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Weekend Unthreaded
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7.6 out of 10 based on 24 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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It is sinister that there are no economic climate scientists who can calculate that a 67% oil rig count decline and global austerity measures and various other economic collapses are curbing emissions…..and they are not giving us all a pat on the back for having less money to spend.
“Less money to spend” equals less emissions. Less emissions should translate into a pat on the back. 🙂
I am doing my part.
[Moved from another thread – Jo]
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And absolutely no credit is given for Australia meeting emissions reduction targets to date and on track to achieve or exceed the next target. One of a small minority of nations that has been achieving, not exceeding so so many others.
Our reward is? Do more, pay more.
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Dennis, that ain’t the half of it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/07/are-aussie-politicians-plot-to-degrade-democratic-choice-on-carbon-pricing/
And I do apoligize for hijacking your post Dennis but it did fit.
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pat @ 32 refers to same. As I have said before, I wouldn’t trust Malcolm Turnbull out of sight on a dark night.
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You have it backwards. We the skeptics are the bugs, and the AGW scammers are out to squash us all. I do hold hope the tables will be turned one day though. Not sure when.
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The slaughter continues in the oil industry. No-one is safe. Even big companies are in trouble. Not just shedding hundreds of thousands of people but like in Shell any who stays has to reapply for the job.
I hear my industry is subsidised all them time. Where are they again?
Any leftie help? As you sniff subsidies anywhere. Give me a job removing your rusty windmills as you make huge profits? Ah Yeah , forgot. You always plan a profit in the next 10 years.
Without Petrolem industry subsidising you there won,t be any windmills and other crap that you think of.
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While this “low oil price cycle” persists expect more job shedding. I expect a recovery in 2017. It is a case of hanging in there for another 18 months. History shows that the longer the “low oil price cycle” persists the steeper oil prices will climb in response to the law of “Supply & Demand”. The days of large scale subsidization of RE are also coming to an end. With the current very low “fossil fuel prices (gas, oil & coal)” clearly the economic rationality of using vastly more expensive RE will ensure the collapse of the latter as a major source of base load energy generation. Fast tracking to RE in the EU in the past 10 years has nearly brought it to its knees – a case of ‘Economic Suicide”.
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Just noticed the thread moved here. That’s cool Jo.
Geo, the word “Expense” is a difficult word to quantify when the power to print money has been given to private interests.
It really is quite pointless. Until that matter is settled, nothing else follows as the power to print money has its own agenda and favorite technology. If the banks like nukes, then they will create money out of thin air to lend at low interest rate to nuke industry. If private banks like pedal power, then we will get cheap loans to buy bikes, or cheap solar panels.
It is already a bit like that movie Zardoz (Wikipedia: “Zardoz is a 1974 science fiction movie written, produced, and directed by John Boorman. It stars Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, and Sara Kestelman.”)
For now, the banks will cover loans to the oil industry to maintain a stock buy back to prevent oil stocks collapsing, it is anyones guess what they will do with them later. Not an expert opinion of mine, just a gut feeling.
The power to print money confers upon the creator the ultimate power to own everything. And it is renewable for them themselves. 🙂
What Industrial Depression Looks Like In Au with picks.
00
Have to make room on the payroll for all our new untrained, uneducated, unemployed, and un-health checked off-shore long term new voters.
10
If the oil industry is going broke, it gets owned by the creditors.
The mistake is in thinking the oil industry actually owns itself.
Think of a thumb, under another thumb, and then that other thumb under another thumb. Perhaps even a banker is under the thumb of a mother in law for instance, so we all are ultimately under the thumb of some easily annoyed mother in law. 🙂
11
Mike, that’s precisely the point. There is no predefined end-point to this eco-marxist charade of moving goal posts. Well, that’s not strictly speaking true of course, as climate change defined by the UN would require the complete absence of humanity to zero the anthropogenic influence.
Their target is appears, is to break the economic system, to leave it ready and begging to be ‘saved’ by Christiana Figueres and her UNFCCC view of the world
And she’s now telling us (well her poodle press is) that unsubsidised PV solar power can save the world.
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Tis is what abbott should have done to BOM
The only important news that really matters and is able to change things
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-science-chief-threatens-prosecution-over-climate-study/article/2575687?custom_click=rss
[This comment was moved from another thread – Jo]
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Do you mean disintergration. If so I’m in favour.
10
And yes I have had a couple of reds.
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How is this for a motorcyclists worst nightmare? Driverless Volvos during a CME impact.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/breaking-news/historic-driverless-car-trial-begins-in-sa/news-story/ab85c156a631ed80035134247cb919b8
Who needs a CME (there was one), just one tree removes power to all of Italy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-197749/Power-restored-Italy-blackout.html
In Townsville it takes light rain to cause a blackout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIWbU4pb6rc
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Hell, in South Australia all it takes is for Victoria to sneeze.
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New submarines, if the contract to build them goes to South Australia as the state government and federal opposition are demanding, under construction for as long as Victoria electricity supply is maintained and the wind keeps blowing.
Plenty of scope there for rostered days off and sick leave entitlement.
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Rostered?
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“Rostered?”
Very smart meters.
20
Very high costs if one has to stop suddenly welding thick plates made from some alloys simply because the of grid wobbles.
First thing that I’d do it to install 3 or 4 very large diesel gensets and only use them for reliable, manufacturing power. It’s cheaper than scrapping imported alloy forgings weighing tens if not hundreds of tons, ruined by poor welds caused by too many starts due to electrical power outages.
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The subs should be built in Gippsland in close proximity to Oz’s cheapest energy source – the Latrobe Valley brown coal. And if the Greenies scream you have all that offshore ESSO/BHP Barracouta gas supply in very close proximity. Build the subs in SA with its RE? LOL
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And not forgetting the “KTT” new ESSO/BHP Gas Fields development as a backup – also piping gas to Longford.
No brainer really – build the subs near Longford – plentiful cheap gas & brown coal in close proximity.
And I am not even a Victorian. My preferred option would have been Cockburn Sound south of Freo – plenty of gas on supply.
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You only have to look at what happens when you rely on”Renewables”South Aust.had a major power failure last week ,when an “Inter-connector”quit.For those who don’t know,they rely on “Renewables”for their power,plus some power from Victoria as backup,which is most of the time.”Left Wing Looneys”strike again.
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The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released their 2015 SA Electricity Report, which, amongst other things, shows how overall electricity demand has decreased, and how much power is obtained from Victoria. I would not call ~15% of SA requirements “backup” (and it is increasing each year). (Thanks to TonyFromAus for originally making me aware of these AEMO reports)
The Pelican Point (gas turbine) power station can only operate at 50% capacity, and now needs 48 hours notice to come online, it’s a joke.
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The only thing worse than a driverless Volvo, is a Volvoless driver.
I have a Volvo, but it is off the road, because of a computer malfunction that returns an error code that does not appear in the Workshop Manual. Go figure …!
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So there is also an error in the error code list? Or is it an error in the error detection code?
All these complications – we should do what the greenies want and go back to horse and buggies. Of course they believe that there are no emissions from the horse, although that may be because they always put the cart before the horse.
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Of course, horses are high emissions vehicles which is why there was such huge relief when the horseless carriage was developed.
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The unknown error code isn’t a motorcyclist tapping Morse to be freed from underneath the car?
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Google it Rereke, bet you find something.
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I did, and Google tells me that the code means that it can’t play the current CD. This is logically true, because there are no CD’s in the player.
So the mystery remains, but now becomes a question of what type of music the Volvo might find sufficently suitable, and to its liking, for me to start the engine.
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A basket and a flute?
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Our Volvo likes Peer Gynt!
Actually, we keep getting messages about the alarm system needing a service…sorted by pressing a button! It has been investigated several times, to no effect..we’ve given up worrying about it. We love the car otherwise.
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The driverless version may be able avoid unknown errors by braking heavily and swerving.
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I’v e had a couple of Volvos – go the fuel pump relay.
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Carbon price better then GST rise: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tax-hike-how-a-125-per-cent-gst-will-cost-houses-three-times-more-than-carbon-price-20151107-gkt8h5.html.
‘The analysis, which was commissioned by the Australian Greens…’ . Got to love how the figures are calculated to make one look so good (guess which one?).
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Is that truely a 125 percent increase, or did you mean a 12.5 percent increase?
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That’s just the way The Age presented the link.
I love the way they used the very lowest carbon tax, knowing full well that it could rise to any level because it wouldn’t be regulated in the same way as the GST.
We have already reached 2015, so what would the carbon tax be in the next year and onwards, especially depending on what happens in Paris.
I’m sure that The Age will follow up with a more comprehensive comparison looking at a worse case scenario.
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What is rarely mentioned is that GST is a very efficient tax because it collects from the black economy as operators who avoid income and company taxes pay GST on all goods and services. The estimated black economy when the GST was first introduced, from memory, was approximately equivalent to the accounted for and taxes paid official economy. Therefore, around half of the GST revenue is not paid by taxpayers and welfare recipients.
When the GST was introduced various taxes were abolished, or agreement reached to abolish. Unfortunately Labor state governments at the time only abolished some of the agreed state taxes and kept taxes like stamp duty and payroll tax. The Commonwealth abolished Wholesale Sales Tax on all goods, amounts ranging from 17.5% to 27.5%. Using an average of 20.0% WST: Wholesale price $100.00 + 20.0% = $120.00 plus retailer margin, say 80.0% = $216.00 retail price to consumers. But wholesale price $100.00 with no WST = $100.00 + 80.0% margin = $180.00 and a saving of $36.00 average saving. That is a saving of 11.4%. Now add GST to $180.00 of 10.0% = $198.00 and the saving is now $18.00 and a real saving of 5.7% to consumers.
Therefore, cheaper goods despite GST, but services 10.0% added to cost. And therefore a once-off increase to the cost of living, from memory about 4.0% and welfare recipients were granted that amount added to their benefit once-off, and then as part of the benefit twice annual adjustment amount added to the whole benefit amount.
In addition income tax brackets were adjust downwards, three tax brackets and at least one lowered every year for ten years ended 1 July 2010. And company tax lowered. Despite the general opinion that the GST cost them the fact is that by collecting approximately twice as much via the black economy others were compensated and the state and territory governments gained substantial new revenue. In fact GST revenue well exceeded the budget forward year estimates. And the Commonwealth was able to phase out annual fixed state grants that were the subject of annual negotiations.
I do not advocate increasing the GST from 10.0% at this time. Knowing that our governments are big spenders and will borrow to maintain their addiction at our expense as taxpayers and therefore will not tackle these issues seriously, my recommendation is for a root and branch independent private sector audit of all government spending including expenses guidelines for all public servants including the politicians. In my opinion the savings would be huge. One example, number of employees on the payroll: A few years ago on ABC Lateline a former New South Wales senior public servant estimated that there were around 15,000 employed in Health administration more than are necessary. Well over one billion dollars I estimate in cost of employment.
