Even after heavy loaded survey lists climate disasters, half of Brits don’t want to pay a cent

The Institute of Mechanical Engineers in the UK (IMechEng) has a new “climate” survey out. It’s good fodder for headlines about fear and worry. But after priming the audience with a litany of climate disasters and asking them if they are worried about “cyclones”, “droughts” and “the future of the human race”, the awful truth is that half of the Brits don’t want to pay anything to stop it.

It’s another motherhood-two-cent-survey, meaning it asks motherhood type questions and gets everyone’s “2 cents” on an issue (and it’s worth both cents). We get insights like finding that 64% think global warming is “already a problem”, but it can’t be that big a deal because 52% of people don’t think they personally should pay more in tax in an effort to do something about it.

No hard questions are asked, no one is forced to rank the worries of life, only the worries of the climate industry. Evidently the surveyors don’t really want to know if people think “climate change” is man-made. Nor do they want to know how much people want to spend attempting to change the weather. Money is only a Yes No type question.

As usual, there are no specific questions about man-made global warming. All warming and any climate change is understood to be man-made.

Question Five loads the disasters right on: “Q5. What issues regarding global warming are you concerned about” and gives them the options of  Flooding/sea level rises,  Extreme weather, cyclones and hurricanes, Droughts/water shortages, Pollution of air, sea and land, Land lost to sea and becoming deserts.” That’s plenty of disaster to mull over.

They aren’t offered the options of worrying about “national debt”, “higher electricity bills” or the “demise of modern science”.

Question six plays all the assumption-cards: climate change man-made, it should be stopped — and there are “effective” ways to stop it (my bolding):

Q6. Which of the following do you think is the most effective method for combating man-made climate change?

The full survey results: Climate Change survey.

The lack of enthusiasm for spending money fits with other global studies showing 60% of people don’t want their own money spent on “the environment”.

No one is going to find out what the voters want or the number of real skeptics in a survey like this.

H/t GWPF

 

 

9.8 out of 10 based on 66 ratings

94 comments to Even after heavy loaded survey lists climate disasters, half of Brits don’t want to pay a cent

  • #

    If the survey Q6 had been created by people who understood policy-making it would have suggested had a option that said

    A Global agreement that ensures every country contributes its fair share in cutting global emissions

    The UK produces 1.5% of global emissions. Nothing it does will make a jot of difference to the global emissions picture, and there are insufficient Nations willing to sign up to a deal to make a difference to that picture. Is nobody willing to work through the logic and economics of climate change (as I attempted) to understand this fundamental issue?

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      aussieguy

      Is nobody willing to work through the logic and economics of climate change (as I attempted) to understand this fundamental issue?


      Nope. Because Climate Change is nothing more than another political-activist campaign of the Left. Like other “social issues” they push; Numbers, analysis, common sense, etc don’t count. You must “Listen and Believe” and let yourself be guided by emotions and feelings of righteousness! Feeeeeel! Don’t think!

      …Besides, if you observe the modern political Left movement as a whole, when was the last time they demonstrate themselves to be competent with numbers? Every time they govern a Nation, State, etc, they economically ruin it. Every time they introduce a new policy, it lacks any economic forethought (back-of-a-beer-coaster-style aspiration). In fact, honest use of numbers seem to be a handicap for the Left. Especially with their activist arm. (Its pretty much guaranteed that whatever statistics they sprout is “adjusted” and “managed” to support their agenda).

      If one looks at the real world numbers (science or economics perspective), NONE of what has been done makes any sense. The whole Climate Change issue is revealing itself to be a sham. BILLIONS of taxpayer’s money has been wasted. And people are recognising this after experiencing the real world economic effects of this nonsensical Left-driven agenda. (We wouldn’t be visiting this and other websites, if not for this nonsense being imposed on us all.)

      Anyone who implements such policy (in its full entirety), is steering their Nation into economic suicide. Why do you think China (biggest polluter) is largely doing superficial activities in relation to Climate Change? They know its nonsense. They aren’t going to kill their prosperity to make Westerners feel good about themselves! They are all too happy to dominate the solar industry instead! (Why not make money out of the situation?)

      What is most interesting about Climate Change is this:
      Those who continue to actively campaign for it (loudest voices), are the very same people who economically gain from it. It is wealth transfer. From those who pay taxes to those who contribute to little tangible value to society. (Taxpayers => Activists).


      Just think about it, they haven’t even got the basic premise right, yet! ie: They claim man is the problem. They continue to chant it. But they have yet to prove it to anybody! And if you dare question their nonsense, they will bully you to try to silence you! (The problem with bullying someone into submission is that one only gains in the short term. They lose in the long run.)

      …Which is exactly what is happening as people are becoming aware that its all nonsense that simply doesn’t add up!

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      • #
        ROM

        Aussie Guy @ # 1.1

        Almost no one ever brings up the point about China that they have been there, done that and gone down the radical far left socialist route under Mao and the Gang of Four who with their hard left socialistic Great Leap Forward then proceeded through the forced implementation of completely irrational hard left socialist policies to kill between an estimated 18 to 45 millions of their own people through starvation and deprivation.

        Only when Deng Xiaoping came to a position of great influence although never as the formally designated leader of China and himself having been heavily influenced by the success of island state of Singapore did a captalistic based system emerge in China due in large part to Deng’s famous comment in the 1961 pronouncement “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat”,

        And the results are the arguably the very capitalistic [ not yet democratic ] China of today which has lifted a Billion of its citizens out of abject poverty and removed the threat of regular famines that has plagued China for centuries.
        And all done in a period of less than 40 years since 1978 when Deng assumed [ back room ] power and started China down the controlled capitalist based economic road.

        China is the archetypal example of the past plementation of a highly controlled and rigid socialistic system where humans are but a number to be maneuvered as desired by the elites at the top who have no qualms at all if whole groups of their own citizens are eliminated for political reasons or who suffer and die due to the innate inability of the socialistic elites to run a productive and reasonably honest government and economy.

        Versus the recent capitalistic system where it might be very messy but both holds to account as well as rewards almost everybody in many ways including individual wealth, health, freedom from starvation and freedom to speak, travel and with whom they wish to associate with as well as being forced to think for themselves as a part of that capitalist system.

        Socialism has destroyed far, far more lives and far more economies than Capitalism even with its sometimes excesses, ever has and ever will.

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      • #

        AussieGuy,
        You are quite right about the left. When socialism emerged in the nineteenth century it was assumed that human nature was infinitely malleable, and economics (as the logic of human choice and its unintended consequences) did not exist. Their starting point was that all human beings were basically equal, and inequalities arise through incorrect thought patterns and immoral structures. For those who acceptance these beliefs means that anybody like us who disagrees is in error through ignorance, telling porky pies or blinkered. When the data (i.e. reality) contradicts this belief it is the data that is wrong, not the belief system. Further, any human-related issue will automatically point to a socialist solution.
        I have found this in British Labour Party, who cannot accept at least partial responsibility for the credit crunch. They blame it on the bankers, when the severity was due to running structural budget deficits. Now Labour are likely to elect a leader who wants to turn on the spending taps.

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        • #
          gai

          Kevin Don’t forget The Hegelian Basis of socialism.

