Across the West, there is a layer of smart-but-busy intellects who have not been involved in the climate debate. For one reason or another they’ve been too busy setting up IPO’s, doing research projects, or directing companies in perhaps technology, mining or banking, and generally being productive. It is excellent to see some of this caliber adding their brain-power and resources to the public arena. Especially so in Australia, where the debate is almost entirely bare-bones-volunteers versus billion-dollar-institutions, and where the culture of philanthropy is not well developed compared to the US.
This unusual advert was placed in The Australian today. In a normal world, investigative journalists would have already interviewed and discussed views like these, but in the hyperbolic, politicized and religious world of climate-alarm it was simpler for productive people to just get on with it, talk to their peers and make it happen.
Click to enlarge, or read the text below.
Psychology and The New Climate Alarm
Lowell Ponte’s 1975 book warns:
“Global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for 110,000 years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance: the survival of ourselves, our children, our species.”
Now there is a new climate alarm. Climate models used by authorities forecast that CO2 emissions will cause dangerous global warming, now referred to as Climate Change.
PSYCHOLOGY, BIAS ERRORS AND CLIMATE
Recent findings in the area of psychology, “Psychology and Economics” by Prof. Matthew Rabin show the prevalence of a number of bias errors when people make decisions.
Such errors are relevant for climate scientists in examining the evidence claimed to support Climate Change. The following reviews the importance of two key bias errors.
The bias error of “there is a misinterpretation that purely random events are too long to be purely random and
represent a long term trend”.
- The Millennium Drought from 1997 to 2010 was misinterpreted as a long term trend as a consequence of Climate Change. This lent support to State Governments over-investing in desalination plants.
The bias error of “once forming a view people are often inattentive to information contradicting their view. There is the problem of selective scrutiny of evidence”.
A bias problem that carbon dioxide emissions drive Climate Change is illustrated by the following:
- Over the past one million years climate cycles ranging from Ice Ages to warmer periods have been caused principally by changing levels of energy from the sun, changing planetary alignments and changing ocean currents. These three important climate determinants are not well enough understood to be included in climate models.
- It is thus not surprising that all temperature predictions by these models over the past fifteen years have been inaccurate by a considerable margin. Nor can they explain earlier climate records. It is clear the models are unable to make reliable climate forecasts.
- Since the last Ice Age, ice cores reveal that temperature rose some 200 years in advance of rising CO2. During that Ice Age, 18,000 years ago, most of the Northern Hemisphere had a permanent ice cover and sea levels fell by 120 metres.
- More recently, despite rising CO2, there was a cooling of climate for 37 years from 1940 and satellite data shows no increase in temperature over the past 17 years.
- Global warming, with interruptions, has therefore continued since the last Ice Age unrelated to CO2 levels.
- The geological record also shows no correlation of rising temperature with increasing levels of CO2 which varied from 200 ppm (0.02%) to 7,000 ppm (0.7%). The significant fall from 7000ppm was mainly due to removal of CO2 in marine skeletal material during the Cambrian Period to form vast limestone deposits. At that time the ocean could not have been acid otherwise the limestone would have dissolved.
- The present level is near 400 ppm (0.04%) and this could double only if all the known fossil fuel reserves were used. In the past CO2 has been near 8 times this level without dangerous warming “ending the planet”.
- Melting of Arctic ice is commonly referred to as confirming Climate Change caused by CO2 emissions. In 1922 the US Weather Bureau advised in respect of an Arctic ice melt, “Reports all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.” Subsequently the ice cover returned. There is no evidence rising CO2 has any influence on the historical phenomenon of retreating and advancing of Arctic ice.
Because of bias errors, the view that dangerous global warming is caused by CO2 emissions has not been confirmed.
There has been the bias of “selective scrutiny of evidence”. The following findings in psychology have also influenced the public attitude towards Climate Change.
“CHOICE ARCHITECTS” AND “NUDGES”
In the book “Nudge” the authors, Thaler & Sunstein, have explained how the employment of the findings from psychology can be used to “nudge” people to do what “choice architects” think would be in people’s best interests.
Referring to CO2, an invisible gas, as carbon, which as soot is a black dirty solid, is a good example of a “nudge” to sway public opinion in favour of reducing CO2 emissions.
There is the “nudge” food quality will fall with increasing atmospheric CO2. This is misleading. The rise in CO2 provides for a useful increase in plant growth. Food quality can decline if there is not a corresponding increase in other essential plant nutrients.
Another “nudge” is the claim that CO2 emissions will cause ocean acidity.
There is no evidence that levels as high as 7,000 ppm of CO2 did or could cause ocean acidity. The ocean is alkaline and contains minerals in solution which constrain lowering of alkalinity with rising CO2.
HOW FEAR AND ANXIETY WORK
There is a heading for a chapter concerning Climate Change in “Nudge” titled “Saving the Planet”. This heading and other similar claims are calculated to raise fear and anxiety.
The book by William Sargant titled “Battle for the Mind” documents the conclusion of research by psychologists that statements which raise fear and anxiety facilitate conversion of people to a desired belief without the benefit of evidence.
The statement by US President Obama “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations” is an example.
CONCLUSION
There is no evidence CO2 has determined climate in the past or that it could do so in the future. Just as there was needless alarm over the 37 year cooling from 1940 there is now unwarranted public alarm over a threat of dangerous global warming. The next ice age remains the real global climate threat.
Australia should save the $3 billion plus spent annually supporting renewable energy programs. The heavy burden of these costs falls on taxpayers, business, and households.
No Australian post-2020 emissions reduction target could be justified which requires additional costs for consumers and/or tax payers.
– THE CLIMATE STUDY GROUP
————————————————————
Further information
The Climate Study Group:
John Chambers BCom, MBA, CA, FAICD, FFin;
Andrew Miller BBus;
Richard Morgan AM BSc (Ag), BCom, FAIAST (Convenor);
Bob Officer AM BSc (Ag), MAgEc (UNE), MBA, PhD (Chicago), FASSA, SFFin;
Mark Rayner BSc (Hons), ChemEng (UNSW), FTSE, FAusIMM, FIEA, FAICD;
Graham Sellars-Jones BCom.
Tom Quirk MSc, MA, DPhil (Oxon), SMP (Harv).
Good move. I have been thinking for a while now that we should band together and place an advert highlighting the observed facts so that the average person could understand that the Science Is Not Settled.
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Scroll way down – look on the left – under Books – find
CLIMATE CHANGE: THE FACTS
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Every Federal Politician was sent a FREE copy of CLIMATE CHANGE THE FACTS. Most do not seem to have read it.
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No surprise. Even those who can read are too busy politicking and claiming expenses to actually read books. A menu is about all they can manage.
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That’s the really sad part. All three major parties (ALP, LNP, and Greens), have a majority of their number in the taxpayer trough. ie: Abbott, Hockey, Shorten, Burke, Wong, Pyne, Swan, Albanese, Hanson-Young, etc. They are in on it.
You know something is very wrong when LNP’s Chris Pyne began covering for Tony Burke on Friday morning. (The ALP attack dog who tore down Bishop). Its pretty darn obvious that the ALP and LNP have negotiated a truce on this matter and are in bed together for rorting the taxpayer. Burke’s shortsightedness (focus on taking down Bishop) has open a Pandora’s box! And they want to keep their snouts in the trough for as long as possible!
If they wish to live the life of privilege and wealth, they can do it on their own bloody dime! Just like every other Celebrity, etc.
…There are few exceptions. eg: Liberal MP Craig Laundy; who refuses to actively be a part of this.
(The other Liberal MPs are going to give him a hard time because he ain’t rorting like the rest of them! He is making the others look bad!)
The only good news on Friday is that people with common sense and scientific credentials are hitting back on this Climate Alarm-ism.
(Don’t even get me started on the cricket…Australia all out for 60? WTF?!)
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I think the hardest thing to do intellectually is examine your own prejudice. Politicians are by nature of their profession deeply prejudicial. They are never rewarded for changing their minds and in fact when they do, they are vilified. No point sending them glossy brochures, they are whipped. I blame the party political system which when you really think about it is only somewhere slightly elevated from gang warfare. Imagine a parliament in which it was a debate of ideas rather than a contest of prejudice. As long as the AGW scare serves a purpose it will be fostered by some and tolerated by those who really should grow a spine.
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Off topic, but related to your post – This Department of Finance site lets you see just what they are claiming.
The airfares are just unbelievable.
Sarah Hanson-Young claims between $500 and $700 to fly from Adelaide to Canberra, whilst Nick Xenophon claims between $200 and $300 for the same route…
Here, you can also see that Julia Gillard claimed $408,304.34 for an ‘office fit out’. John Howard claimed $115,218.80 for ‘office facilities’
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Wouldn’t bother me James if I thought it served a higher purpose.
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Don’t you mean he’s spilt the lid off this Pandora’s floodgate of worms?
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You underestimate the forces of darkness; their fury, relentlessness and resources are endless.
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Dont underestimate a quiet word with a few mates…the more the truth circulates, the more its harder for the hype to take hold. I also point out how generlaly when you have to scream at people with hysterical headlines, the less likely its true.
Most people arent dumb – even people who never finished school can see its a middle class nonsense. You can also point out thatthe same dimwits who push PC ( of which most people have had a gutful of ) are also pushing CAGW. That will get theior attention. Then if you tell them the CAGW nonsense will eventually tax them out of their homes, that *reallY* sparks thier attention.
Linking the demented UN & its crazy Agenda 21 to all this means nothing to most people – telling most people who are already strugling financially that CAGW isnt scientifically provable but that it is this thats pushing up the cost of living to force people down the green route, will make them ( rightly ) angry and gives a real-life perspective that cuts across all walks of life and income levels.
Tell the middle class they cant send their kids to the school they want becasue of green taxes will galvanize them….
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Believe me, I do that as often as I can; however, that’s a far cry from convincing the hoards that listen devotedly to the priests that the ABC, The Age, etc channel. I have had the opportunity to speak to one or two such devotees and the responses have been far from flattering.
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Bemused
Take heart!
Isn’t that a decreasing congregation – like union membership?
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Original Steve
” I also point out how generlaly when you have to scream at people with hysterical headlines, the less likely its true. ”
Way back in BC a gent called Ralph Nader graced UK with his first tour. This was summed up in one UK newspaper (I forget which one” as
“Vehemence and veracity are seldom synonymous”
Ought to be known to shock jocks too IMO
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Steve, you are correct.
I have been using the ‘pocketbook’ hook for years. People can’t sit still for the various scientific explanations but they will sit up and take notice if they realize it is a scam to take money out of their wallets and place it into the wallets of the elite.
Rosa Koire a Californian bureaucrat and a gay ‘Flaming liberal’ (her words) paints a graphic picture of the life the elite have planned for our grand kids.
http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/the-post-sustainable-future.html
She tells you how they are doing it in this video:
http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/the-post-sustainable-future.html
Cornell University yanked their page on ‘Food Shed’ after Rosa linked to it so here are alternates:
A paper in Cambridge Journals; Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems : Mapping potential foodsheds in New York State by food group: An approach for prioritizing which foods to grow locally
This paper by Roosevelt Institute | Cornell University is enough to send chills down your spin. It shows Rosa is not some conspiracy nut and yes the plans are in place and we are proceeding forward.
Retracting the Global Foodshed
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Genocidal maniac and Socialist Pol Pot believed people needed to be forced out of the cities into the countryside to go back to an agrarian society.
I guess in many ways its bringing people closer to their food….or another way of saying “making people into peasants”
It takes a village, huh?
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Steve, a bit more on what is happening that can be passed on.
We all know CAGW is targeting livestock.
Maurice Strong told the opening session of the Rio Conference (Earth Summit II) in 1992, that industrialized countries have:
The US GOVERNMENT is now taking advice from Maurice Strong, a High School dropout on how Americans should eat: America Should Adopt ‘Plant-Based’ Diet |
A bit more on the US government and our food supply. Obama was not kidding when he said he would “Fundamentally Transform America!”
I will start out with this from left leaning Organic Gardner.
People’s Gardens: Why Would the USDA Want People to Register Their Gardens?
As the author says the ” People’s Gardens” are community gardens. (Although the use of the word ‘People’ should sound loud alarm bells.)
What is interesting is one of the comments:
The 350 Home & Garden Challenge is part of Transition US, the US national hub of the international Transition Network.
The Demise of Christchurch City New Zealand shows how a ‘Fundamental Transformation’ can be brought about fast. (I keep thinking of the inner city riots that are increasing in the USA. Destroy the old city and then rebuild according to the new master plan. The people in the street can understand this and, at least in the USA it answers why riots are now being encouraged by the White House and AIG was fed tax payer money to encourage bank foreclosures****)
***How the AIG Bailout Could be Driving More Foreclosures
(wwwDOT)realtytrac.com/content/news-and-opinion/how-the-aig-bailout-could-be-driving-more-foreclosures-4861
There is plenty of information that explains why the US and other governments seem to be completely Nutzoid. Once you see the goal is a complete transformation involving the destruction of our society so it can be rebuilt ‘to their hearts desire’ (paraphrased from the Fabien Society Motto) things all fall into place. Unfortunately it is a miserable dismal place for us serfs.
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That’s very interesting Gai. In our area of Victoria, Australia there was a request a few months ago for people to ‘volunteer’ information about their garden crop surpluses, to be kept on a local database. Needless to say, being the somewhat wary type that I am, I declined to fill one in. As my veggie bed is in abeyance at present ‘they’ would be out of luck anyway!
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gai,
Yes, it is interesting when you are working at a level high enough to be warned about detrimental emerging policies.
Here is a comment on “organic gardening” that formed an official complaint to the ABC in 2010.
The ABC provided no useful return, with excuses that it was undergoing changes in personnel and that it could handle only one specific allegation at a time. The usual bureaucratic “Go away” types of signals.
In his farewell speech, Peter Cundall said openly that he had directed “Gardening Australia” or whatever the ABC effort was named, to openly promote organic gardening. Does one need more evidence of ABC bias?
Presenter: Gardening Australia, 22/03/2014
SERIES 25 Episode 01
Peter Cundall reflects on his time as host of the show
Of course, Peter Cundall was synonymous with Gardening Australia. He worked on the show for nearly 19 years – he’s a real gardening legend.
“Gardening Australia, when we first started – look, we were amazed,” says Peter. “It took off like a rocket and the reason why is because what we did in the program. You know, we decided right from the very beginning, to make it absolutely organic. No chemicals, no poisons and not only that, to keep it absolutely down-to-earth practical.” (end of ABC quote)
Bias? What bias?
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The usual forgot-to-attach link
http://www.geoffstuff.com/organic.pdf
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It is about power and getting power that they are not entitled to. The easiest way of doing that is through fear and guilt. Make the populace fearful, make them feel guilty and you can get power over them. There is no other justification and there definitely is no science behind it.
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It has been ever thus but still the forces for good eventually overcome. Do not despair. The forces of evil are full of hate, just look at SHY or a member of GetUp, and hate destroys from within. We will win and we are winning now if the frantic antics of our opponents are any guide. When the President of the US is reduced to telling lies and making ridiculous claims we know he has nothing left. The US may be dumb sometimes but they will not let their economy and their jobs die for some green dream. I recall talking to a couple of twenty something men running an outfitters shop in Jasper. The Athabasca glacier is shrinking and has been since the mid 1800s some say it is climate change but these guys said that was bullshit since it has retreated for nigh on 160 years. Two young blokes who are not fooled and many others who realise that nature will have it’s way. When you see the Rockies up close you know nature is an awesome force and mankind rather puny.
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The other thing that comes to mind is that placing an advert in The Australian is about as useful as placing an advert on a placard in Antarctica, the majority of the population will never read The Australian. I used to read it on the internet, before it went behind a paywall, and now it never sees the light of a monitor at home.
Conservative newspapers going behind paywalls are doing the best thing ever for the Leftist cause, and ever more the likes of The ABC will fill the void with unbiased news.
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Not so fast, friend.
My opinion is firmly against the delusions of CAGW until we get that visit from the lonely soul that singlehandedly votes down every comment in the thread. Once I see that one persistent vote, I cannot but admit that CAGW is real, fatal, and final.
Gestures matter, no matter how puny.
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My bet would be “Harry Twinotter”………
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Harry at least has a go, and sticks around, even if “his” fundamental lack of knowledge, reliance in Wikipedia, and superficiality is all very exasperating. Much better than an anonymous red thumb, even when it is obvious that he will never consider an alternate viewpoint, whatever the evidence.
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Agreed.I inadvertently signed up to The Guardian for some reason, and their warm welcome and regular generous news highlights and summaries were an eye-opener. (Apart from to-be-expected pervasive left biased content and omissions). The Australian has a Daily Newsletter they send to your inbox. Still informative, from a superior publication, ‘though not linking to so much free content. But the internet brings others goodies. There are American Thinker, Forbes, and similar online journals, and James Dellingpole is still around.
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I kept on getting emails offering me a subscription to the New York Times, which I ignored.
