I’ve discussed the big ComRes/ITV survey before, which showed that 62% of UK citizens are skeptics and are not convinced that humans are changing the weather. This is the same interesting survey which also showed that the highest proportion of skeptics were in the educated upper middle class, and the lowest was in the unskilled workers and pensioners. I didn’t explain then that this survey also split the groups according to age. So here (finally) are those graphs. Fittingly the young are undecided and the wise are more skeptical. But surprisingly there is a peak believer age, and that’s around 35 – 44. Either this generation has been assailed with more propaganda than any other, or something else is going on.
Is this the beginnings of the youthful revolution? Only 20% 34% of 18 – 24 year olds would be called believers?
They quizzed 2047 people from across the UK early last year and I’ve graphed the results according to age, and the “peak believer” band is clearly visible. In all three questions I colored believers red, and skeptics blue. The undecided are grey.
People generally switch from the “don’t know” category when they are young into the skeptic camp as they get older. Some may go via the “believer” group in their 20s and 30s.
The first graph shows results from an unusually specific and accurate question.
An unusually specific and accurate question.
“Climate Change” is an ambiguous term. Some people answer according to the coded meaning where any change means man-made change, others read it literally. The vagueness artificially adds another 10-15% to “believer” scores.
…
This is a little less ambiguous. Same trend.
…
Are the 35-45’s just too busy looking after kids and careers to pay attention to this debate? Retired people are not just older and wiser but have more time to do research. They’re harder to fool…
It would be interesting to follow these trends across past and future years. Will the current crop of 18-24 undecideds pick up the believer-theme, or is this a new crop who are rebelling against the propaganda?
The 35-44 group are past the student life, the degree period and busy establishing a career and flat out trying to pay a mortgage, shuffle children, prepare food, plan holidays, pay taxes, build up assets, take risks and look after parents. They believe what they have time to read or hear on the ABC/BBC. The younger people have time to consider and the older people are tired of being told what to think and have heard it all before.
So the peak believers are nothing of the sort. They simply believe what they pay independent people to find out for them, especially the BBC/ABC. Without these bastions of Green activism lying to them, they would have the right information. Sell the ABC. We pay for unbiased information, not political activism. At least with commercial channels, you know there is bias. As Australian ABC Managing Director Mark Scott (on $800,000 a year plus), we are not North Korea. I agree. We do not need totally biased State media. Sell the huge ABC. It is no longer an independent radio system but a commercial operation on huge public service salaries and responsible to no one.
The same with the BOM and CSIRO. Privatise. All have outlived their original purpose and decided to be political activists on secure public service salaries. Spokesmen for the BOM have even had the cheek to say so, with their “Weather Intelligence’. Why just report the facts when you can be famous for pushing scares? The very idea that you can have political bias in state weather reporting is offensive and a betrayal of the taxpayers’ faith in the public service.
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No need for a clean sale to outsiders just yet TdeF
Offer the ABC as a whole to the management and employees as a “management buy out”.
Price to be the value of the fixed assets and bought in programs.
The value of the intellectual property would be given in for free which is probably about its true value.
The management and employees would then be responsible for all the running costs as well as finding their own sources of funds.
To sweeten the deal offer to fund them to the tune of half their current running costs for two years only until they get on their feet commercially.
If the management and employees of the ABC refuse to come at this once in a life time oppurtunity to run their own business so as to generate a large profit from their personal investment entirely in their own work then we know the real value of the ABC as it currently is, a massive tax payer funded boondoggle which is being financed far, far beyond its actual realistic value and apparently far exceeding even the value which its management and employees are prepared to put on it.
And thats with the ABC’s intellectual property thrown in for free!!!
And if thats the case then sell it on the open market and the government can write off its losses on still another anachronistic, socialistic, Green latte sippers , biased, bigoted, anti-capitalistic boondoggle sinecure of tax payer funded troughers.
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Perfectly reasonable, but I doubt it is worth the trouble and it complicates and delays the process massively plus more money down the gurgler.
You can be reasonably assured that no public servants really want to pay themselves what they think they should be paid and with the superannuation and security of public servants too! Are you aware of a single case (Banks, Railways, Power utilities, Ports, Australia Post, Telstra, …) where this has worked?
As was the case in Shawshank Redemption, most of these people are ‘institutionalized’. The same would be true of the CSIRO, BOM and the rest of the many privileged secure groups who plan their retirement on their first day at work. I remember when all CentreLink Staff went out on strike because of proposed redundancies 18 months later as they argued they could not get jobs. You have to deal with people who have never worked for themselves and are not driven by your profit motive but by working the system. They cannot live without a system.
No just put it on the market and if the staff want to organize a management or staff buyout, they can organize it! That is my point. Why should we? Enough already.
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Point made TdeF about the public service / bureaucratic mentality of most of the inhabitants of the multitude of useless quangos and their inability to even consider actually looking after their own futures along with their utter and often contemptuous reliance on taxing those “wealthy” others in the community so as to enable them to retire in considerable comfort well above what most of us can afford.
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“I colored believers red, and skeptics blue. The undecided are grey.” quite a profound correlation of reality there Jo. 😉
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The warmist demise may depend,
On skeptical youth as a trend,
Which is most welcome news,
If their realist views,
Could bring climate-change hype to an end.
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I am surprised that Harry hasn’t accused you of making thing up. 😉
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Twin beavers must be enjoying a day of rest.
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Busy as
a beavertwo beavers on yesterdays article. Even now.Abe
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Rereke Whakaaro, Rod Stuart, and Just-A-Guy
IMO and here
His aim is to derail Jo’s blog thread, which for some is exactly what he managed.
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There’s another point which may have escaped the survey. We antedeluvians over 60 have seen it all before. We have seen and been affected by the whole 60-year cycle, at least in the NH, and have a greater understanding of Climate from experiencing the vagaries of weather. We have been gulled by “experts”, and seen governmental “fads” enough times to have a healthy scepticism of authority’s “settled” pronouncements. When a government department or authoritative institution pontificates, we look for,” that which is unseen”,the ulterior motive. Generally, there is one. The motive may be a public good or the protection of a vested interest, but the latter is more common than the former and stays longer in the memory. Thus, the British government was quite prepared to disseminate propaganda that bananas were bad for you in the War years, 1939-45 and after up to the early 50’s because it was not possible to provide the British public with bananas. When normal trade relations were re-established, bananas were taken off the “bad” list.
So it is with Climate science(TM). UK vested interests wish to push us in one direction, for whatever motive and must suspend public reason to get us to follow their desires. The Old rebel out of experience, the Young from the natural rebelliousness of youth. As TdeF so succinctly says, those in the middle must perforce bend with the wind to make their way in the world. As Jo, Anthony Watts and many. many other scientists prove, there comes a time when a person can no longer live a lie and must protest against the Emperor’s new clothes. I have nothing but pity for those who have to live a lie to exist,- because I’ve been there, and nothing but praise for those who manage to escape from the lie in pursuit of scientific truth.
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Right on point. My father, who is pushing 90, has always seen it all before. None of this is unprecedented to him.
Young people have lived most of their lives during the pause at this point. They are probably tired of being told the sky is falling every day and that they must sacrifice their future dreams to hypothetically save the planet. Besides, each new generation doesn’t want to adopt the ethos of their parents. The Beatles and Rolling Stones generation didn’t willingly listen to Lawrence Welk.
The ones in the middle have, in my opinion, been short changed by professors pushing political agendas at university.
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Who was Lawrence Welk?
40
http://www.welkshow.org/
30
Thanks Tomo,
I was actually being facetious 🙂
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Rereke Whakaaro
Sorry I have a low threshold of facetious awareness currently. I believe it’s linked to my low blood/caffeine levels.
.
.
.
Now where is that decoffeenated caffeine gone?!
🙄
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Good point Dave. The older ones went to universities when there was still some diversity of opinion. The “middle ones in the article” have never known anything but radical leftist educators from K through PhD. Critical thinking skills are very, very hard to develop in a leftist tyranny.
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True but it does not explain the scepticism of the youngest group. The propaganda became more intense as time went by.
I find this very encouraging. Despite the best efforts of the green propaganda machine, young people persist in thinking for themselves.
“…can’t fool all of the people all of the time….”
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I did a paper on propaganda as part of my degree, they called the course, “Promotional Advertising”, but the text book was all about propaganda and the mass manipulation of people’s beliefs and opinions. The author was Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud. Reference: “Propaganda (book)”
The initial context of the course was television advertising during the time of the Soap Powder Wars, and whether “Persil” washes whiter than “Omo” or “Tide”. I guess Persil does wash whiter, because the other two brands seem to have totally disappeared.