And the waste: Just before the last New South Wales Labor Government left office they rushed the sale of half of the state government owned electricity companies. The estimated value was a minimum of $12 billion which they sold for $5.9 billion losing $6.1 billion. Or six public teaching hospitals worth. And there had been a secret deal for the 16 years of Labor in government, electricity companies borrowing money, charging interest to consumers, to pay extra dividends to the state government. Accounted for off state budget in the private company books. When the debts were retired all that was left from the $5.9 billion was $800 million.
The squandering, the mismanagement of our taxes is a disgraceful situation and for politicians to call for more is unacceptable. There is a spending problem that needs to be fixed before they raise taxes.
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Well said. Years ago a friend was involved in a private hospital which controlled costs. They had to charge what the public hospital charged but made 40% profit on turnover. Since then the size of the public health bureaucracy has compounded.
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I have a good idea.when you don’t have enough money “Stop Spending”you morons(Pollies that is)
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“….but if I stop spending I won’t get elected, and you see, I’m addicted to being ‘elected’. I can’t help myself. Erection, excuse me, I mean election, is all I live for. I’ll say anything to anyone to keep them happy. Keeping them happy, keeps me happy. It’s a wonderful quid pro quo. Isn’t democracy just great? Happiness all about. So when they say ‘save the environment’ and ‘stop climate change’ I say ‘yes, yes’ and you know what, even the media agrees with me. Doesn’t that make life so very easier? As I said, happiness all about. Happy days. And no one gets shafted. Trust me on that. I’m your elected, oh I’m damn sorry, I mean erected, politician. Did I really say that?”
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I do not see how they can compare GST and a Carbon Tax. Or maybe the are just confirming what many of us have thought that it is nothing to do with the environment at all.
My understanding is GST is a simple revenue gathering tax.
But a Carbon Tax was something that had mythical powers to reduce fossil fuel use and the income would partly go to the UN, some to research into climate related issues and the far left water melons would give the majority to poorer people ( after they had taken their share from the trough). /sarc. ( for the last paragraph)
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Denial 101x
UNHCR launches appeal to aid refugees as winter hits Europe
“Harsh weather conditions are likely to exacerbate the suffering of the thousands of refugees and migrants landing in Greece and travelling through the Balkans, and may result in further loss of life if adequate measures are not taken urgently,” UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler said.
UN climate fund releases $183m to tackle global warming
“The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is intended to be the major conduit for funding to flow from wealthy economies built on fossil fuels to those that will suffer most from climate change they did not cause.”
. . .
Peak Stupid has been reached.
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Exposure will ensure the survival of the fittest. It is Nature’s way.
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Do Blackmores achieve the same result?
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Not sure about Blackmores, but the private security firm formally known as Blackwater certainly does.
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They even have an Academi for it.
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That’s the one.
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If they are hungry enough and cold enough they will resort to relieving that by cri unlawful methods.
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Donner kebab party for 480,000 ?
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100% correct.
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I hope you are right but I’m not convinced stupid has peaked.
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If they haven’t peaked, it’s not through their lack of trying.
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This statement (bolded) should be strongly contested. Wealthy economies were not built on fossil fuels, they were built due to free enterprise and liberal economies to begin with, not forgetting stable governments etc.
Additionally, if the latter is true, then the corollary is that non-fossil fuel economies will not be wealthy; ergo, carbon free economies will fail.
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Oxfam Media Releases article written on the 08 Nov 2015
Oxfam welcomes aid to the pacific as El Nino impacts threaten humanitarian crisis
“Oxfam welcomes today’s announcement of a $9 million Australian Government aid package to Pacific Nations threatened by El Niño caused droughts.”
Worryingly, recent research suggests that particularly strong El Niño events may occur twice as often as in the past as a result of [global warming].
. . .
Worryingly?
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We can find 9 million for aid to “Overseas”countries,but there’s none for our own “Farmers”The governments priority should be “Our People”first.
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That’s the least of Europe’s problems. Civil war looks like it’s around the corner as the so called progressive correctness left wing fruitcakes stand firm on supporting a continuation of the immigration, which is really a mass invasion.
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I’m awaiting the first ‘European’ refugees, aka, Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, Finns etc, seeking asylum from a land that’s no longer safe or their own.
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Now, they’re the refugees we should be taking.
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Tony Heller, of realclimatescience.com, is invaluable in his dedication.
The Dirty Little Secret Of 97% Doomsday Global Warming
Father of global warming saw it as a good thing:
How the Burning of Coal Vitiates the Atmosphere
North Otago Times, 16 April, 1910
“… as has been called to our attention by Prof. Arrhenius, the consumption of coal at present is returning to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide of which it was robbed when the deposits of carbon were stored away in the coal beds during the carboniferous period … a doubling of the quantity in the atmosphere would more than double the rate of growth of plant life.”
1971 Stunner : NASA And NCAR Knew That Catastrophic Global Warming Was A Farce
“In 1971, NASA and NCAR’s top climatologists knew that even a massive increase in atmospheric CO2 would produce less than 2 degrees warming.
The entire basis of the catastrophic global warming scam has been known to be a fr@ud from day one.”
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A red thumb?
Didn’t like that inconvenient truth?
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Burn more coal, crops can double with just 300 more parts per million.
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That’s the problem with the left (which includes the media, Turnbull, Obama and other Western leaders). They haven’t woken up to the fact the world will is already burning more coal and will continue to do so for a long time to come despite their dreams to reduce CO2 emissions. Time to consider the left as mentally insane and be treated accordingly.
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Carl Jung said: “…there is no adequate defense against psychic epidemics, which cause infinitely more devastation than the greatest natural catastrophes.” (1944)”
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The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO) are traveling positive at the moment and if maintained usually means a mild winter in Europe and north-east USA.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html
Siberia is experiencing much higher snow levels than normal for this time of year, which may turn the situation around but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
If the AO and NAO remain positive throughout the NH winter then it will be up to El Nino to produce blizzard conditions… * chortle *.
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When the “Riots”start in the EU countries,because there is not enough food or shelter for the “Country Shoppers”,the “People”will not be “Amused”Then perhaps”Pitch-forks”may be in order.That might apply to some here also.
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No food riots, they were the old days, just lots of people standing around laughing in the snow. Happy in the knowledge that global warming is science fiction.
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On Man Made Global Warming, it has always seemed obvious to me that this was a fabrication, a very unlikely and logically shaky scenario.
It seemed industrialization was the target and a world ending scenario was constructed based on the simple observation that CO2 could produce some heating, a child’s argument. Avoiding any need for proof or peer review or even evidence, the theory was promulgated as instantly true according to the scientists of the IPCC, a UN political body invented apparently for the sole purpose of giving credibility to man made global warming.
The number of points in which the logic of this single purpose ‘science’ is fragile or outright false are endless. Coincidence because causality. Even further inventions were needed, the most egregious being water assistance resulting in a mysterious hot spot, now known not to exist. Mr Davis argues that the IPCC consider 0.26C of warming has resulted in 250 years. This is even far below the resolution of thermometers for most of that 250 years.
Since the invention of the pointless IPCC, this crackpot theory presented as proven science has dominated politics for 27 years. Even the total lack of global heating for the last 19 of those years has not stopped the momentum and at the end of this month 100,000+ people are flying to Paris to seriously discuss what more is to be done to stop an imaginary disaster. At your expense. At what point did the world go completely mad?
While there is entertainment in finding the many ways in which the science house of cards is faulty, people are all trying to contribute and this in a way perpetuates the insanity. It is now politically unwise even to suggest that climate change is not a problem. The warming bit is now irrelevant. Fiction becomes truth becomes fact becomes dictum. Perhaps the silliest is that refusing to believe what you are told is to be condemned as a sceptic. There was a time when scepticism and sceptical inquiry were the defining characteristics of a scientist. Now it is near illegal in public. It is Galileo revisited and yet it does not heat.
The question for Paris is how to keep the whole thing going without any actual heating. How long can this farce continue?
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Sorry, coincidence became causality.
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Great post from SG at real climate
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/1971-stunner-nasa-and-ncar-knew-that-catastrophic-global-warming-was-a-farce/
here are a couple of cuts from the paper he links to. by Rasool and Schneider, two of the frontmen for the AGW LIE.. They knew it was a LIE way back in 1971. !!
http://s19.postimg.org/nf2nf8x83/schneider71.jpg
http://s19.postimg.org/5qawnmlgz/schneider71_2.jpg
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The fact that atmospheric CO2 is “saturated” by ground origin IR (during the day when it shines)
at 30 metres above ground means that extra CO2 has NO NIL ZAP effect!
KK
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KK, I think I have linked this pdf before.
If so, here it is again..
If not, here it is for the first time.
http://i.imgur.com/KKEHB5Z.jpg
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and what type of bird is that?
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More important is what sound does it make KK….. 🙂
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Well it looks like an eagle but please don’t tell me its a parrot!
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It’s a Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus) also known as the Red-backed Sea-eagle in Australia, is a medium-sized bird of prey. They are found in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Australia.
The call is a mewing keeyew, it’s distinctive call that sounds like a cross between a crying baby and a caterwauling cat.
Nice bird the Brahminy Kite, beautiful plumage.
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OK
I’ve been lazy and sloppy lately.
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WHOOPS.. I was looking at some other links.. Posted the wrong one.. roflmao !!!
Try this one instead.
http://lasersparkpluginc.com/uploads/CO2_Absorption_Data.pdf
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You wouldn’t be the first to look at good looking birds on the net Andy……..
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Yes Andy
Read that one last week so it was probably tacked to one of your posts.
KK
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One of the most interesting things in the link provided by Andy above :
http://lasersparkpluginc.com/uploads/CO2_Absorption_Data.pdf
is the very last diagram showing ocean temps for the last 8800,000 years.
This is 800,000 years! Look at what the peaks are doing over that period.
It is obvious that Global Ocean Warming has been on the boil for only 800,000 years.
This is an unexpected bonus from the graph as was the analysis by the recent posting by Simon from France:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/11/the-mystery-of-a-massive-2-5gt-of-co2-that-came-and-went-could-it-be-phytoplankton/#comment-1762577
He thinks he can see a change in the annual uptake of CO2 (sequestration) as evidenced by the variation in the “breathing” pattern shown in the graph.
And the warmers thought all it showed was rising CO2.
KK
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TdeF:
How long can this farce continue? As long as the money keeps flowing.
Who wouldn’t want free air travel to Paris, free luxury accommodation, parties, expenses that aren’t scrutinised and the feeling of being part of the coming trend?
The end comes as people start wondering what they are getting for their money, and why nothing has been done in 27 years ( except waffle about how bad things will be shortly ). The government money will start to dry up and many of these institutes, laboratories and commissions will have to retrench and/or close. When that happens there will be a stampede out of the scam, lead by the politician who were most enthusiastic.
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Sorry, should have been response to No.8.
Also a typo. It won’t be a solitary politician who will abandon the sinking ship.