The result, was that the NYT upped the anti, and offered me a free 3-month trial, which I also ignored.
They then offered me a year for free, also with no response from myself.
I am now told that I am a “Premium Subscriber”, and entitled to all sorts of free goodies, none of which I have accepted.
If things progress further, at the current rate, I calculate that I will have been gifted the entire newspaper some time in mid 2024.
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And be responsible for all of its debts.
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NYT wants you Rereke. Correction: they want your money. Newspapers are so passé these days innit?
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Ante.
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I have been thinking for a good while now that this climate thing is utter rubbish, and that I would not add to the squillions of words and dollars that have been wasted on this fallacy. But here I am, hopefully adding to the tipping point in favour of logic and critical thinking.
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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for ….. Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
When I worked for a big company answering customer complains (Oh Joy) I was told that for every one letter there were 100 other people who did not complain but instead complained to their friends and voted with their feet.
Yelling, especially to politicians does help. They may not back down all the way but they will try to modify to keep their voter base. The Astro Turf types use this all the time.
This is a good one: Send a Tea Bag to Congress Actually it has some very good advice.
Darn, they warn against sending actual real tea bags and here I was saving all my used tea bags…. along with pine pitch and feathers. (Anything but paper makes the Dept of Homeland Security nervous. They really are afraid of us.)
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Maybe it should read “Send a Tea Party member to Congress”?
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That too Sheri and I did do that along with many others.
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Surely there must be enough of us on blogs like this to spread the cost of a full page ad to make our point.
Ron
R-COO- K+
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Strange how none of the climate study group have any qualifications in climate science , will they next cast doubt on medical research, astronomy, physics ? ,this is appeal to irrelevant authority
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Probably because they are writing on the psychology of climate science. Some have degrees in science and are fully qualified to address statistics and scientific methods. Some work in business and are fully qualified to write on psychology and selling of an idea (climate science). I am assuming that you chime in and condemn anyone who listens to John Cook’s writings, since he has virtually no qualifications for what he writes. If we are looking at irrelevent authority, there’s a prime one.
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Frank says
“… will they next cast doubt on medical research…”
Well Frank it doesn’t take very much to trash the reputation of the medical research field since they have already done it to themselves. Heck a doctor (cardiologist) was trashing medical research in a conversation with me just a few weeks ago.
…………
We will start at the top with the FDA:
Research Misconduct Identified by the US Food and Drug Administration
Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of the Peer-Reviewed Literature
FDA says CRO Cetero faked trial data
North Carolina clinical research organization Cetero Research allegedly falsified clinical trial documents and test results over a five-year period, and now an undetermined number of drug companies who worked with the CRO must review their records to determine whether new tests on their drugs are required.
medcitynewsDOT)com/2011/07/fda-says-cro-cetero-faked-trial-data-pharmas-may-need-to-redo-tests/
Red wine researcher flagged for fake data
A University of Connecticut researcher known for his work on the benefits of red wine to heart health falsified his data in more than 100 instances, and nearly a dozen scientific journals are being warned of the potential problems after publishing his studies in recent years, officials said Wednesday. UConn officials said their internal review found 145 instances over seven years in which Dr. Dipak Das fabricated and falsified data,
(wwwDOT)cbsnews.com/news/red-wine-researcher-flagged-for-fake-data/
NETHERLANDS: Dean may face data fraud charges
The inquiry found that Stapel, former professor of cognitive social psychology and dean of Tilburg’s school of social and behavioural sciences, fabricated data published in at least 30 scientific publications, inflicting “serious harm” on the reputation and career opportunities of young scientists entrusted to him.
(wwwDOT)universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20111103193525126
S.F. scientist resigns after faking data
A scientist at San Francisco’s Gladstone Institutes has resigned after admitting to making up data on grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health.
(wwwDOT)sfgate.com/health/article/S-F-scientist-resigns-after-faking-data-4158921.php
Scientist jailed for faking medicine test results
A scientist carrying out research on an experimental drugs has become the first person in Britain to be jailed for falsifying results.
(wwwDOT)telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10001149/Scientist-jailed-for-faking-medicine-test-results.html
And how about this?
SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers retracted
And last but not least how about this one from NATURE?
Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers
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So who should we trust if they’re corrupted, the Heartland Institute ?
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Maybe you could learn about science methods, read widely and make up your own mind instead of trying to find someone to “trust”. Trustworthy is in short supply these days. Otherwise, you follow the magician/psychic that gives you the answer you like. Not science, but far less challenging intellectually. Comforting until the betrayal…..
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Fantastic! Great news!
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“… and this could double only if all the known fossil fuel reserves were used. ”
This is an instance of “cargo cult” “parroting.”
When the atmosphere had 7,000 ppm CO2 there were not fossil burning trains, planes, or automobiles. Further, what does “used” mean? All at once? Over 30 years? Over 500 years? It also seems to be a linear extrapolation without regard to processes that could be faster if the partial pressure of CO2 goes up.
The authors need to up there game.
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– their game.
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If you had said they’re game, I would have asked you when the hunting season opened.
But since you didn’t, I wont.
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Don’t go there. That’s a bad oldie.
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Dear Big Bear,
I don’t want to be rude, but could you translate this into something that resembles English?
1. Firstly, what is meant by ‘this is an instance of “cargo cult” “parroting.”’
2. Also, please note that Co2 has one property, there is no stamp on the base saying man made or Gia made.
So I fail to understand the difference in what may manufacture Carbon Dioxide in it’s gaseous form, or for that matter, any other form?
3. As I understand the difference between used and not used, in the context put, it means consummated in it’s entirety.
Could you please advise your interpretation.
4. What difference would the time scale make, if you are striving for proof of concept?
5. As was stated in the article and has been stated herein, natural variance and related factors would also kick in if the Carbon Dioxide gaseous planetary content dramatically increased, over any time span.
I would expect an immediate return to Jurassic or Triassic levels of Fauna and Flora growth.
This increase would also be achieved independent of any increase or decrease in planetary heat content.
6. What game precisely must the authors improve on?
As for facts, they seem dead on. Their references seem impeccable, as does their science?
As for actually increasing the Carbon Dioxide gaseous planetary content to at or above 800 ppm, to a range around 1500ppm or 1800pppm, that would be an optimal solution to offset the next ice age and it’s very often negative affect on Fauna and Flora growth.
Should you require an example of how this would affect humans, spend a quite afternoon in your average Greenhouse/Glasshouse.
While your there, check out the Carbon Dioxide gaseous content levels. Your should find they vary from 800ppm to around 1200ppm. Also, check out the internal temperature.
Oddly enough, the deaths subscribed to Greenhouse/Glasshouse workers being exposed to their cruel working environment has not yet hit the headlines, even on the local community papers.
Perhaps you could also explain why this is so?
Also, next time, please address the article and provide references as required, or failing that, a coherent argument based on obvious fact, logic and actual proven science.
That is, real science, not the Gaian version.
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Hi Ian
As one who has visited New Guinea I can try to explain Cargo Cult.
This, I believe, to be a term originating from PNG during the WW11 when “cargo” used to arrive fro the US of A onto a field surrounded by natives who had never seen a plane let alone the massive amounts of cargo that they emitted from their bellies.
A cargo cult developed which suggested that if natives would do a dance or put out some delicious food or whatever near the strip, then a Cargo Plane would arrive with goods for them.
Also known of in Vanuatu.
KK
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ps
Forgot the point.
Cargo Cult Parroting would imply asking or saying something that you did not fully understand yourself and expecting others to believe it.
KK
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‘Cargo Cult’ refers to Dr. Richard Feynman’s
Cargo Cult Science
Richard Feynman
From a Caltech commencement address given in 1974
Also in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
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Gai, I have just finished reading “…Joking…”. Without doubt this is the funniest book ever by an extremley multi-talented person.
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John, I find your comment bewildering.
What is it about that claim that leads you to call it “parroting” rather than “reporting”? Normally, ‘parroting’ is reserved for repeating words without understanding them. What do you believe they didn’t understand, and what evidence do you have for this belief? I’m not seeing any reason to call it ‘parroting’.
Literally, you’re suggesting that they are repeating claims made by a cargo cult, which would obviously be nonsense, but I presume you are trying to say that they are repeating a claim made by some group that deserves to be called a cargo cult in the sense Feynman used the term. That sense was “a group that appeared to have the trappings of science but lacks something essential.”
Please tell us what that group was, and what they lacked. If you do that, we can make our own judgement on the evidence, rather than just on John F. Hultquist’s say-so, regardless of how compelling that might be. (And if that something missing is not immediately obvious in its absence, then could you tell us the evidence you’re using that it’s absent?)
You make the point that the atmosphere did not have planes etc. in the past. I wholeheartedly agree with you, but I fail to see your point. They didn’t have computers either, but how is either of those facts relevant to the Ad’s claim?
You proceed to point out that they omitted to specify how the atmosphere attained that degree of CO2 in the past. Again true, but what’s the relevance of your point? My plate might be in the dishwasher, but whether it was put there by me or my wife is irrelevant to the fact of it being there. Why should they specify how it got to 7000 ppm? What difference would it make, in your opinion, if it got to that point by one means rather than another?
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Because the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels have been very much higher quite a few times in the past but the planet did not go into climatic hyperdrive (rather, ice epochs became Johnny-come-lately) befuddles the Green Blob
See also my comment at #6
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John, I think that it means that mass of carbon fuels in known reserves is equivalent to the mass of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already. I might be wrong, but I think that calculation does not include natural sequestration of CO2.
The CO2 levels were once much higher because a lot of it is now carbonate rather than coal.
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As I indicated before, I want leading warmists who can be shown not to have applied due diligence by correct application of the scientific method prosecuted and put in jail. Their misapplication of science has cost the entire world trillions of dollars, has delayed development of the third world by restricting them to expensive energy and has caused thousands of deaths due to cold in the UK because people cant afford expensive “green” energy.(Google “energy poverty deaths”).
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Misapplication is one thing; wilfully doing it again and again is what should get them disbarred.
In engineering we have accreditation and a high level of accountability through damages claims. I seriously believe both of these should be applied to science generally, and climate science especially.
The cost and damage these idiots have caused is beyond measure.
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I agree especially if ‘science’ is used to ‘inform policy’
It has an upside for scientists too. In the USA if you are a P.E. (a certified Professional Engineer) you can not be forced by your corporation to LIE. Back in the 1970s I had a go round about this with a lawyer. Since I was not a P.E. my work could be attributed to another, modified or changed however they wished and I had no recourse. As a PE I am required by law not to lie and would at least have a shot at a defense in a court of law.
This gets into the US law
Professional Ethics & Wrongful Discharge
100
Precisely. As has been noted probably many times before, imagine a fortune 500 (or any stocklisted company) dishonestly fiddling with their profit data – jail time.
As punishment, climate data fiddlers should be jailed and their ill-gotten gains and property from such activities sold off and put back into the very communities that their racketeering robbed from them through higher and unnecessary taxes.
When they die, their tombstones should list their crimes and they should know this in advance. Likewise to climate-fail soothsayers. They deserve their stupidity emblazoned on theirs too.
290
As I said their jail time should be spent doing hard manual labor in a commercial organic farm. Tilling and planting by hand, hoeing weeds, picking bugs off by hand, picking veggies by hand….
If they want that ‘Simple Eco Life’ make them life it 15 hours a day in the summer like the third world peasants they are condemning to misery do.
I will be nice and let them use metal tools instead of stone….
150
Hmm..
I like the sound of it Gai (I kinda REALLY like it), but it won’t help us advance as a society. Better use their imprisonment doing honest work in the fields that they know (if they really know anything). It’s far more useful. Then maybe they can earn a better tombstone.
But for the useless ilk of John Cook or Flim-Flam Flannery et. al., they can be simply replaced with people that ACTUALLY know and will do something useful because we know the above will never change their spots.
50
Actually I picked that punishment because:
#1. Let the punishment fit the crime.
#2. Certified Organic produce in the USA goes for a premium price so there could be some $$$ recovered.
#3. If you want something useful let them work on improved techniques using simple tools that can be implemented by peasant farmers in the third world. E.M. has a good example HERE. How about windmills, similar to those used historically, made with unskilled labor and native materials for drawing water and grinding grain?
We have the know how. It is sitting in libraries, in Amish communities, heck in the brains of several of my friends who love draft horses and whose families worked farms with horses and oxen.
60
Actually, you just gave me an idea. Let’s get them to power their favourite bat-choppers with pedal power. That’s certainly useful and would reduce power drawn from the grid.. 😉
60
Could help with the obesity problem in America and it could be a way to put welfare recipients to work. I can see it.
40
A long time ago I suggested the way to handle several problems was to power schools with students pedaling stationary bikes. Gets rid of the obesity problem, the ADHD problem and powers the school.
You could even use gearing to have ‘punishments’ Cut-up in class, don’t pay attention, don’t do your homework? Then you have to pedal harder. Refuse to pedal? then you go into the ‘special classroom’ with no heating or cooling, no light, no water to drink or cooked food to eat until you are willing to do ‘Your Part’ for the Community, a la George Bernard Shaw.
Of Course Congress would ‘Show the Way’ for America by installing the bikes first in Congress and providing the building with 100% Congressional Power.
This could also be used to make inner city welfare types useful. Wind and solar fail? switch in the inner city switch hitters on their bikes hooked to the grid.
A friend actually used this. He hooked a TV up to a generator powered by a stationary bike. If the kids wanted to watch TV they had to pedal. Who ever was pedaling got to choose the show.
30
NO! Don’t let them use metal tools. You are far too generous! They must use stone and learn how to knap them.
20
That was what I was originally thinking.
No resorting to videos either! Just trial and error.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyzNIa-U5Nc
20
Thanks for that video gai. I watched it an intend to watch the others in that series. Rock for flintknapping needs to have the property that it fails via a conchoidal fracture. Off Topic, but does anyone know of a location in Australia where I can find flint rocks? Surprisingly, my understanding is that there is no accessible flint in the entire continent (I looked into this once before).
00
Actually, warmists have suggested virtually the same thing for skeptics. Blacklist them, call them evil and bad, write on their tombstone the evil deeds they did. If you’re looking to inflict psychological pain and intimidation, it’s not a good idea to use the same method as the other side. It loses its effect. Better to accuse them of something you’re doing and innoculate yourself against accusations. It’s quite effective for liberals.
60
It seems both sides aren’t that different in their thinking regarding one thing – punishment. However, one must follow the truth. It’s the only thing that applies and the only thing that’s relevant in this argument. I’m with you there Sheri but if we have the same things to lose on both sides, the stakes are the same.
The internet will be their tombstone now. +1
30
I understand where you are comming from but I keep thinking of the 30,000 a year in the UK who die trying to choose between eating and staying warm. Or the third world poor where hunger and malnutrition cause the deaths of 3.5 million children every year.
With the biofuel craze and the displacement of African/South American farmers from their ancestral land, one estimate (SWAG) by a bloger was ~ excess deaths are of the order of 5 million people (Funny how the UN and its satellites don’t have that number available….)
These are real people and real deaths and should be directly laid on the conscience of the ClimAstrologists. (And I have made that fact clear to more than one arrogant [self-snip] ‘Climate’ scientist.)
No one can lay death one at the door of the Realists. All the ‘deaths’ are sometime in the misty future.
So Apples and Oranges.
60
The more irrational warmists (and there do seem to be a lot) want anyone with a dissenting view to be silenced or punished.
It seems to me that a lot of sceptics do not want to stifle debate, but want those in positions of authority and power to be held accountable for their actions, their claims, and their decisions. Seems fair to me.
70
That is exactly correct.
If a blunder is made innocently, like the geologists in Italy not predicting the earthquake, that is one thing, but we know the Climastrologists are KNOWINGLY LYING. Given the Climategate e-mails and all the other evidence, there is very little doubt it was done ‘for the Cause’
We also know there has been immense damage done to civilization as a whole and that people have died. That makes it criminal and no different than any corporate fraud.
50
Just read the Ad myself, seconds before coming to your web page.
Much as I welcomed it, I felt the average reader would disregard it. Ifelt they’d see it as denier nonsense, and ignore it.
It was pleasant to see many points I agree with made public. As a bonus, they had new ones I haven’t seen before.
Still, I think it’s credibility would have been greatly enhanced if it had been explicitly lukewarmer. Instead, it’s anti what most of the lay public accept as generally true. This increases the burden of evidence in being persuasive.
If we have the reader feeling we’re endorsing their view, (there is a thing, but it’s a little thing), the ad could have doubled down on exaggeration and alarmism, something the lay audience would be in agreement with.
Great to see, but I fear its not as persuasive as it ought to be.
I rate it A- (minus).
60
It’s the first such ad (anywhere?) and a good start. I am sure it can be refined with time. Perhaps some advertising psychology experts could be employed to enhance the ad (these days they monitor brain function as people read or watch ads – “neural marketing”). I think the ad appeals to educated people, not sure how Joe or Joanne Sixpack would react but they probably don’t care anyway.