But then the lecturer, after a couple of weeks, started to apply the same lessons to public attitudes and behaviours in regard to rubbish disposal, liquor licensing hours, the setting of speed limits, and other community issues.
Then a couple of weeks after that, we got on to politics, and how propaganda could be used to shift public perception into willingly accepting laws that restricted freedom of movement, and freedom of association, and how propaganda could be applied to the rationing of scarce resources, and the unequal distribution of resources depending on a person’s value to society.
Finally, we learnt how this style of propaganda was actually applied in Soviet Russia, East Germany, and the rest of the Communist Bloc.
Perhaps they still teach that course, in some universities, with the exception of the last bit?
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Kev,
Even this is biassed. The problem is the hate rhetoric that is directed to sceptics, and it is such that people in the workforce cannot afford to own up to being sceptical. For example it seems acceptable to limit the career progression of a sceptic when you couldn’t discriminate on other grounds. PC GONE MAD. Anyway, faced with a survey where I could possinly expose myself to such discrimination even I would probably tell them what they want to hear out of fear of retribution.
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I have never understood why such discrimination would be allowed. If sceptics are only 3% of scientists, they are by definition a minority, and should therefore not be discriminated against …
Makes perfect sense to me 😀
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I would have thought that the insistence that the 3% of scientists who disagreed should be silenced would have been enough for 97% of those surveyed to have doubts about what they were being told.
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4 legs good, 2 legs bad?
30
You baaaahstad, you’ve been reading George Orwell.
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4 legs good, carbon trader better.
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RB,
I got a half ton of charcoal to sell, now where is that carbon trader.
🙂
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Interestingly both Christy and Spencer claim to be in the 97%:
Christy: The impression people make with that statement is that 97 percent of scientists agree with my view of climate change, which typically is one of catastrophic change. So if a Senate hearing or the president or vice president says 97 percent of the scientists agree with me, that’s not true. The American Meteorological Society did their survey and they specifically asked the question, Is man the dominate controller of climate over the last 50 years? Only 52 percent said yes. That is not a consensus at all in science.
Then when you look at the core of that question, the core is do you believe that man has some influence on the climate. I don’t know anyone who would say no to that. Who are the 3 percent who didn’t agree with that? Roy and I have both made the statement that we are in the 97 percent because we believe in some (man-made) effect. It wasn’t quantified and it wasn’t this dangerous thing. That wasn’t part of the question.
http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/04/7_questions_with_john_christy.html
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And don’t forget the many other adverse impacts of socialism that must be influencing younger people too who have lived through the changes to their homelands resulting.
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The older people generally have experienced more weather events than the younger groups, cold winters, hot summers, floods, drought. Take the snow in Queensland last week, doesn’t happen very often and maybe it will be another twenty years or so before it happens again.
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I suspect that a far higher correlation will be found between those who have stayed in one location for more than a decade and scepticism.
So, the question I would be interested in answering is this: which groups are most mobile?
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Nearly every time the ABC has something about climate change you get that photo of a power station(in the UK) belching brown fumes taken against a setting sun. I think CO2 is colourless and water vapour white, but that is not the portrayal shown which is not only totally deceptive, but fairly typical of their biased narrative.
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So much the “get them young and convince them” idea is not working. I’m not sure what it says about the education system but the indoctrination idea has not worked. There has to be something else in the education system that is encouraging the students to think for themselves, which is great !
Having said that it might be just a case of “if Mum and Dad think that then I’m not going just agree with it”
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I think these people and the ones that live in the area may develop some scepticism, if they don’t have that already: http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/east-gippsland-inundated-as-rain-continues-to-fall-across-victoria/story-fnkfnspy-1227452578504. Where is our man Tim?
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OFF TOPIC – Someone (ACT Environment Minister) talking on ABC-RN Breakfast program right now saying how cheap wind power is and we have to build more windmills as coal power stations are shut down.
They will soon put the interview up at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/
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Yeah,heard some goose from the ANU,a professor no less,telling an ABC reporter on last nights news that wind power is cheaper than coal generation. They must be putting something in the water from the Cotter River and its not just fluoride.
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Hah…just wait until his wife is on the operating table and the wind stops and the power & lights go out…he’d be hunting for a portable genny that quick….
Wait until summer and the aircon stops because the coal fired stations are overloaded as older ones are killed off…..
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The ACT doesn’t have that worry because they are guaranteed a percentage of the Snowy Mountains hydropower. Funny how that didn’t come up in the ABC’s story.
Who needs coal- not the ACT, they’ve got a reliable alternative.
30
The situation will change, once people on dialysis machines and other life saving appliances, at home, start dying because the wind has dropped, and the reserve hasn’t cut in yet.
The first baby to die in an incubator, that has no power supply, because of snow on the solar panels, will be the first glorious martyr to Gaia.
To quote Al Gore, “Excuse me, do you see a pattern here?”
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Rereke Whakaaro,
Yep, there’s the ‘planned progress’ of a ‘smart’ grid.
😯
10
Remember when you were a kid and they bombarded you with the “if you take drugs you’ll go mad and die” and “if you have sex outside of marriage you’ll go mad and die” things and they made you say your prayers every day until you eventually you got to thinking “what a lot of bullshit”. I’m talking the 60s/70s here – the sexual/social revolution didn’t really arrive in Manchester for another decade or two, certainly not in school anyway.
I suspect that much the same thing is happening with the first generation to have been subjected to non-stop AGW propaganda, thinly disguised as education.
Speaking personally, I was a convinced warmist from the late 70s onwards. It was working in Local Government, in the Environmental Management sphere, and seeing AGW taking on a quasi-religious fervour reminiscent of Christian Revivalism, with seemingly endless amounts of cash thrown at projects of with no logical outcome backed by an almost Orwellian attitude to enforcing the dogma which sowed the seed of doubt in my own mind.
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Here is a few more “young ones” not convinced about stopping runaway global warming:
ABCrural: Never seen before weather conditions culminate in abnormal livestock losses
Extreme cold weather conditions in southern New South Wales last week created a perfect storm of unfortunate events for some sheep producers, culminating in some significant livestock losses.
The national average for lambing mortality is 10 per cent in ewes with single lambs and 20 per cent for twins.
But researcher, Dr Gordon Refshauge, said the mortality rate in this instance is almost 40 per cent.
He said he had never seen a situation like it.
“It’s a significant change. It’s quite anomalous.”
. . .
And, for the ‘red thumber’, yes, weather is now climate.
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David Maddison –
the ABC Breakfast interview was with Simon Corbell, Deputy Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory.
if TonyfromOz was apoplectic over the Labor renewables’ rubbish on ABC yesterday, i can’t imagine what he’ll have to say when he hears this interview. Fran ended with how ACT is LEADING the way blah blah.
Corbell seemed very nervous answering the questions about whether wind was more expensive than coal.
switched over to local Brisbane ABC which i rarely do in the mornings, to hear a lengthy interview with a guy about Bill Shorten’s renewable target – how polls showed renewables support is popular with the vast majority of Australians (who must have forgotten the ongoing costs to the taxpayers of the desal plants, the sewerage recycle plant fiasco in qld, the pink batts deaths, etc).
the conversation moved on to the turning back the boats announcement and how Shorten needs to kill this debate before the next election because Labor’s opposition is not popular, yet somehow the Labor left opposition is a matter of principle.
kept listening only to hear who was talking – Bernard Keane of Crikey, who apparently is interviewed every Thursday morning! unbiased ABC? you have to be kidding.
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I’m confused about the 20% as the lowest brown bars for this category is about 32%.
I’d throw out the data for the second question.
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Gee Aye, thanks. You are right. I’ve edited the post. I wrote this post in stages starting last year. I must have referred to a different graph, then found a better one. Thanks for picking this up. Sorry! – Jo
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No worries… my services fee is in the mail. If I can find one of those mailing places.
I guess I got the red thumbs from the others who saw the error and realised that they would miss out on the reward.
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No, you got the red thumbs out of habit. It is call notoriety, which is sort of like fame, but without the benefits.
31
Awww
00
I figured that. Most comments here are generated out of habit. It is also the reason they gave the thumbs but failed to notice and assist with correcting the error.
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You have scored a point here Gee Aye.
However you do not read carefully. There are no brown bars. The colours are red, blue and grey.