          …According to this philosophy, “the only immutable thing is the abstraction of movement.” The one universal phenomenon is change, and the only universal form of this phenomenon is its complete abstraction. Thus, Hegel accepted as real only that which existed in the mind. Objective phenomena and events were of no consequence; only the conceptions of them possessed by human minds were real. Ideas, not objects…

          In the Hegelian philosophy no idea could exist without an opposite. Thus, the idea of light could not exist unless there were an idea of darkness, nor truth without falsity, nor high without low. If an idea were labeled a thesis, its opposite would be its antithesis. Consequently, in this realm of the mind within which the universe had its only real existence, innumerable theses and antitheses existed. Struggle or conflict was the en-evitable fact in such a universe—conflict of the thesis with its antithesis. In this struggle thesis and antithesis acted and reacted on each other, and a new phenomenon—synthesis—was created. All action or change occurring in the universe was, under the Hegelian philosophy, the product of thesis, antithesis, and resulting synthesis—all in the realm of ideas, since objective reality could exist only in that sphere….

          This philosophy is why there is so much emphasis on a CONSENSUS. From the socialist point of view once a synthesis is reached, reality changes and it is time to move on to the next step. They really do not understand why we are dragging our feet and screaming about facts and data. Facts and data based on objective reality are completely meaningless in their view of the universe.

          I had one of these guys give a lecture in a seminar for foreman and first line supervisors. Confused the heck out of the blue collar types who deal with objective reality on a daily basis. Only in Ivory towers or the rarified air of Upper Yuppydom can such an idiotic philosopy exist.

          I sent that poor prof scurrying in confusion to gales of laughter. I invited him to lie down on the railroad track outside the window before the noon train was due to prove objective reality does not exist. (But only after giving me the keys to his car and writing a will leaving me his entire estate of course.)

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  • #
    Peter Miller

    I was a little saddened by this survey in which the extreme ignorance of much of the general public was made crystal clear.

    Around 15% of those surveyed believe all forms of non-“renewable” energy should be banned, that means the complete cessation of nuclear and fossil fuelled energy. What the heck do these people think they are going to do on a cold winter’s night? Of course, they are incapable of thinking that far ahead.

    And that is what Obama was relying on in his “Save the World” speech last night, the ignorance and gullibility of most of his audience.

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    • #

      Peter,
      I think you are being too harsh on the British public. Most of the mainstream media, particularly the BBC, and the main political parties support Global Warming Catastrophism. Further, we are told that by carefully washing jam jars and placing them in the recycling; turning the heating down a couple of degrees; and donating to Greenpeace, each of us can save the planet for future generations. Like the Russian people in the Soviet era, they lose some sense of proportion.
      What is even worse is when the supposed experts have lost their grip on reality. Last week Jo blogged about a survey of climate scientists. I found the responses to this question revealing.

      2a Has the trend in global average temperature changed over the past decade, compared to the preceding decades?

      Every available data set – whether satellite or surface temperature – shows the trend to be lower. There is no data set that shows that temperature trends were slightly higher in the past decade, nor that they were the same as previous decades. So the 36.5% and 9.4% of respondents who gave these answers are wrong on the basic statistical measure for global warming. It is only if you believe the climate models have a higher truth than the real world data, or mistakenly view heavily re-modelled data as real, that you can reach the conclusions of nearly half the experts surveyed. It just demonstrates that the so-called experts have very little understanding of the basic measure of their subject.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        I love quoting the submission Dr John Christy gave to the US Senate in 2012 that trashes all the IPCC models using basic measurements. Drives the warmists nuts….

        Its kind of ironic – if you said you could avoid your house being repossessed by monitoring your mortgage level using something as simple as calculator and pen and paper to track your money, how is it that measuring surface temperature with air-borne themometers ( weather balloons ) is any less accurate or useful?

        No wownder they decided to “adjust” the temperatures to hide the truth.

        I think what happens is the public are bamboozled by screaming headlines and constant saturation by the lame stream media.The same public are taught o never question authroity or authority figures, to put up, shut up and just read your facebook page….in short, we’ll think for you ….dont ask questions…

        Now think about the proganda used to recruit people during WW1 & 2, and how Bernays methodolgy has been polished and perfected, how social media is the classic divide and conquer mechanism but also encourages herd mentality.

        Latest technology has actually ( I think ) discouraged thinking.

        All the Establishment does is load all the web with content with its opinion, Kardashian tripe & sky-is-falling-CAGW nonsense, then unless you truly are dedicated to knowing the truth, unless you push hard its hard to get past the anaesthetic white noise of lame stream “news” to the truth.

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  • #
    tom0mason

    If England had one of the worst storms in history rip through it, damaging all church steeples, washing away many roads, houses, and bridges, wind that uprooted at least half the forested land, and killed thousands, to bring yet more sickness and death as its aftermath.

    If that was followed 13 years later by the coldest winter on record. Rivers freezing, animals dead in many feet of snow, and a four months of national standstill as roads were impassible due to snow.

    If this 13 years later was followed by the start of a four year drought. A drought that killed thousands of animals and people, ruined many livelihoods and caused mass starvation and illness across the nation.

    Would that be called ‘climate change’?
    From the Great Storm of 1703 onwards that is what happened. Thankfully CO2 level were apparently at hospitaly low levels.

    What would the alarmist call that string of events today? Unfortunate? Natural? Unforseen?

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    • #
      RoHa

      If they are channel Ten, they would call that “unpreeeeeceeedented “.

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    • #
      Leonard Lane

      Climate alarmists would simply deny all you said and turn the matter over to the Ministry of Truth to rid history of such information.

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    • #
      el gordo

      Tomo I prefer to look at 1200 AD as a starting point, it was the height of the MWP.

      Imagine great sea floods impacting the North Sea coasts, such as in 1212 and 1218-19, along with a surplus of freezing winter months in 1205, then again between 1210 and 1219.

      These two decades in Britain were wet and cold, yet we also see extremes of heat. For example the hot dry summer of 1212 saw a great fire in London and a couple of years later the Thames was so low that people were wading across.

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      • #
        tom0mason

        el gordo,

        Yes, I see from A Chronology of Notable Weather Events by Douglas V. Hoyt [PDF] shows that to be an interesting period globally, it started badly

        1200AD
        The annual flooding of the Nile did not occur and as a result Egypt is visited by famine. Cannibalism soon became the main food source, an offense punishable by death.
        In 1201, the annual floods again did not occur and as a result Egypt is depopulated. An earthquake struck in May 1202 adding to the devastation visited upon the Egyptian people.

        In Ireland cold weather leads to famine.

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        • #
          tom0mason

          So who is Mr Douglas Hoyt?

          Well he was Senior Scientist at Raytheon (retired) and co-author (with Kenneth H. Schatten ) of the excellent book The Role of the Sun in Climate Change. He was previously with NCAR, NOAA, and the World Radiation Center, Davos, Switzerland.

          So you may feel that he is qualified, I do.

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        • #
          el gordo

          There appears to be a pattern of severe and frosty winters: 1205, 1210, 1234, 1254, 1261, 1271, 1281, 1292, 1306, 1335, 1365 and 1408. Feel the rhythm.

          Got the dates from Ogilvie and Farmer ‘Documenting the Medieval Climate’.

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  • #
    NoFixedAddress

    Obviously paid by ‘Big Oil’.

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  • #
    RoHa

    The warmists threatened the British people with the prospect of having a climate similar to that of Southern Spain. Surprisingly, this threat failed to terrify the British. They seem to be rather grumpy about the failure of the threat to eventuate.

    (Admittedly, grumpy is the normal condition for the British, and they are notoriously difficult to terrify. Various Kings, dictators, etc., have tried over the centuries, but only Margaret Thatcher succeeded.)

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    • #

      Tonight there was a program about using Prestwick airport to ship Scottish shellfish to the continent. The reporter added “and given the present cold weather I would love to be on the flight”.

      This is the middle of summer – today I again turned on the central heating. It’s been extremely cold since April with snow remaining on many hills.

      If this continues, we may have serious problems this winter – and as we all know, many have been predicting just this type of cold – so the political ramifications could be huge.