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So how do you deal with a local newspaper – Shepparton News and their ex editor who gets to write and opinion piece each Monday in this paper. He’s a pro climate change supporter and last week posted a op ed about the “science is settled” His actual words were:
“The facts about climate change, indisputable and illustrated beyond debate by the worlds scientific community are so contrary to life that to articulate them as we must if we are to emerge from this dilemma would freeze people into inaction”
He runs a little meeting called “under the wisteria” where a group of like minded individuals get to gather to discuss climate change. I wrote to him in reply to his “science is settled” Seems he only toes the line and only looks at all of the pro climate change stories and never even considers the counter argument. I wonder how many read his ops and nod in agreement without EVER checking the facts and just agree yep climate change is happening.
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liberator, a few years our local paper was bought out by Fairfax. Within a year the editorials took a very, very noticeable “left” turn.
An ex-editor writes an opinion piece each week. His views have also taken a very, very noticeable “left” turn.
However, to be fair, at this stage our paper will still publish dissenting views in “Letters to the Editor”. Not sure how long this will last though, because advertising and sales seem to be taking a very, very noticeable down turn!
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Our local Wimmera Mail Times edited in Horsham in western Vic and printed in Bendigo about 200 kms away, is also owned by Fairfax.
The Editor has been instructed by Fairfax or has taken it upon herself to no longer print any “Letters to the Editor” that might Offend somebody.
The “Offend” in my case being a “Letter to the Editor” to point out that the retail Gas supply companies now “Estimate” your gas usage and only read your meter once a year if that.
The “estimates” of one’s usage of gas are seemingly and generally ALWAYS considerably higher than the real and actual usage of a household.
Consequently the tariff charged by the gas supplier on a householder’s [ or small business ] supposed estimated usage of gas is also a lot higher than the actual usage warrants or can be justified.
The Gas supplier then gets sums amounting over a year between actual meter readings, it would seem could be in many cases amounting to some hundreds of dollars extra paid by the individual consumers / householders for gas that was never actually used.
This money which collectively probably amounts to tens of millions of dollars extracted from consumers and householders by the gas supplier, is absolutely free to the gas supplier until such time as the meter is again “read” instead of being “estimated” and the bill adjusted to the actual true gas usage meter readings.
After another local pointed this ” over estimated gas use reading out in the same paper and advised the householders to check their estimated readings on their meters.
I did so and found around a 9% increase in our “estimated” usage compared to our actual meter reading . And this reading was actually done a couple of weeks after the supposed date of the “estimated” reading.
I rang the company and they agreed to change the estimated reading but our latest “estimated reading” and “estimated usage” bill is an even higher percentage wise again than our real time metered usage reading.
The consumer who might even have a significant debt on which they will be paying significant interest rates when he / she pays the gas bill is quite unknowingly providing this money from a much higher “estimated usage” than actual usage for the same period, absolutely free to the gas suppliers when he / she pays the demanded amounts on the bill to the gas suppliers who appear to be running this monstrous scam against their own customers as hard as they can.
After all if the sheeple are so stupid and will put up with a non read, estimated use of gas for up to 12 months at a time, big savings there for the company, can be scammed out of their hard earned why not grab all that free for months at a time extra money that the company can fatten its profits with and the executives get a nice addition to their bonuses for a good performance.
I’m sure that there are a hell of a lot of small businesses out there who would love to send a bill for their customers expected and estimated purchase for the next twelve months, to be suitably adjusted when the small business owner / operator gets around to doing the books around june each year and calculating just what the true amounts actually are.
Would the Fairfax owned Mail Times print this carefully worded and polite letter that pointed the gas suppliers scam out and the monies lost through this scamming of the gas consumers.?
I have had a lot of quite controversial letters printed in the past couple of decades by this local paper under a couple of different editors but now !
Nothing! Not even an acknowledgment that the letter was received.
Fairfax “stinks” to use an unpolished adjective and I suspect the writing is on the wall for at least the local paper as it is only a shadow of its former very respected self in its news worthiness these days.
The whole Fairfax ship of MSM fools appears to be in a sinking condition if reports are right about its shrinking circulation performance and now I can understand why!
40
A couple of letters in the Courier Mail saying skeptics such as Andrew Bolt and many others should accept the fact 97% of scientists and august bodies such as BOM, CSIRO, the Catholic church believe in global warming, and skeptics should support efforts to reduce its effects rather than pointing out that it hasn’t warmed for 18 years; no letters with an alternative viewpoint.
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Did they include with their comments a picture of the mini-bus that those scientists were travelling in when their votes were counted?
40
To be fair wasnt about 75 scientists who agreed , out of about 3146 responding out of about 10000 surveyed that were all but 77 disqualified for one reason or another to get a contrived figure of 97%?
Doran and Zimmerman 2009
101
The recent survey on who believes in climate change, what causes it AND what party you vote for yielded some interesting results.
But why the bloody hell was it carried out by the CSIRO.
Maybe Morgan or some similar group could do the survey, but NOT a supposedly scientific research outfit.
How stupid are the scientific “leaders” in this country becoming?
Any cheek, and I’ll tell you how I REALLY feel.
81
How stupid are the scientific “leaders” in this country becoming? How stupid is possible??? That’s how stupid.
And unfortunately, I’m serious.
50
first, i’m against increasing the GST. cut spending instead.
bemused notes from The Age article re GST vs Carbon Tax:
‘The analysis, which was commissioned by the Australian Greens…’
however, ABC OMITS that most pertinent detail in their piece, tho they do give voice to the Greens’ Adam Bandt:
8 Nov: ABC: Proposed GST changes would raise same revenue as carbon tax but cost more, modelling shows
Analysis from the Parliamentary Library …
New modelling shows proposed changes to the GST would raise the same amount of revenue as a carbon tax, but cost Australian households about three times as much…
Greens treasury spokesman Adam Bandt said the results showed bringing back a price on carbon would be fairer than any increase to the GST…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-08/gst-changes-would-raise-same-amount-as-carbon-tax/6921872
20
woke up to a lengthy interview on ABC News Radio with Greens leader, Richard di Natale.
di Natale said he understands Tony Abbott got “climate change” removed from the TPP!!! can’t find it online as yet.
how powerful must Abbott have been on the world stage?
7 Nov: Daily Telegraph: AAP: Di Natale can foresee a Greens PM
SENATOR Di Natale says the Greens’ membership is surging and support in the electorate is continuing to grow as Australia moves towards an era when there will be three big parties fighting it out for government.
“This change is coming,” he told reporters in Adelaide on Saturday after making similar remarks to the Greens’ federal conference…
Senator Di Natale told delegates the Greens were increasingly recognised as the party that represented modern, 21st century Australia…
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/di-natale-can-foresee-a-greens-pm/story-fni0xqi3-1227599842696
30
I watched a movie the other night I haven’t seen for around 18 years or so. It was The American President, perhaps a cheesy love story really, but there was a reason.
I’m not keen on much American based TV dramas, or even comedy for that fact, as neither can compare with the British drama series or their comedy, raised as I was on UK comedy, Python, The Two Ronnies, etc. The UK police dramas are also streets ahead of anything from the U.S. as well, Foyle, George Gently, DCI Banks, Vera, and a few other from this huge list (shown at this link, and there is a second page)
While some U.S. drama is OK, perhaps one of my most favourite TV drama series was The West Wing, and oddly Jed Bartlet is the only Democrat President I have ever really liked, and it’s amazing how TV (and movie) drama make Democrat Presidents to be just so perfect, and all the bad politicians are always Republicans.
Now that’s why I wanted to watch this movie, The American President again, because it was written by Aaron Sorkin, the main creator of The West Wing, and he based the series on this original movie, and the similarities are indeed remarkable, almost as if The West Wing was an extension of this actual movie.
As I mentioned, it’s a cheesy love story really, and there’s something in this movie I didn’t take all that much notice of at the time I first saw it, but which is now at front of mind. The female lead is an environmental lobbyist, and her main task is to lobbby votes for a new Bill to be presented to Congress.
That lobbying is for an Environmental Bill to cut Greenhouse Gas emissions from fossil fuels by 20%, something the President says will get no traction, even at 10%. Anyway, the Bill gets shafted, after she actually got the votes, and, as a consequence, the President loses the girl. This causes him to rethink the reasons behind the other Bill he was favouring to ensure he got a second term, a weak Crime Bill.
So, he rethinks his position on both Bills, and dumps the Crime Bill, and says he will present the original Environmental Bill to cut the full 20% of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning.
Now, while all this sounds so familiar in the current era, 2015, you need to realise that this movie was made in 1995, a full two years prior to even The Kyoto Protocol.
As soon as it came up in the movie when we watched it this time around, I was almost taken aback, as I couldn’t remember it from the original. It’s almost as if you could move this movie forward to right now in the lead up to Paris.
Tony.
80
Have noticed the same !
Michael Douglas gives his save the planet speech ( sickening ) !
Doesn’t Harrison Ford fly up the coast for a favorite Cheeseburger ,one of many saying to the rest of us ‘do as I say ,not as I do’.
I think John Travolta is one of the few that doesn’t flog the party line as he has said himself that he is not a good example of an energy conservationist ,when he has at least 2 private jets parked at his residence ready to fly anywhere at short notice .
Good luck to him and others lucky enough to be able to live extravagant life styles , provided they don’t flog poverty and co2 emission conservatism to the rest of us .
Hollywood are full of leftists .
I suspect that many movie directors and major movie actors have to tow the party line or no work , even if they are not True B’lvers .
And the right are often portrayed as environmental destroyers ,or at least much less righteous .
Didn’t Al learjet Gore get handed an Acadamy Award for his Propaganda film ‘an inconvenient truth’, conveniently full of lies ?
52
But not all the Republicans were bad. e.g. Glen Allen Walken played by John Goodman.
And even President Barlet was a liar; one who concealed an illness that’d have disqualified him from office.
Sorkin definitely has left leanings but isn’t blind to human condition in which the love for power corrupts. Indeed; that’s the basis of much of what he produces.
20
Oddly, there was an allusion to that in that same movie (The American President) when someone mentioned that had there been a TV in every home in the 30’s and 40’s, FDR would never have been elected, re-elected, re-elected again for a third term, and then re-elected for a fourth term, had they known that Roosevelt was in a wheel chair.
Tony.
20
Oh Bummer has been on sick leave (absent from work) for seven years.
32
Intellectually at least.
10
Bill Gates is rapidly reaching supervillain status:
Richest Man in the World: “Representative Democracy Is a Problem.” (Nat.review.com)
You noticed Mr. “We’ve-got-to-do-something-about-climate-change-and-carbon-emissions” still has a giant private jet that can carry 19 people, right?
50
Nice BizJet, those Bombardiers, but when it comes to business jets, there’s nothing like a Gulfstream V and its later variants.
Tony.
30
That TV series was made to show how Bill Clinton really should have been – ie. his feet of clay disappointed the Hollywood leftoids, so they airbrushed him back to perfection
Pathetic, actually
10
And there’s the irony of that movie.
‘Michael Douglas’, the President says that to ‘save the World’, he will present the new Environmental Bill to Congress with the full 20% cut to emissions, and is roundly cheered and regains the respect he had earlier.
