William M. Briggs would be the smartest, funniest and best informed Climate Editor the New York Times ever had. He’d put the Times back on the map as the frontline of debate. As such, there is no way he will get this job (and this is a real application). He’s the perfect candidate — the Statistician to the Stars has published actual papers on climate models, uncertainty, and yet also writes with wit and humor.
Guys like William are the reason the new media is killing the old.
A few snippets here, the whole letter at Brigg’s Blog http://wmbriggs.com:
New York Times Is Looking For A Climate Change Editor. That’s Me!
It is the Times’s tremendous luck that I’m at liberty, ready, and willing to take on this monumental task. Together we can screw people’s heads back on straight and get them to worry about something really important. Like the rise of politics dictating science and the corrupting influence of money.
I am an actual bona fide scientist. I have published actual articles in the Journal of Climate, among many others. My specialty is in the value and goodness of models, and the expense and badness of bad science. I’ve written a best-seller (my mom bought two copies) on the subject. Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics. I know this is a presumptuous questions, but if I get the job can I get this reviewed in the Book Review? Might boost sales.
How can they knock this back?
We’d run this headline: “Wonderful News: Global-Warming-Of-Doom Proved Almost Surely False”.
I envision a series in which we expose the schemers, hangers-on, band-waggoners, activists, fund-raisers, self-deluded, egos (I almost said “politicians”, which would have been redundant), and even frauds and bamboozlers whose claimed knowledge of fluid physics on a rotating sphere is as artificial as that thing perched on Donald Trump’s cranium. Let’s call out these folks who have turned “climate change” into an unhealthy living.
How many times have we heard psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, economists, and other un-trained scientifically ignorant (I use this word in its technical sense) academics lecture us on the horrors that await us under “climate change” when they wouldn’t know a cloud parameterization from a sigma coordinate? I’ll tell you: too often.
I predict the Editors of the Times will continue to cower behind petty namecalling, will fear doing anything socially risky, and will miss this opportunity to beat the rise of the new media.
h/t to Willie Soon, and Paul Driessen
Briggs getting that job would be nearly as fortuitous as the IPCC looking into climate science rather than anthropogenic blame games, and as equally unlikely.
200
Yeah, well, I guess I won’t be around this morning … gotta go and buy a hat, so I can tip it to him. It would be truely wonderful if he got the job, though.
But reality being what it is … like real, man … the NYT Editorial Board will pick someone who is much lighter in weight.
Somebody like Brian Cox, for example? He can draw those graphy things, and they are always popular with the ladies.
150
That said, I wish him well as an excellent candidate.
130
“I’m only a few blocks north of your
offices.”
Say, yer might think that’d appeal ter
Green members of the editorial board,
savings in co2 emissions – but it won’t.
Those Yew En and Philosopher King agendas’
take precedence.
A serf.
140
Wonderful if he did, but the NYT is one of the most rabid left wing papers in the US and Global Warming Climate Change is all about left wing politics. Ask someone about their politics and you know their views on ‘the science’, which is proof enough. Otherwise no one really believes man made global warming, surely? Those who know enough, know it is rubbish. Those who do not know any science believe what they are told, which is that it is true. However from the very outset, AGW was as believable as the Rapture. It is all about selling copies the NYT is full of contradictions, which as a paper run by the famous Sulzberger family is famously anti semitic. That is hard to understand except that the truth never gets in the way of sales.
221
NYT sounds like the Guardian as well as the BBC and, here in Oz “Our ABC” (pig’s ass!)
140
I applied for a job in a Newspaper once.
They said I had to pass a writing examination.
So they sat me down, and told me to write my name on the top of the page, and then write something about myself.
So, I wrote down my name, in my best handwriting, and then thought about how I should start.
The Examiner got up and walked around the desk, looked at my name, and asked, “What is that?”
“That is my name”, I replied.
“Well”, said the Examiner, “You obviously can’t spell, so there is no point in continuing”.