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        Mike,
        Last week I took a holiday a few miles south of Prestwick, near Girvan. July is supposed to be the hottest month, but the highest temperature all week was 16C. Friday morning there was dew on the grass, as overnight temperatures had plummeted to 5C. Still, the cold temperatures were more than offset by the warm and friendly locals. A great area to holiday despite the cold.

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        • #

          Did you drop in on Monkton while there?

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        • #
          Annie

          I was just south if the Solway Firth last week…darned cold most if the time and heating went on. Fortunately the local people made up for it by their warmth; I recommend Cockermouth and the area for that as well as the local beauty of the lakes and fells. We warmed up the old bodies with a couple of days in Dubai and now we’re shivering in cold, wet, at present dreary Victoria!

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        • #
          Annie

          Oh dear! I wonder what kicked off being put into moderation? Time will tell I guess! I was just saying how cold we were in North Cumbria last week and had to defrost in Dubai before heading back to perishing cold Victoria. Luckily the people in Cumbria are warm and friendly and the area is beautiful.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    A survey on climate has flopped,
    If respondents have no choice to opt,
    For a skeptical view,
    Which says warming was due,
    To the sun but has long since now stopped.

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  • #
    Manfred

    Even after heavy loaded survey lists climate disasters, half of Brits don’t want to pay a cent

    I am struck by the thought that this is akin to passing the collection plate around in church.

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  • #
    john robertson

    Is this not true of most of the “issues” the presstitutes tell us we should worry about.
    And is it not normal behaviour for these power hungry do-gooders.
    Oh yes they are so concerned for , insert issue of moment, but will not spend one penny of their own money.
    They are also noted for their lack of charity .
    Bottom feeders?

    Seems it is all about moral positioning.
    Funny how relativism works.

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    As much as we all love a good survey /sarc. even the most loaded ones will offer some realistic insights, for me this clearly shows the sheeple mindset where they know they’re being fed BS but play along because everyone else is, why even indulge the charlatan’s by participating in the ruse?

    People get the government they deserve and this also rings true with certain situations in life, my understanding is you cannot cheat death but the idea is to create mitigations that give you the best chance to prolong the time until this inevitable outcome arrives, to willingly support the plan to remove reliable power from your life is asking for a Darwin Award, just stupid.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The irony is dim witted people are more of a risk to you safety in a crisis , than the actual crisis itself….

      Think sheep scattering in every which way when a car approaches, rather than staying to the side of the road out of harms way….

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  • #
    Peter C

    The executive of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers has spent their members money surveying the public and about Global Warming fears!

    That is bizarre.
    I would have thought that Mechanical Engineers , as a group, would be amongst the least concerned about Global Warming. However the executive did not bother to survey their own members. Instead they decided to survey the public. Same as all the other institutions.

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    • #

      I noticed a general phenomenon that those at the top of organisations tend to be the worst climate extremists whereas engineers are the least extreme on climate (aka sceptics).

      This explains:
      1) Why the top of the organisation wanted to spend their members money on this propaganda
      2) why they didn’t survey their own members.

      And reading between the lines, it sounds as if this is a failed attempt by the heads of the organisation to “prove” to its members that they should have more concern

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    • #
      ianl8888

      Same as all the other institutions

      Yes

      Again, noble cause corruption. Or just plain old vanity – the “Executive” of the professional organisations bask in their self-selected world view, with a clear tendency to regard their own members as lacking somewhat

      Noble cause corruption – I cannot think of a facet of life it hasn’t now tainted

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  • #
    Ross

    So half of the British voters don’t want to spend money on the issue, the Swiss voters voted against increases in their ETS scheme earlier this year, the Aussies voted out a Government, at least partially, because of the Carbon Tax and a similar survey in the USA a few months back showed a large proportion of USA voters would be prepared to spend very little on the issue ( I don’t think zero was an option in the survey question).
    I wonder when the politicians will start wising up? The self preservation thoughts must be starting to come to the front of mind soon !!

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  • #

    The problem is that those conducting such surveys usually don’t have ‘other’ worries such as work, major debt etc, unless of course the climate money-trough dried up, hence the need for very specific surveys to attempt to prove people are concerned and keep the trough full, if not overflowing.

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  • #

    If I was a member of the IMechEng, I would be asking what on earth it has to do with the Institution. I appreciate that their members might design petrol or oil engines which produce emissions, but they are already doing all they possibly can to reduce them, if only in the interests of fuel economy. As an occupation, I would have thought that mechanical engineers were were not great contributors to the emissions claimed to produce climate change

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    • #
      gai

      If I was a member of the IMechEng, I would want to know why they were lending the name of MY organization to such a slipshod, sleazy and obviously bias survey.

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    • #

      If climate change has become an issue for the institute, you can guarantee that there will be money involved in some form or another.

      However, climate-alarmist scientists have two interlinked driving forces or motives. The first and foremost is prestige; to be recognised, named in august circles etc and the second is funding. You don’t get the first without the second. So while money isn’t always the driving factor (most are usually well paid), they can’t get prestige if they aren’t funded for prestigious research ie, stuff that gets in the news and similar.

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    • #
      Len

      In Australia they have Engineers Australia, formerly the Australian Institute of Engineers. The top are Environmental Engineers who have taken over and are keeping swallowing the Kool Aid on global warming. They take no notice of what proper engineers think.

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  • #
    KinkyKeith

    The one thing that most people I meet from the British Isles complain about is the COLD.

    Some even migrate to get away from it.

    Why would they complain about Global Warming even if it existed as a man made process?

    KK

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    gai

    I smell something fishy. It says “ICM Unlimited polled 2,009 members of the public and was conducted on 22-24 July 2015.” I went to the survey results and no where does it answer my question.

    Why 2009? Why not just 2000. How many were actually asked to take the survey, How many said no. How many opted out somewhere in the middle of the survey?

    Notice that Zimmerman asked two questions of 10,257 Earth Scientists and only 3146 of them responded.

    This REALLY REALLY is a great example of how to lie with a survey.

    It does depend on HOW the questions are asked and this poll is as slanted as you can get.

    2010: A recent poll found the just one in five people believe climate change is man-made, compared to one in three a year ago. The survey of 1,000 people found people over 65 were more likely to be sceptical.

    ……………….

    And the news from the UK just got weirder and weirder! Tim Yeo: humans may not be to blame for global warming

    The chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee said he accepts the earth’s temperature is increasing but said “natural phases” may be to blame.

    Such a suggestion sits at odds with the scientific consensus. One recent survey of 12,000 academic papers on climate change found 97 per cent agree human activities are causing the planet to warm.

    Mr Yeo, an environment minister under John Major, is one of the Conservative Party’s strongest advocates of radical action to cut carbon emissions. His comments are significant as he was one of the first senior figures to urge the party to take the issue of environmental change seriously.

    He insisted such action is “prudent” given the threat climate change poses to living standards worldwide. But, he said, human action is merely a “possible cause”….

    Given the highlighted blurb above the Telegraph survey now on-line is amusing.

    Are humans responsible for Global Warming?

    YES- Completely……………..(4,663 votes) 30.33%

    Yes – But only partially…….. (3,702 votes) 24.08%

    No its a natural phenomenon….. (7008 votes) 45.59%
    Total Votes 15,373

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      OriginalSteve

      I recall during the hot period in Oz between 2005-2008 was when the CAGW thing was pushed really hard, due I think to try and capitalise on the hot weather. I recall on KoolAidCAGW-nik was disgusted at the thought of using electric hot water stoarge heaters….*sigh*

      Having said that, I know quite a few blue collar people who realize that the CAGW thing is a middle-class problem, and will just do their own thing driving their V8s & ski boats while the educated middle class get all tangled up in an eco-compatible-hand-wringing-self-flagellating lifestyle.