30
I will take your word for it… you’ve outed one of my disabilities although I’m happy to be outed- it just never came up before. But give me an insight, I bet it is a browner shade of red not a bright red and possibly browner still on some monitors (please check on multiple monitors if you have time)
11
just prior to hearing the Breakfast prog renewables interview, i heard just the end of Alan Jones, on shenhua again. this time i think he was prefacing his comments by saying he wasn’t against coal per se, but then he read an email from an unnamed Australian in Hong Kong. all the usual China doesn’t need/won’t need more coal; they are racing ahead with wind and solar, etc.
40
pat writes here: (my bolding here)
When commentators like this say things like this, what they forget is ….. context.
They see the huge Nameplate numbers for wind and solar in China and then compare that to what we have here in Australia, and when you see numbers like that it looks huge.
Wind in China barely makes 2.2% of the overall total generation mix, and Solar manages 0.2%. (and here, I’ve rounded that up), and both those percentages are lower than Australia’s percentages.
What needs to be realised here is that China is increasing it’s overall power generation by the equivalent of ALL power generation in Australia from EVERY source, and doing that every 120 days or so, so three Australia’s a year, and if truth be told, it’s closer to four.
Just from Hydro power in China alone, they generate 6 times the power generated in Australia from every source.
The ONLY reason the World total power generated by renewables is so high is due to one fact alone, China Hydro.
Wind and solar power in China are in fact less than the tiniest niche generators of power than probably in any Developed Country on Earth.
Because the Nameplate is so high, it looks huge by comparison.
China wind has an average Capacity Factor of around 15%, while here in Australia and in the U.S. it is closer to 30%. In China, the concentration is not on wind and solar, but on real methods of power generation to supply the huge amounts of power needed to run the Country.
China’s total power generation is higher than Australia’s by a factor of 27.5.
China’s population is higher than Australia’s by a factor of 62.
Tony.
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You my have better luck trying to get these points across than I have
After about 10 years of trying, I suspect the feeling from the majority of the Aus population to these facts to be one of fear – too scary to think about, so into the waste basket
My European colleagues and in-laws state that outright: “We are scared of China”
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Actually I scored a point on an ABC blog which bemoaned Australian renewables investment last year compared to the EU, USA and China. I pointed out that on a per capiuta basis it was higher than all of them (from guesstimating in my head). Someone else commented that I was right based on actual data. Inconvenient truth.
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Nice one.
10
ianl8888,
Maybe “My European colleagues and in-laws state that outright: “We are scared of China”” because they understand what National Socialism looks like and what it might do.
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Tony, the other thing about China that annoys me is that ignorant or deceitful commentators (take your pick) regularly confuse a slow down in China’s growth with a reduction in its economy. Thus a growth rate falling from say 10% pa to 5% pa still means that in the latter year 5% more coal, steel etc. will be required.
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Well they are transitioning away from investment-intensive growth, so iron ore and coal demand is possibly flat-lining soon. There was massive over-investment in steelmaking capacity.
The other thing to note is that 10% growth a few years ago might be less than 5% growth in a couple years time, in absolute dollar (renminbi) terms. China is still growing if you believe the official stats. Problem is these stats are dodgy as. That’s why serious China analysts look at other things like electricity consumption, square metres of office space developed and so on. Those stats paint a much bleaker picture. So who knows? Certainly not the majority of MSM reporters… but why should Chinese economics be any different to climate change?
40
B D, my comment was partly based on my observations from a month in China a couple of years ago. Roads, bridges, metros, airports and apartment blocks all being built in mind boggling numbers and at speed we couldn’t dream of in OZ. I would be VERY surprised if China gets to negative growth any time soon. The growth may broaden but there will still be massive investment-intensive growth as the move from rural to urban lifestyles continues – albeit to newer cities in the West.
30
Don’t forget that China has a few internal problems that it needs to deal with, especially in regards to unrest within various ethnic groupings.
10
Bookmark it.
The world is getting better all the time, in 11 maps and charts (vox.com)
“In fact, we’re living through what is, by objective metrics, the best time in human history.
People have never lived longer, better, safer, or richer lives than they do now.
And these 11 charts and maps — which draw on centuries of data, as well as a brand new UN report that focuses on the past 25 years — prove it.”
~ ~ ~
United Nations Links Affordable Energy to Quality of Life
. . .
Blame coal for that, which replaced windmills in the 16th century.
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If affordable energy gives quality of life …
~ ~ ~
A nation still drawing 18,000MW in it’s sleep can’t go solar…
jonova – Guest post by Anton Lang (aka TonyfromOz)
AUSTRALIAN POWER CONSUMPTION LOAD CURVES
“There’s a message in these two diagrams that underlies every decision about national energy.
There are two distinct peaks on that winter diagram.
In the morning — breakfast, showers, turns on the heaters etc – and then again in the afternoon and evening — when people come home and turn on the heaters, stoves, microwaves, washing machines and dryers.
Without rearranging our biological clocks, or reforming our civilization, there’s no real possibility of ‘flattening out’ the two humps.
Renewable power just cannot fill those unmovable daily time-slot requirements.”
. . .
Then, why should “Electricity should cost more in peak periods? (Federal Government white paper says, abc)
This sounds like a suicide note.
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I have posted here previously on this very subject not long ago on the reasons why the younger generation is discarding the social consructs and memes of their fathers and mothers, those of the previous generation.
We see this discarding of the memes and constructs of the previous generation everywhere in out lives if we are prepared to take notice and think through the always changing mentality of the different generations often driven today by the changes and advances in technology.
My example I quoted from was that of our gliding club but is applicable to so many organisations.
In rural areas with a declining population base it is a generational phenomena that is very obvious.
My generation [ I am now 77 years old ; born in mid 1938 ] started , developed and built our once very active gliding club
We just expected the next generation to come along and take up where my generation had finished and we did much in the way of promotion to ensure that this would happen.
But the next generation refused to play ball and to take a interest in and begin flying as in Gliding and to continue the club on it’s previously high activity course.
And few of us could understand what we had done wrong in not getting the next generation to continue the club in the manner in which we had hoped for and had expected.
And then I started to look around at all those other organisations that were such a factor in my generation’s lives .
And they were mostly all having the same problems.
They could not get many of the young ones, the newest and next generation interested in continuing in the old well established ways that their fathers and mothers and those of the previous generation had created and believed they had laid out for the next generation to enjoy.
I thought and looked a bit harder for the reasons why and I began to see that the next generation was itself very busy creating its own social constructs, its own clubs and groups and its own memes both bad and good which they in turn are already beginning to bemoan the fact that the newest generation is not really interested in what they are almost completing as their generation’s social constructs and memes.
And so it goes down through the generations.
Each generation creates its own memes and social constructs of which after some two decades of being heavily promoted, the Catastrophic Global Warming meme which impacted the formative years of the 30 to 50 year olds is one that belongs to that 30 to 50 year old generation and not to the earlier or later generations.
The new generation, those below thirty years old, well the CAGW meme is not one of theirs that they constructed and were propagandised into.
That sort of crap belongs to those oldies, not us, is their mentality!
We have other more important things that might make our lives very uncomfortable such as terrorism as an example so we will deal with them instead.
And so their newest generation begins to construct its own memes and beliefs and shapes its beliefs and social psychology around those memes and social constructs .
And those of us of the older generations who haven’t thought this through or haven’t bothered to try and understand why they, the many of the next generation who are no longer believing in the CAGW meme will be baffled and even angered when the sheer danger of a rapidly warming globe has been so heavily promoted is ignored by that newest generation.
A long discourse to just say;
Hey, this global warming thing belongs to those oldies.
Its not our thing so forget it.
We’ve got far more important things to worry about that are going to affect our lives.
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I see where you are coming from ROM. And I would be happy to endorse it except for this. I would like to hand over a world, or even just an Australian society to the next generation, in better shape than it came to us.
Handing over a broken electricity infrastructure and massive unpaid debts (because of reckless and totally wasted spending) does not meet the standard for me. The Global Warming mess is going to be their problem, whether they like it or not, and whether they understand it or not!
The youth might be interested in other things, but handing on some concepts of logic and rationality seems important.
That is why I support blogs such as this.
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I was at Wakerie 1972. Renner won the long distance.I outlanded near Morgan. Maybe we met.I was 18 years of age. Cheers to you old sailplaner!
00
G’d day Glen
I’ve still got the plaque off the Sir Donald Anderson trophy they gave me at the 72 Waikerie comps.
