia…
Recently married in 2013, Christopher and his wife Serena spent the summer roadtripping through Spain and France for their honeymoon where they relished the food, wine, and friendly hospitality of the Ribera de Duero and La Rioja wine countries…
Advisor: Matt Scullin
Matt was formerly the President of Green Planet Films, and now an advisor to us. Matt is Vice President-Portfolio Manager at U.S. Bank…
Advisor Climate Change & Media: Dr. Robert Kay
He has worked substantially for Multi-lateral organisations such as UNEP, UNDP, UNFCCC as well as for development banks such as Asian Development Bank and the World Bank…
He has led projects across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle-East, South America, and Africa.
Dr Kay is frequently invited to give keynote presentations at conferences around the world…
Dr Kay is on the list of experts for UNFCCC and has also been involved as an expert reviewer for the IPCC since its inception…
Communications & Content Editing: Neila Columbo
Following graduate studies in Barcelona, Spain, Neila was a journalist in Paris for the foundation of filmmaker and UNEP Ambassador Yann Arthus Bertrand…
http://www.greenplanetfilms.org/
their partners include:
Kanopy which, according to Wikipedia, is an online video streaming service for tertiary educational institutions internationally, distributing films from BBC, PBS, Media Education Foundation, Documentary Educational Resources, and many other production houses, etc.
Hoopla (Midwest Tape), which services libraries.
& so on and so forth…
the CAGW machine has tentacles everywhere.
30
It is a pity that Graham Richardson hasn’t left the baggage of Global Warming behind. He has become a much read commentator and manages to trow of a lot of the left wing environmental baggage he carried while in government, mainly because as an “opinion” writer, he need to seek a wider audience.
For some reason he cannot let go of Climate Change in spite of the 18 years of evidence that CO2 is not to blame for “unprecedented” global warming which even as recently as about 2006, was pronounced, at least once per month to be “worse than we thought”. Poor old Graham. Have you not learned in your old age to look at the evidence and if it contradicts your view point, then you have to CHANGE your view.
John Nicol
50
So, a distinctive characteristic of the climate change debate has been of scientists claiming with the authority of their position that their results dictated particular policies; of policy makers claiming that their preferred choices were dictated by science, and both acting as if ‘science’ and ‘policy’ were simply and rigidly linked as if it were a matter of escaping from the path of an oncoming tornado.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/the-dysfunctional-climate-debate/
50
I went to the Richardson article expecting someone to have issued or relayed Jo’s invitation/challenge for him or his scientists to debate. Zip! It needed to issued his comments area in The Australian, not just here. It is likely that he has never heard of this blog.
I relayed the invitation/challenge, but Sunday night was a couple of days late and the “Comments” activity was already dead.
20
Maybe Jo and/or David could contact both Richo and Alan Jones to suggest such a debate on their joint program. The issue would be finding somebody on the gullible warmists’ side prepared to go head to head on air against David or/and Bob Carter. A no show from their side would be newsworthy in it own right. But is would be great viewing! Go in Jo!
10
Cue image of lone Japanese soldier on a pacific atoll, defending the empire decades after the war was lost.
Fear not that the readers are worried, Dear Graham, by your self-imposed exile. Keep up the good fight comrade and do let us all know if any facts happen to drift past your island of delusion.
70
Maybe the “Love Boat” will drift in for reunions?
00
No surprise here;
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/14_billion_for_richer_australians_to_pretend_theyre_saving_the_planet/
20
Thank you Jo, you must be causing big waves, if the always hearty but disingenuous and often mendacious Richardson is on the job, for the World Government Comintern mob.
30
I would say that the public haven’t so much wised up as they’ve got tired of it all. Comparatively few people are really able to judge the issue on it’s merits. What people have noticed, finally, is that the propaganda looks like propaganda. Not that it didn’t always, but it used to be cool and hip. Now all the warmists are getting middle-aged. Not so sexy anymore.
Wonder what the next big bollocks is going to be…
30
Remember, a climate change denier is anyone who points out that the climate has always changed.
Yes, yes, it is a bit confusing….
10
It is almost pathetic that after so many years the cliamte kooks still think if they shout more loudly and ignore skeptics even more that they can finally prevail.
00