      As a mate of mine who is a concreter once said “um…..how many years did you go to uni for?” after I’d done a not-so-smart thing….

      Have I missed anything?

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    Neville

    Here is Indur Goklany’s summary in response to the Pope’s nonsense. In fact human well being has never been higher and deaths from extreme events have dropped by 97% since 1920. Here is the link to his full report.

    http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2015/07/Vatican-compass.pdf

    Summary
    This paper is a commentary on the opening four sentences of the pontifical academies’
    joint declaration, Climate Change and the Common Good: A Statement of The Problem
    and the Demand for Transformative Solutions, echoes of which resonate in the recent
    papal encyclical. The paper finds that the premise behind the academies’ call for deep
    decarbonization and a rapid reduction in fossil-fuel use is fundamentally flawed.
    The academies claim that fossil-fuel use has reduced theworld’s sustainability and
    resilience. But despite record human numbers and carbon-dioxide emissions, human
    wellbeing has never been higher, by virtually any measure whether climate-sensitive
    or not. The average person has never lived longer or been healthier or wealthier. Living
    standards are at their highest ever; poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and mortality
    from vector-borne diseases and extreme events are at record lows. There is no indication
    that these trends are being reversed.
    Prior to the Industrial Revolution virtually all of humanity’s basic needs – food,
    fibre, fuel, energy, materials – were met by the rest of nature. Fossil-fuel technologies
    and associated economic development increased the terrestrial biosphere’s natural
    productivity to provide these basic needs, shifted humanity’s demand for energy
    away from biomass and animal power, and increased its reliance on man-made
    fibres and materials. Consequently, the share of humanity’s demand for life’s basic
    necessities filled by the rest of nature has never been smaller despite exploding demand.
    Also, because of carbon-dioxide fertilization, nitrogen deposition, and possibly
    a more equable climate, all caused by fossil-fuel use, the terrestrial biosphere’s
    productivity now exceeds pre-industrial levels. This allows the biosphere to sustain
    larger biomass.
    Thus greater fossil-fuel use has been accompanied by advances in both human
    wellbeing and terrestrial biosphere’s ability to sustain biomass. That is, our reliance on
    fossil fuels has increased the world’s sustainability and resilience. Another result has
    been that conversion of wild land to farmland has almost peakedworldwide, allowing
    some societies to reserve land for conservation.
    Also contrary to the academies’ claims, inequality, which is secondary to poverty,
    hunger, and malnutrition as indicators of wellbeing, has shrunk among the world’s
    population in recent decades. Moreover, there is no empirical evidence for their claim
    that agriculture is ‘doubtless causing’ hundreds of thousands if not millions of extinctions.
    The academies’ assertion that fossil-fuel use poses existential risks for the poor
    and future generations must necessarily rest on models of future impacts of climate
    change. But impact models use climate models that overestimate global warming
    two- to four-fold. Moreover, neither climate nor impact models have been validated
    using external data, climate models often contradict each other regarding the direction
    of precipitation change at regional and local scales, and the impact models do
    not fully account for the increased adaptive capacity of future generations, who will
    be wealthier and technologically-more sophisticated than we are.
    The academies’ ‘transformative solutions’ are based on a delusion that economic
    alternatives to cheap fossil fuels are widely available, a notion belied by the government
    mandates and subsidies that prop up these alternative energy sources. These
    purported solutions would therefore be counterproductive for both humanity and
    the rest of nature. They would slow the ongoing broad advance in human wellbeing,
    retard poverty reduction, and reduce the ability to adapt and cope with adversity in
    general and climate change in particular, especially harming the poor. They would
    also reduce the future productivity of the terrestrial biosphere, increasing pressure
    on species and ecosystems.
    In exchange for reducing both humanity and the rest of nature’s sustainability and
    resilience, the academies would solve future problems that may not even exist or, if
    they do, might be more easily solved by future generations who should be richer,
    both economically and technologically. Essentially, these policies would give up real
    gains inhumanand environmentalwellbeing to solve hypothetical problems forecast
    by models which, if they have a track record, is for inaccuracy.
    The academies are right that climate change is a moral and ethical issue. Unfortunately,
    they are on its wrong side. Apparently their moral compass is broken.

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      gai

      Well written and of course the attack dogs can not leave him alone.

      From Desmog Blog: “According to leaked documents, Indur Goklany receives $1,000 per month from the Heartland Institute.”

      Just love those leaked documents… Maybe the ones Peter G…. someone forged when he could not dig up any dirt by illegal means?

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        mike restin

        It seems as if the folks at Desmog Blog believe that Indur Goklany is willing to ignore his life, his friends, his family and the world’s future for $12k/year from Heartland.

        That makes me wonder about the thinking of the folks at Desmog Blog.

        What are their standards and what would they be willing to do for $12Large?

        00

  • #
    pat

    just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find anything online about exploding solar panels in Victoria & southern NSW.

    i heard a man in Victoria who said his panels “exploded” on radio last nite. he was complaining about advice he’d had from the council that there’s 3 levels of energy involved or something like that & how they can’t help him. (i wasn’t paying close attention & did not understand it all.) valves were also mentioned.

    the radio presenter mentioned this was also happening in southern NSW. this is all i have found:

    21 July: 3AW: Freezing weather blamed for exploding solar panels
    Solar panels have been exploding across the state in recent days due to freezing temperatures.
    Many solar systems in Victoria are not equipped to cope with sub-zero temperatures, and are cracking and bursting due to the frosty weather.
    3AW Drive has been told one plumber attended to 23 burst solar panels on Sunday in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
    There are solar hot water systems that can better handle freezing temperatures, but often Victorians opt for cheaper, standard versions.
    Alternatively, frost protection valves can be installed.
    Hans from Camberwell Electrics told Tom Elliott the problem could be widespread.
    “The ones that have a problem have water running through the panels on the roof,” he said.
    http://www.3aw.com.au/radio/freezing-weather-blamed-for-exploding-solar-panels-20150721-gihdrf

    sadly, the same man i heard on radio did a huge rant against coal. he didn’t sound young.

    he knew every anti-coal cliche in the CAGW songbook – Rockefellers say coal is finished & they should know. China is turning its back on coal, moving over to renewables. Australia should get out of coal altogether. ABC must be the main cause of all this misinformation surely.

    sadly, the radio presenter said when u dig it out of the ground, there’s nothing left & went on to suggest coal was probably running out all over the world!

    any poll about anything is meaningless when the public is so poorly informed.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Solar ( electric ) panels or solar hot water?

      The only thing a plumber should touch would be solar hot water.

      Maybe these systems arent supplied with burst plugs ( like welsh plugs for car engines )?

      Common sense 101 says frozen water expands….which is why I leave my garden hose without a nozzle fitting on it overnight in winter….

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  • #
    TdeF

    Flooding/sea level rises, Extreme weather, cyclones and hurricanes, Droughts/water shortages, Pollution of air, sea and land, Land lost to sea and becoming deserts. Are they serious?

    All caused by the 50% increase in tiny CO2 over 100 years? CO2 is obviously the world’s most deadly pollutant and has shocked Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and Al Gore? No temperature change then, just everything else imaginable. What about child deformity, infant mortality, plane crashes, war, drug addiction, unwanted pregnancies, old age, dental caries? Is there nothing CO2 cannot harm?

    Enough of this wishy washy approach with ineffective taxation. Stop CO2 now. Today. Everyone just stop and go back to what you were doing before you became evil polluters. Stop breathing too.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Sorry, this only applies to Western democracies, Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and maybe Japan. Africa, South America, Mexico, Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, China and India and Indonesia are exempt and all those little countries in the UN like Costa Rica. Yes, that’s most of the planet, but they can pollute all they want because they are developing countries.