Was offered one of the two deputy Ops Director positions for the 73 Worlds at Waikerie but I had a harvest to take off and a young family to help look after with my wife so had to turn that down.
Finished up unofficially about there on the totem pole at Benalla in 86.
Ran Horsham Week comps as Ops Director for about 30 plus years out of the 35 years we ran it until the pilots took it over.
Meeting tomorrow to plan for the 50th Horsham Week comps in Feb 2016
We think we are now the longest running annual gliding comps in the world from the same original site.
Cheers and thanks for the memories.
10
it’s up now. abc has Simon Corbell as ACT Environment minister:
AUDIO: 23 July: ABC Breakfast: ACT leads Australia in renewable energy targets
Labor’s recently announced renewable energy target is ambitious, but does it go far enough?
The ACT’s target for renewables is far more high-reaching, and aims at having 90 per cent of its energy coming from renewable sources by 2020.
ACT Environment minister Simon Corbell joins Fran Kelly on RN Breakfast.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/acts-renewable-energy-target-more-ambitious-than-labors/6641960
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In so far as the ACT wants all the wind farms to be in NSW so all the disruption, noise etc. doesn’t upset anybody in the ACT.
They also want the NSW to maintain full electricity flow regardless of lack of wind, clouds, night etc. at the expense of NSW.
10
this would be true if it were a temporal study but it isn’t. Each age category is affected by a whole bunch of different life factors and I see no reason to assume that a younger category is an indicator of how the older categories thought when they were younger. There is nothing in this data to say, for instance, that the older ages havn’t changed progressively from being overwhelmingly sceptical when younger to now being about even in scepticism:belief.
16
I think we can safely say that scepticism is on the increase in the UK.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/06/08/america-and-uk-lead-the-world-in-climate-scepticism/
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whether that is true or not, it is not an inference that can be inferred by the headline data.
01
inference that can be inferred??? Sigh.
00
Gee Aye, yes we need past and future studies (as I said in the post) to know if the age 18-24 were always more undecided, or if the levels of skepticism has changed in each age group. Then if we had funding we could also ask individuals their past beliefs and how they changed to cross-check. But there is a lot of circumstantial evidence, and other studies, suggesting that skeptics are more likely to be “old white men”. And the transition from believer to skeptic is virtually all one way. Name me someone who shifted from skeptic to believer? Forget Richard Muller, who was never a skeptic. What’s left?
For all the money given to psychologists and marketers to solve the “global warming” problem, isn’t it interesting that almost none of them do decent surveys?
If I were trying to understand skeptics (instead of just malign them) I would start by interviewing the leading skeptics, then I’d run focus groups with ordinary skeptical people, then I’d design a survey with clear questions instead of vague ambiguity.
Who has done anything like that?
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I find it hard to address your question as I think everyone who is a sceptic is always a sceptic. You sign up for a life of scepticism (an important foundation for curiosity) when you do a BSc and so I can’t imagine any other way. A skeptic can be a “believer” or a “non-believer”.
The oldest groupings in the graphs grew up and matured in pretty much a pre-AGW era- or an era when very few knew anything about it and those who did didn’t have blogs to discuss it on so at the most trite level of comparison, there is no comparison with single time point data.
11
I disagree. A skeptic cannot be a believer.
20
I think it is simplistic to link scepticism or non-scepticism to age.
Scepticism is caused, and follows from, a breach of trust. That usually happens when people are young, but it may not happen until they finally get laid-off from a job that they were told had tenure for life.
I see scepticism, as being the scar that is left behind by being shafted in some way. The more the government shafts people, the more skeptical those people become about the government.
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RW you’ve drifted into conjectural drivel. A citation might help but I doubt it.
04
I’d go with RW on this. I feel shafted by the media, actually the BBC in particular. All those years ago, watching my father, a twice decorated RAF/RNZAF veteran of WWII, shaving whilst listening to the BBC news on crackly shortwave, and, as Dad was my example, I believed implicitly every word uttered by that plummy voice, and did so for many years.
Then came the disillusion when I realised that I was a mere molecule in the scheme of things and that the so-called ‘public service’ broadcasters were the tool of vested interests and what I and billions of other ordinary citizens thought was irrelevant.
Then came total disillusionment when I finally twigged that none of the MSM could be trusted to disseminate anything resembling the truth unless it suited those in control.
Rereke is right – you are wrong.
40
Dave… I never said he was wrong just that it was drivel. No one needs to be disillusioned to be sceptical. I dont think that science is based on disillusionment.
00
Scepticism implies doubt. That is not conjecture.
I have always objected to being called a “Sceptic”.
I have never had the slightest doubt that it is a scam.
10
Correct. What you describe about yourself is not scepticism but adherence to a belief.
00
INcorrect, Gee Aye.
Identification of a preposterous proposition is not “adherence to a belief”.
It might help if I tell you that I come from the same place as Maurice Strong.
Everything he has been involved with has been a scam. Through the days of Conrad Black and Power Corporation to the Petro-Canada scam and on to the UNEP.
Everything in which his parents were involved was closely linked to the Lenin, Trotsky, and the events of 1917.
That is not “adherence to a belief”.
That is just careful observation.
10
Gee Aye, obviously, in the context of a climate debate skeptic = skeptic, and unskeptical = believer. It is a stretch to suggest I was talking about anything else.
I take your point that in the broader world there are combinations and permutations of ignorant-skeptic, informed-skeptic, ignorant-believer, informed-believer. And as per your point last week, I have always had a skeptical nature, but I was once ignorant of skeptical arguments (thanks to ABC/New Scientist bias) and poorly trained (by UWA and ANU) on logic and reason. I was unaware that there was a systemic cultural kind of media block (thanks to bullying, namecalling, social ostracism, and bad training of journalists) on good skeptical points. There was a strawman promotion of poor skeptical arguments. I discover good skeptical arguments on a Tuesday afternoon in Feb 2007. Then I did what any skeptic would — I changed my mind. In hindsight I should have recognized the vacuous arguments – the “consensus” and ad homs — for what they were years earlier. I lament that science degrees in Australia are weak at engendering real skeptical thought.
But you bring in this unnecessary distraction to dodge the main point of my question. There are almost no good surveys or polls. Those paid to understand skeptics appear to have no real interest in doing so.
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Does anyone feel like hunting for past or newer editions of this survey?
10
I don’t know about past edtions of a survey that was topical. The abovequestions came about because of the flooding in the UK. The link to the actual survey is gone so I can’t see what else to check up on.
Here is a US survey that fouynd that nothing much has changed over the last eight years. Two thirds think that global warming is happenning but only 46-52% of that two thirds think that it is man-made. So only 1/3 of Americans think that there is some correlation of temperatures with fossil fuel use and it has barely changed for 8 years.
Less than one in five think that global warming is not happening so very few people are deniers of climate change. Only 11% are very worried about global warming but now mention of those who believe in catastrophic global warming is likely.
20
Please excuse the severe bout o fdyslexia and keyboarditis today.
20
Reading a little more, while only 11% say that they are very worried about global warming (which means that 89% are as much deniers as Bjorn Lomborg) almost 2/3 think that government action on global warming would be of benefit to the natural environment and benefit future generations by a lot or a moderate amount.
By my reckoning, 50% of the US population (and UWA academics) can’t think straight.
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Thanks for the laff.
10
Since the data is gone from ComRes, I have put up a copy of the data in a doc form. I have an excel form if anyone prefers that.
http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/source/psychology/polls/uk climate poll-data-2014.docx
00
remember this!
10 July: The Conversation: Michelle Grattan: Abbott to ABC: put Q&A under news division and ministers will return
Tony Abbott on Friday told the ABC that ministers will appear again on Q&A if and when the program is brought under its news and current affairs umbrella.
This would mean there would be stricter controls on the program in terms of balance…
ABC chairman Jim Spigelman, in a letter to Abbott on THURSDAY, said a transfer to the News Division had “merit” and was being considered…
(Spigelman) “The ABC board has considered and approved management advice on changes to the operations of Q&A”…“I anticipate management will propose further changes of this kind while the review is taking place. One of the options under active consideration is to transfer the program to the News Division. I see merit in this proposal,” the letter said…
In a brief and TERSELY worded reply that referred to the “notorious” June 22 episode, Abbott said that in discussions with the ABC, Turnbull had been “given to expect that Q&A would be moved to news and current affairs – which would be appropriate for such a program.
