This has got to be the best obituary I have ever read.
Michael Smith writes: “How Bob Carter cost me a career – and made me a better person.” For foreign readers, Smith hosted a talkback radio show on the East Coast of Australia. While the rest of the mainstream media was running dead on a story of an old union slush fund scandal that was connected to the Prime Minister of the day (Julia Gillard), Michael Smith pursued the story relentlessly until the point where he “resigned under pressure” after asking too many “unauthorized” questions. He now runs an influential political blog and lives off donations. There have been days in Australian politics when every political tragic was reading his site.
But knowing this, I had no idea that Bob Carter had a role in Michael Smith’s career. Before Smith did talk back radio, he confesses that he was a Gore fan working at the University of Queensland, soaking in inconvenient propaganda and promoting the University’s carbon accounting courses. Bob not only turned around Smith’s views on climate science he did something far more important — he showed him a way to speak out “when it’s costly” which Michael Smith would go on to do. Just as visible corruption encourages more corruption, the reverse is also true. Standing up to corruption shines a beacon.
Michael Smith says he believed…
That is until I spoke with Bob. Bob changed my life. He was the person who opened my eyes to the way facts can be manipulated. More than anyone else, Bob demonstrated the quiet truth about our susceptibility to power and big lies repeated often.
By January 2007 I’d been given the privilege of presenting a one-hour nightly radio show on Brisbane’s talk-back station Radio 4BC. Within months that grew to a 3 hour show during the 3 to 6PM Drive Time. One of my first guests was Bob.
I thought it would make good radio to hear “Mr Full Bottle On The Inconvenient Truth” slaughter the eccentric old salmon swimming upstream. I lasted about 30 seconds before the wily bugger had me on the canvas with his first knock-out punch.
I’d made the error of asking Bob for his opinion after my perfect opening monologue. Bob said, “I don’t have an opinion. I am a scientist. I don’t deal in opinion. I deal in facts. Observable, proven facts. I deal with the scientific method, making observations, doing experiments and arriving at conclusions. Your starting point seems to be an unproven hypothesis based on computer projections. Do you have any facts to back up your claims about global warming?”
It got worse for me from that point on.
Bob changed me in a fundamental way. He was courageous in a way I’d not experienced at close quarters.
Bob gave me the model that helped as I searched my soul for the courage to speak when it’s costly.
Read it all (it’s well worth it): How Bob Carter cost me a career
I think Bob would be delighted, and the best way to honor him is to push back against corruption.
A comment by Alice Thermopolis is so appropriate here:
“Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.” — Albert Einstein
H/t to Chris O.
I have a feeling many more Bob Carter memories will surface as the true loss hits everyone that met him, I chuckled at the term ‘at close quarters’ as gauging from the online comments and accolades for Professor Carter it’s easy to see why most warmists wouldn’t want to engage him and would’ve felt much safer in packs sniping with the arrows of the craven that never hit their mark.
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I bet he would have loved this one (follow the link for the original article with graphics):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/19/20-false-representations-in-one-10-minute-video/
20 false representations in one 10-minute video
Anthony Watts / 1 day ago January 19, 2016
by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
On December 8, 2015, Senator Cruz, chairman of the Space, Science and Competitiveness Committee of the U.S. Senate, held a hearing on climate change, Data or Dogma? He displayed a red rag to the merchants of bull – a graph well known to WUWT readers:
The monthly graph that shows the generally lengthening Pause in global warming has been a profound and continuing embarrassment to the believers in the totalitarian Party Line on the climate question. Recently, the dogmatists struck back in a much-promoted 10-minute video, How Reliable are Satellite Temperatures? The new Party Line is that they give the wrong answer.
The short video contained 20 false representations, pretenses or implications, calculated individually and by mutual reinforcement to deceive. The deceptions are summarized briefly here and are discussed in more detail, with additional evidence, in the document linked here –
1. (without qualification) that 2015 was the warmest year since reliable records began, though the satellite records do not show it as the warmest year (see the above graph);
2. that satellite datasets have historically proven biased to show too little warming, though the UAH dataset showed too much warming until its 2015 correction:
3. (twice) that the satellite data, and in particular the UAH data, wrongly showed cooling in the 1990s, though they showed warming, and in the 2000s, though the terrestrial data agreed and after adjustments still agree with the satellites that there was cooling:
After all adjustments from 2010-2015, the graphs for 2002-2008 still show cooling:
4. that Drs John Christy and Roy Spencer, keepers of the UAH dataset, had been “chastened by their repeated mistakes and failures”, though all datasets, not only theirs, have undergone adjustments;
5. (twice) that all the UAH adjustments had left the warming rate understated, though until the most recent adjustment the UAH dataset had for much of the previous decade shown a warming rate greater than most other datasets;
6. that satellites were unique in not measuring temperature directly, though no method of measurement measures temperature directly, and the satellite temperature datasets are unique in being independently calibrated both by balloon radiosonde datasets and by platinum resistance thermometers themselves calibrated against the known temperature of the cosmic background radiation;
7. that satellite datasets had been shown to contain errors, with the implication that the terrestrial datasets had not undergone repeated adjustment, though all global temperature datasets are prone to adjustment and have been repeatedly adjusted;
8. that Dr Judith Curry and Senator Cruz accept the satellite data uncritically, though their statements that the satellite global temperature data are the best we have do not imply that those datasets should be accepted uncritically;
9. that Senator Cruz likes to focus on the portion of the RSS temperature dataset that begins after the El-Niño-driven spike in global temperature that peaked in 1998, though the graph displayed by Senator Cruz, on which Dr Mears was commenting, visibly began in May 1997, before the spike commenced:
10. (twice) that the spike in temperatures in 1998 entailed a downhill trend thereafter, though the graph had begun before the spike and, in any event any effect of the spike on the trend had been offset by a trough in 1999-2000 caused by the countervailing La Niña cooling that followed the 1998 El Niño, so that the trend in the RSS data for the 15 full years from January 2001 to December 2015, after the el Niño and la Niña, is if anything somewhat negative:
11. that the zero-trend “18-year dataset” displayed by Senator Cruz (actually 18 years 9 months) would produce a markedly different trend from the data over 10, 15 or 20 years, though the 10-year dataset after removing the distorting effect of the 2015-2016 El Niño shows a trend of little more than 0.5 Celsius degrees per century, the 15-year dataset shows a zero trend and the 20-year dataset shows a trend of little more than one-third of a degree per century, and all trends are within natural variability.
12. that a trend-line starting after the 1998 El Niño temperature spike and ending before the 2011-2012 La Niña trough would show an uptrend, though the trend-line is falsely positioned on the graph displayed in the video so as to steepen the true (green) trend:
13. that period chosen by Admiral Titley, the “Democrats’” witness at the hearing, showed an uptrend (which he then misrepresented so as to steepen it), though the period he chose was unduly short and, if he had not excluded an el Niño at the outset and a La Niña at the end, there would have been a downtrend:
14. that the video deploys a device used by the IPCC and by the Met Office, displaying global temperature in decadal blocks, though the decadal blocks were calculated to conceal the absence of global warming over much of the past two decades, while the full HadCRUT4 dataset clearly shows the recent slowdown in global warming:
clip_image018
clip_image020
15. that Arctic sea ice is declining, though Antarctic sea ice has been on a rising trend and reached a satellite-era record in early 2015, and though the decline in Arctic sea ice is chiefly only in a few late-summer weeks and is a small fraction of the seasonal variation in sea-ice extent, so that neither the extent nor the trend of global sea ice (from the University of Illinois) shows much change throughout the satellite era:
16. that column water vapor is increasing, though not all records show an increase and at least one, ISCCP, shows a decline:
17. that sea level is changing, though it has always changed and much of the increase in recent years is attributable to a “glacial isostatic adjustment” that, whether justifiable or not, is not an actual sea-level rise:
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18. that the heat content of the global ocean is increasing, though the increase is calculated from ARGO bathythermograph temperature measurements that show warming of the top mile and a quarter of the ocean over the entire 11 full years of the record at a rate equivalent to only 1 Celsius degree every 430 years:
19. that the Earth’s allegedly rising temperature may be deduced from moisture, rainfall, water vapor, surface humidity, snow and ice, though no definitive conclusions about global temperature can be drawn from any of these indicators
20. (throughout) that, by implication, the terrestrial temperature records are in reasonable agreement with the predictions by IPCC on which the official concern about global warming is based, though on all datasets, the warming is so far below what IPCC had originally predicted that IPCC has itself had to reduce drastically its interval of near-term warming predictions:
Conclusion
The perpetrators of the offending video are, so they think, so well protected by the current U.S. Administration’s prejudice on the climate question that they can get away with a campaign of multiple, wilful, mutually reinforcing and no doubt profitable deceptions on this monstrous scale with impunity, to the detriment not only of the truth but also of two diligent and hard-working scientists.