And that, my friends, was my one and only, foray into the alternative reality, that is journalism.
True story!
160
Shoulda pinged him for racism. 🙂
40
Is falsely perceived dyslexia racist?….I’d just put it down to lazy journalistic dumbassery.
40
But points for imaginative writing.
40
On matters equally as odd, the “Kill Climate Deniers” play now as a *soundtrack*….
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/controversial-canberra-play-kill-climate-deniers-gets-an-album-20160913-grfaol.html
Presumbly its a bit like “A Clockwork Orange” then?
30
People in Canberra obviously need to get out more. I have yet to meet one, who hasn’t been a bit odd.
Does Canberra have lead water pipes, by any chance? Do they inter-breed? Curious people would like to know.
40
Well here’s the thing, I have met quite a few quite normal canberrans, however, the reality is that the public service is a form of supported employment. I’m not being harsh or nasty, it’s just that the public service attracts people who wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere else. It’s a bit like ivory tower syndrome too – all intellect but not a lot of common sense….
10
The thing that is so infuriating about the NY Times is their sanctimony. They pretend to be objective and would probably insist that they are fair to the right-center points of view. HA! Fair is giving at least one of your political opponents a place at the table. Their “conservative” is David Brooks who drooled over the crease in Obama’s trousers.
10
For the William Briggs, the JoNovas and the Skeptics of this world;
.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
.
Mark Twain.
190
Right back at ya ROM.
50
Ja!
30
I wonder what would happen if some mainstream newspaper had an epiphany and decided to go against the flow and call out all this climate crap? I mean, just look at all the stories that could be written on just Flannery’s predictions and then there are all the others. Include articles on and by true climate scientists etc. How long would it be before others started to follow suit as the boulder started to inexorably roll down the hill? The house of cards would soon be demolished.
And maybe that would lead to other things being looked at through non-PC glasses. Oops, there’s that Trump meme once again.
250
Bemused @ # 5;
My thinking also but maybe a bit further along.
I suspect that we might not have to wait much longer before the big switch, the doubting and then the firming of the belief that the science suposedly supporting the CAGW / climate change ideology has been very badly corrupted.
That will be the MSM’s tipping point.
We can see this beginning to occur already in the likes of Der Spiegel, the German left leaning news mag which has been a strident CAGW/ Climate change/ Renewable energy advocate for years.
Recently Der Spiegel has begun publishing the odd news items on the impact, physical, environmental, political and corruption related on the increasingly seen failure of the immensely expensive and socially debilitating German Energiewende, the national transition to unworkable, uneconomic, unstable renewable energy from wind and solar which has been implemented entirely on the basis that CO2, the dreaded carbon is unequivocally alteringcthe global climate and for the worse at that.
No proof was or is demanded or required for the implementation of the Energiewende , just the output of some unvalidated, unverified Climate models and lots of arm waving from some self styled climate scientists who get to benefit from the lavish funding supplied to the “more research is needed” school of troughers .
There are already indications that a few / some MSM publications are starting to hedge their bets re the CAGW/ climate warming ideology.
And there are probably some reporters and sub-editors who regularly have a look at Skeptic sites like this one to make sure they don’t get suddenly get caught way out on the mad bad fringes of some controversial subject when the science related to that subject suddenly shifts to a far more doubting and skeptical view of the claims surrounding that perhaps somewhat controversial subject.
Which has become a bit of a habit with quite a lot of public health related science today as all sorts of what seems to be a long and permanently established science based and bureaucratically enforced nostrums are suddenly overturned when the science supporting the nostrum is suddenly proven by scientists who have gone back to what is often a single paper that is the basis for the entire official public attitude for the item and found that the science in the original paper to be very poorly done or even in a few cases, is based on straight out F____ science which was designed to conform to an agenda.