“In your letter to me, you indicate that transferring Q&A to the news division ‘has merit’.”…
http://theconversation.com/abbott-to-abc-put-qanda-under-news-division-and-ministers-will-return-44534
NOTE: Spigelman’s letter was written Thursday, and stated the Board was actively considering transferring Q&A to the News Division and that this had merit. the PM’s letter, on the other hand, was merely a response on Friday, agreeing with Spigelman and the Board. yet note the headline!
to be continued.
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As the younger generation like to use modern technology and watch short videos on youtube they can see lots of historical, informative, and educational videos there.
They see earthquakes and volcanic eruption, sand and dust storms, tsunami, big storms affecting big cities or rural villages, and big winter freezes. These videos may show anyone who wishes to see the events of the recent past, and how little humans can do to control them.
UPDATE —
Youtube has now been updated with a million minute trove of newsreels from AP (with British Movietone and Pathe‘) featuring everything from an eruption at Mount Vesuvius to a pile of adorable baby animals is now available to watch, for free. See more on the story here.
More evidence to look through for how things have changed over the last 100 years or so.
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Labor in Australia are going to endorse a Green policy to increase ‘renewables’ of wind and solar only from less than 1% to 50% of the grid in just 15 years. The Greens are innumerate. Words fail.
Assuming it was possible, feasible, affordable, this means 3.5% a year each year for 15 years to reach 50%, or 4x our current total in solar and wind installed and working every single year until 2030. Greens cannot add let alone multiply. Nor can Tim Flannery nor Al Gore. Greens are not scientists but claim to know all about “The Science”. No scientist actually ever put indefinite article in front of Science. Even the phrase ‘The Science’ is non scientific as it contradicts the basic concept of science. It cannot be dictated or determined by consensus.
So why not have a Green/Labor policy that energy will be free and infinite? Remember this is from the people who banned the element Chlorine, one of 92 elements. They would like to ban Carbon too. Hydrogen is useless and dangerous. Ban that too.
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TdeF
“…They would like to ban Carbon too. Hydrogen is useless and dangerous.” …and the very dangerous dihygrogen monoxide!
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As soon as they figure out a way to regulate it, they’ll just tax it. Banning is so ‘last century’.
Abe
30
Words fail me too. I commented on this tripe over at Bolta’s place but the summary of it is.
To get to 110000GWh (actual, not nameplate) you need, taking account of losses and capacity factor of 17%…
110000 x 1 MW windmills
5000 square km of land stripped of significant vegetation (and therefore wildlife)
2 to 3 Trillion dollars
It has to be noted that the 110000 Megawatts of windmills needs backup equivalent to the retired coal plant for the times that the continental high sits over OZ beclaming almost all wind. The 20 GW gas/diesel backup alone would cost more than the equivalent coal plant. The 110000 windmills would need replacing 3 times over the life of a typical coal plant, so factor 330000 windmills in the next 50 – 60 years, maybe more in case of eathquake or major storm, dust storm or carrington class solar event.
I might throw in the fact that no windmills could be constructed north of about the Gold Coast because of the liklihood of the odd cyclone or tropical storm demolishing these fragile lightning rods. Nor are all our grids interconnected, So to acheive 50% or more one would have to factor in ultra high voltage transmission lines from the southern coast right across all populated areas of the country. Throw in an extra Trillon and another couple of thousand square km of land for that.
All this and then the windmills dont even manage to save half the CO2 emissions, because of the CO2 embodied in their construction and the loss of sinking capacity by razing 6000 square km. The resultant effect on the earth’s temperature after 60 years of all of this (replacing just one coal build lifecycle) is to the nearest hundredth of a degree ZERO, ZIP, NOTHING.
Bill Shorten, Short on science, short on maths and short on common sense.
Short on brains seems to think this is achievable, I call it an unmitigated disaster more than 5 times the debt disaster they already treated us to.
Wake me up when Short On figures out where he is gonna get the 3 Trillion from.
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bobl
When you simmer down try the spoonerism of his name
30
Ah, the gorious glaffs of Reverend William Archibald Spooner or is that Silliam Archibald Swooner? The gan that mave us tinglish errors infused with English terrors.
😆
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this morning Mark Scott was out in full force, with the two Michaels on the ABC:
AUDIO: 23 July: ABC AM: ABC shopfronts to close nationwide in shift towards digital content
(5 mins in) MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Okay, can we turn to the recent difficulties with the Government…
MARK SCOTT: …The Government understands and I think politicians understand that the ABC is overwhelmingly popular with the Australian public.
The most recent Newspoll survey showed that 84 per cent of the Australian public believes that the ABC provides a valuable service and that overwhelmingly the public believe that the ABC is fair and balanced and impartial…
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: I guess, the Prime Minister kept it going and it’s still going. Will you move the Q&A program under the news and current affairs division ***as the Government wants?
MARK SCOTT: They’re decisions that rightly lie with management and the ABC board…
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: ***But do you see it as an attempt by the Government to influence editorial decisions?
MARK SCOTT: I think people understand and I think the Government understands that the law of the land says that the ABC is independent, the powers of those decisions lie appropriately with the ABC board, that group of ***EMINENT Australians who are trustees of the ABC on behalf of the Australian people and so no, I don’t see it as an attempt to influence the ABC.
I think everybody understands that the ABC is independent and everybody supports that independence.
***MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: I guess that the concern is that is a response to a direct request from a government, does that set a precedence for governments who might want to actively influence editorial decision-making in the future?…
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Okay, but what difference would it make anyway to move the program from the general TV division into news and current affairs?
MARK SCOTT: Well, um, as you know and I think many of the public know, the same rules apply to editorial standards no matter where the program comes from within the ABC so the editorial policies apply …
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Exactly…
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The Prime Minister said after the program, after the row began that heads should roll. Will they?
MARK SCOTT: Ah well, the ABC board has already reflected on this matter, a statement has been made on this matter. No further action on that program is being contemplated and I think it really is time for us all to move on from the focus that we’ve had over one or two questions on one of 40 Q&A programs that goes to air every year.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Sure, but you can’t deny it has become a big story. As you said …
MARK SCOTT: Well, Michael, I think it’s been a big story. Whether it still needs to continue to be a big story or whether in fact there are more important issues for us to discuss.
I mean I think that’s the way I see and I think that’s the way the board sees it. We dealt with that matter. We have moved on from that matter and I suggest others should do so as well and I’m delighted to say that Q&A went to air last Monday night, one of our biggest rating programs of the year…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4279088.htm
WITH MICHAEL ROWLAND – can’t find this on abc website:
(abut 5 MINUTES IN) 23 July: ABC TV News Breakfast: Mark Scott explains closure of ABC shops
(Mark Scott interview by Michael Rowland)
(Comments are disabled for this video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=642lNPtrPgU
(summarising the above:
ROWLAND: PM wrote to chair, Jim Spigelman, saying he would lift ban on ministers appearing on Q&A ***IF ABC moved the program to News Division. how is that not interference?
Mark Scott doesn’t dispute that characterisation. yet Rowland goes on & on with this line of questioning yet, at one point, Rowland says as you (Scott)point out (HUH!), this move has been under the consideration internally for some time. are u worried that, if the move was made to put Q&A under the news umbrella, it would be seen by many people as the ABC capitulating to an often hostile Government?
Scott: it has been considered in the past. the Board will be considering what is best for the ABC so we can deliver our Charter. i’m a board director myself. the Board sees itself as trustees of the Australian people. it’s the Australian people who own the ABC & the EMINENT Australians who serve on the Board are the trustees of the Australian people.)
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Interesting isn’t it that the people who have been around on the Earth the longest ‘disagree’ that storms and flooding are as a result of human activity. They’ve seen it all before.
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returning to the 15 July Greg Combet/Lateline interview, with the Facebook questions, (which i detailed at some length in the comments on jo’s previous “Solar activity” thread). re the second FB question posed to Combet:
15 July: ABC Lateline: Interview: Greg Combet
***TONY JONES: Let me come to another Facebook question. This is from Pete Mac, and since you’re the architect of the CFC, it’s relevant. “Why should the Clean Energy Finance Corporation fund wind technology when its costs are now commercially viable?”
GREG COMBET: Well just go back to the point I made a minute ago about the instability that the Abbott Government has created for investors in renewable energy and yet we need to invest in wind technology. The purpose of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation was to address what you could describe as a market failure, or a concern on behalf of banks and private investors in risking their money in such an uncertain environment.