Without saying anything more in public at this stage, we shall see. In the meantime, readers may care to recall the terms of 18 U.S. Criminal Code §1343 (wire fraud):
“Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
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So ‘hide the decline’ has become ‘hide the pause’. Very little they can do about those pesky satellites, especially as unlike earth stations, they are confirmed and calibrated by thousands of radiosonde balloons.
It is no wonder the general public are starting to doubt the value of science like vaccinations when scientists are caught out publicly trying to push their vested interests as science fact. People are becoming skeptical of a lot they are told. Strangely the blame for this loss of faith in science is being pushed onto CO2 warming sceptics by magazines like National Geographic, when the exact reverse is true. Warming sceptics are funded by no one where endless organizations and governments flew to Paris. Big carbon and big wind and big solar at $1000Bn a year are double big tobacco at $500Bn. None are benign.
A critical part of the problem was highlighted so bravely by Bob Carter. Speak out and you had better be retired! Even then your peers and your University will hound you and destroy your legacy and seek to destroy your credibility. Being politically correct is mandatory now in any field and man made Global warming is extreme Left dogma, pushed by communists in Greenpeace, an enemy of all humanity as declared by founder Dr. Patrick Moore. Science has nothing to do with it. It never did.
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When we have the pertinent facts and the knowledge of processes, a tentative conclusion may be drawn. If you can’t even agree on the facts, never mind a process, you’re not doing science but bickering about how many angels can dance on a pinhead.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/the-age-of-unenlightenment/
Bob Carter only ever did science, no matter how many professional hits it would cost him.
Pointman
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There are a couple of things that have stuck in my mind that have Bob Carter’s name behind them. Unfortunately, my memory on the first one is a little vague, and I don’t have time to read up on it, so perhaps someone else can fill in the blanks.
While working at JCU (or was it AIM) he was involved in a program to analyse drill cores from the barrier reef. This was during the 1990s El Nino, which the Left were trying to blame on ‘global warming’. I believe they found that (and this is where my memory fails me) there was a much longer drought about 600 years ago (can someone confirm the exact finding).
The second matter again involved the El Nino. You will recall that one of the Left’s favourite scares is to tell children that the barrier reef will disappear due to coral bleaching caused by ‘global warming’. I recall an article in the media, and I’m sure it had Bob Carter’s name to it, stating that the bleaching was caused by the fact that during an El Nino the trade winds drop in strength, resulting in smoother waters, and there is less cloud cover, both of which mean that there is greater penetration of sunlight into the ocean, which heats it up and causes coral bleaching. Secondly, the article stated that the bleached areas recovered much faster than expected after the El Nino receded.
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Here’s one article that deals with the second matter mentioned above.
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On the first item, I recall evidence that the Burdekin did not flow into the ocean for 15 years, but I can’t find the source.
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It’s up near Charters Towers somewhere. Leichhardt found it in the 1840s.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist).
Referring to the Einstein quote, though, the one thing that seems totally lacking from public life of all kinds these days is ‘character’. It has been replaced, for the most part, by infantile narcissism.
Hence the loss of someone such as Prof. Carter, who embodied ‘character’, is all the greater.
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Tree rings and coral banding going back 500 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w-xzhQoyUY
There was a long dry spell in the 19th century, I’ll search for the paper.
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This goes back to the mid 18th century and you’ll notice the very long dry spell from 1800 to 1870.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6924/fig_tab/nature01361_F2.html
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A close second to the Facts; is the Truth!
db..
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A rare quality these days, is man admitting he is mistaken. I corrected Bob on an environmental issue, an overlooked issue of no real consequence but Bob being Bob was disappointed with himself for overlooking such.
AS I said, a rare quality these days.
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It is scientists with integrity, such as Mr Carter, that has propelled and sustained the skeptic movement. Scientists are at the foundation of the skeptic perspective.
There are parallels to this in my own journey. I am indebted to my friend, a graduate student at the time, who walked me through the data.
I have heard Jo describe her own journey from believer to skeptic after being challenged to examine the facts more closely by scientist.
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hmmm…..
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/chief-scientist-ian-chubbs-parting-words-science-must-always-trump-makebelieve-20160119-gm99bi.html
“”Don’t flinch” is outgoing Chief Scientist Ian Chubb’s parting advice for scientists facing a wide range of detractors, from climate change deniers to those against genetically modified foods.
Professor Chubb, who this week ends his almost-five year term, acknowledged in a statement on Thursday that scientists’ work “isn’t easy.”
“We know there are those who want only to be told what they want to hear. When they aren’t, they simply denigrate and disparage and dream up conspiracies,” he said.
“I can only say to scientists: don’t flinch. Do your work; do it according to the trusted methods of ethical science and talk regularly to the public … their support, and the weight and quality of evidence, must always trump make-believe.”
I just about choked on my weeties I was laughing that hard…..
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I probably should explain a bit more – this post ( above ) was to make the point there is Bob Carter’s pursuit of science, and the Establishment version of “science”….
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Ian Chubb says…
Perhaps he suffers from “Vizzini” syndrome. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
BTW: The word “Ethical” is code for “Politically Co-Opted”.
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Another tribute to Bob Carter from Andrew Bolt———-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/bob_carter/
And Mark Steyn———– http://www.steynonline.com/7430/a-principled-man-in-a-corrupted-field
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Good morning Jo,
What a truly great man Prof. Bob Carter was.
I have especially enjoyed reading “Smithy’s” obit.
I have no doubt in saying that this country, indeed planet, is just the little bit poorer for his passing.
My deepest condolences to Anne and his family.
I know the current political climate is waaaayyyy too left for this idea! – But maybe in a year or two this might fly??!!
Prof. Bob Carter should be considered in the near future for a post-humous award for contributions to science in either Australia Day or Queens Birthday Honours.
The warmest of regards,
Reformed warmist of Logan.
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I remember being upset by the scientific illiteracy of various ill informed politicians talking about “carbon pollution” and wrote a little discourse on carbon and the importance of carbon to life and it necessity for our staples of beer, wine and bread. I sent it to various politicians and also to Dr. Carter from whom I received the only reply which was extremely gracious.
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Prof Carter was extremely influential in my own conversion back to climate sanity from the other side. He was truly a man of rare talent and will be sorely missed.
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Michael Smith News is worth following.
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wonderful obit from Michael Smith.
21 Jan: OnlineOpinion: Jennifer Marohasy: We should prepare for climate change: Professor Bob Carter 1942-2016
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17969
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better headline:
21 Jan: Jennifer Marohasy: Nobody Lives in a World Climate: Professor Bob Carter 1942-2016
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2016/01/nobody-lives-in-a-world-climate-professor-bob-carter-1942-2016/
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Australian Institute of Geoscientists: Vale Bob Carter
Posted on January 20, 2016 Updated on January 21, 2016
https://www.aig.org.au/vale-bob-carter/
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meanwhile, MSM is in CAGW overdrive.
Matt McGrath on BBC World Service radio last nite said “climate change sceptics” would now have to accept CAGW:
Bob Tisdale has a thread on WUWT re NASA/NOAA “announcement”.
20 Jan: BBC: Matt McGrath: Climate change: 2015 ‘shattered’ global temperature record by wide margin
The Met Office figures show that 2015 was 0.75C warmer than the long-term average between 1961-1990.