140
At least here in the USA Joe or Joanne Sixpack are more worried about their jobs evaporating and inflation out pacing their wages then they are about Climate Change. (The last poll shows only 45% of American voters think it is due primarily to human activity and “remain unwilling to pay much to do anything about it.”)
From various Rasmussen surveys:
Voters Say Job Creation More Important Than Fighting Global Warming
More Americans Now Consider Themselves Among Working Poor
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters say that economic growth is more important, while 39% say that economic fairness is more important.
“…most U.S. voters continue to believe the current economy isn’t working for the middle class…”
Voters still want the government to do more to help the economy, and what they want it to do is cut spending.
“…Taxes, spending, Obamacare and immigration top Congress’ to-do list as far as voters are concerned….”
“…President Obama said in a recent interview that the media overhypes the threat of terrorism and downplays the long-term threat of climate change and epidemic diseases. Voters by far, however, see terrorism as the bigger long-term threat to the United States…..”
Good grief if the media tried to increased the hype on CAGW they would have to use electrodes in the brain!
(I like Rasmussen because they link to the actual questions which are normally straight forward with no twists.)
120
Don’t underestimate the effect an ad like this has on the slice of fence-sitters and passive skeptics. Obviously the evidence makes no difference to the die-hard believers, but just the knowledge that there are other arguments and intelligent debate changes the playing field.
It will make passive skeptics more likely to speak up and be more confident.
422
Exactly. If it’s full of “may’s”, “could’s”, “might’s” and general faffing about without bare-bones truth, it’s going to sound virtually indifferent from anything else out there on the warmist side that are literally splattered with such terms and beg on their knees to seem believable. This should catch their eye a lot better.
140
Jo
I agree and the fact that this type of advert is very rare will make many people look at it.
We are bombarded from the other side with several articles or ads EVERY day. To have something like this suddenly pop up will have people taking notice.( people from both sides !)
70
Let’s make our next target “The Guardian”..
Hmm.. Probably not in my lifetime 😉
50
What’s the old saying? –” A picture is worth a thousand words”
Try this one from Real Science on sea level rises
http://realclimatescience.com/
10
Their advertising department might be desperate enough. They are hemorrhaging readers and $$$$
20
Jo,
The US Government set up huge and expensive structures and made laws and regulations in anticipation of a predicted cancer epidemic in humans caused by increased production of “chemicals” in the 1960-80 period. The cancers did not eventuate and the structure crumbled away. One of its pillars had fallen down, notably the largely untested prior assumption that rodent tests for carcinogens and mutagens could be extrapolated to humans.
This global warming business has a pillar that increased atmospheric GHG leads to increased temperature. That pillar now has big cracks in it, like evidence from UAH and RSS satellite measurements.
The collapse will happen when a few more of the prominent AGW pushers change their votes. When people see no warming, just like they saw no increased cancer. When the experts fail to see the prior assumptions between GHG and temperature can be questioned. Like rodents are not like humans in response.
10
Agreed – this is a “worm hole” in the sense that it will be used to “worm and nudge” people into regarding the viewpoint of the article as blather
As I commented in an earlier thread, sceptics who leave large, easy holes like this for the CAGW activists to exploit are not helping
1) the cause of a 7000ppm CO2 atmospheric level in Pre-Cambrian times seems to have been a quite magnificent influx of photosynthesis – the greening of the planet, if you will. The article does note that the drop in CO2 levels from here was the advent of limestone/dolomite precipitation from cooling (?) oceans [ the Ksp of CO2 is higher in cool than warm water). Note that the much, much later Cretaceous period had a proxy-derived 10,000ppm
2) actual changing rate of use of fossil fuels is the real determinant of any increasing/decreasing CO2 atmospheric levels from homo sapiens activities. Over a medium to long term, this is not predictable with any confidence. I would certainly not bet my superannuation on the accuracy of any predicted rate change
However, I agree with Jo Nova in the sense that public megaphone messages like this have been long missing. It’s a measure of the determined MSM vain-glorious propaganda that paid advertisements are required to fill the gap
150
It probably came down to how much quality message without too much depth for the average Joe to grasp that they could fit on those pages and yet still be readable in a relatively short time frame, instead of war and Peace.
But definitely a good start. +1 Ian.
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The First 7 Seconds Rule for Newspaper Ads
Short, to the point and as few words as possible. I am rotten at it so I leave ad writing to my husband. He has been doing it for years.
30
Agreed. The Facing page does that already with the big “Psychology And The New Climate Alarm” thingy. It immediately grabs the attention of “browsers”.
Conversely, remember those awful TV ads selling carpets and rugs? Loud screaming, SALE, SALE, SALE.. BUY NOW.. CHEAP RUGS.. THIS WEEKEND ONLY.. DON’T MISS OUT.. etc.
I think the reason we don’t have those anymore is because people got sick and tired of these blasting onto the screen 3 times per ad break. They were just awful and for that reason alone didn’t work. One rule of advertising for the consumer is that the more it’s advertised, the less it’s actually worth or doesn’t work as advertised.
20
Excellent! I wonder what impact it will have? Still, it is poke in the eye for the Green establishment who have just stopped a coal mine in the Federal court with a skink and a snake.
Possibly the underlying question is why CO2 has been singled out as the most dangerous gas since mustard gas? No one worries about the millions of tons of dangerous heavy metals in solar cells and windmills, since the Greens shut down those mines too with health concerns and the exotic metals all come from China.
The answer is that it was always politics, starting with the self justifying IPCC but also with the simultaneous takeover by failed communists of the GreenPeace movement, huge donor incomes, trademarks, offices. This takeover is well documented by Dr. Patrick Moore in his Confessions of a Greenpeace dropout.
So the reason CO2 is being attacked is that this directly disrupts Western economies, eliminating the very thing which enabled them to prosper since WW2, the source of all their power. This is an self harm attack on Western democracies organized by communists and unelected officials like the UN’s Christiana Figueres (head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)) who says openly in Paris she wants an end the era of the ballot box with communist China as the role model.
Still this great advertisement will help question that CO2 and Carbon, the essential element of organic chemistry and all life on earth, are pollution or have anything to do with the climate or warming. We also need to say that fuels were all plants once and all life on earth, including David Attenborough, is ultimately made from CO2 and producing CO2 is what life does.
271
Its easy to swing the public behnd sceptics :
(1) tell them the science cant prove CAGW ( they will sort of accept this point )
(2) Tell them that the end game is lifting green taxes way higher than they are now and thus making everything way more expensive
(3) Ask them whetehr they will let politicians tax them out of thier own homes, to pay for green taxes, based on something that cant be proven scienticially….
(4) Explain propganda – tell them the aim is to cripple our economy and make jobs much harder to find. Most people wont disgaree with this, especially blue collar workers.
We see the macro game at hand, however the key is to explain how it affect speoples bank balances – most people once they get that will get angry, and fast….then point out who the culprits are and leave them to it….
191
WHO benefits also works.
The transfer is from Joe or Joanne Sixpack’s wallet to the wallets of climate scientists, pimply faced activists, mega corporations and their elite owners.
For example WWF got around 25% of its funding from government grants. http://www.undueinfluence.com/wwf.htm
And the salaries are not too shabby either. I certainly would have liked to have earned $223,560 and added benefits of $29,516.
A listing of the companies that have bankrupted (in the USA) taking tax payer dollars down the hole (and often into the pocket of the elite)
http://dailysignal.com/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/
On top of that is the push to have states and universities place pension funds in ‘green energy companies’ and get out of fossil fuel.
181
Yep.
The public could do with more exposure to who gains from all this increase in consumer prices.
20
That coal mine is not economic in any way. India is moving towards renewables, not coal.
I love coming here and reading the nonsense of the few remaining believers that pumping gigatons of CO2 into the atrmosphere doesn’t change anything. “Plant food” is the cry, ignoring the facts we know about nitrogen intake and even CO2 intake as night time temperatures increase.
Farmers are already having to switch crop varieties and move to different crops as global temperature keeps climbing but here the cry is “Global Cooling Alarm Alarm!!!” tho changes in solar output have almost zero impact on global temperatures.
If there is anybody here who can still think—please, temperature is still rising. Look to real scientific bodies like the CSIRO and the BuMet. And their like. Talk to some men on the land. Don’t believe the nonsense peddled here!
118
E&E: India’s plans for coal-fired power plants soar — study says
US, China, India’s 850 New Coal Plants To Bury Kyoto
The Christian Science Monitor
So why is Maxine saying the opposite? I stumbled onto the subtle lie.
For Every New Coal Plant Being Built, Two Are Being Cancelled…
Also the usual use of comparing NAME PLATE CAPACITY of renewables which is never, or hardly ever delivered for more than an instant.
So the comparisons are peak estimated possible maybe power delivered to reliable day in and day out power delievered. If actually yearly power delivered is compared the truth is the opposite of that claimed.
80
Maxine, really? evidence please? I drive around farm country that used to have acre after acre of corn. Guess what? these same farms are still growing corn. Same with wheat and soybeans.
Maxine you are a serial liar.
80
Maxine, the political commentor, not a scientist: Your “I’m clueless” tatoo is showing again. India is putting in renewables and backing them up with coal. Nasty little secret about renewables—they are not reliable. Just a bunch of alters to the god Gaia or maybe Al Gore. Useless in modern society. Of course politicians don’t care—MONEY is involved and that’s all that matters. As for changing crops, that is completely proper—even the back to nature group can tell you that. Failure to rotate crops depletes the soil and requires much more chemical fertilizers. Only really clueless farmers don’t get this and they go broke pretty fast.
We do so enjoy your display of “How to be clueless and proud of it”. It’s really very entertaining. Of course, many of will not be here when the next generation starves and freezes to save the planet. If I were under 20, I’d find you a threat, not amusing. Hopefully, you’re young enough to reap what you sow.
90
” Hopefully, you’re young enough to reap what you sow.”
What a nasty curse Sheri, I like it!
40
Unfortunately it will be largely ignored because there is not a poley bear perched atop the iceberg waiting to drown.
Great work Climate Study Group!!
80
We have really good visuals available too.
Old granny shivering by a fire of books in the UK.
Hard-up pensioners have resorted to buying books from charity shops and burning them to keep warm.
A starving African child.
This one is a classic:
http://oi45.tinypic.com/35l6rf7.jpg
50
Also in the Australian this morning was the argument that Australia has 16% renewables today, so we can reach our RET with a little effort. Of course 5% is hydro but we are not allowed build more dams. No nuclear either. So it is more wind and solar but these today contribute less than 1% of energy. This is hidden by claiming little South Australia is 40% supplied by wind, when it is blowing.
So how does anyone seriously expect to run the country on wind and solar when we are only now at 1%? The RET targets are just fantasy, unless we shut down manufacturing with high electricity prices, which is what is happening and harks back to the previous comment, an open attack on Western democracies by the UN, among others.
222
“So how does anyone seriously expect to run the country on wind and solar when we are only now at 1%?”
Exactly TdeF, but even worse where will the base load come from???????
Today is cloudy and calm over most of Australia.
Just look how much electricity is CURRENTLY [i.e. in real time] being generated in South Australia, Tasmania ans New South Wales by wind and/or solar, sweet FA.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch
Wait for the real time widget to appear
181
Yep.
Since those whirlybirds need grid power to get pointing into the wind and crank up, if there’s no longer any solid coal power in the grid, once the wind stops blowing, the bat-choppers stop turning and that’s the end of it.
161
Do you have a pointer to the information about getting the wind turbines orientated with grid power? I was already aware that grid power was used to keep them turning slowly so the bearings do not seize and the blades don’t warp.
I wonder just how much power is used to keep the darn things in working condition?
30
Gai
Had this not so long ago here on Jo’s blog;
It is a closely held number but analysis indicates Wind turbines use roughly between 8% and 13% of their actual generated output as compared to their plated and claimed output, drawn from the grid, unmetered and unpaid for, to keep their systems functioning when they are at idle due to no wind or shutdown.
The actual generated output of the land based wind turbines ranges between about 28% of its plated and claimed generation capacity here in Australia down to about 18% of that plated output in Germany and even less in China.
The constant reference to a wind turbine powering so many households is a straight out lie as they use the full plated claimed generating capacity of the turbine which it rarely if ever attains and that only on a few minutes time basis, to base those claims on and to promote that lie.
The real generating capacity of the wind turbines is as above, somewhere around 28% of plate output for land based turbines up to 40% for off shore turbines and down to 18% for Germany’s on shore turbines
And getting considerably poorer and lower in output as the turbine ages past about 5 to 10 years due to the FRP constructed blade aerodynamic deformation and accumulated faults and wear and tear.
British data indicates that the economic life of a wind turbine is around 15 years.
Compare this with Tony’s often made point that a coal fired generation plant will run for 50 years at close to its maximum output before it has to be replaced
Ref; Energy consumption in wind facilities
80
Thanks, ROM
My state is busy putting the blasted things up along with solar panels.
50
The second stage of the Gordon Hydro scheme, which was stopped by PM Hawke under the external powers provisions, would have generated 180 MW. on a 24/7 basis. With wind turbines this means 72 x 2.5 MW turbines which are operating continually, or in reality 240 turbines since, at best, they only provide power 30% of the time. Although there are many examples of hydro schemes still operating after 50 years with only routine maintenance, what chance is there for a wind turbine operating after 20 years?
20
The second stage of the Gordon Hydro scheme, which was stopped by PM Hawke under the external powers provisions, would have generated 180 MW. on a 24/7 basis. With wind turbines this means 72 x 2.5 MW turbines which are operating continually, or in reality 240 turbines since, at best, they only provide power 30% of the time. Although there are many examples of hydro schemes still operating after 50 years with only routine maintenance, what chance is there for a wind turbine operating after 20 years?
20
“Psychology and Climate Alarm: how fear and anxiety trump evidence”.
This fear and anxiety would evaporate if geology was taught as a core subject in Secondary Schools. I know for a fact that here in WA very few schools have geology on their curriculum. If only students had a grasp of geological knowledge then they would very quickly dismiss the ridiculous “Theory of AGW” outright. This theory is at total odds with the geological record, especially the past few million years, ie Pleistocene – Holocene [2.58Ma – present], the period during which Homo sapiens evolved on planet Earth. However a number of subspecies of Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens warmistus, e.g. the likes of Al Gore, James Hansen and Michael Mann (Mr Hockeystick), have indoctrinated many of their fellow species with unrelenting scare mongering, but their rantings and ravings have fallen on death ears wrt the geological community, except of course those on the “AGW Gravy Train”, ie those primarily employed in the academic world where “skepticism of AGW Theory” effectively renders them unemployable.
180
You are correct King Geo, geology courses (for fun) in college rendered me immune to CAGW from the get go even though my degree is in chemistry.
In the face of the history of the earth, the idea of ‘runaway global warming’ is completely and utterly stalk raving mad. We are in the middle of a freaking Ice Age for goodness sakes and at the end of the brief warm spike called the Holocene.
If we are very very lucky the earth will bobble along (with very wild weather) just above glacial inception for the next 64,000 years. Anything that keeps the earth warmer should be seen as a blessing and not a curse.
170
With any luck we’ll have moved on from this fleshy existence by then. We’ve only got about another half-billion years before this place becomes nearly uninhabitable, thanks to the Sun’s output becoming greater as it ages due to lack of Hydrogen.
Hopefully, we’ll have learned how to upload our consciousness onto computer chips where we can imagine and live any life we please, blast into space on a single ship, continuing to explore the universe until it big-rips or.. whatever it does 😉
40
The IPCC tells us that 97% of the CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere is natural and 3% is caused by man. In the next breath, they tell us that the 3% is the root cause of all the ills of the world! I am clearly missing something.
Also, our Government is influenced by the ‘precautionary principle’ and the fact that it doesn’t want to be seen to be out of step with other countries. In other words, their approach is illogical but nevertheless will undoubtedly cost us an enormous amount of money as they try to influence the sun, the planets and the oceans. Insanity!!
181
The precautionary principle should operate on all plans to use the precautionary principle.
Remember ‘nested loops’ from your programming days?
10
Maybe we need more of these type of ads. Ideas from this forum could help to make it more effective. Are there enough of us sceptics willing to donate $100 to put it into action.
Getup seems to be effective with crowd sourcing. Is there anyone here with the administrative skills to make this happen?
190
Count me in! I may be retired, but it would be $100 well spent. When do we start?
160
I can volunteer my husband as a tech writer and his brother’s small newspaper in MA north of Boston. (His brother thinks CAGW is a crock.) My brother in-law is also a news editor. Since the family newspaper has been sold we would still have to pay for the ads.
40
I think this ad was a brilliant move. Not only is there the surprise factor, but it puts those facts out there that the alarmists and even many in the media don’t want people knowing. Informed people are harder to manipulate. Even harder if they’re aware of the deliberate psych manipulation tactics being employed. That gets them angry.