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  • #

    Only a tiny percentage of survey’s fulfill the sort of rigourous criteria required for basing critical decisions on. Most fulfill some sort of niche roll and simply provide numbers that can be used to support a position held by the pollsters. My personal preference is simply to ignore them and let the target audience worry about the implications.

    Here is a serious question. Are there any published (any sort of published) surveys of the “general public”, that have been cited as a reason to decide upon a particular climate related action (positive or negative). This could be anything from multi-national carbon trading to installing pv panels on the local scout hall.

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    • #
      gai

      These sorts of polls are propaganda tools for shepherding the herd-bound in the direction the wolves want them to go.

      If we are very very lucky it is only for a shearing and not for serving as a tasty meal.

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      • #

        what a jaundiced view of the world you have. I contend that most surveys are conducted in good faith even if they are a bit crappy when it comes to getting useful information. I hope you feel better soon.

        14

        • #
          gai

          Gee Aye,

          I have looked at a lot of surveys and they fall into two types.

          1. Surveys run by industry for the purpose of gathering information about their product or market place.

          2. Political surveys.

          Political surveys can be subdivided into determining public opinion or as a tool for developing ‘Data’ to be fed to the media.

          It is the last type, used as a tool for changing the public’s mind, that I hold in contempt since it is just another tool in the dirty politics tool box.

          Just how dirty politics is was brought home when the truth about Obamcare and Romneycare came out. (The media is now busy trying to back pedal and sweep the store under the rug.)

          Then there is Congresswoman Rosa Delaura’s husband Stan Greenberg.

          Greenberg provides strategic advice and research for leaders, companies, campaigns, and NGOs trying to advance their issues in tumultuous times.

          His political work has included serving as lead pollster and strategist to the campaigns of President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and South African president Nelson Mandela….

          [Old wording was: “As a hired gun strategist, Greenberg—a seasoned pollster and political consultant—has seen it all. In his memoir, he recounts his work with President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and South African president Nelson Mandela.” – gai]

          Greenberg has been described as “the father of modern polling techniques,” “the De Niro of all political consultants,” and “an unrivaled international ‘guru’.” Esquire Magazine named him one of the most important people of the 21st century. The New York Times writes that Greenberg “acts as a sort of people’s truth squad,” while Republican pollster Frank Luntz says “Stan Greenberg scares the hell out of me. He doesn’t just have a finger on the people’s pulse; he’s got an IV injected into it.
          http://www.dl21c.org/fbevent/616

          An IV injected into it? An IV is used to drip foreign material into the human body. I wonder if that is what Frank Luntz meant. It certainly fits the public opinion shaping polls I have seen. The Blair-Rockefeller poll from the University of Arkansas that was designed to label the Tea Party as RACIST is a classic example. The result of that poll was the death of an up and coming third party in the USA.

          Stan Greenberg’s company Greenberg Carville Shrum directed Campaigns in 60 countries. Even the democratic Underground doesn’t like Greenberg Carville Shrum although they aim thier angry at Carville and not Greenberg. SEE: “Regarding Carville and dirty politics“ link

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          • #
            Gee Aye

            Sorry but that is a load of refuse from the two bogus categories to your attempt at an evidential statement “I’ve looked at”. Do you expect me to engage with a comment like this?

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  • #

    I have banished from my hand the finger that typed the apostrophe in surveys.

    32

    • #
      Annie

      I have noticed that what I write has often been ‘corrected’ by predictive text, et cetera. I have then had to go back and correct the ‘correction’. Misplaced apostrophes have appeared, most annoyingly. My stupid ‘phone was just then ‘correcting’ to catastrophes! Who programmes these things?

      40

      • #
        tom0mason

        Annie,
        Maybe it’s someone from here http://www.killtheapostrophe.com/

        😉

        30

        • #
          Annie

          Thanks for that link Tom0. I will read it more thoroughly when I am less jetlagged. However, I do like apostrophes if correctly used….it’s much easier to read text that is properly punctuated.

          10

      • #

        well… I get that too but in this case I just inserted it with my hands but did not pause to edit it with my brain. I think many errors are like mine – they are not an indication of my level of literacy but of my technical competence.

        40

  • #
    Gary in Erko

    How many light globes does it take to change a climate scientist?

    100

  • #
    pat

    who will ever be held accountable for this experiment with the energy supply?

    4 Aug: Zerohedge: Tyler Durden: Meet Solyndra 2.0: This US-Taxpayer-Subsidized Spanish “Renewables” Firm Is Collapsing
    News that bonds and stocks of Abengoa SA – the Spanish renewable-energy company – plunged after a plan to shore up capital failed to reassure investors that it can stop burning cash is likely to have passed many by. But coming just one day after President Obama unleashed his Clean Power Plan, the fact that the company – that is now facing significant liquidity concerns – received over $230 million in US taxpayer subsidies in 2014 – despite two ongoing federal investigations – may raise an eyebrow or two as images of Solyndra’s government-sponsored farce come to mind… as Diane Feinstein, Ken Salazar, and Bill Richardson – with the help of subsidies and Ex-Im bank loans alledgely exerted their influence to keep this zombie alive…READ ALL PLUS COMMENTS
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-04/meet-solyndra-20-us-taxpayer-subsidized-spanish-renewables-firm-collapsing

    5 Aug: DakotaFinancialNews: Abengoa SA Downgraded by Zacks (ABGB)
    Abengoa SA (NASDAQ:ABGB) was downgraded by Zacks from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report issued on Wednesday, Analyst Ratings.Net reports.
    According to Zacks, “Abengoa SA is an engineering and clean technology company…The Company’s technology generates electricity from the sun, produces biofuels, desalinates seawater and recycles industrial waste…It also produces a variety of biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel). Abengoa SA is headquartered in Seville, Spain. “…
    Abengoa SA has a one year low of $5.77 and a one year high of $30.75…
    http://www.dakotafinancialnews.com/abengoa-sa-downgraded-by-zacks-abgb/320785/

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    • #

      Thanks pat. (and I know it’s Off Topic, and I also understand that it’s not an easy engineering concept to wrap your head around)

      Oh dear, and Australia’s CSIRO is partnered with the Abengoa Company, and in a big way.

      I want you to read this article about how CSIRO in partnership with Abengoa is working at enormous public funded expense on Concentrating Solar Power. (CSP)

      They have achieved Supercritical Steam levels. They use mirrors to reflect the Sun to a collector point to heat water to steam which drives a turbine which drives the generator, the end goal of CSP, and also the principle of operation of traditional thermal power generation.

      So, the engineering principle is this.

      The size of the generator (hence the output power) determines the size of the turbine required to drive the huge weight of that generator. The size of the turbine determines the AMOUNT of steam required to drive it. That steam is at very high pressure and at a supercritical temperature. That steam has to be available at all times in that amount to drive that turbine, otherwise it will not even begin to turn over, let alone come up to speed and stay there.

      So, with CSP, that supercritical temperature is achieved for an amount of water it can keep at that that temperature for a sustained period. With CSP, that is a small amount of water. Any amount greater than that and it will not achieve that supercritical level.

      With this CSP, they can achieve supercritical level (for its small amount of water/steam) for perhaps two maybe three hours, so an hour or so around peak Sun time.

      The very second they attempt to use heat diversion, in other words to try and have the operation of power generation longer than those hours of operation, then it immediately loses its supercritical level.

      They can use heat diversion to a limited level, but that then affects to total steam amount, as it has to be considerably less, hence a smaller turbine, hence a smaller generator, hence considerably less power output.