TONY JONES: But what happens when wind becomes commercially viable, then the market is no longer failing, it’s actually taken over?
GREG COMBET: Well that’s fine.
TONY JONES: Are we at that point now? ‘Cause that’s the …
GREG COMBET: When investors are confident and private finance will meet the financing needs of a wind farm, that’s fine. But when there’s a need to share some of the risk and including some of the return, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation was set up to step in and just take enough of it in partnership with the private sector to make sure that investment happens, to get it over the line. That was the purpose of it.
TONY JONES: OK. Is it time now to move on though from wind since it does seem to be economically viable in terms of investment, particularly with the Renewable Energy Target backing it up, and to put the money from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation into big solar, for example, big solar arrays? More inventive ways that aren’t getting investment?
GREG COMBET: Well it’s not time for – it’s not time for people who are in leadership of government who walk around saying they hate wind towers and wind energy to be directing a finance corporation that’s statutorily independent to be telling them what to invest in and what not to. Let them make the decision. They’ve got a clear investment mandate. They’re there to address circumstances where the private sector might just want to share some of the risk and return in a project and to help get it over the line…
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4274533.htm
***it may seem that the Pete Mac Facebook question is ANTI subsidies for renewables & therefore provides a balance to the clearly pro-renewables FB question from Linda Mae Reeb earlier in the interview (see jo’s previous Solar thread for more on that) … but not so.
for starters, from the Lateline Facebook page for the 15 July program, you would be hard pressed to find anyone posting who is not Labor or Green.
it’s the same on almost all ABC Facebook/Twitter pages or comments sections generally, which is why ABC should not use social media or other audience feedback until they return to broadcasting on behalf of all Australians, as required by their charter.
anyway, Pete Mac’s full question indicated his ***special interests:
Facebook: Lateline 15 July 2015
Pete Mac: should cefc fund wind technology when its costs are now commercially viable? Should the burden not fall on the energy producers with the tax system used to encourage its use? i.e depreciation time frames reduced?
***Should cefc be supporting CSIRO for instance and developing commercial applications for solar ribbon? ..
July 14 at 11:48pm
https://www.facebook.com/abcnews24.au/photos/a.267719546594929.73278.226735937359957/1028983110468565/?type=1
(reply to Pete Mac on above FB page)
Lindsay Talbot CEFC – The Clean Energy Finance Corperation ‘s goal is to finance clean energy. It’s charter does not state anywhere that it’s limited to emerging or economically unviable technologies. In fact the CEFC turns a profit and is actually a boon for the taxpayer. Limiting it’s focus (which is against it’s charter) would cause it to lose money and cost the taxpayer…
July 15 at 12:15am
Pete Mac: That’s not my point..Point is when technology becomes commercially viable, companies should be using that technology as part of their business model. There is minimal net effect to the consumer and a nett benefit to the environment.
Australia has huge coastlines and most of the populous resides by the coast. ***Wave technology needs investment and it is precisely here where investment is needed.
July 15 at 12:20am
(Pete Mac replying to post that his question has been asked)
Pete Mac: Good reply by Greg… that makes sense. Should Alan Kohler present some graphs to the CEFC? Thanks for putting my question forward.
July 15 at 9:57pm
so neither FB question included in Lateline was from an opponent of renewable subsidies. ABC unbiased? hardly.
Mark Scott – don’t take the public for idiots.
20
23 July: Bolt Blog: Here comes another multi-billion-dollar green catastrophe, uncosted by Labor
(LINK) The truth behind Bill Shorten’s impossible “aim” of doubling renewable energy in 15 years – without hitting power prices:
Labor has failed to detail the cost to consumers and electricity generators of its ambition to rapidly accelerate Australia’s renewable energy use to 50 per cent in just 15 years…
Modelling undertaken last year by Deloitte Access Economics showed the existing RET pushed up electricity prices, costing the economy up to $28 billion and a net loss of 5000 jobs…
(LINK) What a joke:
The Labor Party has commissioned no modelling on the impacts of its proposed 50 per cent renewable energy target, saying it will consult on “the finer detail” of the policy when it is in government…
(LINK) Adam Creighton:
Labor’s plan to require half of Australia’s electricity to come from renewable sources such as wind and solar power will greatly sap productivity and could significantly boost retail electricity prices, as more unwanted supply is forced into a market already groaning under excess capacity.The renewable energy target, due to reach 33,000 gigawatt hours by 2020, would need to surge to 110,000GWh by 2030 to meet Labor’s ambitious policy, according to ACIL Allen…
ACIL chief executive Paul Hyslop said: “If this were met by wind power it would require 10,000 to 11,000 additional turbines … with capital costs for the turbines alone of $65 billion.
ACIL said the total capital cost would be in the order of $100bn — about three times the cost of the National Broadband Network…. Frontier calculated the net economic cost of Labor’s policy to be $35bn in today’s dollars…
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
COMMENTS
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/here_comes_another_multi_billion_dollar_green_catastrophe_uncosted_by_labor/
00
Pat see my post above, this estimate is based on nameplate capacity, to ACTUALLY get 50% accounting for capacity factor and losses you are going to need 10 times that number of windmills. To get to the greens number of 90% you are going to need a new electricity grid.
50% is a pipedream 90% is for all intents and purposes impossible
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With the amount of pro human-caused global-warming / climate-change / climate-disruption propaganda that is circulating through our media system I find it interesting and even encouraging that so many are still skeptical of the wolves in sheep’s clothing touting the end of the world. Younger people are skeptical of the oldies saying they have to change their way of life because of hand waved reasons and older people have seen political nonsense saying the end of the world is coming before and are skeptical too. The ones in the middle will be exposed to the falsehoods and be de-converted away from “the end of the world is nigh” crowd slowly but surely. (well, I at least hope this is so but it may be too slowly)
I’m still in that middle group where not as many are skeptical (in general and of global warming) and based on my experiences the comments about being too busy taking care of the kids are spot on. (But that’s just me and not a representative sample) In my case I’ve always been a skeptic, meaning that I question something put to me as “fact” and especially when some expert proclaims said “facts” with great gusto and very little in the way of evidence. (tip to the human caused thermal apocalypse proponents, your models which can’t reflect reality are not evidence)
As to the comments about red and blue colouring of the graphs I’m not so sure. I’m not a particularly political person but from assessing my leanings (and trying to be objective about it) I gather that I’m a liberal, pro environment, etc, I’m no expert on political pigeonholing. But I’m also pro-vaccination and pro-GMO, having read into the subject enough and read the papers which present enough burden of proof as to their effectiveness.
Not everyone has this inclination or time (or makes the time in my case, me being a giant science/statistics nerd)
But in the case of Global Warming (despite the name changes this is what they are talking about) I’m at an advantage, I did geology and geophysics before “Climate Scientist” was anything but a geology major who was interested in changes in the environment. On the scale of flakiness; Geology degrees range from Very Flaky Geomorphology through middle ground flaky Geology to the hard facts and maths of Geophysics (lets go find some gold) and I was in the middle between regular Geology and the hard headed Geophysicists, ending up in a gold mine (no oil to declare for the conspiracy theorists out there).
The majority of the “Climate Scientists” that seem to have gained prominence are definitely in the Geomorphology end of the flakiness scale, from my assessment of things.
So any physicist, engineer, geologist or geophysicist looking at how the climate modeling is done very quickly looks away in disgust, shaking their head at the idiocy of some people.
Case in point, when the BOM said they had homogenised the Australian land temperature data set I went away and found the paper and following papers where they started and finished the conversation on if, when and how they could do said homogenisation. As a geostatician I can say I was disgusted with the lack of rigor of argument, statistics and method that was presented. If I had presented such a poorly laid chain of “evidence” to my professor at University it is pretty safe to say that it would not have passed review to go to peer review.
But my background is in just that sort of homogenisation and the statistics/maths around how to do it properly.
What chance does the regular science nerd have of picking the carefully constructed fallacies apart? Or the person who just wants to get home from work and be told whats what in the news.
So yes I’m hopeful that the “skeptical” argument will win through, but my current assessment of the probabilities is not looking great.
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I picked this interesting article up from an on line discussion board, no link provided but I understand it was published in an international coal website;
While Australia’s coal sector may have the support of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, momentum seems to be building against coal in the lead-up to the UN Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris in November.
The World Coal Association, along with the Minerals Council of Australia, has long argued that high efficiency, low emissions coal-fired generation technologies should be deployed where technically and economically feasible, as they can achieve CO2 emission reductions of up to 20% to 25% compared with the average of the existing world coal fleet.