While in real life, Bill Clinton gives Kyoto to his ‘veep’ Al Gore to take up to the Hill and present to his friends in the Senate, where he came from, and Kyoto sunk without trace with a 95-0 vote to not ratify it.
Tony.
20
This is going to turn into Six Degrees of Warming Bacon, isn’t it?
i.e. Link a global warming alarmism movie to another global warming alarmism movie in no more than 6 links.
0. Fictional “American President” passed a bill to stop humans from warming the planet with CO2.
1. “American President” was written by same writer of The West Wing.
2. West Wing President was played by… Martin Sheen.
3. Martin Sheen had a son Charlie Sheen.
4. One of Charlie Sheen’s early movies was b-grade sci-fi flick “The Arrival”.
5. In “The Arrival” there are E.T. aliens that secretly run giant CO2 emissions machines to heat up the Earth and turn it into an environment more similar to their home planet!
And I still had one step to spare.
10
Mmmm! Bacon!
Tony.
10
ABC RN Background Briefing this morning aired a program which might as well have been an advertisement for the solar industry.
in the introduction, they have Elon Musk telling his devoted employees & MSM in May that the Tesla solar storage battery pack costs only $3,500 & you are off the grid (with wild applause, of course).
ABC does not say it’s Musk talking, or that the $3,500 is in USD, or that it would take multiple packs to go off grid. that is left until near the end of the program.
also near the end is a NSW cattle farmer who has decided to go off grid – it mentions the very large number of batteries he has to have in order to power his farm, but gives no price or lifespan. Tesla gives their storage batteries a 10-year guarantee.
no mention is made of RET contributing to the high cost of electricity. all the costs, including blackouts & fuel poverty, are caused by “network charges”. talk about Orwellian.
ridiculous claims that the public is rushing to go off grid, yet just one mention to suggest they aren’t – because they’re making so much money selling back to the grid! no acknowledgement how that cost is being paid for by the general public.
I, too, am angry about the increases in network charges, but how can ABC be allowed to air such a one-sided, deceptive piece?
8 Nov: ABC Backround Briefing: The big disconnect
An over-investment in poles and wires means that ‘network charges’ on Australian electricity bills are among the highest in the world. But by charging these high prices, have the networks created conditions that will lead them to be undercut by new solar technologies? Jess Hill investigates.
‘I haven’t seen network charges higher in any other region or country of the world,’ says Bruce Mountain, director of Carbon and Energy Markets Australia and a longtime advisor to electricity regulators around the world…
This is coming to the attention of customers like solar user Terry Vertigan, who recently noticed a big increase in the fixed network charges on his bill. He’s the Sunshine Coast team coordinator for advocacy group Solar Citizens…
And according to Country Solar’s Steve Madson, these price increases are what’s driving his business.
‘Most people that come in are angry,’ he says. ‘They’re angry that they’ve continued to be told that their electricity price is going down and it’s continued to go up, one way or another, so yeah, they want to leave the grid.’…
The battery packs cost $3,500 each, but you’d need several to be independent of the grid. Right now, investment bank UBS says the total cost would be almost $40,000. But for people just wanting to use less grid power, one battery pack would be enough…
Investment banks are already making staggering predictions about how big the market could get.
***Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley produced a piece of research predicting the size of the battery market will be around 2.4 million households by 2030…
However, 70 per cent of solar users in Queensland still make good money selling their solar power back to the grid…
Background Briefing is investigative journalism at its finest…
A transcript of this program will be made available by the Tuesday following the broadcast.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/the-big-disconnect/6915554
***20 May: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: Morgan Stanley sees 2.4m Australia homes with battery storage
Investment bank Morgan Stanley has painted a bullish outlook for the home battery storage market in Australia, saying it could be worth $24 billion, with half of all households likely to install batteries to store the output from their solar panels…
Morgan Stanley’s conclusions came about from a survey it commissioned from 1,600 households, and the subsequent release of pricing by the new Tesla Powerwall battery storage offering.
The survey – conducted in March before the Tesla release at the end of April – found half of all households had a strong interest in household solar and battery product, with a clear ***$A10k price point and 10-year pay-back period…
Morgan Stanley says its analysis is based on estimated installation costs for a Tesla 7kWh daily cycle battery system paired with a 3kW solar PV system…
***But it does suggest that the utilities could take advantage of what it calls the “easy adopters”, those that want to install battery storage without thinking about it too hard…
COMMENT by Rockne O’Bannon:
Morgan Stanley invests in Tesla. Morgan Stanley does underwriting for Tesla. Is this really proper? Should a conflict of interest be cited somewhere? Disclaimer?
Could anyone reasonably say that the timing of Morgan Stanley announcing this “research” is coincidental? And although they give some other data, all of their comparisons point to their client, Tesla.
Does anyone care? This kind of stuff used to be illegal. Underwriters and analysts at investment banks had to keep their activities separate. Does Australia have these securities laws?…
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/morgan-stanley-sees-2-4m-australia-homes-with-battery-storage-20668
60
No mention of the cost to the environment of producing all these batteries; nor what becomes of them when they become useless? I despair of the state of most people’s brains.
Thank goodness for some sanity here at Jo’s site.
21
I tihnk this graph needs to be updated to include batteries (apologies for long url).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MiamiCaptionURL&_method=retrieve&_eid=1-s2.0-S0960148112000857&_image=1-s2.0-S0960148112000857-gr1.jpg&_cid=271431&_explode=defaultEXP_LIST&_idxType=defaultREF_WORK_INDEX_TYPE&_alpha=defaultALPHA&_ba=&_rdoc=1&_fmt=FULL&_issn=09601481&_pii=S0960148112000857&md5=a2251e5812036946bfa888bc4c64f87e
12
This Week In Doom: Pew Research Proves Global Warming Propaganda Works
“Before we start, you can and must combat propaganda by saying global warming.
> Do not say climate change.
This admonition cannot be repeated enough.
Please pass it on.”
William S. Briggs, statistician to the stars, reminds us what matters:
“To say climate change is to concede a fallacy.
A lie.
To say climate change is to admit complete and utter defeat.
We were promised global warming, not climate change.
Make them stick to their promise.”
~ ~ ~
Further:
There’s no denying this label packs a political punch (eenews.net.)
The word “denial” — meaning refusal or withholding — entered the English language from Old French hundreds of years ago, but it gained linguistic muscle with A.A. Brill’s translation of the Austrian father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, in the early 20th century
“If you can get out there and you can get your language inserted into the discourse, it’s your ideas that dominate.”
“In the end, if you win the frame war, your opponents back off and they start using your language,” he said. “And then you’ve won.”
91
Good strong points you make .
I often argue ,that if ‘global warming’ is still occurring , the why the religion name change to ‘Climate Change’ …..?
What they are really saying is ‘Climate Anything’…..as in any ‘omen’ at all can be twisted to strengthen their delusion and/or propaganda !
It must be a blow to their movement to hear of the very unpublicised (by them)CSIRO survey that only 46% of Australians are True B’lvers ,in spite of their massive propaganda campaign ,especially with the Paris Pre-Enlightenment Hajj around the corner .
Why are our so called leaders asked to comment on this lack of true b’lverism ?
Or will they dare to say that the Australian Public “are wrong” ??
Where are TurnBS , Carbon Pollution Bill, and True B’lver Plibersek now on their CAGW Flog ?
40
Briggs makes this point, something I will do from now on:
Incidentally, if you’re quoting an author who has mistakenly said “climate change” when he meant “global warming”, use the literary device of swapping the error with brackets. Thus “Are you a climate change denier?” becomes “Are you a [global warming] denier?”
20
Thus “Are you a climate change denier?” becomes “Are you a [global warming] denier?”
. . .
Actually, that should now read;
“Thus “Are you a climate change denier?” becomes “Are you a [global warming] [*heretic]?”
* h/t to Bernd Felsche below.
10
Correction to “Why are our so called leaders ‘not’ asked to comment on this lack of True B’lverism (46% sounds high but still less than 50%) ? “
00
Which is why I describe myself as an infidel and heretic in such discourse. It’s much more accurate.
30
I describe myself as a member of the Denialati and global cooling has just begun, which gets lots of laffs.
Being a straight man has many advantages.
20
Could not agree more. Refuse to say Climate Change. Stick to Global Warming. We were promised CO2 driven Global Warming and that is what we want. Correct everyone. After all, it is for them to say there is no warming and correct you.
100
I am still waiting for more warming. My trees do so much better when it’s warmer, and more CO2 is an added bonus. Living in the tropics, the cold winter nights, sometimes down to anything from 2C-15C stops plant growth in it’s tracks. Many species wont even germinate until summer arrives.
Now put that log back on the fire and crank up the generators.
51
The Marohasy and Abbott thesis clearly points to a cooling in Queensland and presumably we can expect increasing aridity.
50
How about this
CAGW = BS
CACC = BS
So if neither are or will be catastrophic ,then what are we paying for ?
Yes , if even one human breathes out ,that co2 might cause an infinitesimal amount of AGW !
And our total combined is only 3% of the current 400 ppmv .
But how much is or isn’t ours , is IRRELEVANT , because the Big Woolly Mammoth in the room is …..NO WARMING for nearly 19 years in spite of co2 increase of 1/3 of total human caused co2 output .
What has to happen here before the CAGW Brethren give up their Medieval religion and global scam ?
Would another ice age do it ?
Or would even that be spun to advantage the Great Big New Tax agents and the Global Racketeers ??
Is anybody out there ? >>> https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/clip_image002_thumb1.jpg?w=597&h=279
31
I remind people that what we were told was global warming. There is always climate change.
10
The ABC is claiming that Bill Shorten has been cleared by the Trade Union Royal Commission. Not so;
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2015/11/turc-shorten-not-cleared-no-recommendation-that-he-be-cleared-turc-has-partially-released-submission.html#comments
40
The TURC gave themselves a deadline for a particular report to be released.
They met that deadline. So the bleating by those feeling guilty over what time of the day it was released is meaningless.
My beef to date with the TURC is that they have let Gillard and Shorten off the hook when the evidence INDICATED they were as guilty as sin.
20
6 Nov: UK Telegraph: Charles Moore: The obsession with global warming will put the lights out all over Britain
We are destroying our sources of secure energy as windless Wednesday showed this week
Is the Western policy elites’ obsession with global warming itself a threat to civilised life on the planet?
Of electricity generated in Britain in 2014, 19 per cent came from renewables, the majority of that being wind. So if there ain’t no wind, there’s much less power. And without wind, there has to be a non-intermittent “despatchable” source of energy, such as gas or dirty energy from emergency diesel generators, to plug the gap. And if you have to buy emergency energy, you – or rather we, the consumers – have to pay emergency prices…
Obviously we must not forget that there are only 30 days left to save the world. In early December, in Paris, “COP 21”, the latest UN climate conference, will take place. Religious authorities like the Pope, the Dalai Lama and Roger Harrabin of the BBC all insist that global agreement on emissions reduction must be reached there if catastrophe is to be averted. Indeed there can be little doubt that a document will be signed. But a couple of qualifications should be borne in mind.