I think many in the media know this issue is a crock of ….., but they’re cowards. They sit on the fence because they’re afraid of the name-calling, which is purely about shutting down ‘unapproved’ (by the radical left) discussion. Even The Australian says it “supports the science” whatever that means, while allowing skeptical comments, which easily demonstrate how tenuous that fence sitting is with numerous examples of failures of that science as well as demonstrating how ineffectual but costly the actions advocated would be against the stated objective – changing earth temperatures. However, at least they allow skeptical comments and debate.
While this advert might have taken the alarmists by surprise this time, (like a guerrilla tactic) next time they’ll be prepared. The likes of GetUp are well funded as are all the NGO’s. If this is tried in media such as SMH or Guardian, what’s the bet that they’ll have their pet activist/alarmists on hand with the usual arrogant ridicule/name-calling in place of rational argument?
20
When I was a lad some 70 years ago now, “If it was on the ABC it must be true”
And it probably was in those long gone days.
If it was in Encyclopedia Brittanica it must be true , More or less
Then TV came in, in time for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic games.
From there ,” If it was on TV it must be true”
It took 25 years, a generation for the populace to lose their faith in the truthfulness of TV broadcasts as they were the first generation to be exposed to the full force of a highly emotional, high visual impact and audio based media .
The rumblings on the truthfulness of TV began in the 1980’s and the new and usually cynical joke was “If it was on TV it must be true”. when we all knew it was highly likely it was anything but true.
Then in the early 1990’s came the internet and the pace of disillusionment speeded up many fold.
“If it was on the Internet it must be true”.
We had already been conditioned by the TV to be very cynical about so many TV based claims and increasingly also the Radio and its talk back programs which most of the populace often took the chance of shooting very large holes into any claims made there.
So the levels of trust in our societal institutions declined quite precipitously as deeds and misdeeds were steadily revealed often via the internet and World Wide Web to a populace who had already been well conditioned to take an ever less trusting and an ever more cynical outlook on our societal institutions, our politicians, our bureaucrats and our economic overlords,ie bankers .
All that was left was the media and the world of academia and science.
The internet rapidly blew away the medias veneer of impartiality and truthfulness and the veracity of it’s reporting and so went any real trust in the media and fast at that..
If it was on Facebook “It must be true” lasted about the time it took an electron to get from the server to the computer or smart phone
That left academia and science, arguably those of the two highest status groups in our society for some 4 or 5 generations as they were looked up to as being totally upright, honest, impartial, interested only in the final truth and in ensuring our lives would be made much better while being quite altruistic in their personal outlooks.
The Ozone hole affair started the white anting of Academia and of Science but it had already began by the end of the 1970’s as the generation who followed the post war trained science generation came to power in the universities and standards started to fall quite quickly as, according to a couple of my friends who trained in science at the end of the 1970’s and went on to quite high positions in the scientific fields, testified to me .
The global warming / climate change fiasco has about completed the job of destroying most of the public trust and the belief in the truthfulness , the impartiality of science and academia and the sense that they both were solely interested in advancing mankind’s standards of living through the pursuit of a science that was pure in its intent and honest in its application and that they did everything in their power to ensure that bias at any level and of any character did not enter their research.
We now know the answer to that and it stinks along with a lot of the science surrounding so many science disciplines today
And each and everyone of these societal institutions from all the way back ensured this public loss of trust and the increasing cynicism and contempt in many quarters now so evident, was soley and totally—All Their Own Work.
If scientists and academia now bemoan the fact that they are less and less believed and even less trusted by large and increasing sections of the public to a greater or lesser degree, the so called and much derided Skeptics being just one prominent component and example of this lost of trust and confidence in science and academia , they should take a look in a mirror and say to themselves before they begin the morning prayers to their climate god,
It was all our own work
221
ROM,
I also got a science degree in the late 1960s and I agree with your friend. The quality of scientists went down the tubes to the point I hired a carpenter’s helper instead of one of the dozens of recent science grads I interviewed. (He turned into a very very good lab tech too.)
The typical characteristics of the recent science graduate is slovenly, lazy and arrogant coupled with a poor work ethic, no mechanical ability and a sense of ‘you OWE me a living’. (I ran labs at several different companies)
I am now to the point I have nothing but contempt for the universities who are turning out these useless beings. I rather train from scratch than have to deal with well entrenched bad habits.
251
‘When I was a lad some 70 years ago now, “If it was on the ABC it must be true”’
Yes, but more than that. If it was on the ABC, it was supposed to be true. The BBC/ABC model is peculiar, a state funded independent media and very big. In the UK with 5,000 journalists and in Australia with 1,000 journalists. The core concept, the one which has now been trashed is that you could trust what you were told. We agree, that is no longer true. Both tell you what they want you to believe to suit their own political agenda. As is the catch phrase “what is truth?”. When you hear that, you know you they are lying.
As the former Chairman of the ABC has said, the ABC has been captured by ‘group think’. Now what you get is not any attempt at the objective, balanced truth. The same is true of many University groups and other large publicly funded groups especially outside science. They have an extreme left political agenda where you are not allowed think for yourself. This also appears to be the case at the BOM and the CSIRO and certainly the IPCC, where scientists are not heard and the final report is written by activists, ignoring science. This led to some amazing lies like the vanishing drinking water in India with 400 million deaths expected and no evidence at all.
In the UK, the BBC is currently being reviewed for exactly the same reasons. Loss of balance. After all the social compact is that you get the news, not what someone thinks happened or what they want you to hear or what they think is important, just the facts. So does Australia need 1,000 secure, well paid, superannuated, full time journalists on the public purse to push their views? No. Both organizations should be sold.
In fact, Mark Scott, the vastly overpaid General Manager and editor in Chief of ‘their’ ABC is right. We are not North Korea. We do not want Government interference in the fair reporting of news. We do not want Government media at all. Sell the ABC.
In fact sell the BOM, the CSIRO and make the Universities pay their own way, perhaps by welcoming independent think tanks like Lomborg’s instead of refusing the cash, because they can and the inconvenient points of view, because of their own politics. Stop the endless spending of Government money on crazy things like the RET and a Carbon Tax and the demand for an uncontrolled invasion by boat. As Margaret Thatcher said, socialism is fine, until you run out of other people’s money.
Why pay blindly for ABC or the BOM or the CSIRO or Universities if you cannot trust what they say? Why have a Human Rights Commission which never finds fault with their own political side? Why have a Clean Energy Council which insists CO2 is the problem and wind and solar the solution? Why pay for an IPCC? Why send people to Paris? Climate people and socialists never tire of spending other people’s money, $3Bn a year for the RET. For the receivers of the cash, the dream never ends and the CO2 cow never stops giving. Even if it is methane.
211
Add the PBS in the USA and I think Canada has a similar public news system.
I am all for making the Universities private again!
Some of the US private schools: Most and least pricey
The problem is they also have been invaded by the Progressives. Another site ranks these as the best Private schools:
Best private colleges, Brown University, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Meghan Cahill, Notre Dame, Princeton, Stanford University, UPenn, Yale
For example, Stanford University is the home not only of L. S. who thinks the sun is constant but also the home of Paul R. Ehrlich of Eco-science and Population Bomb fame (along with Obama’s Science czar John Holdren.)
Ehrlich newest bizarre brain fever is Stanford researcher says sixth mass extinction is here
Ehrlich just didn’t bother to mention that glaciation usually is an extinction event…
Well now we know what Rabbit the Catastrophists plan to pull out of the hat next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRW7pITY5Cg
50
It’s worse in Canada. We have the CBC, where they believe that they have the “right” to tell everyone how to live, what to believe and to control which politicians are elected. luckily, the Canadian people haven’t signed onto that nonsense.
True journalism is DEAD. Media does not report news, it creates it out of whole cloth.
40
This statement needs to be ENDLESSLY repeated.
IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer said in 2010:
In Wikipedia he admits he was influenced by Karl Marx.
Source http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/IPCC_Edenhofer__Climate_Policy_Is_Redistributing_The_World__s_Wealth_.pdf
202
‘The next ice age remains the real global climate threat.’
Indeed, but no need to be alarmed, its only the beginning of a mini ice age.
In a few thousand years it will be like living on another planet, unless we can come up with some geoengineering tricks to mitigate the cooling.
151
We hope… But I would not make any bets on it.
The point that no one talks about is how unstable the weather becomes near the glacial inception threshold. One point of view is the climate has two stable states, warm and cold. (Dr. Robert Brown @ Duke Univ) That it is now, during the Pleistocene glaciation, bi-stable and therefore when it is in the in-between state approaching a threshold the climate can swing wildly. Dr. Richard B. Alley has pointed this out in “Abrupt Climate Change – Inevitable Surprises”, Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. This means approaching that threshold point can be as bad as crossing it.
William McClenney went over some of the new data on abrupt climate change at WUWT We will initiate this discussion by looking at some of the early, and then later, recognitions of some of climate change’s “best lap times” in terms of sheer speed…
Dr. Richard B. Alley and the discovery of the beginning of the Holocene
The switch from the Wisconsin Ice Age to the Holocene happened in A YEAR!!!
William continues…
By 2002, we have this from the National Research Council:
So again don’t count on the weather remaining so benign. Since ‘Science’ has wasted trillions of dollars and the last 45 years chasing the Ghost of Global Warming we really have no idea what triggers these abrupt changes.
130
Try as I have, I haven’t been able to find a genuinely convincing exposition of the whys & wherefores of the relatively recent Little Ice Age, yet this period lasted for several hundred years on and off, has much contemporary literature and observations and was recent enough for some real evidence to be available
… and yet ?
70
Hubert Lamb laid the foundations for the LIA. See if you can get hold of ‘Climate History and the Future’.
My starting date for the LIA is 1205 AD and it was abrupt, at the height of the MWP the Thames froze solid.
80
El gordo, Gai and Ian
One of the biggest “tells” about what has been driving the “weather” for the last 8,000 years has been the ocean levels.
Maybe all of these apparent “freeze-ups” and thaws are just minor adjustments after the big thaw. Consider that even in the LIA there was no drop of oceans back 125 metres to that which prevailed just before the big thaw.
Look at sea levels: 8,000 years ago oceans were up to 8 metres higher than now and have fallen through levels of 4 metres and 2 metres and more recently dropping 1.w2 metres over the last 2,000 years or so.
The oscillations started out big and are nearly non existent, this suggests that we are approaching an equilibrium point perhaps just before the NEXT BIG FREEZE.
The LIA may have been a big deal if you were there but compared to 20,000 years earlier it was a snack.
KK
60
Meltwater Pulse 1A needs to be explained.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
30
KK,
What is interesting is looking at the sea level over the Holocene. Just like everything else CAGW has touched it has been ‘adjusted’ to fit the Global Warming narrative.
spangled drongo said on April 29, 2015 on Steven Goddard’s site
A graph that is often used is at WIKI where they conveniently draw a heavy black straight line through the data points during the more recent years.
Here is another WIKI graph:
https://i1.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Holocene_Sea_Level.png
This graph would not be level but sloping down at the end if it were not for the sea level study done in Santa Catarina Brazil, a tectonically stable area. The problem is the sea level data is not raw data but adjusted data.
This is the Santa Catarina Brazil sea level study.
So the actual data showed a drop in sea level that matches the drop in tectonically stable Southern Vietnam but that didn’t fit the ‘Generally Accepted Sea level Rise’ so it was adjusted.The Authors then made excuses as to why the raw data wasn’t good and had to be adjusted.
The Vietnam study:
Mid to late Holocene sea-level reconstruction of Southeast Vietnam using beachrock and beach-ridge deposits
And matches the drop in the southern Arabian Gulf:
Late Quaternary highstand deposits of the southern Arabian Gulf: a record of sea-level and climate change
The third problem is the earth has been cooling since the Holocene optimum, glaciers have re-established.
The paper, Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic says: “Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ~11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3°C above 20th century averages, enough to completely melt many small glaciers throughout the Arctic, although the Greenland Ice Sheet was only slightly smaller than at present.”
Another, more recent study in Norway agrees:
The authors of these papers state that most small glaciers likely didn’t exist 6,000 years ago during the Holocene sea level highstand, but the highest period of the glacial increase has been in the past 600 years.
40
There is no limit to what argument you can prove if you are prepared to cherry pick and adjust data. Science becomes fantasy as the basic rules of Rationalist science are ignored. I cannot imagine any real scientist being able to adjust raw data if it does not suit their argument. You are not allowed change the data, ever.
This is a long fashion in absurd warmist, self justifying non science, to adjust data so that nothing ever goes down. In this case it is one thing to observe sea levels go down and propose an explanation where other sea levels go up and even predict why they should go down in some cases when others go up. It is completely different to adjust the data to go up. This is outrageous.
When warmists cannot stop things going down, like temperature, they switch to absolutes and say that the extremes goes up. In this way, the central plank of warmist science is that everything must go up. In warmist science Newton was never hit by that apple.
80
Ian, They can not even explain the D-O, Bond and Heinrich events.
Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger events – NOAA
HMMmmm, and what have we seen the last few winters? Some darn cold weather with record snows in the USA and EU.
50
The William McClenney link is a terrific read.
Abrupt climate change in one year is extraordinary and the evidence should have brought about a paradigm shift, but alas.
The trigger couldn’t be orbital forcing, so we are looking at some kind of Gaia induced negative feedback.
60
El Gordo, I would rephrase that as it couldn’t be ONLY orbital forcing.
That is why I mention the climate is a bi-stable chaotic system. (With a major lean towards the cold state during the current Quaternary Period.)
If you actually look at the evidence it says orbital factors are necessary but NOT sufficient for switching states.
NOAA says “…the 25 observed D-O events consist of an abrupt warming to near-interglacial conditions” but the permanent switch to the Holocene does not happen until the 60N solar insolation is near the peak. Also D-O events don’t just disappear, they continue, much muted, as Bond events during the Holocene. The muted Bond events tell us there is an upper limit to warming.
A chart from NOAA gives 11,000 years ago as the peak insolation of 523.16 Wm-2. 12,000 years ago the insolation was 522.50 Wm-2 (Variations in insolation calculated by A. Berger of the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.)
The Wisconsin Ice age to Holocene transition was between those two values. McClenney says “the Holocene interglacial is now 11,717 years old…..”
On the other end of an interstatial a fall 2012 paper “Can we predict the duration of an interglacial? gives the calculated solar insolation values @ 65N (not 60N) for several glacial inceptions:
Current value – insolation = 479W m−2 (from that paper)
MIS 7e – insolation = 463 W m−2,
MIS 11c – insolation = 466 W m−2,
MIS 13a – insolation = 500 W m−2,
MIS 15a – insolation = 480 W m−2,
MIS 17 – insolation = 477 W m−2
So again there is an orbital forcing component but it is not sufficient to cause the switch.
At this point the question then becomes what else is a contributing factor? The ClimAstrologist say CO2 but that doesn’t explain abrupt changes especially since CO2 lags temperature.
E. M. Smith (ChiefIO) and Ian Wilson suggest lunar tides have an effect on our climate. If you look at the position of the full ecllips over time it migrates north to south and back again with a period of around 1500 to 1800 years.
SEE:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/lunar-months-tides-for-vukcevic/ and all the rest of the lunar links as well as Are the Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) Warm Events driven by Lunar Tides? E.M. is part of the discussion and his comments are interesting.
If you want a peer-reviewed paper
The influence of the lunar nodal cycle on Arctic climate
PopTech has several more mainly on the The 18.6-year cycle. SEE: (wwwDOT)populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html#Lunar
E.M. also gets into the fact that the mathematical calculations are not exactly hard and fast.
70
Gai, el gordo,
Add to that the oceanic and atmospheric fluids have large chaotic elements to their movements. This means that we appear to get patterns, in their movement, and that on the surface appear to have long term regularity in some features, but may in truth only be periods of quasi-spontaneous order and near-sychronism in our nearly deterministic chaotic weather and climatic system.
These patters may build and collaps almost regularly before some external agency (e.g. sudden solar activity/lack of activity, and/or comet(s) and/or meteor showers) resets the whole dang thing again to a nearly new set of conditions and off we go again.
60
Tom O.
I used to chase production problems in chemical factories. The one thing I have a great deal of respect for is confounding factors. Straight forward cause and effect are seldom seen in real life. Thank goodness for fractional factorial experimental designs!
There are a heck of a lot of ‘known unknowns’
From Niv Shaviv’s passing through galactic arms and Henrik Svensmark cosmic rays to solar UV/ozone/polar jets to clouds.
This is a water world and we really have zero idea what is happening under 70% of the surface. We do not even know if more Antarctic Sea Ice will change the ocean currents and affect not only ENSO but possibly the Gulf Stream.
30
Thanks Gai, its true that the moon is largely overlooked as a factor in climate change, I’ll follow it up.
50
You might want to look at:
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rapid.pdf
It finds that a shift from a stable mode of ocean currents (in particular, the North Atlantic Drift / Gulf Stream) during warm times to a metastable or unstable mode in cold times is a likely cause of the instability (and is seen in the ground evidence).