      Two to three hours at best, averaged across the whole year, more in Summer, but a lot less in Winter, if, if, if it can achieve that temperature in Winter.

      So here we have CSP achieving supercritical level for perhaps a couple of hours around Peak Sun.

      With coal fired power, they have a monster furnace, boiling monster amounts of water to steam, which is then pressurised, driving huge turbines which drive huge generators for huge power output ….. and sustaining that while ever that powdered coal is being injected into the furnace ….. for 24 hours of every day as long as the coal goes in the front.

      Always at supercritical heat, always at the required pressure.

      24/7/365.

      CSP will never be able to do this on the scale required and on the time basis required.

      Here we have the CSIRO using Australian taxpayer funding to work ….. IN PARTNERSHIP with Abengoa Solar to achieve something that coal fired power has been doing a quantum level better, and doing it for many many decades longer, and that’s just critical, supercritical, and now they have ultra supercritical, (USC) and soon, Advanced USC.

      Trust me on this. No large scale coal fired plant will ever close because it has been replaced by CSP.

      It’s a niche power supplier, at enormous cost and on a tiny basis, limited in its output, and limited in its time based operation.

      Worldwide, CSP Solar power is currently operating at a Capacity Factor of around 28%, lower even than the best CF for Wind Power.

      The average person reading the article I linked to would think that the time to close down coal fired power and replace it with this technology is ….. the sooner the better.

      That would be a fatal error.

      Tony.

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    • #
      Peter C

      Graham Lloyd reports in the Australian today on the report of the parliamentary Wind Power Enquiry.

      It is quite disappointing. The enquiry seems to have focused on a debate about the possible health effects of infrasound. While that is important the committee seems to have bypassed all the submissions about:
      the general uselessness of wind power,
      the problem of intermittent supply,
      environmental despoilation,
      killing birds,
      killing the service engineers,
      wind turbines falling down,
      wind turbines catching on fire,
      wind turbines causing bushfires,
      expense of wind power,
      destablising the electricity grid,
      lack of capacity
      waste of land.

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    • #
      Hat Rack

      A comment from CHC following the Solyndra article linked by Pat –

      “….Obama’s logic on this energy crap. Burning money is cleaner than coal or oil”.

      Priceless!

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  • #
    Dipole

    Way off topic as I do not see a tips and notes section, remove as you see fit.

    From BOM’s service announcement page

    “Changes to the Cooperative Observer Network
    Scheduled Date: Commencing 1st August 2015
    From 1 August 2015 a number of manual observation sites will record a single, daily observation and will no longer have 3pm observations. The majority of sites are unaffected by this change.”

    and that’s it, no more information, very poor,

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    • #
      David Maddison

      I am trying to think what their angle is here. Will deleting the 3pm observation give the appearance of more warming?

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      • #

        maybe there is no angle!!!

        27

        • #
          Mark D.

          Sure as Hell there ain’t any warming

          60

        • #
          Andrew McRae

          Maybe their angle is… making it easier for manual observations done by volunteers.
          If they only need the min and max for each 24 hours then a min-max thermometer only needs to be read once per day, and it may as well be the reading at the start of the working day instead of the end. Ultimately the same daily information for less effort.

          00

  • #
    pat

    btw WUWT has a MSNBC poll on its latest thread:

    MSNBC Poll: Do you support the President Obama’s Clean Energy Plan?

    (CHOICES)

    Yes, it’s long overdue
    No, the plan falls short on climate needs

    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/msnbc-poll.png

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    • #
      gai

      Sheesh,

      Talk about a slanted poll. What happen to the third option:

      3. Obama is trying to destroy this country.

      131

      • #
        gai

        I forgot to mention General Electric owned a very large chunk of MSNBC. GE bought in 1986 and sold the rest of MSNBC to Comcast in 2013.

        However that is not the end of Comcast/GE dealings.

        2011 Comcast and GE Complete Transaction to Form NBCUniversal

        Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA; CMCSK) and General Electric (NYSE: GE) yesterday closed their transaction to create a joint venture… The new company is 51 percent owned by Comcast, 49 percent owned by GE,… J.P. Morgan was lead financial advisor to GE with Goldman Sachs and Citi acting as co-advisors….

        Press Release: Comcast and GE to Create Leading Entertainment Company

        …. NBCU has obtained $9.85 billion of committed financing through a consortium of banks led by J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Merrill Lynch and Citi….

        50

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Hey, the Russians know their media is tightly controlled, and say so.

          The rest of the western world population wants to stick its head in the sand about such things….bizarre…but I guess if people accepted what we hear & see ( and vote for ) is tighltly packaged and controlled, they would have to confront the reality of what that means in the larger scheme of things…

          Red pill or blue pill, Neo….?

          60

  • #
    ROM

    Two points
    The rapidly increasing proliferation of highly biased surveys almost invariably from the warmist promoting sources, [ highly biased and even deliberately bigoted and corrupted surveys in the case of [snip] and a host of other rabidly fanatical warmist outfits, ] seem to be more of an indication of a rapidly increasing insecurity and an increasing sense of vulnerability along with a still to be openly admitted sense of failure now surrounding their man made climate catastrophe promoting warmist ideology than anything to do with actually finding out what the public think of their beliefs and ideology.

    Surveys of the public to these warmist promoters is a bit like a baby sucking its thumb to give itself a sense of security and sense that its little world is still safe and secure and mummy will look after me.

    Point two and one I have often thought about is the unfortunate status we still give to so many of these so [ mis- ] called climate experts.

    These people are NO smarter or more intelligent than a brickie or taxi driver or a vehicle mechanic or the local accountant or anybody else you might like to take off the street.
    Like the brickie or taxidriver or accountant they have developed a particular set of skills shaped by the environment, academic in their case, they work and play in.
    Put those same climate “experts” to laying bricks or driving taxis or doing the householder’s and small businesses tax accounts and they would be seen to be the utter dickheads so many of them have already revealed themselves to be.

    They have developed a veneer of intellectual competence which as we are seeing so often is just a mirage that hides the true incompetence of so many of these so called climate scientists and climate experts.

    And I mixed off and on for some 30 odd years with scientists in the agricultural field.
    Some of them were damn good and deserved everything in the way of kudos you could give them.
    Some of them were just a waste of space and the rest were in between.

    So it is with climate scientists although I think that climate scientists overall probably rank somewhat below agricultural scientists and researchers as the AG boys and girls are judged on the actual hard results they can show and demonstrate from their research and activities both in field and in the products we all eat to live.

    Whereas climate scientists are highly adept producers of continuing and copious numbers of airy, fairy hyped up unprovable and unproven predictions with no hard visible outcomes provided at all even after 35 years of grossly expensive climate science [ such continuing production of airy fairy unproveable predictions would have cost an Ag researcher his job about 15 or 20 years ago ] that can be seen to have little or no relationship with what we at street and field level are actually seeing and experiencing in real life.

    And yet by invoking the sacred image of a white coated climate scientists they continue to feed lavishly at the publicly funded trough without ever being called to account for their multiple failures, their bigotry against anybody who dares to question their abilities and predictions and their utterly failed but distress creating predictions at every level.

    In short, putative climate warmist scientists as a group along with the leading lights in organisational outfits such the engineers in our current example are no smarter and often dumber about real life at street level than the man and woman in the street , the same street level and the same populace that walks those streets where these climate scientists and warmist leaders and etc originated and came from in the first place.