The first is that it is quietly admitted that there will be no legally binding agreement. The developing countries will not submit themselves, by law, to the hairshirt which Western powers love wearing. They will promise to cut emissions, and we know that they won’t. We shall promise to pay them $100 billion a year to assist greener energy, and they know that we won’t. The objective, rather than the rhetorical effect, will therefore be to make the idea of legally binding targets die. If the EU, including Britain, tries to persist with them alone, we shall turn our continent into a retirement home and leave the rest of world history to others…
The second qualification is disclosed in another news story this week. The New York Times revealed that China has been burning 17 per cent more coal per year than it previously thought. Since the whole edifice of global climate change reduction depends on what the Bali conference of 2007 called “measurable, reportable, verifiable” figures for emissions, the fact that a quantity larger than the entire annual fossil fuel consumption of Germany could previously have been missed suggests that the figures are nearly meaningless.
Like most people – possibly everyone – who takes part in the global-warming debate, I do not know what will happen to the temperature of the Earth in a century’s time. What I do know, because it is plainly visible, is that the attempt to run the world as if we can control our eco-fate 100 years hence is statistically fantastical, politically impossible, economically ruinous and morally bogus…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11980548/The-obsession-with-global-warming-will-put-the-lights-out-all-over-Britain.html
30
Fairfax 5 days late with a mention of the China coal story, but the spin was expected:
8 Nov: SMH: Adam Morton: Confused about climate change? You’ve got plenty of company
After years of political debate at odds with a scientific consensus, we are unsure about climate change and what to do about (sic).
There has been some creative analysis since the release of a CSIRO survey into Australians’ attitudes on climate change, but the cut-through message was pretty clear: on this most vexed of subjects, people haven’t known what to think.
The key stat? Of the 4999 people who filled in the science agency’s survey more than once over the past five years, nearly half had changed their mind about what they believe. Some had changed it more than once.
People weren’t just changing their mind over time – some appeared to do it in the course of filling out the survey…
???It reminded us of another study, which canvassed scepticism in the press. Researchers at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism found that, in 2011 and 2012, one-third of articles on climate change in major newspapers did not accept the mainstream science. For the News Corp tabloids in Sydney and Melbourne it topped 60 per cent…
The big scare of the week was a story in The New York Times trumpeting new data suggesting China has been burning 17 per cent more coal a year than previously disclosed…
***In truth, the revision was already well known and factored into the most recent calculations of global emissions…
***some have suggested it is actually a positive sign that Beijing may be becoming a bit more transparent…
Among the other significant stories of the week was a NASA study that found the Antarctica was actually gaining a small amount of ice each year, rather than losing ice through melting. It challenged the understanding in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report…
But the takeaway message was that, if correct, it may be another couple of decades before Antarctica was contributing to sea-level rise… http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/confused-about-climate-change-youre-in-good-company-20151106-gkt6x7.html
the ridiculous, biased, media survey – of only ten newspapers!
no ABC/SBS, TV news etc. also it’s a period when the carbon tax was being debated:
???2013: The Conversation: Big Australian media reject climate science
by Wendy Bacon Professorial Fellow, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, University of Technology Sydney
In 2011 and 2012 we at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at University of Technology, Sydney collected data on climate science coverage in ten Australian newspapers.
We found that Australia’s concentrated newspaper ownership has a significant effect on how climate science is covered. One third of articles in Australia’s major newspapers do not accept the consensus position of climate science: that human beings are contributing to climate change.
That’s a very high level of scepticism when you consider that these stories are rejecting findings that over 97% of the world’s climate scientists support. Recently the International Panel on Climate Change found there was 95% certainty that people were contributing to climate change.
The core of the study was a content analysis of all articles in ten major Australian newspapers between February and April in 2011 and 2012…
Fairfax Media, owners of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald accepts the consensus position and published very few articles that communicated doubt about anthropogenic climate change. While the West Australian had a very low amount of coverage, it was also not sceptical…
In the Herald Sun 97% of comment articles were sceptical.
This is largely due to Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt, who wrote over half of all the words on climate science in the paper…
As Tom Morton the Director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, which published the study, said yesterday:
“If you believe that the main obligation of journalists is to the public right to know, the results of this study are truly alarming. Journalism is about reporting contemporary events as accurately as possible. There could be no better example of the importance of this than the reporting of climate science.”
Readers of sceptical papers receive almost no information that would enable them to understand the complexities or likely impacts of climate change domestically or internationally. The research findings of climate scientists are largely rendered invisible for News Corp audiences…
News Corp’s coverage seems to be more about production of ignorance than informing people so they can participate in debates about solutions. If people are confused or ignorant about potential threats, they cannot be expected to support action to confront them…
https://theconversation.com/big-australian-media-reject-climate-science-19727
production of ignorance? look no further than ABC/Fairfax.
31
So Murdoch papers are presenting only one side? “Readers of sceptical papers receive almost no information that would enable them to understand the complexities or likely impacts of climate change domestically or internationally.””
Will someone tell Fairfax they’re dreamin’. Besides, when did Global Warming become Climate Change?
How does CO2 change climates when it cannot even change the temperature?
51
read all…
7 Nov: The Oregonian: Gordon J. Fulks: Is ‘climate change’ really the world’s most pressing problem? (OPINION)
(Gordon J. Fulks lives in Corbett and can be reached at gordonfulks@hotmail.com. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago’s Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research.)
Climate modelers who have been predicting far more warming than has been observed are particularly on the defensive, because their failures are well documented. To try to salvage something, they have asked President Barack Obama to invoke the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act to prosecute as mobsters their fellow scientists who dare to disagree with them. When 20 scientists, led by Professor Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University, demanded such action, hurricane expert Peter Webster told atmospheric sciences Professor Judith Curry of Georgia Tech that these scientists had “signed the death warrant for science.” …
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/11/is_climate_change_really_the_w.html
70
If you don’t know about Prof. Hernryk Svensmark work on cosmic ray’s affect on our climate, you may enjoy these video’s. The first was a documentary released in 2008 called “The Cloud Mystery” and the second a lecture from 2012 titled “The Impact of Solar Activities and Cosmic Rays on the World Climate”. Svensmark continues to this day, reinforcing his theory against available data and a number of recent papers show that he is on the right path.
30
As I have already hitched my climate wagon to the Svensmark horse, I can only grin broadly at further scientific support for the effect and its quantification.
10
Vitamin C is coming under additional scrutiny as a cancer cure. My current project is aimed at growing as many Vitamin C producing trees as we can find room to plant. There is a very strong demand for the pulp from this fruit across Australia’s north.
It is used as an additive to many processed foods as the VitaminC component, after being dried and turned into a powder form. The local indigenous people are regular consumers of this fruit. The local name is Gubinge, further north it’s called the Kakadu Plum, or Billy-goat Plum, and scientifically is Terminalia ferdinandiana, named after Baron Ferdinand Von Mueller, a 19 Century Melbourne Botanist.
40
I discovered decades ago that Selenium with Vitamins A, E & C are considered to be a cancer fighting combination. And that Vitamin E (noting that all supplements should be targeted at specific issues and not just taken generally) is good for the card vascular system. A friend could not be operated on in Australia because of hardening of the arteries and travelled to the Mayo Clinic in the USA where they prescribed massive amounts of Vitamin E which helped him to recover enough to get back on his feet and to live a few more years.
20
Selenium is an essential mineral in very low doses. It is toxic in higher doses.
Vitamin A is one of the fat soluble vitamins (with D) and an excess of either is poisonous.
Massive amounts of Vitamin C cause diarrhoea.
20
abcnews24 twitter page has the video with Di Natale saying Tony Abbott played a large part in the omission of “climate change” from the TPP. lots of slurs against Abbott in the interview, he was an unpopular PM, an unpopular opposition leader, and later he says with Turnbull u can have a sensible and mature debate! put Natale in “find” to get to the video:
Twitter ABCNews24
ABC News 24 @ABCNews24 · 5h5 hours ago
#ICYMI #Greens leader @RichardDiNatale spoke to Weekend Breakfast about #preferences #tax #TPP & @TurnbullMalcolm
VIDEO: 10 MINS 13SECS
https://twitter.com/ABCNews24
20
Advice to those visiting Africa.
If you go walking in the bush you may startle a lion and it might lash out. To avoid this, sew small brass bells onto your clothing to warn of your approach. As a further precaution carry a can of pepper spray.
It is also recommended that you can distinguish lion cub dung, as the cubs cannot run away and the lioness may react aggressively. Cub dung comes in small balls, often containing berries and smelling faintly fruity. Adult dung is the large balls containing small brass bells and smelling strongly of pepper.
120
Well, that made me laugh out loud 🙂 🙂
30
Made me laugh out loud also. My father-in-law was actually in such a situation in 1978 in Zambia, when he came face to face with a lioness. Remembering a guides words from a previous game drive, he stood completely still and looked at the ground. Sure enough she moved on. Writing this, you were probably thinking I was going to say, throw sh*t at it, because you will have your own supply. But no, actually a true story.
20
I have noticed a few correspondents here mention that Australia is a net carbon sink. I would be interested to understand the veracity of the claim. It seems to me that the net position is by far the fairest way to compare relative status of emissions and abatement between countries because otherwise any efforts to assimilate CO2 via reafforestation, waterway management, conservation initiatives, etc. contribute to global abatement rather than being recognised contributions by the subject jurisdiction.
It would be most elucidating to see a global political map coloured similarly to a temperature map showing each country’s relative CO2 production/assimilation.
10
You get a feel for the Australian continent as a net yearly CO2 sink from NASA’s OCO-2 Global Visualization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UEZqyGU5RU&feature=youtu.be ; This requires some interpretation of the global sequences (colour indicators) which you can cross check against the colour scaling factors (CO2 ppm) – note Australia is predominantly well below 396 ppmv. I am sure if you ask NASA nicely and persistently that they can supply you with hard numerical data. Erik Swenson obtained the raw data from NASA’s JPL and interpreted it independently – see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/04/finally-visualized-oco2-satellite-data-showing-global-carbon-dioxide-concentrations/ . His visualization seems to well match the official release imagery – which only cover the last 12 months at this stage.
The OCO-2 observations support results from sensors on Japan’s IBUKI satellite. You can get data for several yearly sequences by first registering at: https://data.gosat.nies.go.jp/GosatUserInterfaceGateway/guig/GuigPage/open.do . Then, after logging in, click on “Product Search and Order”, and select L4A global CO2 flux. You will be sent an email advising when the product is available. Navigate to the “Ordered product list” by clicking “Product Download” on the Selection Menu page. Chose a full year period. If you prefer Willis Eschenbach has done the synthesis for you – at least for 2010. See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/05/the-revenge-of-the-climate-reparations/
These observations are backed up by Liu et als’ (2015) (http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~jasone/publications/liuetal2015.pdf ) estimate of mean annual flux in above ground C stocks in the savannas of northern Australia]. The latter remote sensing observations are in turn reinforced by detailed sequential ground based measurements [http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51987227 ].