US data suggests that 2015 “shattered” the temperature record by the widest margin ever recorded.
Experts say the record temperatures were due to a combination of El Nino and human-induced warming…
“Looking ahead, 2016 looks like it’s also going to be another warm year and that’s associated with the fact that human influence on the climate through greenhouse gas emissions has pushed us into new territory,” said Dr Peter Stott from the British meteorological organisation’s Hadley research centre…
Many parts of the world have experienced unusual weather patterns throughout 2015, which experts believe are in line with their expectations of the impacts of warming…
Climate sceptics had made much of the fact that the increase in global temperatures seemed to stall around 1998. Researchers say the latest figures underscore the fact that the hiatus is over.
“The idea of a pause in warming in the scientific community has been roundly refuted,” said Prof Hayhoe (director of the climate science centre at Texas Tech University)…
“We know that climate change is measured over 20-30 years at least, and it’s measured over that timeframe specifically because we have natural variability. When we look over 20-30 years and longer climate timescales, we see that global warming continues unabated.”
This point was echoed by Dr Gavin Schmidt, from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which oversees the Nasa data record.
“The reason why this is such a warm record year is because of the long-term warming trend, and there is no evidence that that warming trend has slowed, paused, or hiatused at any point in the last few decades,” he told reporters.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35354579
above includes video 2mins16secs:
Last year saw violent extremes in weather, reports David Shukman
(with Peter Stott, Gavin Schmidt)
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20 Jan: BBC: Nick Miller, Meteorologist: Our warming world and El Nino
More than one player
As eye-catching as the effects of El Nino have been in the UK and elsewhere, the warming of the Pacific only reached its peak in the second half of 2015 and scientists say attributing all or even the majority of the year’s global temperature increase to it would be like giving star billing to an actor who only appears in one scene of a movie.
More likely is that natural weather cycles such as El Nino are becoming aligned with man-made heating to boost global temperatures to new heights…
The star of the heating show remains emissions from industry and agriculture adding to the greenhouse effect and trapping more of the sun’s energy and heat within our atmosphere. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years and reached a record high in May 2015.
El Nino’s warming influence will be felt well into 2016 so the potential is very much there for this partnership with man-made heating to produce further global temperature headlines this time next year.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35355664
Video 1min23secs: 20 Jan: BBC: 2015: the warmest year on record
El Nino is one of the largest contributing factors to this unprecedented warmth. Professor Phil Jones, from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, said “while there is a strong El Nino-elevated global temperature this year, it is clear that human influence is driving our climate into unchartered territory”.
BBC Weather’s Chris Fawkes explains the difference from the 1961 – 1990 average and key events that contributed towards some of the more extreme temperatures.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/35363430
btw BBC’s Paul Hudson (of Climategate “fame”) has not posted on his blog since 3 August 2015.
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words of “wisdom” from the CO2 emissions traders!
20 Jan: ReutersCarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: EU Market: Rout continues as EUAs hit 15-mth low amid global market weakness
The EU carbon rout continued on Wednesday as prices fell by more than 8% to a 15-month low, wiping out the small gains posted over the last two sessions as selling by speculators and industrials picked up amid ongoing concerns over the global economy and weakness in energy and equity markets worldwide.
The Dec-16 EUA futures settled on ICE down 50 cents at €6.36 after sliding to as low as €6.29, the lowest level seen since Oct. 20, 2014 and a clear €2 below end-2015 prices…
“Someone smashed up the market first thing this morning when liquidity was thin,” one trader said…
“The sellers are still around, and [prices] have gone back down because they couldn’t go up. Buying interest was only able to produce what we’ve seen over the past two days,” the trader said…
“[The small gains were] a bit of a ‘dead cat bounce’, with shorts taking some profits … but it provided an entry point to new shorts who see no reason for prices to rise back up,” a second trader said…
“Carbon has shifted lower along with power and coal, so [clean] darks have stayed largely intact, and in fact they’re up at least 10% today,” he added…
“The oversupply in the EU ETS is an ever present issue that the market seems to ignore. That shortfall in supply and demand is made up by industrials, and if a few big ones stop caring about the future because they’re dealing with short-term problems, that changes things,” the first trader said…
“The RSI [on the Dec-16s] is back around 20, but is the selling overdone? Not until people stop doing it.”…
http://carbon-pulse.com/14415/
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A Michael Smith comment.. “Bob copped that crap everywhere. He got it from both sides of politics, Turnbull, Wong, Rudd. ” and his university colleagues. How profoundly disappointing if not surprising that must have been. It helps explain why 2/3 of climate specialists refuse to offer any opinion on man made global warming, the real result of the Queensland University Cook paper or conversely those who do offer an opinion always agree with it. What choice do they have? Bob demonstrated what happens to those who differ.
I cannot believe that Turnbull is now our unelected PM. What did Bob think of this? It is wrong in every way. What will happen now with Turnbull and Wong agreeing that we Australians must pay a tax on the air we breathe out? Despite the general euphoria at the slow demise of Global Warming, we need Bob more than ever.
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It is all about politics and money.
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It’s all about evil.
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Synonyms
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/2015-was-by-far-hottest-in-modern-times-noaa/7103164
The end is nigh, apparently.
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Bob demanded facts, not fantasy or global warming advertising like this. This is a disgraceful ABC article, extreme politics presented as science fact.
“For the first time in recorded history, the Earth’s temperature is clearly more than 1.0 Celsius above the 1850-1900 average,” it said.
So who recorded world temperatures from 1850-1900? NASA? (1958) NOAA? (1970) or the IPCC(1988)? The ABC? (1932).
Australia’s BOM refuses to include our real 1850 – 1900 State data prior to 1909 after the formation of the National BOM following Federation. The terrible Federation Drought is thus eliminated. Convenient.
So how does anyone make such statements about the temperature South of the Equator let alone in the biggest continents, Australia and Antarctica and the surrounding vast oceans? Amundsen did not even reach the South Pole until 1911 and he was a bit busy. So at least half the planet is not included? Who measured across Siberia or the North Pole (1908). Also were thermometers accurate enough then, not only the reading accuracy but the absolute accuracy?
Of course our ABC says this is real science when it is obviously just their politics. Politics should not dictate science. That was Bob’s clear message. It would be more appropriate if the ABC would mention his sad passing than to release such rubbish.
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‘…it was the hottest in modern times.’
It just so happens that 1880 was a very warm year.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/australia/nsw/newcastle-raw-temps.gif
The MSM often come out with the expression ‘since records began’, without even a h/t to all those who labored before, collecting good data under difficult conditions.
Its all very upsetting to see what has happened to auntie, but the greentrot blob in the ABC newsroom cannot survive forever because they are up against the science. Unprecedented hiatus comes to an end.
A real debate is about to kick off because of the US elections and the ABC must report it, even if Donald says global warming is a hoax.
Problem is, being of a skeptical bent, we don’t have a unified theory on what is happening with climate change, except that its not AGW. This situation must change if the warmists are to be defeated.
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El Gordo, a unified theory on what is happening with the climate would be slightly impossible when there are so many variables and so many unknowns.
Far easier to have a “unified theory” on the political motivations of those that carry the warmist torch baton and banner.
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I’m more interested in a paradigm shift, if we can predict seasonal forecasts correctly then we’ll be half way there. The UK Met and BoM are woeful, how hard could it be?
The political and economic aspect of this cannot be dismantled before the science is settled.
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Please be specific. What Climate Change?
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How can you red hand a question?
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Climate changes, global warming has stopped and global cooling has begun, but I have no clear proof.
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I keep hearing about Climate Change. Could someone who refers to it explain what that is and where it is happening. Evidence? Facts? Then how does CO2 produce ‘Climate Change’ if it is now proven it does not even change the temperature.
We know the loss of ice at the North Pole has happened before. Is that Climate Change?
Lots of things change, changes which have happened before.
So what is anyone talking about? Egypt? North America? Australia? Tuvalu? Paris? Where is this ‘Climate Change’ everyone talks about as if it is a big secret? One example please.
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Also, the real science is that the % of CO2 in the atmosphere is set entirely by natural forces. So the whole man made thing is wrong.