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    gai

    Speaking of polls here are a couple of good ones.
    This one is even carried by Huff n’ Puff The American equivalent of the Grauniad

    Poll: Americans Trust Fox News More Than Obama on Climate Change

    Fox wasn’t exactly in high favor — the poll found that only 17 percent of respondents trust Fox News on climate change. But Obama’s trustworthiness was lower still, totaling only 11 percent. Even the federal government as a whole ranked higher than the president, with a 13 percent rating.

    According to the poll, the most trusted group on climate change was “non-government scientists and educators,” with 45 percent approval. Environmental groups ranked at 33 percent, while members of the media enjoyed 22 percent…..

    Unsurprisingly, college-educated Republicans felt that global warming was exaggerated (73 percent) while only a small percentage of college-educated Democrats feel the same way (15 percent).

    The Poll was a nationwide Survey of 1,016 Adults (general population) Conducted March 15 – 19, 2015 by the Saint Leo University Polling Institute
    (Margin of Error: +/- 3.0% with a 95% level of confidence)
    The results are what we are seeing elsewhere when the poll is reasonable.

    KEY: Political affiliation Republican =R, Independent =I, Democrat =D

    Q: What do you think is the most important issue facing the country today?

    A:Jobs and the economy
    Total……………R ….I ….D
    28%…………….22% . 29% . 34%

    A: Government spending and the federal budget deficit
    Total……………..R …I ….D
    18%………………24% . 20% . 11%

    A:Homeland security and anti-terror policy
    Total……………..R …I ….D
    15% ……………..17% . 14% . 13%

    A: Healthcare
    Total……………..R …I ….D
    11% ………………6% . 13% . 14%

    A: Immigration
    Total……………..R …I ….D
    7% ……………… 8% . 8% . 6%

    A: Education
    Total……………..R …I ….D
    5% ……………… 4% . 4% . 9%

    A:Foreign affairs
    Total……………..R …I ….D
    5% ………………10% . 3% . 4%

    A: Global climate change
    Total……………..R …I …D
    3% ……………… 2% . 4% . 2%

    A: Gun control / Second Amendment rights
    Total……………..R …I …D
    2% ……………… 3% . 1% . 3%

    The Political Clincher: Minorities want Obama to focus on jobs, not climate change: Poll

    The vast majority of African-American and Hispanic voters want President Obama’s priority to be job growth over climate change, and large percentages of minority voters fear new environmental rules will raise electricity rates, according to new polling data.

    The Thursday poll results show that 66 percent of African-American voters and 61 percent of Hispanics think the president’s priority should be job creation. “Only 3 percent of African American voters and 4 percent of Hispanic voters said improving air quality should be a top priority,” according to the poll from American Association of Blacks in Energy, a group representing black professionals in the energy industry.

    When told that a range of climate regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, including ozone rules that are expected to be the costliest in history, would raise electricity rates, 54 percent of Hispanic voters said they were “less likely to support” the measures. African-Americans polled lower in their responses to the same statement, with 46 percent being less likely to support EPA’s rules…..
    The poll was conducted for the group by Morning Consult. It surveyed 1,157 African-American registered voters and 1,094 Hispanic registered voters. The results of the survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

    This is the Democratic voter base and Hillary and Bernie Saunders are really beating the Climate Change drum.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Why WOULD Brits want to pay more for energy? They are already dying due to inability to heat their homes due to the high cost of “green” energy. See the link or Google “energy fuel poverty deaths”.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fuel-poverty-deaths-three-times-higher-than-government-estimates-7462426.html

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    pat

    read all:

    5 Aug: WaPo: Is D.C.’s weather station reading way too hot?
    by Jason Samenow & Ian Livingston:
    Since at least 2014, the temperature readings observed at Reagan National Airport, the District’s official weather station, have behaved in a perplexing and, perhaps, suspicious manner.
    We have long understood Reagan National to be one of the warmest spots in the region as it sits near sea level adjacent to the Potomac River and is surrounded by urban infrastructure — in a so-called “heat island.” But, over the past 19 months, its temperatures have registered even warmer compared to surrounding areas than usual.
    No one, to our knowledge, has provided a satisfying explanation for the airport’s temperature behavior.
    At times, when other local temperature readings have been cooler than normal, Reagan National’s measurements have been warmer than normal.
    Take, for example, July….
    But from January 2014 through July this year, Reagan National’s monthly temperature difference from normal or “anomaly” has averaged 2.2 degrees above Dulles’ – a fact pointed out to me by former Virginia state climatologist Pat Michaels…READ ON
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/08/05/is-washington-d-c-s-official-temperature-station-reading-way-too-hot/?tid=trending_strip_2

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Perhaps the way the route that the planes taxi changed and it is getting clouds of hot air from the engines?

      40

  • #
    David Maddison

    Gosh, somebody’s doing a lot of “thumbs down” today.

    31

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    Dave in the states

    52% of people don’t think they personally should pay more in tax in an effort to do something about it.

    People’s instinct tells them that throwing money away like that will not make any difference to the climate one way or the other. And their instincts are correct.

    That is why it is usually implied in such surveys or discussions that; oil, or coal, or power, companies, or what ever your favorite bad guy, will be forced to pay. What people need to understand in such cases is that it is they that will ultimately pay. Such costs are always passed on one way or another. Thus it is very revealing when the question is: should they themselves pay. Of course not.

    Energy taxes in all forms, and artificial manipulations of the market to manipulate price, are very regressive forms of taxation. It always hits the poorest the hardest and the richest hardly at all. But regressive taxation has the largest tax base.

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    pat

    not picked up by MSM around the world:

    25 July: Reuters: German prosecutor to charge eight Deutsche Bank staff in carbon tax case -Spiegel
    Frankfurt’s chief prosecutor will accuse them of securing fees and bonuses from participating in a carbon emission certificate scam that resulted in tax evasion worth 136 million euros ($149 million), the magazine reported.
    At least 14 people have been jailed in three countries so far for their involvement in carbon trading VAT fraud. European police agency Europol has estimated such crime has cost taxpayers more than 5 billion euros in lost revenue since 2008…
    A spokesperson for Deutsche Bank, contacted by Reuters, said that the bank’s investigation into CO2-related matters was continuing. “We are cooperating with the relevant authorities.”…READ ON
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/25/deutschebank-carbon-idUSL5N10505H20150725

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  • #
    old farte

    Joanne,

    If you want to do a really good thing,

    I watched an IMax movie in 1981 on the Great Barrier Reef. It was beautiful. See if you can find it, and find out where they did the filming. Have the beautiful spots they filmed died, or been degraded, or are they still beautiful?

    I ask you to check on this, because in 1982, I had a chance to go on a diving tour in the Coral Sea, but finances were tight, so after my med-student trip to NZ, I went for a cheaper trip to Fiji. The harbor outside of Nadi was ugly: all the corals were broken, not many fish. They said it was due to Triton harvesting, and crown-of-thorns takeover. I think it could have been sewage pollution, but I don’t know.

    I then went to two outer islands, and the coral and other sea life were spectacular. I went there in late April-erly May (fall), I scuba-dove with a thin shorty vest to 33 M, water temp 28-29 C. Free-diving down to 13 M, I shucked the vest.

    So, if somebody wer to revisit the 1980 IMax Great Barrier Ref filming sites, after talking with the film makers to find out where they filmed, he/she could determine whether global warming has destroyed these sealife-rich sites, or whether they are still sealife-rich. If these filmed sites are dying, we have a problem. If they are still thriving, then we have strong evidence to dispute the warmunists’ “global warming is killing coral” propaganda.

    10

  • #
    pat

    who the hell is advising the CAGW Pope this time?