Example from Retraction Watch re Psychology; Here’s why more than 50,000 psychology studies are about to have PubPeer entries
The “NoTricksZone” revelations of today; Massive Cover-up Exposed: 285 Papers From 1960s-’80s Reveal Robust Global Cooling Scientific ‘Consensus’ won’t go unnoticed in the MSM.
William Connelley who likes to be known as “the Stoat ” who is named and shamed in the NTZ post also made a few appearances here on JoNova ‘s blog last year.
He tried a few times to do something which I never quite figured out what he was trying to do but whatever it was it didn’t work as he got a fair working over from Jo’s denizens who were very aware of Connolleys very blatant corruption and deliberate misinformation on matters “climate” in Wikipedia.
I suggested that in view of his record with Wikipedia he could just be the target for a major defamation and legal F—case by a number of scientists and others when the tide turned on the climate beliefs.
I don’t think he posted here again after my post.
Re the NTZ link above today; Quoted
———–
Some, perhaps only a small minority of the MSM will pick this up but it then becomes a case that other sections of the MSM can’t simply keep on ignoring similar items particularly after the alarmist German based climate scientists admit straight out that they can’t [ after 30 or more years of climate research ] differentiate the claimed anthropogenic variations in the climate from the natural variations.
Therefore they are not able as yet to make any predictions on the future of the global climate.
We aren’t there yet but the MSM’s whole hearted support for the claimed consensus on the global warming /climate change science claims have quite obviously fallen flat on its face as it is now rare to see such a claim anymore in the MSM or even on the blogs today as the science of the global climate continues to change and advance [ ?? ] leaving such stupid consensus claims to be seen for what they are, just the manifestation of the total ignorance of a group of unthinking believers who really don’t seem to have a clue as to how science actually works. ie; Harry Twinotter , Climatesceptic. Sillyfilly, Frank and etc and etc.
When the main body of the MSM switches its attitude to an understanding that it is almost entirely natural factors driving the climate both local and global, and mankind can’t do much about that, there will be a lot of agitators and climate change supplicants left way out on a very precarious limb that is likelyto break and leave all of them facing some very heavy and possibly legal explaining tom do both to authorities and to individuals who have been badly and viciously defamed and denigrated in the full legal sense by the climate change ideologists.
180
I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, and decidedly DO remember all the fuss and hullabaloo about global COOLING. I was very interested in science, the ecology of things, geology, geography, and history – how the world had changed over time, not just man’s history (which is written by winners, but you can’t rewrite an island exploding when its volcano goes boom (or so I thought)) but the land masses, rivers, placement of settlements, and why.
So the cooling years are deeply imbedded in my memories. As they are in, most likely, the memories of anyone over the age of, say, 50. Younger science fans like myself might remember the pronouncements, predictions and warnings of that “settled” and “consensus” science discovery.
80
Mari,
The cooling actually happened. The air polutants, especially from leaded auto fuel and all the power plant gunk that is now stored in ponds of fly ash did happen. Cleaning that up helped temperatures to rise again. This provided the opportunity for the AlGore gas interests to blame the temperature increase of the coal industry, the ingrained competitor for power plant fuel. With the help of NASA Goddard’s Hansen, all worked even better than expected. Are not politics and capitalism wonderful. 🙁
41
Search on YouTube for “The Coming Ice Age”.
30
Briggs is brilliant but the NYT is pretty much the rag of the global elite..Good stir from Briggs to apply.
120
po-faced
adjective humourless, disapproving, solemn, prim, puritanical, narrow-minded, stolid, prudish, strait-laced
“a politically-correct bastion of po-faced self-righteousness”
Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002
“a politically-correct bastion of po-faced self-righteousness”
Likely even more so when they read this application IMO!
70
Worland is a Time Mag “reporter”, with a subcription-only piece up at the moment called “The Anthropocene Should Bring Awe – and Act As a Warning”. he’s just returning from the exploited children’s Oregon court hearing, with Hansen. nothing political about CAGW!