It is hard to start a scientific discussion about temperatures which are not changing, climates which are not changing and CO2 levels which we cannot change.
Besides, after thirty years of this we should have seen some effect by now? Has anyone seen anything? If the seas were to rise 100 metres in 100 years as Robyn Williams said, surely Sydney would be under 30 metres of water? Is there a single prediction which has turned out to be true?
There is nothing to discuss except how it can that we could spent $1Tn a year on fixing a problem which never existed. The CAGW business will go down in history as an incredible bubble and future generations will marvel that anyone could ever have believed it. Flannery and Gore will have retired to their beach houses.
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IMO, climate is the set of variables controlling weather. That set hasn’t altered, and CO2 shows no signs of being in that causal set. Pace, lukewarmers!
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Of course this is only weather.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/01/75-million-to-get-snowblasted/
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… but we seem to have a trend.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/01/20/this-snowstorm-has-the-look-of-some-of-d-c-s-greatest-blizzards/
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That is, there have been more north east blizzards since the start of the pause.
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Ya, Cooling is a bugger!
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Yet the ice caps refuse to melt away and instead are growing in some areas. This would be in direct violation of the Laws of Physics if the NOAA video were to be true. Sorry but NOAA and NASA are telling us fibs but that’s to be expected theses days from government funded organizations.
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You can tell it is a fair comment. It has red hands. You are not allowed ask questions, even rhetoric ones.
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So true. If they had it all their way they would explode the heads skeptics. Oh, I remember now. They did an advert some time ago on TV depicting exactly that procedure for skeptics. Leftists are so evil.
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Interesting – I just had someone tell me at The Drum that global warming will cause a lot more extreme cold snaps as well.
Hard to believe it wasn’t a sceptic Moby trying to discredit warmists.
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And The Drum follows up by a fact-starved appeal that heat will affect our health:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/hanna-what-record-heat-means-for-our-health/7105290
Methinks that the OP of that garbage is enslaved to climate change government funding teat.
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Three drive-by negs! Sweet.
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getting “coal” feet? read all:
19 Jan: Reuters: UPDATE 1-Germany warns against rushed exit from coal power
(Reporting by Vera Eckert, Tom Kaeckenhoff, Christoph Steitz and Caroline Copley; editing by Mark Potter and David Clarke)
“When we’re talking about the future of coal I would advise being less ideological about it and to focus more on climate goals and the economic consequences,” Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at an industry conference on Tuesday…
“We need to be aware of what is needed to have a stable energy supply,” he said, adding he wanted to invite all relevant parties to a roundtable this year about the future of coal.
Gabriel’s comments chime with those made by Germany’s largest power producer RWE on Tuesday, when it rejected new calls to phase out coal-fired power generation…
“The whole debate (about exiting coal) is unnecessary,” RWE Chief Operating Officer Rolf Martin Schmitz told Reuters on the sidelines of the industry event…
Some 2.7 gigawatts of power generation from brown coal, equivalent to the output from five power plants, will be closed but retained as reserve power in case of emergency, parties in the coalition government agreed last year…
“RWE has a clear plan (for coal) until 2050. We are able to provide sufficient power at decent prices until then,” Schmitz said.
Coal-fired power production employs not just tens of thousands of people, but is needed to provide round-the-clock power to Europe’s biggest economy as it cannot solely rely on volatile green power, the utilities argue.
Gabriel said it was irresponsible to talk about a coal exit without offering those working in coal-producing regions, such as Lusatia in eastern Germany, alternative job prospects.
“Whoever wants to talks about an exit in Lusatia, must at the same time enter into a realistic discussion about sustainable jobs that earn a decent wage,” he said.
***The first priority for reducing carbon emissions should be to make sure that Europe’s Emissions Trading System works properly, he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/rwe-coal-idUSL8N1531X2
80
science you can believe in???
21 Jan: SMH: Peter Hannam: Paris climate limit will see some parts of world warm by 6 degrees: Nature paper
While the world will likely pass two degrees of warming by the 2040s on the current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, some parts of the Arctic had already passed the 2-degree mark by 2000 compared with pre-industrial times, the scientists at ETH Zurich and the University of New South Wales found…
The Mediterranean, central Brazil and the lower 48 states of the US are among the areas likely to warm by 2 degrees by about 2030, according to the research published on Thursday in Nature journal…
Interestingly, Australia generally avoids the biggest changes in land temperatures, roughly rising at the same pace as the global average, according to the modelling based on work done for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“There are two possible reasons [for the Australian result],” Andy Pitman, a co-author and director of the ARC Centre, said. “There is something peculiar about the nature of the feedbacks that link average and extreme warming,” which leads to land areas in the southern hemisphere warming at a slower pace than in the north.
“Or, it could be that the models are biased to the areas where the modellers are based” in the northern Hemisphere, he said. “Perhaps there are systematic errors so we don’t see the amplification.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/paris-climate-limit-will-see-some-parts-of-world-warm-by-6-degrees-nature-paper-20160119-gm9lgb.html
50
[SNIP. No Doug, you are not going to use this thread to advertise. – Jo]
19
I don’t “advertise” Jo.
Why is it that you continue to suppress the truth and do not allow links to such?
The greenhouse conjecture has been proven wrong because solar radiation and back radiation cannot be added and make the surface warmer than either could on its own.
Is that hard to understand Jo and David Evans?
There has never been an experiment that has proved wrong the brilliant 19th century physicist, Josef Loschmidt regarding his explanation of the gravito-thermal effect.
Being a reality (also proven by correct physics) the gravito-thermal effect disproves the greenhouse a second way.
So that’s double disproof, Jo, and not a single experiment that proves otherwise.
515
Doug,
While you are correct that gravitation does set the surface temperature you are still wrong that scattering (Back radiation) can’t warm the planet more than The Sun by itself.
Fact is that the lapse rate is lower than 9.8C per km that it would be if there were no energy flow from surface to space, but the reduction from the theoretical lapse rate (established due to gravity) depends on the rate of heat flow from the surface to space. This cools the surface below the theoretical. Any reduction of outbound energy perturbs the balance in favor of a warmer surface.
But Doug it’s also clear that more radiative gasses means a higher photon flux to space and MORE stratospheric Cooling, there is therefore an argument that CO2 might have a cooling effect or indeed that the stratospheric cooling effects may be counteracted by scattering for littel or no warming/cooling.
81
Bobl writes assertively “you are still wrong that scattering (Back radiation) can’t warm the planet more than The Sun by itself”
No I’m not. When radiation is scattered it is not thermalised in the target. Back radiation is like radiation from another iceberg, maybe not quite as cold as the Sun. It cannot violate the Second Law. It doesn’t even penetrate water anyway, so how can it add thermal energy to 70% of Earth’s surface which is water?
The fact that the “lapse rate” is lower than 9.8 is explained in my 2013 paper. Lowering the temperature gradient causes the plot of temperature against altitude to swivel downwards at the surface end. IR-active gases cause that to happen. The reduction is primarily due to inter-molecular radiation which has a temperature leveling effect, working against the gravitationally induced “dry” temperature gradient.
Regarding “reduction of outgoing energy” no such thing happens. Measurements at TOA confirm outgoing is always within 0.5% of incoming radiative flux – sometimes more, sometimes less. Any difference is a result of natural climate cycles, not the cause thereof. Radiation cannot be compounded. You have to explain the energy flows.
You cannot assume (as David Evans did) that you can explain the effect of a change in radiation on surface temperatures when you cannot confirm empirically even a single calculation of any such surface temperature using any radiation calculations.
Please don’t waste my time when you could have read what I wrote about this three years ago.
17
You can’t assume, Bobl, that the temperature gradient (which has nothing to do with any “lapsing” process) would be less in the absence of any IR-active gases. It would be the “dry” gradient in such circumstances. There is just a little methane in Uranus, and the gradient is no more than 10% less than -g/cp in its nominal troposphere. Anyway, we can see varying levels of water vapour in different locations on Earth and my comprehensive study deduced from this that water vapour does indeed cool. That empirical fact, supported by the physics I have explained, completely refutes the greenhouse conjecture.