In particular, if finds that the pollens and such in Florida Lakes reflect a warmer wetter “summer mode” weather during times when it is very cold in Europe. The Gulf Stream slows and the heat backs up in Florida…
It is well worth the read, and makes the foundation of my story here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/d-o-ride-my-see-saw-mr-bond/
that cites it.
I think it is very strong evidence for tidal modulated ocean currents being THE major causal factor in the sudden cold and warm excursions and the reason why they are stronger in Europe into the Levant, but still seen globally (and inverted in Florida).
Then you get to ask “What modulates the tides?”…. Moon, Sun, and the Gas Giants moving orbits around in Orbital Resonance relationships…
50
Thanks E.M. I missed that essay but came to similar conclusions from a different direction.
Length of Day:
Sea Level Changes Past Records and Future Expectations
Length of day correlated to cosmic rays and sunspots
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/03/length-of-day-correlated-to-cosmic-rays-and-sunspots/
30
Lets all campaign for a return to climate and geography of the Eocene Optimum.
As RealityObserver notes in this ADI article…
100
TomO, Sounds like a great Idea!!!
A nice warm climate without the Paris-sites.
80
As Philip Zimbardo has shown, any Good Cause perceived as sufficiently “Good” is hungrily adopted by Homo Sapiens. Groupthink seems to be the true underlying problem. One wonders what will come after CO2?
90
Actually the problem is the propaganda that relies on shaping GroupThink.
If the MSM had a bias towards property rights, individual rights, individual reaching their highest potential, entrepreneurship, a solid monetary base…. But all those concepts are silenced in the media with loud shouting, scorn and ridicule or worse censorship.
The elite who control the MSM are going to just keep tossing out new causes de jour while the Realists play whack-a-mole and are kept busy reacting. This paints Realists as reactionary and without a purpose. “They are useless, all they do is say No as we seek to Progress.”
50
In Australia the Murdoch Press is fair and balanced on climate change, while Fairfax, Guardian, ABC and SBS are propaganda machines.
To convince the masses that global warming is not happening, we urgently need the taxpayer funded organ to explain the cool reality of abrupt climate change.
A breakthrough one hour documentary (which fails to mention AGW) would be the Trojan Horse.
60
Breitbart in the UK and USA is also a decent news group. (And much hated)
30
Fox News is the ‘Controlled Opposition’
30
the ad is great. every little bit helps.
for instance, listen to the Quentin Letts’ BBC Radio 4 “Met Office” program, which i’ll post again here and, if you laugh as much as i did, send it on to friends:
BBC Radio 4: What’s the Point of…? The Met Office
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l5
re the following…at what cost, now and into the future?
6 Aug: CarbonBrief: Simon Evans: Mapped: The world’s largest offshore
windfarms
Cumulative capacity
Once you tot up the annual additions it should be obvious that the UK is way out ahead in terms of total offshore wind capacity, with around 5GW currently operating today (blue bars, below). That’s 57% of the current global total of 8.9GW (below right)…
Using average capacity factors, we can expect the UK’s 5GW of offshore wind capacity to generate upwards of 15 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity a year, which would be nearly 5% of total UK electricity use. Last year, the UK got 4% of its power from offshore wind.
The wind industry — and the government — tend to report windfarm output in terms of the number of homes they could power…
This offers a somewhat exaggerated view of the contribution that would be made, as homes only account for about a third of total electricity demand.
So, for example, the latest Dogger Bank scheme would be able to power 7% of UK homes, and supply 2.5% of UK electricity needs…
The total pipeline for offshore wind capacity in the database we used is 228GW. This sounds like a lot — and it is when compared to the 9GW that’s
operating today. If all of this got built, it would be capable of generating perhaps 700TWh of electricity
That’s around twice the UK’s current annual usage. For a more sobering perspective, consider that the world used 22,668TWh of electricity in 2012,
meaning today’s offshore windfarms generate around 0.1% of current power needs. That impressive-sounding 228GW pipeline would lift the share to 3.1%, as long as electricity demand fails to rise while it’s getting built…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/08/mapped-the-worlds-largest-offshore-windfarms/
71
This comment from
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/06/throwback-thursday-another-failed-end-of-snow-climate-prediction/
seems to fit this thread
”
Tom in Florida
August 6, 2015 at 3:13 pm
There will come a time in the future when children just aren’t going to know what AGW is.
“
121
Yeah I saw that earlier and had a good laugh, its comedy gold.
40
i had a feeling Booker would have plenty to say about the “What’s The Point Of The Met Office?” program. he has, and it’s as amusing as the program:
7 Aug: Daily Mail: Christopher Booker: What a shower! The more money the Met Office gets, the more ludicrously inaccurate its doom-mongering on climate change
Very surprisingly and somewhat boldly, on Wednesday morning Radio 4 put out a programme by the Mail’s Quentin Letts which ran flatly counter to the BBC’s normal party line on one of its very favourite subjects, global warming…
One of the guests interviewed by Mr Letts was the veteran Tory politician and climate-change sceptic Peter Lilley, who proceeded to poke fun about how Met Office officials would lobby for ‘more money for bigger computers to be more precisely wrong in future’…
Hilariously, the BBC’s former environment correspondent Richard Black protested that Mr Letts’s show had breached the BBC’s editorial rules by being so biased — when Mr Black’s own reporting on climate change could scarcely have been more shameless in breaking those same rules for years on end…READ ALL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3187587/What-shower-money-Met-Office-gets-ludicrously-inaccurate-doom-mongering-climate-change.html
7 Aug: Spectator Blog: Damian Thompson: BBC ‘environment analyst’ explodes on Twitter as BBC presenter mocks Met Office’s climate prophecies
Meanwhile, the ‘sceptics’ are no longer dominated by scientifically illiterate amateurs. Many of them believe in anthropogenic global warming, though they don’t think it’s happening today.
So you’d expect the BBC’s ‘Environment and Energy Analyst’, Roger Harrabin, to proceed with caution. Not so. Here are two tweets he sent out yesterday (links here and here):
TWEETS BY HARRABIN ON THE RADIO 4/QUENTIN LETTS PROGRAM
Quentin Letts is the Daily Mail‘s parliamentary sketchwriter and theatre critic, celebrated for his sometimes caustic but more often gentle wit…
Lilley recalled the 2004 Met Office prediction that temperatures would rise by a catastrophic 0.3°C by 2014. The actual increase? ‘Zilch’, said Lilley. So he’s fed up with Met office lobbyists demanding ‘even more money for even bigger computers so that they can be even more precisely wrong in future’.
Letts asked Helen Chivers, Met Office head of news, about the 2004 global warming prediction. She said that knowledge of earth systems was still evolving ‘and things change over time’. There was no attempt to defend the 0.3 per cent prophecy – and Chivers even seemed to agree that the Met Office can be a bit alarmist at times.
The programme’s conclusion was that the Met Office is jolly good at short-term forecasts, saving lives in the process, but that its comically inaccurate attempts to predict climate change are dangerously close to political lobbying…
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/08/bbc-environment-analyst-explodes-on-twitter-as-bbc-presenter-mocks-met-offices-climate-prophecies/
111
In sharp contrast to the reported accuracy of the MET, our BOM wrongly upgraded two cyclones this year to Category 5. They weren’t category 5 but the cost was enormous. Then they missed the huge storm which battered and flooded NSW so that people drowned in their beds.
Sensationalism has its place, but not this new ‘weather intelligence’ where the BOM spokesman said they are sick of just reporting the weather. Really? People want and need the facts and predictions, as accurately as possible. That is why it is paid by our taxes. It is not the private plaything of its securely employed and superannuated employees for fame and profit.
You get the feeling Global Warming and catastrophes are supported by the BOM just to make a boring job more interesting with more travel to places like Paris. As a group, they seem to have lost their compass. Data should not be fiddled. In history, the sort of people who read thermometers and rain gauges are obsessive about accuracy, so why adjust the data?
140
Obama might not have invented CAGW but he is pushing it for all it’s worth as one of the weapons he is using to destroy the USA and Western Civilisation along with it.
171
In case it wasn’t obvious, I meant to say he is deliberately doing this. As part of his warped mind he hates the US and wants to destroy it, deliberately.
111
Possibly. The simpler explanation is opportunism, distraction politics. His foreign policy is a total disaster. Wars everywhere he has touched with his passion for ‘freedom fighters’ like Isis and in Libya and Egypt. So he picks on a communist Green scheme, on something which is not a problem at all, like the Great Barrier Reef in far away Australia. Even UNESCO has since said there was no problem, but with his specialist skills as a lawyer, Barack Obama insists there is. Look at me. I’m doing nothing about anything. As with Shakespeare’s Macbeth,
.. a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
20
TdeF, You forgot about Valjar. (Valerie Jarrett) Hillary Clinton has her own ‘valjar’ — Huma Abedin.
For that matter so did George W.Bush – In his case it was Grover Norquist and his Palestinian wife, Samah Alrayyes who are very active in “Muslim outreach.”
Since 9/11 the number of muslim immigrants per year has DOUBLED, thats 1.6 million with 3/4 of a million from volatile countries such as Iraq, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Somalia. The muslims want to build a victory mosque on the Twin Tower site with the blessings of US politicians and the Patriot Act is now aimed at ‘Homegrown Terrorists’ These are the people Obama called “…bitter, they cling to guns or religion or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment…” Obama was referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses brought about by Clinton’s ratifying the World Trade Organization, Clinton’s signing the five laws that created Foreclosuregateand the 2007/8 economic collapse and Obama’s wide open borders.
Angry, why ever should voters be angry at the politicians who are trashing our country?
50
Sorry Gai, Valjar sounds like a disaster in US and any trust in your President and your President’s judgement and so far Barack Obama has managed to get every international decision wrong. The Iran disaster is terrifying. They were on the ropes and he let them go. Why? Whose side is VJ on? (Silly question?)
Like most Australians, I had no idea about Valjar as overseas she has the invisible profile of Senator Palpatine (Darth Sidious). As for Hilary having a Valjar as well, that is a disaster. Any control by unelected invisible and biased advisers is to be abhorred in a democracy. The idea that Valjar thrice cancelled operations against Osama Bin Laden is a worry. Who is running the place?
50
6 Aug: Wall St Journal: Nicholas G. Hahn III: The Religion of Climate Change
Lending the power of the pulpit to the cause of environmental politics
This teaming up of church and state on environmental issues has become common. On July 25 the recently appointed Archbishop of Chicago, Blase Cupich, toured a Catholic school with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy. The archbishop invited the EPA to monitor archdiocesan power and water usage. “The Archdiocese of Chicago has partnered with the EPA’s Energy Star program, as it works to make its operations more sustainable and efficient,” the pair wrote in an op-ed for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Yet the archdiocese might have been trying to save its churches and their religious freedoms, not water. In 2011 Mayor Rahm Emanuel began to phase out an exemption that gave churches free water—a $20.3 million annual bill the city could no longer afford…
Archbishop Cupich and other spiritual shepherds should be wary of how this administration is conscripting religious institutions. Here’s a small but illustrative example: The EPA recently awarded an $84,000 grant to the University of Michigan to study how 17 faith institutions have organized “sustainability programs,” with the goal of developing workshops for pastors and faith leaders. “The results will provide insights into the role of religion and faith communities in motivating environmental behavior,” the grant said. The real purpose is to figure out how to better use religious leaders as political pawns…READ ON
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-religion-of-climate-change-1438903522
BNP Paribas has an eye on your Super Funds:
pdf: 24 pages: 31 July: BNP Paribas Australia: 2025: The Future of Wholesale Banking – and what it means for Australia
BNP Paribas Study Reveals Finance Industry’s Predictions
KEY CONCERNS:
Concern about the economy is expected to reduce over the next 10 years, with almost half of corporate leaders expecting environment, social and governance (ESG) issues to become the major concern in 2025, as shown below…
CORPORATE SECTOR CONCERNS
2. Environmental, social and corporate governance issues / climate change…
The top five issues for the corporate sector in 2025:
1. Environmental, social and corporate governance issues / including climate change – 52%…
FINANCE SECTOR CONCERNS
1. Environmental, social and corporate governance issues / climate change…
http://cdn-pays.bnpparibas.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/71/files/2015/07/2025-Banking-in-a-Decade.pdf
50
EPA isn’t doing so hot this week: http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_28595759/animas-river-contaminated-by-1-million-gallons-contaminated
Those EPA jobs should probably get a warning label about operating heavy machinery during periods of employment.
50
I reckon the real problem here is the media who in many cases have given up on even creating a veneer of objectivism. They have anointed themselves as our saviours in their own image. Democracy is sick because it’s being conducted in the dark. If we get a half decent government its just luck, like a lottery. For us the diabolical AGW scare is a travesty but its symptomatic of a far deeper problem we face. We can’t make informed decisions and act accordingly because we are not informed. In fact we face a concerted campaign to make sure we stay that way. Comfortable ignorance keeps us compliant and receptive.
80
And so more easily manipulated. But many people actually prefer to remain ignorant of difficult stuff … Politicians, bureaucrats, activists, advocates, propaganda spouters – they rely on this. And it works
80
And the less aware get their kids reprogrammed at school with daily indoctrination sessions. All with the outlook of 21 century jobs or being good Global citizens. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/
50
Yes Spetzer86, as kids learn the joys of socialistic moral relativism, molding and distracting these young minds for a future of compliance to big government inspired national and financial turmoil and strife.
50
I love Robin’s site, Invisible Serf’s Collar. Tee name is so appropriate.
The nice thing is you can go through and pick a decent article and then hand it to anyone who has kids or cares about kids. The subject is not nearly as explosive as CAGW especially for the middle-of-the-roaders who know something is wrong but can not figure out what.
This acts as a wedge to open up the eyes that are tightly screwed shut.
60
Ian,
“But many people actually prefer to remain ignorant of difficult stuff”
Maybe true!
But up to us to change this, especially in Australia
I work everyday with people who don’t talk about CO2, Global Warming, Climate Change, Extreme weather events!
They talk about BILLS:
Electricity
Water
Rates
Car rego
Insurance
Credit Car Interest
Banks
Telephone bills
Food Prices
Petrol prices
Gas bottle refills
Child care
Medical costs
etc etc
These are everyday people I work with
They vent everyday about the bills, the cost, the ever increasing cost of living!
I ask them
1. Why are beans & tomatoes are so expensive?
2. How come gas bottles are dearer?
3. Why is a plumber more expensive than a doctor?
4. How come a tree lopper costs more than an electrician?
All valid questions, but it all comes down to COST!
Do they read The Australian?
NO!
Maybe a Courier Mail in the shed, but they just read about the AFL, NRL, Cricket (not now) or the front page about politics!
Comments include:
They’ve been doing it for years
Pollies are useless
They get paid to much
Besterds do it for the money
ETC
Climate change, Tim Flannery, BOM, CSIRO, ABC etc are not things in their life!
But when you question them on why!
They react – and quickly
Climate change & Global warming they are polarised
Depending on politics mainly
But questions go unanswered if challenged!
Most of these people have iPhones internet and on them constantly
The message is getting through, but it’s only when you actually talk, discuss the issues they react.
That’s why I always bring up this in my everyday life at work, family & friends
Ask for the facts
MOST don’t have a clue!
Keep up the good work Joanne
170
Don’t mention the Cricket!
70
There Mr. Obama, I fixed that for you.
100
A future subject for the ad writers is how much more expensive electricity will be if the climate alarmists have their way. Countries with wind power and solar have substantially higher electricity prices.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/03/obama-may-finally-succeed/
50
It’s refreshing to see climate fear pathology addressed as a psychological phenomenon instead of requiring an explanation from turbulent gas physics and thermodynamics. Quite simply climate fears are based on rubbish, why do so many believe it. No counter explanation is necessary because the phenomeon that’s assumed to be occurring isn’t happening. How do we tell them to stop wasting our time.
90
There is much talk about fossil fuels. Coal and oil are abiotic. They are not fossil. How can a forest lying on it’s side compress into a 30′ coal seam? The oil in the ground is condensate from the gas driven off the earths core. It is not dinosaur blubber. The climate, the heating and cooling of the planet is scientifically proven to be governed by sunspot activity. CO2, that is plant food, has nothing to do with heating and cooling of the planet, nothing. The warmist alarmists should be put on trial. They have to be held to account. The world is squandering $25 billion per year on the AGW [snip]. It could have been spent raising people out of poverty instead hardship is being created. The next ice age has already started. It is only a matter of time before the solar panels become useless and the blades of the wind mills fall off, and the sooner the better, the hideous things they are.
70
Oil and Natural gase maybe abiotic. The Russians have had a lot of luck finding oil and gas with that assumption.
Coal is a fossil fuel. For one thing it has fossils in it. for another how it was formed is known.
Swamp ===) Peat bog ==== PLUS Compression ====)
lignite====) bituminous ====) anthracite.