Why people express incredulity at the fact that Australia is a net annual CO2 sink is because most of the commentators they follow do not have a clue about the sheer size of this continent and the ecology of its immense woodland resources. Further, they have been brainwashed into believing that most of our woodlands and forests have been cleared since the arrival of the first Europeans. To help gain some perspective there is a greater area of grazed woodland in Qld alone than in all the current grazing, cropping and horticultural land in NSW. Most importantly we now have concrete evidence (especially from stable carbon -13C/12C – ratio signatures in the soil beneath today’s vegetation) that shows these grazed woodlands were less dense and had a far more open canopy structure at the time grazing commenced.
The changed grazing and management regime (especially reduced fire frequency) after the introduction of domestic livestock caused a ‘switch’ in the structure and composition of the vegetation over much of the landscape. This has contributed to the increase in woody plant biomass (= increased CO2 absorption) over enormous areas leading to Australia being a net CO2 sink. Note that I am at all times referring to net CO2 emissions. Of course the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is derived from both human induced and (predominantly) natural sources; but for all practical purposes neither we nor the atmosphere can discriminate between the two.
40
Thank you very much Bill. Your reply is most helpful. Cheers.
20
I saw a preview of a new show on Foxtel called Bill Nye’s Global Meltdown. He not only made false and stupid statements about climate change, he acted the fool much like a clown. He is such a fake. If he ever tried to lecture Science to me I would leave the room but first would say some words to voice my distrust with his corrupted view of the world.
52
I saw the same, put me off my coffee. I am sure Nat Geo’s new owner will be mortified.
40
I did some more research on him and it turns out Al Gore is an angel in comparison. No joke! I think Bill Nye has lost his mind and is need of psychiatric help.
10
Where are our True B’lver ,so called leaders Turnbull , Hunt , Shorten , Plibersek and so on , on the CSIRO’s survey that only 46% are True B’lvers ?
Why are these fakes and clowns not representing the majority of Australians ?
Why are these ‘pretenders’ along with the ‘ Presstitutes’ in no comment mode ?
Why have we got ‘Climate Change Authority’ (gestapo) preaching against the will of the majority while they steal our money for doing so ?
Why is the AlpgreensBC flogging 78% of us agree with the CAGW mantra when it is clearly BS ?
Why is the Minority getting what the Majority does not want ?
Is this our new FreeDUMB ? Our so called DUMBocracy at work ?
I don’t remember voting for the Paris Fiasco or the self proclaimed World True B’lver Authority the IPCC ….InterGOVERNMENTal Propaganda of Climate Corruption !
Why are we paying for BS organisations we don’t vote for ?
We live in an oppressive dictatorship under an illusion of Democracy …The CAGW , forced upon us , policies are just an example of this already lack of meaningful freedom .
52
Okay, it’s Unthreaded, so I guess I’m safe here, so how about some music.
We’ve just had a beaut thunderstorm here, and every time I hear thunder, I’m reminded of an obscure piece of music from Alan Parsons.
He was the engineer on the four albums leading up to and including Dark Side Of The Moon, where he got the added honour of being named as the fifth Floyd, for the wonderful (Grammy nominated) work he did on that landmark album.
The band wanted him for Wish You Were Here, but he wanted to leave and form his own outfit, The Alan Parsons Project. He had some stellar albums with that outfit, mostly starting with the second album, I Robot.
I got hold of his first album on its release in 1976 Tales Of Mystery And Imagination – Edgar Allan Poe, and was hooked from then.
I liked to listen to the (vinyl) album a couple of times before recording it to Cassette, so I could then keep the vinyl pristine, and whenever I wanted to listen to the music, I just played the Cassette, Hitachi UD-C90’s because you could fit a whole album on one 45 minute side of the Cassette.
With my re-engagement bonus in the mid 70’s, I purchased a good sound system, with all the goodies, a really good record deck, an Amp, a Receiver, a dual Cassette Deck, Speakers, and a good set of head phones from Harman Kardon.
I had listened to that album and was intrigued by Side Two, which had an almost orchestral piece on it, titled The Fall Of The House Of Usher, which goes for just over 16 minutes, and has an opening introduction by Orson Welles.
As Parsons was mainly an engineer, and one of the best, there was a lot of studio effects, mastered onto the track.
With the head phones on, you’re almost lulled into a relaxed state and then there’s an effect of an approaching storm, with a crack of thunder. In the head phones, it started off in one ear, rolled across the top of your head, and then receded a little only to reappear as rolling thunder a few seconds later, followed by a rain storm. It was just so effective.
I had a good (civilian) friend who also had a good sound system, but he had the (much more costlier) Bose 901 Series Three speakers. When I took the album out to his place and played it through those wonderful speakers, that thunder just rolled around the room.
I know you don’t get the full effect, and YouTube is no substitute for the ‘real thing’, here is the link to that piece of music, and for those of you who just want to hear the effect with those ‘ear buddy’ things, that effect is at around the 6.50 mark and for a short time after that.
The album was critically acclaimed and sold reasonably, better on second release when remastered for CD in 1987, but Parsons came into his own with that second album I Robot.
A Single (well, two of them in fact) was released form that first album and was a minor hit. The Raven, which is also a good song.
Alan Parsons has the (somewhat dubious) honour of receiving the most Grammy nominations without ever winning one of them, nominated 11 times.
Tony.
30
If he were a “climatologist”, he would describe himself as an 11-times nominal winner.
😉
42
The next generation in my family wants to start again with vinyl.
Who would think that?
Perhaps you know where one may obtain a 78 record player with usb.
There are plenty of 45 and 33 1/3 players around.
Its amazing what others have done on youtube though, including vinyl to digital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLF34EGsYDw
Someone has often beaten us to it.
20
Lewis,
Oddly, there I was in the local Post office standing in the queue and I saw this record player there.
It’s a Thompson 3 speed turntable, actually with a 78RPM speed, and it has the PC connection and software too, and it’s priced at only $55.00.
I can’t vouch for the quality of something like this.
Here’s the link to that item.
You might also try Dick Smith.
Tony.
20
Thomson brand used to be good but turned to junk branding about 10 years ago. If it works; fine. If it breaks; expect NO support. I had 3 Thomson PVRs that all suffered from PSU failures. After 2 years of trying to get them fixed by disappearing importers, I gave up, pulled out the hard drives and tossed the rest into a local wildlife preserve.
10
Not really. But the landfill where they probably ended up may be a wildlife preserve (or community garden) in future.
10
I’m glad you added that Bernd……just for the record….. 🙁
10
Tony,
In 1982 a quiet genius named Albert Berkavicius arranged the purchase for me of a broadcast quality CD player from Sony, then costing (wholesale price) a little under $A 1,500. I threw it out, still working, about 8 years ago.
After hearing the first CD, never again have I bothered with vinyl. In theory, vinyl can not produce any response that cannot be matched by digital CD with a good engineer.
I did keep one vinyl, a very good Berlin Philharmonic of Beethoven’s ninth. Only one of our sons at age 5 chastised me by rubbing toothpaste into the grooves.
20
It appears that the cliamte obsessed coup continues.
It is an interesting process where the climate obsessed get to deny the majority vote, ignore those who disagree, get all the tax payer money they want, and come up with policies that enrich themselves while not actually working.
40
Yeh just check out the ABC. (Atheist bolshevik commission).
32
hunter it’s much worse than that. They are teaching kids at public school that it’s a fact we are causing catastrophic climate change and that we must do something about it now or else the earth will die. Our political leaders are also acting the same way. The public school system and politicians are getting away with the biggest hoax and scam in history.
50
***remember di Natale in comment above – says Turnbull leadership means you can have a SENSIBLE and MATURE debate. note the two words come up in the following! how funny:
7 Nov: Guardian: Lenore Taylor: Climate summit held by business and green groups to end six-year policy war
Exclusive: mirroring the Turnbull government’s tax debate with all options ‘on the table’, six different climate policies are canvassed at closed-door summit
Indicating the extent to which six years of bitter climate policy war have forced wide-ranging discussion outside the political arena, advisers to environment minister Greg Hunt, resources minister Josh Frydenberg and Labor environment spokesman Mark Butler, as well as advisers to state governments, all attended the workshop as observers…
John Connor, chief executive of The Climate Institute, said the workshop had “started from the view that there has to be a new ***maturity in this policy discussion to meet Australia’s goals”…
“We did not put one policy above another, we just discussed the pros and cons of all of them. We want to restart a sensible debate.”…
The roundtable heard presentations on the pros and cons of baseline and credit trading schemes (from the Centre for International Economics), cap and trade emissions trading schemes (Ernst and Young), regulation to reduce emissions (Acil Allen), a straight carbon tax (Deloitte), other electricity sector schemes (PWC) and Direct Action-style schemes where governments buy abatement (Baker and McKenzie)…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/07/climate-summit-held-by-business-and-green-groups-to-end-six-year-policy-war
Eric Worrall is all over this at WUWT:
7 Nov: WUWT: Eric Worrall: Are Aussie Politicians Plotting to Degrade Democratic Choice on Carbon Pricing?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/07/are-aussie-politicians-plot-to-degrade-democratic-choice-on-carbon-pricing/
40
‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’
Mahatma Gandhi
10
should have attributed the following to “one rountable participant”:
“We did not put one policy above another, we just discussed the pros and cons of all of them. We want to restart a ***sensible debate.”
10
been saving this for “Unthreaded”.
3 Nov: ABC Big Ideas: The future of the enlightenment
Is it time to reshape and re-imagine our enlightenment inheritance? To consider these questions, three of Britain’s leading knowledge and cultural institutions, the British Museum, King’s College London and the RSA come together to explore the theme of optimism as a force for 21st century progress.
Highlights of Optimism, Knowledge and the future of enlightenment. London, 15th October 2015…
Guests:
Professor David Deutsch Visiting Professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation
The Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University
Professor Martin Rees Astrophysicist, cosmologist
Former President of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal
Matthew Taylor Chief Executive – The RSA ( Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce UK)
full length RSA video below.
from 17mins30 secs, Martin Rees has a go at Bjorn Lomborg & says only if activists’ & experts’ voices are amplified by a wide public and by the media, will these long-term global causes rise high enough on the political agenda. finishes his opening remarks with a plug for religion. Pope’s encyclical was hugely welcome. it will have major impact in Latin America, Africa, East Asia, perhaps even in the American Republic Party.
ABC included the following exchange:
30.50: Question from David Wood, London Futurists to Prof Deutsch: is it the case when we are confronted by people who are strong supporters of ***Islamic terrorism or people who are ***fundamentalist deniers of climate or whatever that the way to deal with it is by giving more knowledge to them. is that your suggestion? Deutsch: yes. but knowledge isn’t a fluid. it’s not something you can pour from one person to another… they need knowledge. we can’t give it to them, so indirect methods have to be used.