17
Bob Carter was a gentleman and a scholar. With his wife Anne and his family, together they were one of New Zealand’s and Australia’s (Townsville’s) great treasures. A scientist to his very core and a scholar, who shone his light on his students and those with whom he worked, Bob was no ordinary Professor. A world renowned geologist who worked on many of the big issues in geological measurement and analysis, as well as the small local problems, he gave of himself in every way possible.
Bob arrived at James Cook in 1981 when, as then Dean of Science, I had the privilege of welcoming him to our Science Faculty. Inheriting a well established and vibrant Geology Department, Bob very rapidly made further significant developments which enhanced his department, the image of Geology in Australia and James Cook University. Continuing with enthusiasm throughout his career, Bob moved into a new forum in retirement in which his goal was to restore integrity to science in general, where imposters had torn down its very fabric through promotion of the popular fallacy regarding the influence of carbon dioxide in causing increased Global Warming. The ideals of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Schrodinger and thousands of others, were in shreds because of greed, stimulated by the prizes of research funding to be awarded to those whose science was weak and whose integrity was weaker, all in the name of a political fantasy, but upon which fed an incresingly hungry industry – “Climate Change”.
Bob Carter stood out and will continue to stand out for many decades, as one whose retirement was given over to hard work in speaking the truth and encouraging thousands of others to do so.
For his unswerving courage in the face of denigration by those whose understanding of science is wanting, for his good humour, for his encouragement to others, his clear and accurate presentations of the facts, we owe him a debt of gratitude May he rest in peace and may his family be comforted by the knowledge that their husband and father has touched so many in a world wide community of genuine friends. May God Bless them and keep them. John Nicol
310
Hi John, how are you? Well said.
40
Beautifully written, John.
40
Page 3 of the Australian on a slow news day apparently or maybe most of the journalists are on holidays? A mention of Bob’s passing would have been nice and I thought those things were prepared for significant Australians like Bob, but we are presented instead with a nutty environment science piece on fish being drunk on the extra CO2 and losing their sense of direction and not finding their way home to the kids and being eaten by nasty predators.
This is classic anthropomorphism, allocating human traits to fish this time. Firstly, name a vegetarian fish. Then where is home? In Disney cartoons, the sharks do not eat fish and are friendly, the baby fish go to school with the octopusses and dad looks for his lost children. In the cartoon Madagascar, even the lions live on sushi and hang around with zebras and other desserts. Then the CO2 fantasy. Never mind selection, adaption and a trivial non problem but according to the article sudden CO2 drunkenness is now more dangerous than ocean acidification. So now we a serious worry for fishermen who want sober fish, not an easy catch and fish scientists who want sobriety in their studies and a doomsday scenario for the planet. It must not take much to get published, as long as it is a silly story about CO2 and fish and the end of the world.
131
Don’t we need 100 fold increase in CO2 levels to feel the effects? Why did we evolve to be so tolerant and not the fish?
40
Now that’s too logical. In the Green mantra, the world was perfect in every way until the industrial revolution. The CO2 level was ideal, apparently. So any change from perfect in any direction is therefore a disaster. Nothing can improve. It is all someone’s fault and they must be taxed and punished, especially democracies. Communist countries and military dictatorships are exempt. This is the new science of the people against everything.
Even new ideas are to be suppressed. All that can be known is now known, including apparently the exact historical temperature of the entire planet from 1850-1900 to far better than one degree but the Roman warming and Middle Ages warming and the little ice age did not happen. Everything was perfect and constant. At some point you have to say this is all ridiculous fantasy.
61
Yes and fish are extraordinarily sensitive to CO2 levels, even if they like humans increase the CO2 in what they breathe out by say 250x (.04% in, 10% out), an increase of 25,000%. So a fish which even gets a bubble of its own breath back would be immediately incapacitated. This is nonsense.
40
Actually, it’s CO2 that drives our breathing reflex, without the CO2 in your blood you wouldn’t be alive. (In this case not atmospheric CO2 but the CO2 in your blood from not breathing – eg holding your breath causes the reflex which forces you to take a breath)
40
A friend at University had a sister who drowned meditating at the bottom of a pool. These people would rapidly breathe to reduce the CO2 level so much in their blood that they would run out of O2 before the levels of CO2 increased enough to let them know that it was time to breathe.
10
See how ‘generous’ the James Cook Uni web site is with their comments on Prof Carter’s death. So much for 30 + years of work for them.
120
I look but cannot see the reference?
30
I have it. It seems reasonable.
40
If simply Emotionless and factual. Attended. Did stuff. Still, nothing negative, which is a relief in such a distressing time.
60
Alice Thermopolis and Einstein are so right because character includes honesty,a character trait which seems to be a casualty of the agenda behind the CAGW debacle.
81
20 Jan: Bloomberg: Renewable Stocks Drop as Oil’s Plunge Spurs Global Selloff
by Brian Parkin & John Ryan
An index of renewable energy stocks fell to the lowest in more than two years as floundering oil prices and a global equity sell off left investors fleeing from risk. The WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index tracking 104 companies closed down 2.3 percent, reaching its lowest level since July 2013…
While the drop in solar and wind stocks is not tied directly to falling oil prices, investors generally view renewable energy stocks as risky, according to Pavel Molchanov, a Houston-based analyst at Raymond James Financial Inc.
“It’s not that anything has changed in the solar industry in the last two weeks,” Molchanov said in an interview. “But sentiment about anything that is remotely higher beta, higher risk, is about as ugly as it’s been since the financial crisis.”…
SunEdison Inc., the world’s biggest renewable energy developer, closed down 5.3 in New York, continuing a months-long slide that has driven shares down 87 percent in the past 12 months. Canadian Solar Inc., the world’s third-largest solar manufacturer, fell 3.4 percent while Intelligent Energy Holdings Plc., a global power technology company based in Loughborough, U.K., closed 16 percent lower…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-20/renewable-stocks-drop-after-oil-s-plunge-spurs-global-selloff
20 Jan: Reuters: Spanish court freezes assets of two former Abengoa executives
Spain’s High Court on Wednesday ordered assets belonging to two former high-level managers at troubled engineering and power company Abengoa to be frozen, after they failed to deposit millions of euros in bonds with the court.
The High Court is investigating allegations of mismanagement against ex-Chairman Felipe Benjumea and former Chief Executive Manuel Sanchez, and had demanded they deposit a total of 16 million euros between them to cover possible liabilities.
According to court rulings seen by Reuters, the High Court has banned Benjumea and Sanchez from selling several luxury cars and properties listed as belonging to them, and ordered several bank accounts in their name to be blocked…
http://www.reuters.com/article/spain-abengoa-court-idUSE8N12L02C
40
0 Jan: Fortune: Saadia Madsbjerg: This Should Be The Biggest Issue At Davos
(Saadia Madsbjerg is managing director of The Rockefeller Foundation, which has provided grant funding for the research and development of XCF and Financial Disaster Risk Management)
If climate change continues unchecked, as many as 200 million climate refugees may be on the move by 2050…
The new Green Climate Fund, where advanced economies have agreed to invest $100 billion per year by 2020 to address the consequences of climate change, may be helpful, but it won’t be enough. Philanthropists and development institutions must focus on surfacing
those innovative financing mechanisms today, so that we can put in place solutions that will support individuals and communities in their struggle with the impacts of climate change — and allow them to live with security and dignity…
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/world-economic-forum-davos-climate-change/
“Climate change & environment” comes 11 out of 11 in the accompanying PwC graph:
20 Jan: Guardian: Tom Levitt: Climate change fails to top list of threats for business leaders at Davos
Geopolitical uncertainty, over-regulation and cyber attacks among biggest threats to business, survey of CEOs finds
The high profile UN summit on climate change in Paris appears to have had little impact on the decision making and worries of global business leaders.