Coal is a sedimentary rock formed under pressure just like sandstone or limestone. (If you add heat you have metamorphic rock.)
Coal does not form much now because of the evolution of White Rot Fungi. These fungi developed the ability to break down a plant’s protective lignin. This largely stopped the geologic burial of plants remains that formed present-day coal deposits. In other words plant matter, thanks to fungi now usually rots before it can be buried and compressed into coal.
The Paleozoic Origin of Enzymatic Lignin Decomposition Reconstructed from 31 Fungal Genomes
60
gai
From the abstract of your linked paper:
The problem with that suggestion is that it is “Northern Hemisphere biased”. This is a common issue with NH research. The geological period that followed the Carboniferous was the Permian: while the Carboniferous obviously hosted huge coalfields (USA, UK well noted), the Permian hosted equally huge coalfields in both Aus and South Africa (now in the SH of course) and in China. The huge swamps that formed the Permian coalfields of Aus and China were pretty well contiguous at the time – the now Aus continent split off from China towards the end of the Permian (mischievously taking most of the coking coal deposits with it!)
That huge Permian deposits did develop suggests that the various fungi were actually not significant players
As far as the various comments stating that coal is not a fossil deposit, well I’ve seen that said before. Tried to point out that one can SEE the fossilised tree stumps and branches in the LaTrobe lignite deposits (you can pick them out of the face by hand) and black coal thin/polished sections under the microscope show the plant cells and pollens with great clarity … none of that had the slightest effect on the doubters
30
Thanks Ian,
SWAG — If the organic matter is buried (on land or in a swamp) the fungi don’t get to it. So I think the large swamps were a major factor in coal formation since they are where peat forms and still forms today.
FWIW, we had a really large old tree trunk (elm?) that had been sitting in the ground for 20 years or more in clay. It was too big to remove with a tractor and a bucket so the previous owner just planted his tobacco around it. It was in my way so with lots of digging and crowbars we got the blasted thing out but it was too heavy for the tractor to haul away. It was completely gone within a year once it sat on the top of the ground. Shocked the heck out of me. All that was left was a pile of clay and a hole in the ground.
20
gia,
The other thing about these organic sources of stored solar energy is that they fail to be incorporated into Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget as propagated by Kevin Trenberth et al.
These biological systems lay-down, year after year, many millions of tons of matter everywhere, land, sea, and for a time blowing in the wind. Much of this matter is not rendered back to the environment for many years — from decades, to centures, to millenia.
Our globe’s surface is covered with this living growing organic matter. I wonder what are the wavelengths of sunlight that plant leaves, or oceanic phytoplankton absorb?
Trenberth et al does not seem to understand that life in many flavors interact directly with the sun radiation.
20
Tom, agreed.
A couple of days ago I was thinking of posting:
Energy in = Energy Out PLUS Energy Retained!
If some energy was not retained the temperature of the earth would be 3K and as you say life = ENERGY.
That is where Trainbreath’s missing heat went.
40
“…to Trump or not to Trump ! “
Jo , I do not know if it was your intention , but it made me smile a little, especially as you used the word “trump” in your article , and coincidentally last night was the 1st 2016 Presidential GOP Prime time debate !
Starring.. Donald trump ! (obviously he is for entertainment only)
as a Libertarian I am not partisan ..
but I like Jeb bush .. he is a tax cutter extraordinaire !
So..
Jeb Bush for President … 😀
and so begins the road to a new era of Government in America … (defunding Climate change)
50
Rick Santorum seems nice: “The idea that the science is settled, to me, tells me that this is political science, not real science.”
70
Jeb Bush? the twig off the old Bush? You know the one who pushed the World Trade Organization, Harmonization of laws and whose other son gave us the much hated Patriot Act — NO THANKS
Don’t forget it was Bush who saw to it that Maurice Strong was Chairman at Kyoto.
Elaine Dewar:
Unfortunately I think we are going to be stuck with the Twig as GOP nominee. So we get a choice between a far left Progressive and a RINO/middle-of-the-Road Progressive.
I really would like something besides a Progressive to vote for this time around but he would never make it to the White House.
50
Seems Jeb Bush is a Climate Alarmist
Jeb Bush argues persuasively why he shouldn’t be nominated
Forgot about the Bush bailout of the banks….
60
I did not have time to read the article because I am packing my bags and heading for the hills to avoid the coming climate catastrophe — better to be safe than sorry.
I do not know, however, if I should take ice skates for the new ice age, or golashes for the flooding.
Could someone please provide advice about what clothing to pack in the limited space I have in my suitcases?
I would feel silly standing on top of the hill wearing ice skates if the valleys were flooded, or wearing golashes if the valleys were glaciers (golashes have such poor traction on ice).
I would prefer responses from climate science PhDs who have climate models and have published perr-reviewed article.
No responses from people with masters degrees or BS degrees please, or TV weathermen — future climate predictions require many years of school !
101
No qualifications at all but my advice is to first select and take a suitable umbrella.
It will keep the rain off.
It will stop the heat of the sun
It will keep snow off
It will if held towards the wind provide a small amount of shelter from strong winds.
It can be used to hide behind while you get that bikini off.
It can when folded, deter cats, dogs, postmen, thieves, pick pockets, predatory bankers and attorneys and predatory females.
it can be used alternatively and skillfully to attract certain classes of females.
It can used with care and discipline to scare the proverbial out of bureaucrats.
It can if used with intelligence, possibly even make you look more intelligent and worldly.
It will keep radioactive dust from settling on your person for a couple of minutes.
It will keep volcanic ash from doing likewise if all those volcanoes from Judith Curry’s Climate etc site, erupt and blow up.
It will act as a basket if used upside down.
It will open some locked car doors if you remove one of the spokes and insert it through a window to get to the internal lock button
It will make some extra room in a tram, bus, train if used skillfully and surreptitiously on other passengers to clear a space.
It can be used to hide behind if you let a fart rip in aforesaid tram, bus, train.
It can be used to hide behind while you carefully observe that very smart looking bit of skirt on the other side of the aforesaid tram, bus, train and plan your approach.
It can be used if you are of the alternative sex to attract the appropiate attention.
It can be used to get through customs, very rarely it seems today, as a cover for some nefarious smuggled object.
It can be used as a temporary parachute if you have to bail out of a A380 at any point.
It can be used for ; ????????
I would recommend that you take a good umbrella for your sojourn.
60
People from Africa are flocking to Europe in their tens of thousands. They don’t like the limited life there, yet WE are expected to adopt such limited life styles to make things better for THEM.
Something is seriously wrong with the global intellectual capacity.
130
Alarmists will always declare,
How sincerely and truly they care,
As they rant and they rave,
In pretending to save,
The world from their latest scare.
211
Something I learned negotiating with those who’ve staked everything on getting to the top of a hill, if you don’t want a long dreary fight, they need to be offered a ladder to climb back down. Careers have been carved out on CO2-driven catastrophic warming. Many scientists have come to believe in themselves as Climate Messiahs. Imagine their emotional bonding to AGW. For the Big Climate Industry, trillions of dollars are at risk. With such a tenacious will for AGW to be true, the desperation and attendant fraud exposed in the Climategate emails will look like a kiddie’s playground war. It will be veddy veddy interrresting.
50
What you say is no doubt true andersmo.
However we have had a long and dreary fight already. I would like to see some accountability now. So the battle should be continued until we get unconditional surrender.
40
On unconditional surrender, an unused nuke that has lain hidden in plain sight for decades, is The Emperors New Clothes, by Hans Christian Anderson.
Want a killer add, just use the Flim Flam artists description of their magical cloth.
One amazing property of the wonder fabric was the”fact” that persons who could not see it, were obviously unfit to hold positions of public trust.
Human Nature does not change.
The Cult of Calamitous Climate has used every trick almost word for word of the two amusing scoundrels the folk tale depicted.
Stone Soup also comes to mind, except there has been nothing altruistic about the soulless bureaucracies pushing CAGW.
50
Pick the odd-one-out:
Harold Camping
James Hansen
The Conversation
Professor Langley
Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner
Carl Johan Calleman
10
Oops. link:
Professor Langley
20
Harold Camping
00
riveting review of Radio 4’s “What’s the point of… the Met Office?” by William Connolley!
ScienceBlogs: Is Quentin Letts a tosser?
Posted by William M. Connolley on August 7, 2015
And QL’s offence is What’s the point of… the Met Office?…
…and makes the usual tedious jokes about forecasting…
I started skipping a bit cos it got boring…
It got somewhat boring after that and I stopped listening carefully…
Speaking of which, what the question, again? Oh yes: QL: tosser or not? Pffft, who cares? R4 abandoned its cultural mission years ago in favour of entertainment; if you want climate science do what everyone else ought to and read the IPCC, or wiki, or RC.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/08/07/is-quentin-letts-a-tosser/
(SCROLL DOWN) 7 Aug: UK Daily Mail: BBC journalists are meant to be impartial, but climate change hack Roger Harrabin is whipping up criticism online among Greens of a programme made by his own employer. Radio 4’s What’s The Point Of . . . ?, looked at alleged politicisation of the Met Office.
The show was made by the Mail’s Quentin Letts. ‘From what I can gather, Comrade Harrabin has blown his top,’ Letts says. ‘All the hot gas he is producing may rupture the ozone layer’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3187544/SEBASTIAN-SHAKESPEARE-Jemima-Goldsmith-cosies-Imran-Khan-s-clan.html
50
says our scribe and CAGW serial offender William Connelly. Lacking any reasonable argument in reply he resorts to some name calling. He even says that he did not listen to the whole program. It is pretty obvious who the Tosser is!
Roger Harrabin (BBC journo)gets overly excited and tries to whip up a pogrom against Quentin Letts:
Brilliant reply by Letts.
The fact that Channel 4 BBC broadcast the program may indicate a change in the wind. I certainly hope so, especially now on the run up the Paris UNFCC conference.
30
6 Aug: Investors’ Business Daily: Stephen Moore: World Falls In Love With Coal That Obama Is Waging War On
A new study by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences detects an unmistakable “coal renaissance” under way that shows this mineral of fossilized carbon has again become “the most important source of energy-related emissions on the global scale.”
Coal is expanding rapidly “not only in China and India but also across a broad range of developing countries — especially poor, fast-growing countries mainly in Asia,” the study finds…
The NAS study explains that many nations are attracted to “(relatively) low coal prices . .. to satisfy their energy needs.” It also finds “the share of coal in the energy mix indeed has grown faster for countries with higher economic growth.”
In sum, using coal is a stepping stone to prosperity. So much for it being a satanic energy source…
Hardly a day passes without evidence that coal is making a major comeback:
• Some 1,200 coal plants are planned across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India, according to the World Resources Institute.
• Coal use around the world has grown about four times faster than renewables, according to the global energy monitoring publication BP Review of World Energy 2015.
• German coal “will remain a major, and probably the largest, fuel source for power generation for another decade and perhaps longer,” the Financial Times concludes…ETC ETC
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-brain-trust/080615-765456-world-coal-use-surges-as-obama-tries-to-shut-down-us-coal-plants.htm?p=full
40
***the NAS study. one look at the authors, & u know what their conclusion will be:
PNAS: Drivers for the renaissance of coal
Published 21 July 2015.
Authors
Jan Christoph Steckel
Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, 10829 Berlin, Germany;
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473 Potsdam, Germany;
Department Economics of Climate Change, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Ottmar Edenhofer
Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, 10829 Berlin, Germany;
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473 Potsdam, Germany;
Department Economics of Climate Change, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Michael Jakob
Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, 10829 Berlin, Germany;
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
ABSTRACT: Coal was central to the industrial revolution, but in the 20th century it increasingly was superseded by oil and gas. However, in recent years coal again has become the predominant source of global carbon emissions. We show that this trend of rapidly increasing coal-based emissions is not restricted to a few individual countries such as China. Rather, we are witnessing a global renaissance of coal majorly driven by poor, fast-growing countries that increasingly rely on coal to satisfy their growing energy demand…
***If future economic growth of poor countries is fueled mainly by coal, ambitious mitigation targets very likely will become infeasible. Building new coal power plant capacities will lead to lock-in effects for the next few decades. If that lock-in is to be avoided, international climate policy must find ways to offer viable alternatives to coal for developing countries.
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/E3775.abstract
let’s pay for all energy multiple times!
***one day the public are going to insist politicians stop wasting their taxes & time on compiling CAGW rubbish:
7 Aug: RTCC: Ed King: Trinidad and Tobago outlines $2 billion climate plan
Green Climate Fund and other sources need to pick up bill for 15% cuts across three sectors, says Caribbean government
The government says it will target 15% carbon reductions in power generation, heavy industry and transport over the next 15 years, modelled on a business as usual baseline.This, says the submission, is equal in absolute terms to slashing 103,000,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.“The estimated cost of meeting this objective is US$2 billion, which is expected to be met partly through domestic funding and conditional on international financing including through the Green Climate Fund,” says the plan…
The proposal means over 50 national plans have now been lodged with the UN…
***Trinidad and Tobago’s submission took three years to compile, write officials, and involved 175 representatives from various government departments, business and civil society…
Temperature increases, sea level rise, changes in precipitation and increased risks of tropical storms are all cited as potential dangers the country COULD FACE due to climate change…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/08/07/trinidad-and-tobago-outlines-2-billion-climate-plan/
30
7 Aug: NDTV: IANS: No Study Supports Global Warming Affecting Himalayas
New Delhi: No study has so far supported the theory that global warming was causing natural calamities in the Himalayan region, parliament was told on Thursday.
“There is no study reported so far, which supports the fact that many type of instances similar to natural calamities are occurring in the Himalayan region due to global warming,” Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply…
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/no-study-supports-global-warming-affecting-himalayas-1204743
50
7 Aug: Financial Post: Lawrence Solomon: Lawrence Solomon: Anglosphere leads on global warming
Recognizing its early mistakes, the English-speaking world is abandoning its infatuation with climate change theory.
As Gallup polls have shown, despite the media hype global warming ranks dead last among the environmental concerns of Americans…
The second biggest global warming skeptics? The British. The third biggest? Australians…READ ON
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/lawrence-solomon-anglosphere-leads-on-global-warming
40
Not certain about Gallop’s numbers. For years, Canada has been the most publicly skeptical of CAGW, suzuki-ites and the greenies not withstanding. Happily, they are all in the extreme minority despite the best (worst) efforts of the complicit media.
10
I certainly haven’t seen the Catastrophists here in the USA either unless you go to the lefty enclaves.
Pick and choose WHERE you poll and I am sure you can skew the data just like how your questions are worded will skew the data.
20
8 Aug: PuneMirrorIndia: 100 years of climate change
By Mayuri PhadnisMayuri Phadnis
The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) is working on a model that can predict long-term climate change, over a century. The project, part of the Ministry of Earth Science’s monsoon mission, will go beyond current prediction capabilities. “In India, we didn’t have a model that could predict climate change. This will be the first of its kind,” said Dr R Krishnan, scientist from IITM…
“We have taken the climate forecast model developed by the US National Centres of Environment Prediction and will develop our own model. In doing so, we will include things like ocean biogeochemistry, aerosol transport, etc. It would help us predict climate change over a long term, up to the end of the 21st century. Using the predictions this model throws up, we could also contribute to the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” he added.
“We are looking to make it suitable to the Indian climate. We are concerned mainly with the vagaries of the monsoon in India. For example, clouds aren’t well represented anywhere else in the world, but we’ll be doing so here,” said Dr AK Sahai, an IITM scientist…ETC
http://www.punemirror.in/pune/others/100-years-of-climate-change/articleshow/48395697.cms
30
New Climate Alarm
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-point-of-no-return-climate-change-nightmares-are-already-here-20150805
20
If we have already hit the point of no return….
LETS PARTY!!!
40
Agree with gai—it’s over, lets party, drive those SUV’s, burn fossil fuel to the max. Why bother to do anything when it’s TOO LATE according to those experts in the climate field?
40
Oh what a wicked web we weave
When in our head we do believe
That we can rule another’s mind
And with some hoaxsters lead the blind
To fear and tremble at the warning
That CO2 does all that warming
By sending all its radiation
Fooling leaders of the Nation
‘Til they from flooded houses sailing
Join the weeping and the wailing
While Mother Nature calmly ruling
Turns that warming into cooling.
120
Good one!
30
Fear is a powerful emotion. Fear of nuclear annihilation in 1945 convinced world leaders to unite nations (UN) and national academies of science (NAS) into a worldwide “Orwellian Ministry of Consensus Science (UN)Truths“ on October 24, 1945.
The Standard Solar Model and the Standard Nuclear Model were two early products.
1. Mainstream astronomers agreed the interior of the Sun was
_ a.) Mostly iron (Fe) in 1945
_ b.) Mostly hydrogen in 1946
2. Mainstream nuclear physicists agreed nuclear stability is indicated by
_ a.) The lowest value of Aston’s nuclear packing fraction before WWII
_ b.) The highest value of Weizsacker’s average nuclear binding energy per nucleon after WWII
In both cases, we now know the original answer (a) was correct and the post-WWII answer (b) was incorrect. But the incorrect answer (b) is still in textbooks of astronomy and nuclear physics.