Twitter: Justin Worland
17 min ago – Correcting spelling in the last tweet—I just got off a flight with James Hansen, who spent a good deal of time reading the NYT weather page (pat: JUSTIN CORRECTS SPELLING OF HANSEN).
12 hours ago – On climate, biodiversity and oceans Trump basically calls for the government to do nothing…
12 hrs ago – Dozens of kids including plaintiffs and climate icon James Hansen among the crowd here in court room at #KidsvGov climate hearing
https://twitter.com/JustinWorland?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
CNN sent someone too:
Twitter: John D. Sutter/CNN: #KidsvGov out. Decision on trial w/in 60 days. Kids are confident. “It’s like you see heatwaves come from the judge and just melt them.”
https://twitter.com/jdsutter?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
reality:
13 Sept: Jefferson Public Radio: Rachael McDonald: Federal Judge In Oregon Weighs Dismissal Of Youths’ Climate Suit
Attorneys for the federal government and fossil fuel industry groups argued for dismissal of the case.
Sean Duffy, with the Justice Department, acknowledged climate change is real and human caused. But he said the judicial system is not the right forum to push for more action to cut carbon emissions…
Judge Aiken is expected to issue a decision within 60 days. If she rules in favor of the plaintiffs the case could go to trial or settlement.
http://ijpr.org/post/federal-judge-oregon-weighs-dismissal-youths-climate-suit
20
Sutter/CNN’s novel-length pre-hearing tear-jerker carried by NBC affiliate!
13 Sept: NBC5: Meet the mom behind world’s ‘biggest’ lawsuit
by John Sutter, CNN
EUGENE, Oregon (CNN) —Julia Olson is litigating what should be considered the most important court case in the United States: She’s helping 21 kids, as young as age 9, sue the Obama administration over its insufficient action on climate change.
But to understand why this legal action is so critical, and what’s driving her to bring the case against tough odds, you need to meet Olson in 2006, eight months pregnant, and looking for shelter from the late-summer sun.
“It was August and it was hot,” she told me. “I remember the heat.”
Olson, now 45, sought refuge in an old-timey Oregon movie theater. The film playing was “An Inconvenient Truth”…
“I cried through most of the film,” she told me. “It was very powerful to be carrying new life within me … and to see what I was bringing my child into, and to have it so visually in my face.”…
On Tuesday, Olson will try to get US District Judge Ann Aiken, ***a Bill Clinton appointee, to feel the weight of the court’s responsibility to do what other branches of government so far have failed to do: Create a national plan to get greenhouse gas emissions to levels that scientists consider safe…
“It’s as if the children really speak through her,” said Mary Wood, faculty director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Oregon…
“The planet is on the docket,” Wood, the University of Oregon professor, told me.
“This is the biggest case on the planet.”…READ ON
http://www.wptz.com/national/meet-the-mom-behind-worlds-biggest-lawsuit/41641322
50
This really quite scary. Especially if what I have read about the decisions of Us courts is only half correct.
40
Pat, Wish I had the time to study this “worlds biggist lawsuit”. Thanks for bringing this.
Doug
31
If given the job, I would pay to read the NYT, aka The Gray Lady.
It would need a new nickname.
50
JFH
Jazzed up to something in the line of “Fifty Shades”?
40
“Grey Lady Dawn”?
20
“Crack of Dawn”?
20
I can spike that over the net if you want?
20
I dare you. 🙂
10
Now just imagine how he’d have handled this “highl efficient useful recycling”
Comment at
http://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/103467-look-at-the-navys-newest-destroyer-super-stealthy/
on a new US Navy ship
” I heard that it burns bureaucratic paperwork and shredded political documents plus runs on 50% of the hot flatulence gas that comes out of washington.
On its first test run it almost broke the sound barrier while plowing through water at a 40+ foot hull depth and that was only at 20% fuel burn! :blink: ”
Maybe just the ticket for Malcolm T’s new submarines?