Despite concerns about its impact on extreme weather events, such as recent flooding in the UK, climate change failed to register near the top of the list of business threats, according to a survey of 1,400 CEOs from around the world compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and published at Davos this week…
The findings were similar to a separate survey of 13,000 business leaders produced by the World Economic Forum (WEF)…
Business leaders from developed countries listed fiscal crisis and cyber-attacks as their biggest concerns, while in emerging and developing economies the biggest concern was unemployment, underemployment and energy price shocks. “No executive considers failure of climate mitigation and adaptation as the number one risk for doing business in his/her country,” states the report…
PwC suggested that contrary to its findings CEOs were concerned about the impact of climate change. “We don’t believe a low score in one question reflects overall thinking and action on it,” a spokesperson told the Guardian…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jan/20/climate-change-threats-business-leaders-davos-survey
30
unbelievable loss
It is very sad indeed to have lost Prof. Bob Carter, what a truly eloquent speaker and his wonderful explanations concerning this complex issue.
Prof. Carter will be sorely missed. 🙁
70
There are some really sick, horrible people on the warmist side. Here is William Connolley’s comment on Bob’s passing
http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/01/21/sick-warmist-scientist-william-connolley-cheers-death-of-climate-skeptic-dr-bob-carter-as-an-advancement-in-science-gloats-science-advances-one-funeral-at-a-time/
Well Connolley will only be remembered for his f..dulant manipulation of the Wikipedia information on AGW.
71
I can’t bear to read it. It’s bad enough knowing such sick people exist.
Instead, let’s celebrate the fact that we had such a good and honest man as Bob Carter in our midst for a time and try to live up to his example.
50
What does one expect from such trash. I will take it further and say that alarmists are vindictive people.Beyond any comprehension of civility.What a sickening face he has!
41
It reminds of me how even intelligent people can be duped because there is too much knowledge for an individual to check. Nothing is actual science until you check for yourself but you would still have primary school knowledge of sciences in your 80s if you actually did that.
There is a lot of faith in the printed word and so a lot of power if you can control what is said in “reliable” sources of information. Even selective portrayal of the truth (eg Wikipedia) as well as misinformation.
We were lucky to have someone like Bob Carter. I would say “thank God we had” but it might not go down well. I still want to have faith that he is able to be chuffed with his contribution to science.
40
I will say it. Thank God for such a man as Bob Carter and I definitely live in the faith and hope that he is now well satisfied with what his work accomplished on Earth. In the meantime, the rest of us must soldier on. That’s not funny when you realise that those who try to pursue the truth almost always lay themselves open to ridicule and/or persecution.
40
The Age today carried a short article on the sceptical career of Dr Bob Carter. Immediately below was a much longer article by Peter Hannan, declaring 2015 the hottest year ever and quoting Dr David Jones (BOM) extensively.
Initially I was angered by what seemed to be a well worn tactic by The Age to bury any sceptical views with a welter of Alarmist material.
However I read both articles, through gritted teeth, and came to the view that they went quite well together. The Carter article was factual and concise and mentioned the miserable treatment handed out by the James Cook University, because Carter had uncomfortable views on Climate Change.
The Hannan article by contrast was full of the unusual conjecture and assertion without facts. A discerning reader might wonder if Dr David Jones and the BOM might lack objectivity and healthy scepticism.
80
For those who haven’t seen William Connelly’s despicable take on Bob Carter’s passing, take a wander over to Notalotofpeopleknowthat where Connelly, that grub of an individual, displays his absolute contempt for a great man like Prof. Carter. His efforts on Wiki are mild compared to this. What an execrable creature.
71
Make that Connolley. I demonstrate my contempt by misspelling his name.
51
I show my contempt for both Connolley and Wiki by referring to Wiki as the connolated Wiki especially when a warmist uses it as a reference.
Connolley, David Appell and Russell Seitz (Harvard University, Physics Department) show just how morally depraved and petty they are by their gleeful ranting over Dr Carter’s death.
21
Peter C writes:
“The Age today carried a short article on the sceptical career of Dr Bob Carter”
short (and lacking in detail) it is, yet it took two writers to produce it. being “removed” from an unnamed university post crops up in the opening para.
21 Jan: The Age: Climate change sceptic Bob Carter dies at 74
by Lawrence Money, Lindsey Green
Climate-change sceptic Professor Bob Carter, who was removed from a university post because of his outspoken climate views, has died of a heart attack at his Townsville home aged 74…
http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-change-sceptic-bob-carter-dies-at-74-20160121-gmb2be.html
as for William Connolley – see Ross’s Climate Depot link above – his comments are surely reminiscent of this revelation in the Climategate emails:
From: Phil Jones
To: mann@virginia.edu
Subject: Fwd: John L. Daly dead
Date: Thu Jan 29 14:17:01 2004…
Mike,
In an odd way this is cheering news…
Cheers
Phil
http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/1075403821.txt
50
***letter re Prof Carter is final letter on the page. (ironic that not a word has yet been written in The Australian on his death, unless someone can prove otherwise):
22 Jan: Australian: Letters
Fine tennis weather
The suggestion that rising temperature might jeopardise the future of the Australian Open (Cut & Paste, 21/1) is not supported by data. Melbourne maximum temperature records for January, readily available from the Bureau of Meteorology website, show no long-term trend and the warmest January in the series was 1908. Unfortunately, in an act of scientific vandalism, in January 2015 the BoM closed the Melbourne observing site that had operated for more than 120 years. Future trends will be contentious.
William Kininmonth, Kew, Vic
***Farewell, Bob Carter
I would like to pay tribute to the memory of former James Cook University professor Bob Carter, who died suddenly in Townsville a couple of days ago. Bob stood head and shoulders over his peers for his courage and perseverance in support of science. He did this in the face of scholarly conformity and an opposing juggernaut of a politically correct academic culture. In practising his profession Bob dealt only in observable, provable, scientific facts — not opinion.
Paul Johnson, Kallangur, Qld
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/letters/china-could–be-poised-to-repeat-its-history/news-story/2f3ba75ccb488351b29aa6505f1669e4
50
Peter C – maybe you can help with this by letting us know what was in the print version.
do a search on the following sentence, which is not in the SMH/Age online article now:
“Australia’s climate change sceptic community has suffered a loss with the death of Professor Bob Carter on Tuesday”
dozens of results show this sentence (apparently the opening para originally) from Fairfax media, incl SMH, Age & most regionals.
however, all but SMH and Age simply link to the main newspapers, so they show nothing but this sentence.
I cannot link to the cached versions of SMH, The Age. perhaps someone else could, so we can see what else has been changed.
50
why I think this change is important.
I believe Fairfax did not want to admit there is such a thing as:
“Australia’s climate change sceptic community”
who had it removed?
30
OK,
I will check when I get home.
10
No that sentence did not make it into The Age (known to Sir Henry Bolte has “that Pinko Rag”) print version. The Print version is:
“21 Jan: The Age: Climate change sceptic Bob Carter dies at 74
by Lawrence Money, Lindsey Green
Climate-change sceptic Professor Bob Carter, who was removed from a university post because of his outspoken climate views, has died of a heart attack at his Townsville home aged 74…”
as you quoted above. That is a rather ungracious start to the obituary. Lawrence Money and Lindsay Green obviously stuffed up!
Who is responsible for the change? I would put my money on the Editor in Chief. Andrew Holdren.
What was the reason for the change? Most likely as you have suggested they do not want to acknowledge that sceptics are more than a tiny fringe group.
Have we suffered a loss? Well yes obviously. We have lost a great friend and an influential speaker. But some peoples influence does not end with their death. Bob Carter left a legacy including a number of books, including; The counter Consensus, Taxing Air and Climate Change the Facts. What he wrote there does not diminish with time and is a true now as when he wrote the words down.
50
Letter to the editor as sent:
Publication? Unlikely
40
Just to be sure I searched for the words above and found this:
http://www.theage.com.au/news-wire/national
I think I better save a screen shot in case that disappears also.
30
Peter C-
many thanks for all the info and for writing a letter to the editor.
will definitely follow up to see if it gets published.
meanwhile, taxpayer-funded ABC & partly-taxpayer-funded SBS have not even acknowledged Prof Carter’s death.