ABC didn’t include this followup exchange:
1 hour mark approx: Questioner to Deutsch: following up previous question, how do we tackle ISIS and other fundamentalist groups in this enlightened world? the answer you gave was knowledge, but it had to be done indirectly not directly. what are these indirect methods?
Deutsch: I don’t know. I’m a physicist (audience laughs). I know, in the past, civilisation has managed to civilise uncivilised societies.
VIDEO: 1hr15mins: RSA: Optimism, Knowledge and the Future of Enlightenment
https://www.thersa.org/events/2015/10/optimism-knowledge-and-the-future-of-enlightenment/
10
SBS just concluded its news bulletin by declaring that the increase in the GST could be better replaced by a Carbon Tax.
The Left has spoken.
This is a good way to wedge PM Turnbull while splitting the Coalition.
Disunity in Politics is death.
Despite some joy at the GST expressed above it remains a regressive tax.
When it came in the economy went backwards. Honest people paid it,the black economy staggered for a while then opened up in the trades, building, chop chop, hairdressing, massage and , of course, the drug economy.
Hiking the GST by 50% will make evasion more tempting.
Small business was hit with more compliance, onerous ATO penalties and many lived on the collections before BAS return was put in, borrowed from the ATO then eventually were bankrupted by the ATO, the biggest instigator of such actions.
As pointed out above, state taxes remain, so an increase will mean just another onorus raft to hit families,those who do not travel overseas, not to mention small business, pensioners, the motorist and building, the ‘last man standing’, in the economy.
A carbon tax is a good red herring to split the Liberal/ National coalition.
Will SBS allow a debate?
Will those who think a Carbon Tax a useless impost on a struggling people that does nothing but harm and hits the most vulnerable have their voices heard?
Or will they be voiceless?
Will PM Turnbull ensure the ABC and SBS do more than tokenism in such a debate?
Will SBS and the ABC turn on him and use their considerable resources to destabilise him and bring him down?
I hope he thinks this through.
30
It’s all about increasing the tax take, not reducing it – pure and simple. The governments (stare and federal) are desperate for more money. What they should be doing is cutting spending and at worst leave the tax take where it is. They could sack a fair proposition of the public servants for starters.
30
Would it be less harmful to the economy paying most climate scientists to do nothing?
41
this love affair is sickening. now Fairfax can dream once again of trading carbon dioxide emissions, and ***Australians becoming Turnbull clones!
8 Nov: SMH Editorial: Malcolm Turnbull’s national makeover
And for the most part Australia is looking the better for it.
The Australia of today is becoming unrecognisable from the one eight weeks ago…
It’s been a national makeover of sorts – and Australia is looking all the better for it, bar ongoing concerns over asylum seeker policy, the need for more action on health and the potential for all this new look to turn out as fake…
Even on issues Mr Turnbull promised conservatives would not change – Direct Action on climate change and the timeline for a same-sex marriage plebiscite – he is reshaping the narrative…
Rather than seeing Direct Action as the end of the government’s policy to tackle global warming, he is suggesting it can be morphed as required into something more like an emissions trading scheme.
True, he has held back from major changes to other environmental policies, fearing a backbench backlash…
At month’s end he will travel to the Paris climate summit where he will seek to emerge with a deal on global warming to avenge the failure in 2009 which forced then prime minister Kevin Rudd to dump his initial emissions trading scheme plans and which, indirectly, cost Mr Turnbull his first shot at the prime ministership.
***Now he’s been given – or taken – a second chance at the top job, he is doing everything possible to re-form the nation in his image…
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/malcolm-turnbulls-national-makeover-20151105-gks6g4.html
20
‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. But the lie can only be maintained for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic consequences of the lie.
‘It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.’
Joseph Goebbels
20
If anybody wants to keep themselves amused for the odd hour or two having a look at “climate change”, the real thing this time then I would suggest the
New Drought Atlas Maps 2,000 Years of Climate in Europe from the Earth Institute of the Columbia University
Thousands of cores of tree ring data have been used in a couple of decades long project to create these major drought and wet period maps of North America, Asia and Europe covering the real “climate change” periods over the last two thousand years.
Scientists Reconstruct the History of Drought for North America
New CD-ROM Drought Atlas Provides Year-by-Year Chronologies
Study Reconstructs Asia’s Most Devastating Droughts
Old World Drought Atlas
It will take a while how to work this latest version of their atlas as it certainly isn’t designed for a lay person to do a bit of research on European drought and flood episodes and periods.
Jo! Help!!
10
The climate coup is the newest manifestation of imperialism.
Recall that those pushing for radical policies on climate are also those who claim democracy will not allow them to impose their full range of enlightenment on the masses.
And here you in Australia are experiencing it first hand.
In the US we have Exxon getting investigated for climate crimes, and open calls for prosecution of climate skeptics.
And of course we should have paid attention when climategate was just shrugged off.
The climate kooks are certainly crazy, but we have not paid attention to their being crazy and mad at us for doubting their delusions of doom/
20
For some reason which escapes me, I recently remembered the Australian TV series, The Halloween, shown in 2008. In particular, the episode about climate change. I’m not sure if this is visible everywhere, but maybe someone will get a bit of a laugh out of it…
10
I was reading a blog post on sea levels pointing out how small rises have been. I wanted to point out that the scares are from expected acceleration of sea-level rise and so looked at the sites mentioned in the blog at PSMSL.ORG.
I found something strange. I looked at Fort Denison and Fremantle and a couple of other sites in Australia with a long record from at least 1960. All show essentially 0 rise from 1960 to about 2000 and then a rise, as much as 10mm/year.
Was the whole continent rising in unison until 2000?
20
Here is the real data for Fremantle
and Fort Denison.
Neither shows the rise shown in your graph.
Townsville, being much further north shows the beginning of the 2010 El Nino
40
ps.. and of course NOAA stopped posting actual tide data in 2010.
They want to use the fabrications they can put into satellite data.
I suspect that is what has happened with that graph of yours.
Note that break and step in the Sydney data in your graph.. It just doesn’t exist in the real measurements
40
nor does the climb since 2000 exist in the Fremantle data.
20
Thanks Andy.
10
RB,
The climate creeps are going to rewrite any history they deem necessary to make their claims appear true.
Think of how the Bible was selected during the Nicea Synods.
40
Consensus?
I sometimes think that Plan B with this farce was to at least bring down religion.
You do realise that there is a broad consensus that consensus is nothing in science. Since that sounds silly, I’ll describe it as ‘science’ to be all areas where subjective opinions are irrelevant in conclusions – physics, almost. Better make it ‘close enough’ or there would nothing to call science.
Since everything else is guesses, sometimes educated, we need consensus. Democracy and capitalism so that people can vote with their wallets. Like with science, the early theologians wanted some structure so that it wasn’t anything goes. All your ideas need to be justified using scripture.
While it sounds dumb now, I really think that science would still amateurish without the discipline learnt from early theologians.
00
***energy advocates are opposed to the environment? huh!
7 Nov: Star Tribune: AP: Josh Lederman: With Keystone snub, Obama aims to lockdown climate legacy, up leverage in global climate talks
At the center of Obama’s efforts are landmark carbon dioxide emissions limits on U.S. power plants that have been cheered by environmentalists but derided by most ***energy advocates…
“To fight climate change effectively, we will need to make thousands of changes across our economy,” Michael Brune, the head of the Sierra Club, said in an interview. “We have gone through a period of increased climate denial, but now we’re in a place of dramatically increased acceptance of the need to act on climate.”…
“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Obama said in the Roosevelt Room. “And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
Yet Obama’s ambitious steps to curb U.S. emissions have been tempered by other moves aimed at bolstering U.S. energy production — to the dismay of environmentalists who believe the U.S. must move quicker to phase out fossil fuels entirely. In addition to loosening the U.S. ban on crude oil exports, Obama has opened up new areas to oil drilling and declined to ban the use of “fracking” to drill for natural gas.
http://www.startribune.com/with-keystone-snub-obama-aims-for-more-leverage-on-climate/342334541/
10
read all, includes links:
8 Nov: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: G20 to cap huge week of climate diplomacy
We’ve got a huge week in climate politics and science to look forward to, starting in Paris at the ‘pre-COP’ meeting involving 80 ministers, culminating at the G20 in Turkey…
Vladmir will attend the opening day of the COP21 meeting, according to French foreign minister Laurent Fabius. Putin isn’t known for believing much in climate science, but France24 reports he’ll be there to explain Russia’s sometimes perplexing carbon cutting plans…
On Friday the UN’s climate body released an agenda for COP21, a new edited draft text (LINK), a technical paper (LINK) suggesting where the text would benefit from streamlining and a proposed schedule (LINK) for work in Paris…which would see talks conclude at 6pm on Friday 11 December. Given the last four major UN summits have all failed to conclude on time, one might say this is optimistic…
Keep your eyes peeled for the World Meteorological Organisation’s annual assessment of greenhouse gas levels, out on Monday at 10am GMT. It’s likely the WMO will report another year of significant rises in the main gases linked to global warming. The Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, which has been monitoring carbon dioxide levels since the 1950s, says they are now averaging over the 400 parts per million benchmark – a significant development…
It will predict that, on current trends, world energy demand will increase by about 40% by 2040 including a 15% rise in coal consumption and a 50% increase in burning gas”…
Ministers in Brussels on Tuesday are set to talk a bit about coughing up more climate cash but steer clear of dipping into their wallets…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/11/08/g20-to-cap-huge-week-of-climate-diplomacy/
10
5 Nov: UK Geographical: Laura Cole: Watching carbon dioxide from space
NASA will also be looking at the peat fires in Indonesia, which are thought to be throwing large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. ‘Now, I hope, we will have more details about the Indonesian fires in terms of overall CO2 abundance.’
The tricky part is how small these changes compare to the average abundance of CO2. Even the biggest events, such as the springtime drawdown, only change the amount by a couple of per cent. ‘Meanwhile, the events we still care about such as Indonesian fires and El Nino change it by only half a per cent or even less,’ says Eldering, ‘so you want to be able to observe when CO2 changes by that small proportion.’
Eldering says the OCO-2 has managed to catch these small changes: ‘The good news is we think we have succeeded. We believe our satellite can now make measurements of CO2 to better than a quarter of a per cent.’…
http://geographical.co.uk/places/mapping/item/1370-watching-carbon-dioxide-from-space
10
See my comment #27.1 above. The simple fact is that Australia is a net yearly CO2 sink. It is time our politicians forcefully conveyed this message to the world – and told other countries to stop hectoring us until they get their own house in order first.