01
factual error: The UN was not created in response to fears of “nuclear annihilation”, as the bomb had not yet been used when the negotiations to create the UN were concluded. The NAS conspiracy you mention did not exist until much later (very recently). As for the science you quote, I will leave that up to a cosmologist to discuss.
00
My comment at 2:46 pm had to do with the writing, not the science. Note the authors say 7,000 ppm was once attained. That is before use of fossil fuel by humans. Then the authors say going from 400 to 800 (a double) could only happen if humans do something. Sorry, but if it got to thousands without our help, it can do so again. Also, Earth processes take out a certain amount of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. Unless all these processes are known and measured* no one knows what more human use of fossil fuels will do regarding ppm increases. The writers either think that they do, or they use someone else’s supposed knowledge. One ought not introduce a topic into discussion when so little is known about it. (*Generally, those processes would accelerate.)
In any case, increase of CO2 in the atmosphere seems to have had no noticeable impact on temperature in the past. Simple is best.
60
I think that what they are saying is that, if you took all the known reserves of fossil fuels, converted them all to CO2 and then added them to the atmosphere, it would only double the amount of CO2 currently in the atmosphere. I would assume that this would be a worse case scenario as the CO2 would not be added in one go but spread over many years. This means that, if doubling the CO2 of the atmosphere would not cause a significant change to the climate then there is nothing wrong with continuing to burn the fossil fuels that give our society so much benefit.
30
Ah well down the bottom again with the thought I should have posted much earlier;
I’ve just been glancing at the sports pages again without actually reading the same tired old sports commentators nostrums that will supposedly help enliven some sports team or some sports person of renown ability but dubious ethics in that their prowess may not all be entirely natural ability when the same old thought came back again as it often has over the last few years whenever I glanced at the sports pages.
So, why is sport so popular with large parts of the public ?
The often repeated claim is that it gives people a feeling of belonging to a tribe or group, an absolute need for the survival of individual humans in the hunter-nomadic pre-history tribal past carried through the deep human and long inherent programming from the past age’s hunter gatherer times particularly when it comes to team sports, ie; Australian rules and many, and etc’s.
Another reason given is the reality that compared to the not so distant past of humanity, we today in the developed world lead a very sedentary lifestyle.
Sports persons are often, maybe frequently used as proxies, an extension of the admirer’s wishes and desires for their own fame and fortune but which they know they will never have the wherewith all to carry out and achieve themselves.
So they attach themselves psychologically to a team or a sports star or even musicians and other very high profile individuals or groups as a proxy for their own deep desires and wishes for fame and public recognition knowing that they themselves do not have the their ability to rise to new heights, to beat the opposition and other competitors and to rise to heights where they themselves will be acclaimed and held high in the public’s regard.
.
But maybe there is another reason also, one I have thought of quite regularly when reading or glancing at mostly, at those sports back pages in the media.
Maybe attaching oneself to a team or a high profile individual is a form of escapism, pure and simple, from the harsh realities of life and constant daily, hourly bombardment of imminent disaster and catastrophe in the immediate offing that is the main theme of the media and everything other nit picking wannabe noticed outfit and individual these days.
Every where we go and look today and listen and hear is loaded with predictions of possible disasters in the offing be they from climate change as Jo’s headline post above provides a typical example of and a questioning “why”? or any number of other supposedly imminent potential disasters of innumerable types only days, weeks or months away
Psychology and Climate Alarm: how fear and anxiety trump evidence
Such as politically or economically or socially or nationally and internationally and even locally, each case an always and ever present potential catastrophe or disaster in the making if we were to believe the media, whether the origins of that media claim are on chopped up trees or radio waves or electrons swishing around, always the news is supposedly going to be bad for someone or everyone, sometime, somehow, somewhere, someway!
So Joe and Jennifer Sixpack as Gai calls them in her lingo, grabs himself a beer or three and settles down to watch and barrack for his team or individual.
If they win his or her serotonin , the brain’s chemical messenger, the key to feeling good or bad or depressed, will be running at high levels giving a feeling of exultation and happiness and the world feels good for a few hours at least and the troubles are put down into the mind’s cellar for a few hours.
The absolute need for some form of escapism from the daily dose of catastrophe and disaster is satisfied temporarily and the latent depression generated by the constant almost overwhelming daily dosage of disaster and catastrophe in the making but which rarely ever occurs or ever occurs as predicted is put into the backdraw of emotions for a few hours at least.
If their team or hero/ heroine does not perform as hoped and / or lose the game or fail to do well he / she is despondent but soon pick up again because they absolutely sure unless the world melts down that there will be another chance next week or the next game to beat the opposition and be amongst the best.
And next week or the next game Joe and Jennifer Sixpack will again be right up there using their heroes and heroines as the proxies for their own escapism and their own feelings that they are a part of being amongst and part of the team no matter how far removed that may be or associated with their proxy hero extension of their own personal desires to be one great ones of their chosen sport or competition.
50
Likely you are on the money ROM. The head post was about psychology!
However somehow we have to capture the attention of our fellow men and women and get them to concentrate on the more important issues. Western Democracy and the near term future of our country depends on that.
40
The Roman Empire used the strategy of “bread and circuses”.
Maybe this is being employed again to avoid the masses thinking to deeply about is really going on in the world ?
22
Yes, Bread and Circuses = Welfare and TV….
That is until the Elite decide the dregs are no longer useful as a captured voting block and are costing too much money to keep. I think we are now approaching that point.
Fabian Socialist co-founder George Bernard Shaw said “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
Shaw also said “We should find ourselves committed to killing a great many people whom we now leave living….
A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people’s time to look after them.”
Source: George Bernard Shaw, Lecture to the Eugenics Education Society, Reported in The Daily Express, March 4, 1910.
This philosophy can be seen in the UK today where 30,000 pensioners a year die from Fuel Poverty or worse are intentionally put to death using the Liverpool Care Pathway.
Top doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year
“Around 29 per cent of patients that die in hospital are on controversial ‘care pathway'”
So that is the willful removal of 160,000 Useless Eaters a year.
This is not new the Webbs also co-founders of the Fabian Society were gungho eugenists
How eugenics poisoned the welfare state
“A century ago many leading leftists subscribed to the vile pseudo-science of eugenics,… and the influence of that thinking can still be seen today.”
The Guardian: Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left’s closet
As Margaret Thatcher said “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” So you have to have an exit plan in place once you have used Paul’s vote to get into power.
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, gave us that exit plan. She said that democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, she says, is the best model.
William R. Russell who was in Russia soon after the Bolsheviks seized power and spent considerable time there, described how he saw the communist tradecraft:
From Willing Accomplices: How KGB Covert Influence Agents Created Political Correctness and Destroyed America by Kent Clizbe (Former CIA case officer.)
I don’t know about you but I see much of what Russell recorded playing out today but in this case the ‘great disaster’ is being coordinated to happen world wide as our electrical systems and economies collapse.
Personally it really scares me.
30
Along with teaching the children completely erroneous math and science, discouraging thought, etc. Never underestimate how effective indoctrination of children is, especially when parents care nothing about what is being done to their children. You don’t really need the bread and circuses but it does assure that people will disconnect from future generations and bond to the government.
20
Don’t remind me.
We suggest home schooling and give out Dr Robinson’s website (Same Robinson as the Petition)
We have even bought it and used it on the local kids.
20
Increasing number of people showing up as anxious and depressed because of climate change hysteria.
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/jul/12jul2011a1.html
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I read the Australian newspaper most days because I feel that of all the newspapers available to me it is the most unbiased. However I hate advertisements and I have acquired a skill that enables me to turn through a full page add for example, without perceiving any of the information in that add. This is quite a skill. My eyes can scan each page for interesting article headlines that I read, but my eyes are trained to totally ignore any add. However yesterday I amazed myself that I found myself reading this half page advertisement in the paper on the psychology of the climate change global warming scam.
It caught my eye because I am so alert to the seriousness of the threat that this global warming scam poses to standards of living for everyone in the medium to long term future and also to the truths and reputation of scientific method.
I am a researcher and I understand how easy it is to become biased to the facts of reality when someone is trying to prove a theory being developed under great pressure. Warmists fall into this category in a big way, but have amazingly, managed to mitigate their theoretical failures by convincing big brother to push their causes. This is so Orwellian!
The world has a serious problem with all this. It is probably one of the greatest threats the world is currently facing. CO2 is a nutrient not a pollutant! The human race would not exist without CO2. Smog should be limited by management but not so CO2! Sabotaging coal and gas will cost mankind billions for absolutely no logical reason. CO2 levels have no influence on temperature or sea level change whatsoever on this planet.
This add in the Australian was very impressive. It is the first time I have ever seen anything like it objecting to the obvious deceit of pushing this unproven climate change theory as if it were fact . Why doesn’t the sensible establishment of the world get together to launch an advertising campaign along these lines but much bigger, to get this information out to the masses in all forms of the media like other newspapers, television and mail drops and other methods?
We need a blanketing advertising campaign that is cogent and honestly convincing to the general public. There is certainly enough scientific fact to back it up! Anyone who has media or promotional skills, please apply yourself to doing something about this before it is too late.
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Nice post. All those ‘nudges’ are essentially memes that co-evolve in the CAGW memeplex, each with its own packet of fear or anxiety or hope (for instance of a new order) or urgency etc.
Even their own literature (i.e. from Consensus folks) admits to the bias effects upon which the social phenomenon of CAGW is founded.
My series at WUWT examines papers by Lewandowsky & co-authors before he got into climate and ‘conspiracy ideation’ claims. These papers warn of 5 cognitive bias effects, all of which occur in the CAGW Consensus, confirming it is heavily biased. They can’t admit this, of course. So if Skeptics are exposing the dilemma, a means to avoid cognitive dissonance is to push Skeptics beyond the pale, which is what Lewandowsky is engaged upon lately:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/06/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part1/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/09/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part3/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/08/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part2/
And at Judith Curry’s place this post concentrates purely on core emotional bias, showing with Consensus references only (so no skeptic bias), that the Consensus has to be soaked in emotional bias:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/24/contradiction-on-emotional-bias-in-the-climate-domain/
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Andy,
I have to say, after a look at your blog site and articles, you put up the most long winded garbled mess articles that I have seen anywhere. You seem to have (if I have read you correctly) to have a huge investment in the notion that “climate change belief” is driven by emotional attachment to an idea. Where there is any substance to your thinking, this is certainly the domain of the contrarian or skeptic where diligence with information is minimal.
An example of this can be seen in submissions of the Fair Farming Group to the Prime Minister in 2011 (the basic substance of which is dusted off for the article above). In this these geniuses declare that the oceans contain 80 times more CO2 than the atmosphere does so therefore ocean acidification cannot occure. There have been a large number of studies on this which show that just as in a room full of angry farmers CO2 levels can be 10,000 parts per million, many times that of the atmospheric average, it is the CO2 level in the top centimeters of the ocean, the zone where the atmosphere interacts with the ocean surface, that the acidity level matters. It is in this zone where most vital oceanic life occurs. This is where the plankton are, and the living coral. This is also where most of the earth’s oxygen is regenerated. It is also the zone where ocean acidification which affects the calcium building ability of the micro organisms is the highest. This omission of understanding ripples through this ridiculous publication to which each of those supposedly noted great business people contributed a couple of paragraphs.
Now that is indeed an emotive connection to an idea, a skeptical idea. An idea born out of laziness, fear of change, and total disrespect for the science that these individuals are purporting to be the “masters” of.
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From nature: http://www.nature.com/news/crucial-ocean-acidification-models-come-up-short-1.18124
Ocean acidification (improper term—it’s alkali, not acidic, but details) may not be the problem it was thought to be by warmists. Seems studies are flawed, just like Lew and Cook’s always are. The thing about ocean studies is they are hard science and easy to check. None of the psych stuff Lew and Cook like to twist about.
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All that means is the Ocean Acidification balloon didn’t fly very well. They already tried it out in a minor way so the geologists and chemists were ready to shoot it full of holes. As you said Hard science.
SEE: January 31, 2009 WUWT Ocean Acidification and Corals “…The BBC ran an article this week titled “Acid oceans ‘need urgent action‘” based on the premise: The world’s marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists……”
The new Scare Story in the pipeline I think is from Paul Erhlich’s
Lots more terrifying, lots more cute bambi and thumper pictures, no hard science — So, What’s not to like?
It even has it’s own Center for Biological Diversity no doubt a reconstituted or extensions of the Wildlands Project, aka Wildlands Network, that was pushing the UN Biodiversity treaty
From WIKI:
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So what is your point, Gai?? It seems you just don’t give a stuff about bio diversity land or sea. Greed is a brain numbing emotion. Some greed driven idiot broke into a museum to steal Rhino horns
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8726867/Rhino-horn-thieves-steal-fakes.html
This total disregard of our natural environment and its resources is of the same calibre, purely for wealth and personal gain, however short lived that will be.
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Dude, I was a member of Sierra Club, Green Peace, WWF and Nature Conservancy. I have spent my spare time helping researchers studying crayfish and bats. I have spent my weekends haul loads and load and loads of trash out of forests and out of caves. I have rescued snakes and bats from ignorant people who would have killed them.
BUT I am also a scientist and I now when someone is using an emotional handle (not facts) to bamboozle the public and cheat me out of my private property.
You want to “save the ,,,,” Then BUY the land at a fair asking price! DON’T TAKE the land via regs and leave the poor smuck who is the nominal owner paying taxes on devalued property he now can do nothing with.
There have been plenty of tales of EPA and other government agents lying and causing major harm and I for one am darn sick of the arrogant no-nothing petty hitlers who are working for the benefit of the Elite.
You want to be a Serf? Be my guest you will be soon enough given the way things are going.
91
You still don’t stack up, gai. The retired old dudes who wrote that article are MBA’s and an Engineer maybe, calling themselves “farmers”. Those types want to turn farmland into huge open cut coal mines. Is that the way you want your land to be? A few bucks in the bank and a memory hovering a hundred meters above a pit floor?
17
Ignore the troll, Gai, he’s the one that simply can’t “stack up” as he is paid to inhabit mommy’s basement to surf and distract.
61
BilB says“You still don’t stack up, gai. The retired old dudes who wrote that article are MBA’s and an Engineer maybe….”
…………….
OH, you mean real CONTRIBUTING members of society not Paris-ites vacuuming up other people’s wealth!
I am sure as a parasite on the dying body of civilization you understand what I mean. Unfortunately what you and the other human parasites haven’t figured out yet from the successful natural parasites is if you kill the host you die too!
If it didn’t involve the deaths of innocents, I would wish that you got what you say you want immediately if not sooner and laugh as reality struck you between the eyes.
I would even nominate you and your fellow parasites for Darwin Awards.
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Bill,
I would imagine the Troll has never bothered to bend down and pick up a piece of trash in his life. He is much more likely to be a litter bug because Mommy always cleaned up his messes for him.
The Occupy Wall Street crowd showed the true face of this bunch of spoiled-rotten privileged off-spring of the elite.
According to a study by sociologists more than a third of activists in the Occupy movement had household incomes above $100,000, placing them at the cusp of the top quintile of income distribution in America. The Wall Streeters were more affluent, whiter, younger, much more highly educated, and more likely to be male than the average New Yorker. Professor Ruth Milkman, one of the authors of the study said “Many were the children of the elite, if you will.”
These are the same people (who should have known better) who left the parks completely trashed.
See Tactics of Waste, Dirt and Discard in the Occupy Movement: A Photo Essay
50
Come on Sheri you can do better than that. Read the information, there isn’t that much of it
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/acidification.html
The oceans have been slightly alkaline for millions of years. At the surface the uptake of CO2 makes the surface more acidic ie reduces the Ph level becoming less alkaline not more as you have said. Adding CO2 is good for algae who convert it into oils, but there is that tricky balance beyond which the additional CO2 kills the bacteria. The pH range for most cultured algal species is between 7 and 9, with the optimum range being 8.2-8.7. Complete culture collapse due to the disruption of many cellular processes can result from a failure to maintain an acceptable pH. it is the algae that produce the oxygen. It is the Plankton that feed on the algae that feed the rest of ocean’s fish.
This is what we are gambling with
http://www.mbari.org/highCO2/
Now give me one of those great libertarian one liners, Sheri, like “…when all the fish and sharks are gone we will all be able to go swimming safely…”! Is that what you are thinking now?