10
***say what!
22 Jan: Sky News: AAP: Science adds $330b to economy: report
The new report has been released by outgoing Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, on his last day in the job.It builds on research released last year that found the value of physics, mathematics and chemistry to the economy was $292 billion.
Together the sciences contribute $330 billion annually, including $84 billion in exports, it found.
Prof Chubb will use part of his farewell speech in channelling ***fellow science lover, US President Barack Obama, and reading out part of his last State of the Union address…
http://www.skynews.com.au/business/business/national/2016/01/22/science-adds–330b-to-economy–report.html
20
21 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Alex Pashley: Total CEO: Solar is loss-making at $30 oil
The rock-bottom price of oil dramatically reduces investor appetite for lower-carbon alternatives, the head of one of the world’s largest oil companies said on Thursday.
Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos the business case for clean energy had collapsed.
“I am a big investor in solar and I was advocating that there are 20 countries in the world where we can make solar profitable,” he said. “It is not true today. At 30 dollars per barrel there is not a single one.”…
***Total sees solar’s share of world power generation rising from 13% to 20% by 2035. It plans to become a “global leader in solar power”, according to its website…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/21/solar-is-loss-maker-at-30-oil-total-ceo/
***Total USED TO SEE?
30
21 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Africans asked to raise billions for energy access plan
African countries are being asked to stump up billions for a vast network of power plants across the continent which could bring light to 645 million people lacking electricity.
Under plans outlined by the African Development Bank (ADB), the continent’s 54 nations will be asked to boost investment in energy from 0.4% of GDP to 3.4%, and slash subsidies for kerosene and diesel.
The bank’s ‘New Deal’ initiative was launched on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, aiming to add 160 gigawatts of capacity by 2025…
Adesina (ADB) said initial plans would be “technology neutral”, pointing to South Africa’s large coal reserves and West Africa’s gas stocks alongside solar, wind and hydro…
***Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan described the news as an “exciting moment”- but urged countries to take advantage of the plans to invest in climate-friendly energy systems.
“Eventually the idea is to go green and I think Africa has the possibility of being the first continent to be a green continent,” he said…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/21/africans-asked-to-raise-billions/
***shame on you, Kofi Annan.
20
I know that this Thread is about Professor Carter, but pat mentions something here that needs to be highlighted, where he writes this: (my bolding here)
Note here it says ….. 645 Million people who do not have electricity, so this is new power generation for people who don’t have it. Note also the total, 160GW, and that’s just Nameplate. Note also that it’s going to be a mix of power, coal fired, gas fired and the others. Note also the timeline, out to 2025, which, if they started now, might just be achievable given the ducks that need to be lined up for power plant planning, so it effectively means that the money needs to be there pretty quick, and the planning needs to be started right now, virtually.
So then, let’s do a comparison with what already exists in the already Developed World, and the U.S. has a similar mix and supply for all those already Developed Countries.
The U.S. had a population of 320 Million, so for this NEW power generation in Africa, we are looking at double the population of the U.S.
The US currently has a mix of power plants with a Nameplate of 1,200GW so that’s almost 10 times as much as what is planned for here.
So, to bring electrical power to those 645 Million people, they are planning 160GW of new power generation.
So, that will be 13% of the power for double the population when compared to the Developed World.
Considering the distribution of that power, going on what is happening in still Developing Countries, barely 8 to 10% of that power will be going to the Residential sector.
So, effectively we see now that double the population will be getting around 1.3% of the power.
Even with this, it still amount to a tiny tad above absolute zero.
So, while seeming sounding like a really big advance, this is just about nothing really.
Imagine if you were asked to get by on 0.65% of the electricity you currently take so much for granted.
And, on top of that, they are now asking those Countries to stump up Billions of dollars, that these abjectly poor people do not have, and will never have.
This is pitiful at best, with the announcement made in a flourish of ….. “See what we’re doing for you!”
Sometimes, I think these people who make pronouncements like this have no concept of what they’re actually saying.
Tony.
61
I rather think such people do have some idea of the burbled nonsense they are spouting
But they also think, quite accurately, that most of the MSM-dependent target populace has absolutely no idea at all, so it doesn’t matter what they say as long as it’s either scary or Disneyland-hopeful
40
What they do is not thinking. They simply repeat the green blob talking points of the day. There is no rational process involved nor any attempt to connect what they say to reality. The Green Blob says it, they believe it, and, for them, that settles it.
This is why any reasoned and reality based refutation of their greed screed is met with such vitriol. They view such a thing as an attack on their identity and existence. In a way it is because they have no sense of being or purpose outside of their sacrosanct greenness.
40
TonyfromOz –
if the public were properly informed instead of propagandised, the CAGW scam would have disappeared years ago.
20
21 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: Bloomberg unveils crack team to assess global climate risk
Business leaders from Unilever, Axa, Blackrock and JPMorgan among those chosen by Michael
Bloomberg to rate threat posed by fossil fuel giants to global economy
Top executives from Brazilian bank Bradesco, commodities giant Unilever, French insurer Axa and the Singapore Exchange were named in Davos as vice chairs…
Jane Ambachtsheer of Mercer Investments, a member of the task force, said: “Understanding the investment impacts of climate change is a growing priority for our clients.”…
In Davos on Friday, the Carbon Tracker Initiative and Carbon Disclosure Standards Board are set to launch their proposals for better reporting.
This will show up which companies are a good bet for investors as economies shift to cleaner sources of energy, said Carbon Tracker’s Mark Campanale. Recent upheavals in the oil and coal markets show the importance of an “orderly transition for investors”, he said…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/21/bloomberg-unveils-crack-team-to-assess-global-climate-risk/
check out full details at the following:
FSB: Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures
(Members, etc includes Gore’s partner: Data Users – David Blood, Senior Partner, Generation Investment Management)
http://www.fsb-tcfd.org/
10
21 Jan: ReutersCarbonPulse: EU Market: Prices plummet below €6 as participants posit selling sources
EU carbon prices fell to a fresh 15-month low below €6 on Thursday before climbing back to end 2.4% lower, as the 2016 EUA price rout approached its fourth week.
While some traders nervously await a rebound to what they see as a speculator-led overselling, others suspect carbon could fall further as European industry continues to reel, utilities shy away from bulk buying, and the next major supply-curbing measure remains years away.
The Dec-16 EUA futures fell to an intraday bottom of €5.87 on ICE in volatile afternoon trade, a decline of 7.7% from Wednesday’s settlement, before they clawed back most of their losses to end down 15 cents at €6.21…
“There’s a high level of speculation in the market at the moment, with many people ignoring fundamentals,” one trader said…
Analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon joined the growing chorus of market observers noting that the EU carbon sell-off appeared to be overdone and disconnected from underlying fuel prices and the market’s supply-demand dynamic.
“In the current market situation it is all about not cutting your fingers by touching that falling knife. Hence, I think that the market needs one or two days of consolidation by some traders taking profit from the current downward move before a rebound can happen,” said Point Carbon’s manager of EU carbon analysis Marcus Ferdinand…
“The MSR (market stability reserve) is still three years away, and by then we’ll have more renewables, fewer coal plants, and possibly less industrial demand and more conflicting [EU energy] policies,” he (bearish market participant) said.
“Based on this, even at these levels there’s still more downside than upside. I’d give it an 80% probability that we drop to €5, and 50% probability that we have a full retracement to pre-Backloading levels around €3.”
http://carbon-pulse.com/14488/
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bad move:
21 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: Catholics back children’s climate lawsuit against US government
Two Catholic networks are backing a youth lawsuit against the US government, calling for stronger action on climate change.
The Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and the Leadership Council of Women Religious said the case touched on a scriptural obligation to care for God’s creation.
Citing an encyclical issued by Pope Francis last year on environmental protection titled ‘Laudato Si’ (‘Praise be to you’), they filed a document siding with 21 young plaintiffs…
“Our moral call to protect the common good (and not the profits of a selfish few) is clear in the Pope’s call to action,” said 14-year-old plaintiff Nick Venner in a statement.
It was “so exciting” to get the Catholic networks’ backing, he added. “I thank God for their support in our fight to save our Nation’s climate.”