They can also achieve up to 40% reductions compared to the oldest technology in place.
Minerals Council of Australia executive director – coal Greg Evans told the National Electricity Market Future Forum in Sydney last month that Australia lagged behind its own region in the development of ultra-supercritical power plants.
Those USC plants have their home in Japan but are also being built more widely in China, Korea and India.
“Australia is a laggard in this area with efficiency rates around average world levels but below those of Japan and Germany and well below the ultra-supercritical benchmark of new builds in countries such as China,” Evans said.
“Such is the international uptake of super-critical and now ultra-supercritical coal plants, the next coal fired plant in this country would need to be a USC plant.”
Speaking to ICN this week, Evans said while there were four supercritical coal-fired generators in Queensland – the most recent one built at Kogan Creek – Australia had no USC plants.
“Demand for electricity has plateaued due to a number of factors, including current levels of economic growth, some de-industrialisation in the economy where large energy users have moved operations offshore such as in oil refining, heavy manufacturing and car manufacturing,” he said.
“Apart from the fall-off in demand, end use efficiencies have also reduced demand, so there hasn’t been the economic backdrop that has demanded the construction of new plant, unlike in Asian countries, which are going through economic expansion, urbanisation and industrialisation.
“The demand outlook should dictate that ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants won’t hit Australia until at least 2025, and we would hope that the next base-load power station – because it’s the most efficient and affordable energy option – is an ultra-supercritical coal-fired power station in either Queensland or New South Wales, as the most likely.
“The profile of our coal-fired plants is an ageing fleet, and we’re not achieving the average efficiency levels of many countries such as Japan, Germany or even the US.”
Evans said the relevant ministers and bureaucrats dealing with these issues were “certainly aware” of this issue, however, basic market conditions meant demand simply did not justify USC at the moment.
“While there isn’t the required demand then it’s unlikely to have ultra-supercritical plants in Australia any time soon,” he said.
“The benefit of a more efficient coal-fired fleet is that you substantially reduce emissions.
“Every 1% in efficiency gained equates to about 2%-3% reduction in CO2 emissions, and modern ultra-supercriticals coupled with other technologies can reduce not only CO2 emissions but nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and particulate matter.
“For example, the Isogo coal-fired power station in Yokohama – the most efficient in the world – is able to be positioned in the middle of a densely populated area, where city authorities required its efficient and clean-burning characteristics.”
Asia’s uptake of this game-changing technology is not surprising given the International Energy Agency recently forecast that the combined coal demand in the Association of South East Asian Nations would almost quadruple by 2040, overtaking the US.
Perhaps more importantly, India, which has strong diplomatic ties with ASEAN, recently mandated that by 2017 any new coal-fired power station would need to be supercritical technology or above.
“The construction of every new efficient power station in our region is good news for the Australian coal industry as it underpins long-term demand over the life of the plant and we are well placed to meet that requirement,” Evans added.
For now, coal continues to dominate the provision of baseload electricity on Australia’s eastern seaboard, with electricity generated from coal sources at 87% in NSW, 86% in Victoria and 75% in Queensland.
“We expect that will continue to be the case given the affordability and accessibility of coal-fired generation,” Evans said.
40
It’s just so satisfying to see things like this actually being talked about in the public domain and so openly.
USC coal fired plants are being constructed virtually everywhere now as the ‘go to’ for new coal fired plants.
USC has CO2 emissions reduction in the scale of 15% plus for the same power output.
Advanced USC is now closer to realisation than you might think, and that will result in a further 5% reduction in CO2 Emissions over and above USC.
Think of Bayswater with 4 X 660MW units for a Nameplate of 2640MW
Those new Advanced USC will be well and truly up and running by that 2025 date quoted above, and those plants will be running most probably 2 X 1300MW units, and probably even bigger than that, and at a much higher Capacity Factor, so more power delivered to the grid for a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions.
You would only need to start on two of these plants, one in NSW and one in Queensland, as suggested, both burning our black coal, and then replace Hazelwood with a plant similar to what is currently in operation in Germany at Neurath, burning brown coal.
In 2025, even Bayswater will be 45 years old.
Think of the CO2 savings that could have been achieved had their proposal for a USC Plant gone ahead when proposed in 2009.
Tony.
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Can we have a Brown Coal plant in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria?
We have several hundred years worth of coal.
30
Looks like you have to be older than 55 before you know what’s going on with global warming – climate change…
70
The floods in the Somerset Levels were the result of negligence on the part of the agency responsible for maintaining the drainage system. This negligence was excused by claiming the government was following an EU directive.
If such a directive were applicable in all EU countries, the Dutch would have to open the dykes and flood the polders.
50
Off topic
From the GWPF site;
After the hoo haa over the NCDC’s Tom Karl’s use of his admitted very unreliable ship inlet and bucket SST’s to increase the admitted more accurate ocean buoy data temperatures and then using that data to suposedly eliminate the plateauing of global temperatures over the last two decades
—————————–
Why Karl et al 2015 Doesn’t Eliminate The ‘Hiatus’
—————
Yoiks! A whole 1.25 C increase in global temps per century after 1950.
?? Plus or minus 1.44 C. ?? An error range greater than the supposed temperature increase!
70
I had to read the last part a few times ROM, un-bloody-believable!
30
That is modern “political science” where your error range covers your political arse (or career).
30
Maybe we should mandate climate science education (and other things already suggested for so-called climate deniers( for these Maunder deniers. Their denial can’t be good for society nor for the science they are denying. They can return to their homes when the reformation is complete.
30
There are many millions who have been indoctrinated throughout the whole education system and the hard truth will come as a devastating blow to everything they believed in. They want to believe, because it makes them feel good.
http://www.essentialvision.com.au/tag/climate-change
Lukewarmers are backsliding.
40
1) Yes, accurate. I’ve had people say directly to me: “I know it’s not true, but pretending it is makes me feel better”. It’s very hard not to despair when when someone says that in all good earnestness
2) No, I’m not 🙂
40
comment by gertbysea of 4217 on Bolt’s thread (seems the Australia has been providing some facts & figs today):
Graham Lloyd in todays Australian page 6…”Flings of desire do not soar over truth.” gives the following comment…“
….The evidence from early movers such as Germany and Britain suggests the green energy revolution is more difficult and expensive, than the glossy brochures and campaign pamphlets would suggest.
Hard headed analysis from people such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has sunk a billion dollars into renewables and another billion to come, is that existing technologies are not fit for the purpose……
At a fundamental level, the density of energy provided by wind and sun is no match for the compact power of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and uranium…”
IT WOULD BE GREAT IF JO WOULD ALLOW TonyfromOz TO DO A “RENEWABLES – THE FACTS AND FIGURES” THREAD TO COUNTER ALL THE ABC/MSM SPIN.
***we could then forward it to everyone on our mailing lists, so they would know how to counter the relentless propaganda and ask the recipients to forward the link to everyone on their mailing lists.
it should be simple – bullet points, including some quotes from Bill Gates & others who have pointed out wind/solar can’t do the job; India’s plans to produce an additional 1- thousand-plus-million tonnes of coal annually; the UK Govt’s decision to stop subsidies & so on.
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Pat,
It’s really pretty easy,
It’s all about energy density.
Solar radiation is about 1000W per square metre (peak at the equator) and varies with the angle of the sun. At best you get an AVERAGE of about 5-6 hours of this (spread over the day). BUT averaged over 24 hours this becomes 1000 x 5/24 and the best solar cells are only 20% efficient, losses in invesion matching and transmision are 20 percent, 30 percent if you have storage. When it’s cloudy the panels produce only 20% of that.
So at best you can count on
20% of 20% of 80% of 1000W for 5/25 of the day or 6.4Watts per square metre averaged over a day, of RELIABLE energy.
Intermittent solar 32W per square metre
Reliable coal equivalent solar 6.4 watts per square metre only!
Wind works like this.
A megawatt wind plant with capacity factor of 17% averages out at 170KW over a year but needs 5 ha of clear air around it. This is 170000/50000 = 3.4Watts per square meter of land but even at this level is UNRELIABLE because CF is an average of an entire year, a wind tower can be becalmed for a month so there is NO level at which this electricity generation becomes reliable in any way equivalent to fossil or for that matter solar power.