    6 Aug: UK Daily Mail: Snejana Farberov: Pope invites Oprah, Matt Damon and Ari Emanuel to the Vatican to help improve Catholic Church’s image in the (western) media
    Producer Brian Grazer and media mogul David Geffen are also on the list of invitees
    Emanuel, 54, the younger brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, will be joined at the audience by his colleague at William Morris Endeavor talent agency Patrick Whitesell, according to The Hollywood Reporter…
    Pope Francis’ keen interest in entertainment may come as a surprise to many considering that in a May, the 78-year-old leader of the billion-strong
    Catholic Church told an Argentine newspaper that he has not watched TV in 25 years…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3186406/Pope-invites-Oprah-Matt-Damon-Ari-Emanuel-Vatican-help-improve-Catholic-Church-s-image-media.html

    from Hollywood Reporter link at Daily Mail: “The Vatican, which is said to be working with the nonprofit Varkey Foundation, came up with a list of Hollywood players to invite to a summit of sorts.”

    from Wikipedia: The Varkey Foundation, formerly known as the Varkey GEMS Foundation, is the philanthropic arm of GEMS Education.

    4 Aug: Arabian Business: Bill Clinton paid $5.6m by Dubai’s GEMS to front charity arm
    Clinton, who served as 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001, was appointed honorary chairman of the Varkey GEMS Foundation in December 2010…
    READ ON, INCL COMMENTS
    http://www.arabianbusiness.com/bill-clinton-paid-5-6m-by-dubai-s-gems-front-charity-arm-601472.html

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    pat

    5 Aug: Redd-Monitor: Chris Lang: Modern slavery found in RSPO member Felda Global Ventures’ oil palm plantations
    The destruction of forests caused by the massive expansion of industrial oil palm plantations is well known, as is the impact on local communities, biodiversity and orangutans.
    But according to WWF, we can carry on our over-consumption of palm oil. “The good news is that it can be produced in an environmentally responsible manner so you don’t have to give up these products,” WWF tells us on its website.
    WWF explains that we can help by buying products containing palm oil certified under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) scheme…
    But an article published last week (LINK) in the Wall Street Journal exposes human trafficking, withholding of wages, and forced labour on oil palm plantations in Malaysia. The plantations belong to a company called Felda Global Ventures, a semi-autonomous company set up by Malaysia’s government. Felda Global Ventures has been a member of the RSPO since 2004…
    http://www.redd-monitor.org/2015/08/05/modern-slavery-found-in-rspo-member-felda-global-ventures-oil-palm-plantations/

    23 July: Redd-Monitor: Chris Lang: WWF scandal (part 6): Evictions of indigenous peoples in India for tiger tourism
    French TV channel Canal Plus recently broadcast an investigation into mass tourism company Nouvelles Frontieres. The programme includes a visit to the Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh state in India.
    Canal Plus reports that at least 22,000 people have been evicted from three tiger reserves on Nouvelles Frontieres’ tour, about half of them from Kanha. Indigenous peoples are kicked out of the tiger reserve, but tourists are welcomed.
    Here’s the Canal Plus documentary (in French)…
    WWF provides infrastructural support, training and equipment for staff in Kanha Tiger Reserve. WWF’s panda logo is displayed at the entrance to the reserve…READ ON
    CHECK THE COMMENT
    http://www.redd-monitor.org/2015/07/23/wwf-scandal-part-6-evictions-of-indigenous-peoples-in-india-for-tiger-tourism/

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    old farte

    When the warmunists say, “The world is warming too fast,, the oceans are rising too fast,”, e.g Harry Twinotter, we need to ask, “Where do you currently live? If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, are you buying a new home in Norway, Siberia, Canada’s Northwest Territories, Alaska, Greenland, or what? Are you moving 0.5 to 10 miles inland so your grandchildren can be above 2100’s high tide?” If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, are you moving to South Island NZ, Patagonia, or lobbying for housing permits to be issued for Antarctica?

    If the temperature gets too warm for warmunists, the world will have plenty of cooler places.

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    Carbon500

    According to the report: ““As we’ve seen in recent years, the UK is particularly susceptible to flooding and sea level rises, and this is something we are likely to see more of unless urgent action is taken to prevent and adapt to climate change.”
    Utter rubbish, repeated mindlessly and endlessly – and from an apparently professional organisation!

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      gai

      “…Utter rubbish, repeated mindlessly and endlessly – and from an apparently professional organization!”

      Yes and certainly not the first. What is happening is many members quit in disgust with a strongly worded note and/or phone call to the organization. That is what happened to the American Physics Assoc. Only one of the people to quit was a Nobel prize winner and the letter was to the newspapers. ASA decided to revisit their CAGW statement.

      I quit the ACS for that reason and so did many members of professional organizations who complained on WUWT.

      Despite the propaganda in the MSM the statements DO NOT represent the views of the scientists. They represent the views of the ADMINISTRATORS, in other words the bureaucrats.

      If you look at the whole scene not just CAGW, the drive is from representation of and by individuals to representation by NGOs. This was Maurice Strong’s brilliant move back in 1972 and the power behind CAGW. It is said he got the idea from working for YMCA international as a young man.

      [YMCA]..may have been the genesis of Strong’s realization that NGOs (non-government organizations) provide an excellent way to use NGOs to couple the money from philanthropists and business with the objectives of government.” http://sovereignty.net/p/sd/strong.html

      Now you hear, not about the rights of the INDIVIDUAL but the rights of the group or community. Of course the group is then run by bureaucrats who do not bother to see what the opinion of the group is. This effectively disenfranchises a large portion of the population.

      Also NGOs give young activists something to join. It makes them think they are DOING SOMETHING. It gave them a“shared feeling of belonging to a community” It also controls their thinking. They can join WWF and/or Greenpeace or Organic Consumers or Food & Water Watch or any of a huge number of other organizations. However the one thing NGOs do not do is give the rank and file a voice.

      “Very few of even the larger international NGOs are operationally democratic, in the sense that members elect officers or direct policy on particular issues,” notes Peter Spiro. “Arguably it is more often money than membership that determines influence, and money more often represents the support of centralized elites, such as major foundations, than of the grass roots.” The CGG has benefited substantially from the largesse of the MacArthur, Carnegie, and Ford Foundations. http://www.afn.org/~govern/strong.html

      The real reason for gay rights, womens rights, ethnic rights is to get us used to the idea that rights belong to the group and not to the individual. This was driven home to me when a decade ago, I visited the office of my US Congressman. The first thing we were asked was what group we represented. Once it was understood we were individuals and not part of a group we were shuffled off to a wet behind the ears pimply faced kid of 18 with the IQ of a gorilla.

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    ScotsmaninUtah

    “Q5. What issues regarding global warming are you concerned about”

    Extreme weather, cyclones and hurricanes, (NOAA needs pictures, they have forgotten what a Hurricane looks like)
    Droughts/water shortages, (California has a drought, but it hasn’t invested in water infrastructure since the 70s… )
    Pollution of air, sea and land, (Chinese are making fun of the Californians clean air efforts)
    Land lost to sea and becoming deserts.” (the Marhsall Islands are still there !)

    latest from CNN – U.S hurricane Drought ( more unNews about climate )
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/06/us/2015-hurricane-season/index.html

    what really should be of concern … (NOT !)
    Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton becoming President of the united States !

    Hilary Clinton preseidential “coming out speech”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdNYXMQoy8

    Donald Trump …
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_OnpDIpx0w

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    Klem

    I’m appalled, the Mechanical Engineers wrote that biased garbage? I can’t believe it, that’s one of the last places I would have expected to see such a terribly designed survey.

    Business schools and Statistics courses constantly warn their students about such biased surveys because they give you misleading results and will cost you more money in the end. I would never have expected this kind of biased survey from an Enginerring School. I’m astonished.

    They should be ashamed of themselves.

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