Climate scientist James Hansen is also named in the suit as a representative of future generations…
Despite President Barack Obama’s high profile support for the climate agenda, his administration has sought to get the case dismissed…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/21/catholics-back-childrens-climate-lawsuit-against-us-government/
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So who pays?
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Greening the Earth isn’t good stewardship?
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anther NGO shilling for “renewables”:
20 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: NGO sorts climate leaders from the laggards
Oil companies Total and BP don’t live up to green rhetoric while Unilever and Iberdrola are ‘true leaders’, says Influence Map
Exxon, Total, BP and GE are “active laggards” in efforts to tackle climate change, according to research ***(LINK) published by UK non-profit Influence Map.
In contrast Unilever, Iberdrola, UK utility National Grid and ABB are praised as “true leaders” for their increased and vocal support of climate policy…
Apple, Tesla, Google and Nestle are rated as “silent leaders”, which generally support clean energy measures but have not made it a business priority…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/20/ngo-sorts-climate-leaders-laggards/
***links to:
PDF: 8 pages: Jan 2016: Influence Map: A tipping point in corporate attitudes to climate policy
p7: View our full top 100 ranking table here (LINK) and find out what
our scores mean here (LINK)…
InfluenceMap.org: About us
We are a neutral and independent UK-based non-profit whose remit is to map, analyze and score the extent to which corporations are influencing climate change policy…
***Our funding is provided by individuals and organizations with an interest in our area of focus. We ensure there is no conflict of interest between our funding sources and the organizations we assess…
***BUT NO FUNDING DISCLOSED.
InfluenceMap.org: Core Team, Advisory Board
http://influencemap.org/page/About#Core-Team
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Peter C –
thanks for offering to check the print edition of Fairfafax obit.
we are now in presumably version 3 – what a disgrace for a short obit on a man who they even admit proved Al Gore wrong…nine times no less!
opening para with “removed” has been removed & replaced & there is a CLARIFICATION(CORRECTION) at the bottom:
Climate change sceptic Bob Carter dies at 74
January 22, 2016 – 3:18PM
Lawrence Money, Lindsey Green
Climate-change sceptic Professor Bob Carter has died of a heart attack at his Townsville home aged 74…
CLARIFICATION: In an earlier version of this story it was wrongly stated that he was removed as head of earth sciences at James Cook University in 2013. He had in fact retired by then.
In 2013 the university did not renew his position as an adjunct professor.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/climate-change-sceptic-bob-carter-dies-at-74-20160121-gmb2be.html
this has just gone up. can’t even see an “Age” version as yet.
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finally something at The Australian. however, TRIBUTES plural is just our own Jo Nova, and there is, sad to say, no link to Jo’s obit or her website. MSM’s heart is not in this:
22 Jan: Australian: Jessica GrewalI: Tributes flow for climate change sceptic Bob Carter
Outspoken climate change sceptic Professor Bob Carter has been remembered as a man who “always put science before politics”.
The former James Cook University professor and key figure in the climate change debate died of a heart attack at his Townsville home this week aged 74.
Prof Carter dedicated much of the past decade to challenging the theory of human-caused global warming.
He was the author of the book The Counter Consensus and more recently co-author of Taxing Air and was also a witness in a 2007 British High Court case which found Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth contained errors of fact.
His role at JCU’s earth sciences department was not renewed in 2013.
He went on to become the chief science adviser for the International Climate Science Coalition.
Jo Nova, close friend and author of The Skeptic’s Handbook, paid tribute to Prof Carter on her website.
“The only one in that chain at JCU who would always put science before politics was Professor Robert Carter,” she wrote
“He was a rare and remarkable man and I will keenly miss his wisdom and philosophical good nature.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/tributes-flow-for-climate-change-sceptic-bob-carter/news-story/2ec3050b3a2679b887a009c3ab3bf079
66 comments at time of posting:
#1 Anthony: After 30yrs at JCU not one mention of his sad passing on their site. Says so much about academia in this age of self righteous pious closed shops that pass as Universities these days. The world is poorer for your passing Professor Carter.
#2 Barry: As a left-wing person, I admired Bob Carter for his willingness to go against the mainstream tide and his keeness to engage in debate with scientists and others of contrary opinions in the public arena – just as we did regarding Vietnam and apartheid issues with Teach-Ins on campuses in the late 1960s. It’s a pity that those in the science establishment did not engage with him adequately. Many many years ago, I heard him on the Radio National spot, ‘Perspective’, and what he had to say influenced my own creeping doubts about the hyperbole being promoted by climate alarmists. I was a member of the Australian Conservation Foundation at the time and increasingly puzzled by their automatic association of any environmental problem and natural disaster with climate change, or global warming as it was known back then. What a pity he is gone…
SURELY OUR MSM FRONT PAGES SHOULD HAVE HEADLINED SOMETHING LIKE :
“AUSSIE CLIMATE SCIENTIST, WHO PROVED AL GORE WRONG, DIES, SEE PAGE 3”
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should have noted the time for The Australian/Grewal (Grewal with one “l” not 2 as I accidentally typed) obit, which is:
January 22, 2016 12:05PM
or more than 12 hours after they published the letter by Paul Johnson, linked in comment #35 above, which was published:
January 22, 2016 12:00AM
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Reuters trumpets this to their subscribers worldwide when CAGW believers they can claim a win…in an El Nino year!
20 Jan: Reuters: Alister Doyle: In global warming bets, record 2015 heat buoys mainstream science
Cambridge climate expert to win $2,830 after record heat
Record heat in 2015 supports wagers on long-term warming
OSLO, Jan 20 (Reuters) – For British climate expert Chris Hope, new data showing that 2015 was the hottest year ever recorded is not just confirmation he’s been right all along that the planet is getting warmer.
It also won the Cambridge University researcher a 2,000 pound sterling ($2,830) wager made five years ago against a pair of scientists who reject man-made global warming and bet Hope that the Earth would be cooling by now…
Hope agreed wagers of 1,000 pounds each with two of them: British engineer Alan Rudge and Australian geologist Ian Plimer. Hope bet average global temperatures in 2015 would be no more than 0.1 degree Celsius (0.18 Fahrenheit) cooler than 2008.
He said it was good to test theories with cash. “Of course, one side ends up happier than the other,” he said. Neither Rudge nor Plimer were immediately available to comment.
“You win some, you lose some,” said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, for which Rudge is an adviser. Peiser said the pace of warming “is not something that people … need to be greatly concerned about”…
Among other wagers, in 2005 British climate modeller James Annan bet $10,000 against two Russian solar physicists that average global temperatures from 2013-17 would be warmer than 2003-07…
His Russian opponents are not conceding yet.
Galina Mashnich, an expert at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics in Irkutsk, Russia, who made the bet with her colleague Vladimir Bashkirtsev, said the new temperature data is not definitive.
“2015 is not the warmest year, according to some sources,” she wrote in an e-mail to Reuters. In recent years, she said, it was “most likely temperature increases are caused by El Nino”…READ ALL
http://news.trust.org/item/20160120155839-p2a0t/?source=dpagerel
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‘…scientists who reject man-made global warming and bet Hope that the Earth would be cooling by now…’
Its cooling in a regional sort of way, like the NH winters are becoming snowier.
You may hear a few yarns hinting that the freezing blizzard in north-east America is caused by global warming, this is inaccurate. The Klimatariat suggest that warmer north-west Atlantic SST is the culprit, failing to mention that winter SST return to average, so there is no positive feedback involved.
Let the weather wars begin.
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should be: “when CAGW believers BELIEVE they can claim a win”…
distracted by tennis!
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Jo, Like you and David, Michael Smith addressed one of the Australian Environment Foundation’s annual meetings. As I remember it, it was just before the flood of Brisbane that never should have happened.
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On the seamier side of life ‘the stoat’ has attempted a character rubbishing of the Bob. Read about his propagandist drivel from a sad, pathetic excuse for a man you are Mr Connolley here — https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/you-sad-little-man-mr-connolley/
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Thank you for this post Jo, I have been a supporter of Michael Smith for years, and a fan of Bobs both real gentlemen and a credit to their professions. Wayne
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