Intermittent wind 3.4Watts per square metre
Reliable wind, 0 Watts per square metre
Now with these numbers your greenie friends can easily work out how much area is needed (stripped of trees and wildlife) to power the world reliably with energy from these sources.
50
Isn’t it ironic that just as we are gathering more and more evidence of a global cooling cycle, more and more people are becoming skeptical of so called climate change. I suppose part of the reason is some mistakenly equate climate change with global warming. Ok then, what do we call global cooling? Reverse-climate change? Just goes to show how so many have ruined the real meaning of climate change. Much of the blame rests fully on the scientists, both those who are peddling the hoax/scam and those who are silent. I wouldn’t blame the politicians – they are just acting as usual – clueless and dumb.
30
PeterS, it does not matter if “global warming” results in warming or cooling, they have got it covered!
As ROM mentioned earlier…
Making the error range large enough decreases the possibility of being wrong. Wasn’t the probability of 2014 being the hottest year 38% or something?
10
The problem PeterS is that even if tomorrow the whole CAGW is categorically proven false and wrong, the UN will never give back one cent of money or any political power that they have gained over the years.
They work like a slow ratchet clicking-up wealth and power, there is no main-spring to release the built-up tensions.
10
I disagree tomomason. The “winding” up of the evil empire will eventually break the “spring” and end up destroying themselves. History is proof of that.
00
Science education changed or was not enforced as part of the curriculum for the 40 – 55 in Australia. Also, the younger have been getting more knowledge about advertising and how to see when they are being humbugged which may have inadvertently undone the ‘climate change’ indoctrination. Let’s hope this is so here, anyway.
30
From one of the older generation but not UK
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/a-different-opinion/
10
Oh how I wish I could write like this;
Via the GWPF;
————————–
Walter Russell Mead: Climate Diplomats Prepare A Paris Fudge
Date: 23/07/15 Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest;
To produce a failure but to call it success is one of the oldest political tricks in the book; this is probably now the best case scenario for the global warming treaty movement.
.
Once again the cumbersome and awkward UN treaty machinery is grinding away, and the world’s jet-setting bureaucrats and climate change crusaders are consuming whole forests to print position papers and reports that no one will ever read, booking flights on carbon-spewing jets, and otherwise preparing for a major global summit.
This time, they will be meeting in Paris, showing yet again that no sacrifice is too great for those dedicated to ending the scourge of climate change. Copenhagen, Paris, Rio, Cancun: these are people who are willing to take their expense accounts to the ends of the earth to save humanity from the consequences of the incontinent consumption and travel of the little people.
[ more ]
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Ambiguity in the term climate change… There you have the major problem. Does it mean natural change or human caused change?
I suspect the Humpty Dumpty problem. The word means exactly what the speaker or writer intends for it to mean and nuts to rigorous definitions. In medicine an ambiguous term wouldn’t be tolerated. In science in general an ambiguous term wouldn’t be tolerated. But in and around the world of climate research that doesn’t appear to be true.
Perhaps the term ought to always be qualified by adding natural or man made as a prefix. Is it natural climate change or manmade climate change?
But don’t hold your breath waiting fo this to happen.
30
Try using the phrase, “climate variation”, when talking to the green lobby.
They will correct you – “Climate Change”, they will say, automatically (including the capitals).
“Yes”, you say, “that is what we are discussing, – climate variation”.
“No, no”, they will respond, “It is Climate Change“, including the emphasis.
I have yet to get one to self destruct, but I think I have come pretty close.
50
You should have went a step further and called it “natural climate variation.”
40
R.W.
Climate Change™ has a very specific meaning and that is why the Warmists insist on using that term and nothing else.
Here’s the official definition:
That’s from the official UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/2536.php). The term specifically excludes all natural climate change, and even excludes any caused by humans due to, for example, land clearance or city building, considering only atmospheric changes.
So the public has been hoodwinked thoroughly. Of course that’s the idea. They can make all sorts of horrendous claims about “climate change” (assuming their definition), which ordinary people assume to apply to, not “climate change”, but to a change of climate (meaning any change, whatever the cause or mechanism). So if they say, “climate change” is 1000 times more than it was 100 years ago, that may be true, but it might still be that the change of climate is negligible.
The Progressives are very very good at redefining words so it gives them an advantage. They especially love to take words with positive connotations like the words science and sustainability and pervert them.
They are also very good at taking a perfectly acceptable word and through Political Correctness changing it to be ‘evil’ For example the words, Negro and American Indian.
These are all twisted, nasty mind games to bully people and to get people to bow to the authority of the PC crowd.
They are also very good games to use when you are taking away the right of free speech.
How many of us now have gone from the 1950s polite term of negro ===> the 1970s polite term black only to find we are screamed at for using the term black and now must use African American or make ZERO reference to a certain segment of the population.
The current attack in the USA is now against the battle flag of one of the top four West Point graduates although not one PC type would ever mention that. (The entire history of that war has of course been rewritten by the PC crowd to increase the guilt of the productive members of society and justify the actions of the parasites.)
The whole idea of course is to stir up hatred of neighbor against neighbor. Meanwhile the Department of Homeland Security has declared ‘Homegrown Terrorists’ a major threat, militarized and organized the local police, purchased 1.6 billion rounds of Ammo — enough for a 20 year war on the ground in the USA.
To add insult to injury, since 9/11 the US government DOUBLED immigration from Muslim nations.
1.6 Million Immigrants from Predominantly Muslim Countries Since 9/11
About half the new immigrants are from these volatile countries.
Sure makes you wonder about WHO the US government thinks the ‘enemy’ actually is doesn’t it? And why they are getting ready for another civil war.
10
bobl –
i like it, and after some years reading the CAGW sceptic websites, i can actually understand it! yikes.
have seen jo has a great renewables’ thread up, so am heading there and will email it to friends.
10
Ah, yes,
if you read “Fourth Turning” (1996),
this is just the “Gen-X” folk,
…having been thoroughly brainwashed by the wimpy,
……”oh poor us” Silent Generation
………who were little kids during WW II and scarred/scared for life,
this all is very simple.
They must be brave and save the world, just like the folk in WW II.
Even if they are clueless, Kruger-Dunning little kids.
10
Hi Susan
I have mentioned Strauss and Howe several times on this blog.
Their concept certainly fits the last couple of decades.
I was watching a doco regarding the Aztecs and Mayans recently and I got thinking about those ancient civilisations in South and Central America.
Contrary to popular belief, the INCA were not a race, but more of a cult.
Some slick operator came along, announced that he was the son of the sun, and the gullible believed him until he had enough disciples to rule by force.
It seems to me this pattern has been repeated over and over for many thousands of years.
In the contemporary landscape, the Gorical pops up, produces a scandalous movie of pure clap trap, and suddenly has thousands of followers.
The modern environmental movement is nothing more than a cult, similar to those cults which gathered followers for hundreds and thousands of years.
Think Ghengis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Adolf, Joe, and Bob Brown. CULTS. Pure and simple.
Strauss and Howe put it into perspective.
00
Has anyone got a link to the survey results?
I tried http://ht.ly/swQHV but it came back page not found.
I am trying to confirm the 62% of UK citizens are skeptics result.
00
If instead of “don,t know ” for the greys ,you insert “do not give a flying ,,bleep ”
You may be closer to the mark. Only weirdos like myself ,classic denier , and some of my friends ,classic Guardian reading , tofu knitting ,tree hugging,champagne swigging rabid socialists and alarmists ,actually are interested and even they fell for the plot 20 years back and do not follow science as some of us sceptics do.I would be surprised if the question was asked “do you give a flying..bleep?” that the people agreeing to that would be larger than 50%.
00
D,OH!! I would not be surprised!
00
Here are the results of the UN’s own survey on the things people want and/or worry about, and 7,688,021 people gave their opinion worldwide.
http://data.myworld2015.org/
The UN is trying to keep it a secret.
00
Look at the answers by age groupings and education:
under 15 = 1,544,265
16 to 30 = 4,421,858
31 to 45 = 1,106,745
46 to 60 = 379,392
over 61 147,882
EDUCATION
unknown 96,699
some primary 791,157
finished primary 1,756,973
finished secondary 1,688,913
beyond secondary 3,356,405
Given this is world wide does primary = grades 1 thru 8 and secondary mean high school? For example in Mexico basic education is compulsory for all children in Mexico from 6 to 14 years. … most Mexican schools use a 6-3-3 structure. And after grade school, middle school is no longer obligatory…
(HDI = Human Development Index)
00
Millennials not as gullible as hoped
00