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http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/oceans-not-acidifying-scientists-hid-80-years-of-ph-data/
http://www.co2science.org/data/acidification/acidification.php
Dr. Tom V. Segalstad goes into the ocean chemistry (sort of simplified) HERE:
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef4.htm
Also see, starting on page three of this report:
4. Chemical laws for distribution of CO2 in nature
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEFVO1.pdf
Ocean Acidification is a complete lie. Most ‘evidence’ is fabricated in laboratories which do not simulate the earth’s oceans. (No rock, no plant life)
Think about it pure water has a pH of 7 – neutral. Rain, condensed water plus atmospheric CO2, NO, and SO2 gives you
a pH of about 5.6 (acidic)
The acidity of rainwater comes from the natural presence of these three substances (CO2, NO, and SO2)
1. Carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid.
2. Nitrogen and oxygen react to form Nitric oxide (NO) during lightning storms. In air, NO is oxidized to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which in turn reacts with water to give nitric acid (HNO3)
3. Sulfur dioxide, SO2, reacts with water to form sulfuric acid.
And that is just the start. Swamp/River water has organic acids in it that DI water systems can not remove. All this ACIDIC water runs down to the sea and yet billions of years later the oceans are STILL NOT ACIDIC.
Look up the word BUFFER. Until every single drop of the buffer is gone the pH won’t move. As a chemist I got fired because my idiot boss (also a chemist) could not understand that point. Because she refused to acknowledge the power of a buffered solution she cost the company millions and was booted a month after I was.
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Oh, Bilb, dear, I have read that page and about 50 other sources when writing about ocean reduction in alkalinity for kids and my own blog. I don’t recall saying the ocean was becoming more alkaline. If so, it was typo. It’s less alkali and I’ve stated that before. Perhaps if you can point out where I said more alkaline, I can correct it. If not, I assume you made that up.
It CANNOT become more acidic if it’s not acidic. It’s pH has to be below 7 to be acidic. NO ONE I have ever read says the ocean will actually become acidic. It can’t due to buffering. Yes, people use imprecise language all the time. Like you can become smarter when you are hopelessly lacking in intelligence. We see that in trolls all the time. They can only become less lacking in intelligence but cannot ever approach smart.
The range between 7 and 9 will ALWAYS be there whether we burn every fossil fuel on the planet or not. It’s the way chemistry works, though I sense a complete lack of understanding of chemistry on your part. You seem to just parrot the party line. (There are sources for that but I choose not to waste my time linking since you are not capable of actually understanding chemistry anyway. I predict you will now parrot “If you had sources, you’d link”. PLEASE prove me right. I love it when trolls follow the playbook.)
Actually, I was thinking when all the trolls were gone, maybe some intelligence might creep back into the population, but whatever. You do realize I can’t give you a libertarian line because I’m not libertarian and I’d be parroting something I don’t believe. Sure, lying and deception are standard fare for warmists, but from the skeptic side, some actually do care about accuracy and scientific method. How about the liberal line “All truth comes from the government and no other.” So when the fish are gone, it’s because we failed to listen to the God government. Good?
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Oddly enough, Sheri, your running mate here, gai, just made the point perfectly in reinforcing the fact that acidification is variable, local, and time based.I pointed out that the part of the ocean that is of the greatest importance to human life, the top ten centimeters (four inches for the sake of Republicans), where the oceans most prolific membrane of life resides is the part of the ocean that is most vulnerable to acidification. It is this thin layer where the absorption of CO2 takes place and it is this zone that is most affected as CO2 builds up in the atmosphere. The acidic water will quickly disperse into the depths but it is the residency time at the surface that causes the biggest problem as the ph level is much lower than the deeper column of water.
Believe it or not, but that is the science. Science is the body of cross referenced and tested knowledge consistent with the mathematically stable physical properties of the universe. Skepticism is the measure of uncertainty or lack of knowledge, calling oneself a skeptic is effectively calling oneself ignorant, to greater or lesser degree.
16
Oh, but sweetie, he’s not my running mate. Don’t even know the guy, but he does make a lot of sense. More than yourself definitely.
Dissolved CO2 does not raise the pH. Only if it breaks down into carbonic acid–life span under a nanosecond–and then the buffers carbonate and bicarbonate, can a pH change occur. The pH of the ocean is around 8.3 depending on where you measure. Still within that 7-9 range you said was important.
Really, whose science? Chemistry does not teach us that. Not all. So whose science? Yours? The warmists? It’s certainly not standard chemistry–not at all. If it’s like the “new math”, that explains a lot. I suppose then you can just like the idea of ocean acidification and that makes it so.
Skepticism is calling oneself not capable of being pulled into scams based on illogical and erroneous arguments presented by those with a political or personal reason for lying about something. I proudly wear that label and really don’t want to be as clueless as you are. Ignorance is not really bliss. Old wives tail, that one.
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GEE, and here I thought I was a woman. Will wonders never cease.
….
Actually I was not supporting BilB’s position. I was saying the OCEANS ARE BUFFERED!
Minor variations? Ya sure, nothing is in equilbrium especially when you toss living things into the mix. However life is also very resilient and sea life IN THE SEA has no problems with a range of pH or with CO2.
The longest lived coral colony on record is from a species of black coral from the genus Leiopathes that had an estimated age of 4,265 years old. Other black and gold coral colonies in the Atlantic appear to be over 1,000 years old.
Corals appeared about 500 million years ago or more, at the same time that many other kinds of marine organisms were evolving. The corals that form reefs in tropical waters today first appeared in the Middle Triassic Period, about 240 million years ago. The model by Wilson et al. for that period gives an elevated carbon dioxide level of 1360 ppm.
James R. Ehleringer, Thure Cerling and M. Denise Dearing write of a continuous rise in carbon dioxide during the Triassic from 1215 ppmV @ 235+/-5 million years ago (middle) to ~2240 ppmV @ 175=/-30 million years ago in the Jurassic.
Seems you will have to go find something else to panic about Bill.
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gai: Apologies–can’t always tell from names with no photo whether people are male or female.
I understand you’re saying the oceans are buffered and I was agreeing. Thus, BilB calling you my running mate.
I’ve read similar studies on the resiliency of corals. BilB worries much over nothing scary or intimidating.
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BilB, please remind all of us just what you derive your income from?
When your snout is in the trough your argument needs to be just a bit more compelling than, say, a page of crap from Skeptical seance.
30
“….Actually, I was thinking when all the trolls were gone, maybe some intelligence might creep back into the population, but whatever.”
Actually I think it will take the next glaciation for cleaning out The Zombies of the Gene Pooll (By Sharyn McCrumb)
52
BilB,
The concept of “a hiatus, or pause” is driven by emotional attachment to an idea, is being promoted by Lewandowski et.al. in their paper. All Andy is saying here is that if the attachment to the concept of ‘a hiatus’ is driven by an emotional attachment, then ‘climate change belief’ must also be driven by an emotional attachment.
It’s clear that you’ve failed to comprehend the basic premise of Andy’s articles, prompting you to make this hasty and inaccurate statement. The articles are clear end well written. Judging by your comments, Lewandowski was probably right with respect to the emotional attachment to ‘climate change memes’ but wrong about the emotional attachment to the observed hiatus in global temperature rise. The pause is well documented in all the data sets, whereas climate change ™ has yet to be documented anywhere with empirical evidence. Period.
Emotions are nice until reality kicks in.
Abe
92
Thanks for the vote re my articles, appreciated 🙂
40
I just read your article. It is long but well written.
‘Meme’ is not something I have studied. However from what you say I think I know it as ‘the box’ — the knowledge set of orthodoxy. Those who think ‘out-side-the-box’ not only get social pressure to return to the box but are also those most likely to make new discoveries. In some cases they are not part of the orthodoxy at all and are therefore not hampered by the fossilized thought patterns of the orthodoxy.
One example is Alfred Wegener and his theory of “continental drift”. Wegener was not schooled in geology, he earned his doctorate in Astronomy.
Another example is Dr. Barry Marshall a mundane general practitioner. He descovered the link between Helicobacter pylori, ulcers and stomach cancer. When he first floated the idea ulcers were caused by an infection and not stress, he was laughed at by the orthodox medical community. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, a Royal Perth Hospital pathologist, later earned the Nobel prize for this discovery.
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer-solved-medical-mystery
20
Thanks, gai.
Memes often co-evolve to reinforce orthodoxy. While I use the example of tectonic drift myself sometimes to show how enforced orthodoxy can prevent science from following its proper path of inquiry, the case for CAGW is on a much grander stage. The memes at the heart of CAGW orthodoxy invoke potent emotional responses from large sections of the public, plus many politicians, policy makers, and indeed many scientists too. This enormously impedes progress on the wicked problem of understanding the climate system, and creates an immense pressure to act before that system is understood enough to even have much of a clue as to whether ACO2 impact will be overall good, bad, or indifferent, and on what timescales.
10
Not only is CAGW is on a much grander stage it is on a much much more dangerous scale.
There are three possibles:
#1. We waste huge amounts of wealth, CAGW is real, and it warms anyway.
#2. We waste huge amounts of wealth, nothing happens and Orthodoxy celebrates and becomes more entrenched.
#3. Abrupt Climate Change is real, the end of the Holocene is real and we waste huge amounts of wealth, cripple civilization and are caught flatfooted as the climate goes wild crossing the border between stable warm to stable cold.
All that really matters to us in the short term is the oscillating back and forth near the transition threshold and not whether there is a frigid landing or 64,000 years of oscillating until the earth warms toward peak again. William McClenney (geologist) said even though MIS11 was a double precession cycle the low between peaks was a wild ride. It is the pronounced climate and environment instability during the interglacial/glacial transition that has me worried and I think this is the most likely scenario given the Lisiecki and Raymo paper and other information.
Even Woods Hole Observatory cautioned this last might be the true problem. Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?
21
Hi Bilb,
in the links above, as you will know if you read, the ‘substance’ is provided by various papers / surveys and other references that are all solidly Consensus sources. The description of bias in the Consensus, is essentially self-described.
Before he jumped off the deep end into climate and conspiracy ideation, Lewandowsky did a lot of good work on bias effects. While it chimes with the mainstream, I would say definitely furthers our understanding. Many of the bias effects he describes occur in the climate Consensus, which is why some of his papers feature in the above.
40
Ultimately, unless you are prepared to lie, you are stuck with telling the truth about what you understand.
Reality does not match the model predictions.
Climate changes a bit, slowly, same as it ever did. But drought&flood may happen in between times.
On the few occasions when the topic of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming crops up with strangers, I say I think it is bollocks. And then I quickly say “probably bollocks”, by which time the other person’s head is usually nodding in agreement.
What kind of a disaster is it when people don’t notice a disaster, for crying out loud?
41
Yes, I am in the USA and ask strangers all the time ‘How do you like your Global Warming’ and get a snort of derision (especially in winter.) In over 20 years I have only run into three CAGW fanatics.
So tell me where the heck are all the CAGW fanatics? I really think they are a manufactured myth. We have certainly seen the MSM playing tricks with camera angles or the news Ads in the Boston Globle, “Protestors wanted $10.00/hr” or the ‘protests’ that are really street parties and the participants can’t even answer the simple of what they are protesting and why.
Climate rent a protest?
81
OOPS block quote ends after first paragraph. The rest is my first experience with MSM lying. (I have had several.)
41
Gia,
I agree with your assessment.
The propaganda artists not only inflate values of global temperatures, they also inflate values of consensus.
00
This is a compilation of confusion by a group called the “Fair Farming Group” (I believe) and is so full of missinfornation it hurts to read it. To be so far from reality if these people were actually being employed by organisations those bodies would have to review all of the decisions made by them for similar errors of judgement.
One such error that amuses me is the contrarian argument that all models are false, except the ones that are used to examine information from ice cores. When scientists (those people that contrarians acuse of being crooks and scammers) crack open a bubble in the ice it is not like there is a little novel inside written in English which descrbes the life and times of that past time. There is just a tiny quantity of gas which has to be measured for its mixture and examined for its isotopes, and then that information is evaluated by computer models in an attempt to build a narrative. It is the very same process and the very same models based on all of the same physics that contrarians love to condemn when the conclusion does not suit their biased views.
Science is not a matter of opinion, it is a process. A process that determines cross referenced facts describing the reality of our existence. This bunch of farming nutters have spent someone’s money to declare how far out of touch with that reality they are, in the hope that others will share their delusion.
111
Fair Farming Group
Ranked 2.214 millionth popular blog site
http://au.urlm.com/www.fairfarminggrp.com.au
here is their original draft attempt at the above advertisement
http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=dcf13a8a-d8a0-45b0-a331-69bfc7a26f53
considering how much has been learnt on climate change over the last 4 years zero of that information has filtered through to this bunch who have given up trying to influence people at a blog level, their blog is no longer accessible, and have resorted to advertising. This just leaves the question of whose money was used to pay for the ad?
011
Just like greenpeace, oxfam, rspca, salvos, doctors without borders, wwf etc etc. MISUSE the donations from the public to promote the FRAUD of global warming…………..
Sickening !
43
Conclusion: “There is no evidence CO2 has determined climate in the past or that it could do so in the future.”
I very nearly left this site for dead as just an emerging apologist/luke warmist compromise.
Nice to see some acknowledgement after months of pretty half baked rubbish, of the inescapable conclusion, that should always be the base point of the skeptical argument.
Cheers
41
What the Climate Study Group has so neatly summarised has been given to politicians in many ways, the IPA-published book as well as Bob Carter’s Taxing Air book to name two – both well written and very easy to understand. I also doubt that these books have been read. Time for the Study Group to engage some top gun lawyers to prepare ‘lack of due diligence’ cases for imposing unnecessary financial hardships on the population.
31
Brainwashing, ignorant bias and fear mongering are all contributing factors.
It will not be easy to turn this false ideology around!
But we must keep trying. Hope for some enlightenment!
Geoff Williams
21
This is biggest load of uniformed crap I’ve ever heard. I’m a notorious fence sitter on climate change, but this almost makes me think the science has to be right if the skeptics are stooping this low.
So a bunch of experts with no background in anything related to climatology or climate modelling are now telling me that scientists are suffering from overly subjective analyses. May be they should talk to the scientists performing these analyses, I thnk they’ll find the opposite is true.
The headline comment about a 30 year cooling trend being misintepreted in the 70’s. So what, science moves on, the amount of effort gone into improving models, the increase in computing power and the data they now have to validate them has completely changed the game. Not saying the science is neccessarily right now, but this argument is a joke.
I think if the skeptics are going to have some credibility they have to come up with something a little better than this. Unfortunately there are enough uninformed people out there that this BS will gain some traction.
35
Expert scientists use observations not “models”. The experts who put together the ad are expert scientists. The people who call themselves “expert” climatologists are breaking the basic tenets of science.
And yes, of course skeptical scientists have talked to the unskeptical experts. It is rather telling that the unskeptical ones will not reveal their full methods, will not provide all their data, and avoid open public debates.
Stick around, if you have good skeptical questions we’ll do our best to answer them and with observations and data. You won’t get that from the unskeptics.
If you think skeptics discussing psychology is a “joke”, what do you make of climatologists who think a “consensus” is scientific evidence?
62
Interesting that the advert has to rely on Lowell Ponte’s book, who is a reporter and a PR man, not a scientist. However the preface is written by an atmospheric scientist Professor Reid A Bryson, who says in the preface:
What a ringing endorsement. In the preface! Ha
04
http://stopthesethings.com/2015/08/09/south-australias-unbridled-wind-power-insanity-wind-power-collapses-see-spot-prices-rocket-from-70-to-13800-per-mwh/
For those who believe wind farms have any place in our energy generation mix please read the above
20
Having 15 of these windmills near your house is like having 15 helicopters hovering over your house around the clock…..very annoying,(except when the wind doesn’t blow, which is when they have to boot them with coal fired power).
20
Mat L,
It is quite common for authors to have their first and successive attempts returned after some process of review. It is so easy to find minor quibbles in almost every page ever written on this topic that one could turn the topic of global warming into an inward spiral that consumes more and more time until there is no time left for study of the prime topic.
Someone did this for Shakespeare as an author and concluded that Shakespeare’s works were not written by him, but by another person, one hypothesis being that the real author had the same name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question
“Shakespeare’s authorship was first questioned in the middle of the 19th century,[4] when adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time had become widespread.[5] Shakespeare’s biography, particularly his humble origins and obscure life, seemed incompatible with his poetic eminence and his reputation for genius,[6] arousing suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him.[7] The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature,[8] and more than 80 authorship candidates have been proposed,[9] the most popular being Sir Francis Bacon; Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; Christopher Marlowe; and William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby.[10]”
I’d rather have an interesting observational report even with a few small errors, than to see a topic get 80 examinations, only one of which can be correct.
Besides, you might note that senior scientists are most reluctant to use the words “scientific truth” linked. Science is a process of continuing improvement of what we observe. That implies that almost every scientific paper must have errors. Successive papers should be designed to correct errors in the previous papers.
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Geoff, what are you talking about???
As I said, the author in question is not a scientist. He wrote a book, not a ‘report’ or a ‘scientific paper’. And what is all that babble about Shakespeare got to do with anything? The point was that this advertisement relies on a book that, within the book itself (!) questions the books accuracy, precision and balance!
That you having 5 thumbs up for complete inarticulate dribble just goes to show the problem with this echo chamber of a site.
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