20
read all:
8 Nov: Newsweek: Ben Wolford: Green Climate Fund Must Fight Corruption Before It Can Beat Global Warming
It’s like a complicated, politically charged Kickstarter campaign in which the reward is saving the planet. In that sense, it’s already the biggest crowdfunding effort of all time…
The GCF believes such a massive investment in low-emissions technology and climate resilience will cause a “paradigm shift”—something like a reversal of the paradigm shift the internal combustion engine caused 150 years ago…
In 2011, Bangladesh set aside $3.1 million to build “climate-resilient housing” in the country’s coastal southwest after Cyclone Aila gutted it. When researchers from Transparency International Bangladesh visited the site, they discovered homes built without walls. “I don’t know whether it is built for human beings or not,” said Khadija Begum about her house. It turns out the structures had been built exactly to Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief-approved specifications. According to Transparency International Bangladesh, the government halved the cost to construct each house so it could take credit for building more houses…
The (GCF) board has weighed major decisions behind closed doors and, in a draft version of its information disclosure policy, even suggested that tape recording certain meetings should not be allowed…
But elsewhere, climate money is already flowing, and in many cases, it’s funneling through funds under far less scrutiny than the GCF…
Clarisse Kehler Siebert, a research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute, says that, yes, we ought to be concerned about corruption when it comes to the GCF—but not to the point of “being paralyzed.” She adds, “Daring to do something good is better than doing nothing at all.”…
http://www.newsweek.com/green-climate-fund-must-fight-corruption-it-can-beat-global-warming-391771
10
such a caring institution:
8 Nov: World Bank: Rapid, Climate-Informed Development Needed to Keep Climate Change from Pushing More than 100 Million People into Poverty by 2030
A new World Bank report shows that climate change is an acute threat to poorer people across the world, with the power to push more than 100 million people back into poverty over the next fifteen years. And the poorest regions of the world – Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia – will be hit the hardest.
But the report – Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty – also points to a way out…
By 2030, crop yield losses could mean that food prices would be 12 percent higher on average in Sub-Saharan Africa…
One analysis of 20 developing countries showed that collecting and redistributing energy taxes would benefit poor people despite higher energy prices, with the bottom 20 percent of the population experiencing a net $13 gain for each $100 of additional tax…
Funding for the report came from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/11/08/rapid-climate-informed-development-needed-to-keep-climate-change-from-pushing-more-than-100-million-people-into-poverty-by-2030
10
8 Nov: Reuters: The unbearable lightness of Chinese emissions data
By David Stanway and Kathy Chen
(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in OSLO; Editing by Bruce Wallace)
Precise data collection is a tricky business everywhere, as the Volkswagen scandal over discrepancies between the German auto company’s emissions claims and the real world performance of its engines has shown.
But getting accurate emissions data is crucial for governments seeking a global climate accord in Paris this December…
No one currently knows how many tonnes of carbon China emits each year. Its emissions are estimates based on how much raw energy is consumed, and calculations are derived from proxy data consisting mostly of energy consumption as well as industry, agriculture, land use changes and waste…
At the moment, no country has the technology or the budget to completely track exact greenhouse gas emissions in real time…
Bureaucratic rivalries also lead to clashing data. Climate negotiations are run from the National Reform and Development Commission, which determines what data to publish.
“All the emission estimates officially come from the NDRC rather than from the statistics bureau,” says Dabo Guan, a professor of climate change economics at the University of East Anglia. “The NDRC is in charge of the whole climate change negotiations and they have to fight for the best position for China, so they have their concerns about what can and cannot be published.” …
Another impetus for improvement is China’s impending cap and trade carbon market…
And real-time emissions monitoring is unlikely – in even the medium-term…
In that regard, China faces the same constraints as the world’s leading economies in the West.
“It may,” Mao says of the technology needed to get it right, “just be too costly.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/08/us-china-climatechange-insight-idUSKCN0SX0WS20151108
10
Pat , I don’t mean to rain on your parade , but >>>
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/clip_image002_thumb1.jpg?w=597&h=279
Game Over ……No more CAGW ,nor was there ever !
20
9 Nov: UK Times: Matt Ridley: We’ve blown it by rushing towards wind power
So-called cleaner energy has in reality created a dirtier, costlier and less reliable electricity industry. It’s time for a rethink
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4608290.ece
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I’m seeing references to David’s work in a lot of places on the Net now , so it’s getting out there. The PR that I hope Jo is preparing for release when David has finished his series, will be snapped up !!!
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Could you list these, please ?
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ianl8888
I was referring to people making comments on posts as opposed to separate threads but BishopHill, Real Science , WUWT, a couple NZ polical blogs, Breitbart
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8 Nov: Lochaber News: Sue Restan: Delight as Rannoch Moor Wind turbine plan is thrown out
THE decision by Scottish ministers to reject plans for a 24-turbine wind farm on the edge of Rannoch Moor has been welcomed by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS).
The scheme had previously been slammed as “insane” by the author of the hit TV series Outlander, which was filmed there…
http://www.lochaber-news.co.uk/News/Delight-as-Rannoch-Moor-Wind-turbine-plan-is-thrown-out-05112015.htm
8 Nov: Washington Times: AP: US judge sends Mojave Desert wind farm project back to start
A federal judge in Nevada has sent plans for a big wind farm in the Mojave Desert back to the drawing board, citing incomplete research about the dangers it posed to sensitive and endangered species…
U.S. District Judge Miranda Du in Las Vegas said the federal Bureau of Land Management failed to fully determine the effect that 87 wind turbines spread across nearly 30 square miles south of Las Vegas could have on golden eagles, desert tortoises and bats…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/8/us-judge-sends-mojave-desert-wind-farm-project-bac/
8 Nov: Press-Herald: Tux Turkel: For many in Moosehead Lake region, wind is ‘a four-letter word’
Renewable energy giant SunEdison has begun testing wind conditions in the Misery Ridge area west of the lake, with plans to possibly build a 26-turbine commercial wind farm there.
The company has installed six meteorological towers on land owned by Plum Creek, a forest management company and largest landowner around the lake. No application has been submitted yet to the Department of Environmental Protection and SunEdison says it may collect data for two years…
But some area residents and seasonal property owners aren’t waiting for the test results. Coached by statewide anti-wind groups, they have begun erecting signs along roads in the region that read: “Save Moosehead. Say no to wind.”…
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/11/08/for-many-in-moosehead-lake-region-wind-is-a-four-letter-word/
8 Nov: Post-Bulletin: Mower County couple says wind turbines disrupt their lives
For nearly 40 years, when Kathy Blanchard looked out her kitchen window of her home she would see a beautiful view. But now, she shares land with what she sees as a new and noisy neighbor: Pleasant Valley Wind Farm project…
There are approximately 10 wind turbines near the Blanchards’ property. In addition to the noise of the turbines, the Blanchards believe they disrupt their television signals…
http://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/mower-county-couple-says-wind-turbines-disrupt-their-lives/article_4b931972-c491-5b90-a2b7-462b2b418dcb.html
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Just think.
If these four wind plants pat has mentioned here all became operational, they would generate a total yearly power delivered by Bayswater in 19 days. Bayswater will still be delivering power when all of these are just tall concrete poles standing in the ground.
Rank stupidity.
Tony.
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But we get to pay for it.
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In the last 6 months the colour of expression of writers on Jo’s blog site has increased in lieu of expletives deleted as Paris events approach.
In keeping with this movement, I would like to add some contributions over the coming weeks.
As the great Tom Lehrer would say, I happen to have an example with me, so herewith ….
‘SAVE A WHALE’
By: Geoff Sherrington 1992.
*****************************
My life is all in tatters
Nothing else is left that matters
When I get this letter in the daily mail,
Inviting my donation
In return for life salvation to-
Save a whale! Save a whale! Save a whale!
It says there’s nothing to it
Write a cheque, man, you can do it,
Or send us cash in case your credit fails.
You will feel an inner glow
As you watch your savings go –
Save a whale! Save a whale! Save a whale!
My wife has up and left me
For a girl who’s acting friendly
And my youngest boy is heading off to jail,
For spreading L.S.D.
Through the kindergarten free –
Save a whale! Save a whale! Save a whale!
My teeth are full of caries
And my mind’s off with the fairies,
But coughing up will make it all worthwhile.
They’re locking me inside
And I’m thinking suicide –
Save a whale! Save a whale! Save a whale!
One daughter needs aborting
And another one is courting
A motor cycle hippie, out on bail
Who has suspected rabies
From biting dogs and babies
Save a whale! Save a whale!
The rent is overdue,
So is daughter number two,
My overdraft is quite beyond the pale.
I’m threatened with eviction
And criminal conviction –
Save a whale! Save a whale! Save a whale!
There should be peace within because
I’ve found this greenie cause.
Greenpeace ™ and I together will prevail!
There are better things for money
Than my life of milk and honey –
Save a whale! Save a whale! Save a whale!
Today I got a greeting
Saying that they’d held a meeting
And decided that the way to save the whales
Was to hold a protest talk,
Buy a ship and Robert Hawke –
And the whales? Save the whales?
Damn the whales!!
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Right on Geoff.
There are a million things that need fixing BEFORE the current lot of manufactured hard luck stories gets our taxes.
Australia needs to:
1. Build a farming industry
2. Improve discipline in schools so that we can attract more men into teaching and SAVE THE KIDS and start to get closer to West Krygistan in the international performance tables for 15 year olds.
3. Give CSIRO double the money to research real science on the proviso that they SHUT THE F$$K u$ ABOUT gL$BAL w%ARMING.
4. Eliminate the dole completely and replace it with work for the dole at specified centres.
5. resign from the united nations and give half the money saved to a national Dam Building Scheme especially in the north of Australia to make farming viable there.
and so on.
KK
KK 🙂
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Crash Test Climate Dummy True B’lver Hunt , will apparently be absent from question time all week according to True B’lver TurnBS !
Minister for United Nutters Appeasement Hunt , is busy in preparation to sign our wealth and freedom away at the Paris Pre-Pre-Enlightenment Hajj of save the planet (World Totalitarianism) !
I wonder if Abbott was still PM , would weasel Hunt be in Paris now ??
Did Hunt not get the Memo ? That now the True B’lvers are in the minority at 46% according to the CSIRO (known grant Hoggs and True B’lver sympathizers) .
He is now officially acting for the lunatic minority !
That has to be outside any government charter !
How about a national referendum on this Scam ?
How about a Royal Commission on this Scam ?
What is wrong with this weak nation of politically correct appeasers and our generally pathetic politicians ?
There is nearly no one left to speak for us except ‘pigs at the trough’, feathering their own nests at the expense of the rest of us .
We already have a Socialist Australia even with a coalition government flogging Kumbaya by El Presidente Wannabe , CAGW True B’lver , TurnBS .
This clown will usher in an ETS (carbon tax) ,especially if he wins the election in his own right .
You would have to be blind not to see it .
Nothing is going to stop them …. even an ice age will get spun to a need for great big new ‘save the planet’ taxes ,and even bigger RET ripoffs .
Even the criminal banks are positioning for a big piece of the gullible public’s money .
It’s sad to watch unfold .
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‘… during each year GMT increases by 3.8 deg C from January to June and falls by 3.8 deg C by from June to January.
This rise in GMT of 3.8 deg C during 6 months of each year is nearly double the feared rise of 2.0 deg C and nobody notices it.
Richard Courtney
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The full report titled “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate” form 1972 is circulating the net at present and causing a stir. I think most no the abstract but the full report is quite a good read.
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