60
Say, way off topic, yeah I know!
This is the first of now only three of these Destroyers, as the other 29 were cancelled.
It’s so stealthy, that when it is in friendly waters, it has to hoist special equipment so it shows up on other (non naval and Naval) vessels radars.
First one named after Elmo Zumwalt, a now passed 4 Star Admiral, who was Chief of Naval Operations during Vietnam, ’70 to ’74.
Second one named after Medal Of Honor recipient Petty Officer Michael Mansoor, a Navy SEAL.
Third one named after some former Naval Reserve officer for a couple of years, some guy called Lyndon Johnson, who nearly had a heart attack in Sydney when anti Vietnam war protesters lay in front of his car, and the bloke in the car with him, Premier Bob Askin yelled at the driver to (quote) “Run over the b@st@rds.” (end quote)
Tony.
60
Yes, sought of a floating F117 -stealth fighter (which it is not because it can not fight against other fighter aircraft).
I am not sure about the Zumwalt either. Destroyer might be appropriate, but it will be a new definition of the word in Naval parlance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Zumwalt
20
It is only invisible to horizontal radar. The eyes-in-the-sky can still track them.
10
Jo
O/T but keep your guard up
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/13/major-science-website-gets-hacked/
30
Yes, these jerks are after names, email addresses, sponsorship details.
20
This is serious!
As far as these activists are concerned, Science is the enemy, and by extension so are the scientists themselves.
Empirical proof no longer carries any weight, as far as these zealots are concerned. What they agree to believe, becomes their truth, and they expect the political and social orders to adjust accordingly.
Any people who speak out against their beliefs, and what “they know to be the truth”, are therefore apostate, and must be publicly vilified. Hence the hack for names, addresses, and financial details.
I have experienced this before, at a different time, and in a different place, regarding belief systems that I cannot mention, because of Australian law.
There is no known resolution to this problem. What people believe, they will cling to tenaciously. Science and logic are a major assult on their belief system, and will therefore be rejected out of hand. Sadly, this also applies to some scientists, as well.
20
It seems that this circulation will accelerate the development of La Niña. We shall soon see.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-242.63,-7.76,452
Will be more rain in Australia.
50
The IOD has gone seriously negative again, while ENSO is neutral and likely to remain there.
Nevertheless, with the continent so sodden it would only take a couple of cyclones and a east coast low to take us back to 1956.
Which is of course 60 years and I wonder what are the odds of history repeating itself.
50
Look at the jump SOI.
https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/seasonalclimateoutlook/southernoscillationindex/30daysoivalues/
60
BoM is talking about some disconnect and at this stage they are keeping a watchful eye.
‘In the Pacific Ocean, although some La Niña–like patterns are present, there remains limited connection between the atmosphere and ocean, and hence La Niña thresholds are yet to be met. A La Niña WATCH remains in place as some climate models indicate a late and weak La Niña is possible.’
40
“there remains limited connection between the atmosphere and ocean”.
Tell me a story! Tell me a story!
20
ENSO remains an enigma, unless Per Strandberg has something more substantial to offer.
10
La Nina isn’t happening because of the north Pacific blob, which has been hiding deep underwater.
http://www.thegwpf.com/has-the-pacific-blob-delayed-la-nina/
10
Possible volcanic activity.
10
1956 was a BIG flood which this then young buck had a good look at when chasing some skirt around Murray Bridge at the time.
The skirt bit didn’t work out, can’t blame her for that, so I had time to drive around a bit as the road and rail Bridges at Murray Bridge was the only crossing point between the ocean and I think Renmark at the time, a distance of over 300 kilometres.
But somewhere around 1750 or about 40 years before Captain Arthur Phillips landed at Botany Bay, found it unsuitable for a settlement and then moved to Sydney Cove, a Murray flood came down that in flowing water volume was almost double the size of the 1956 flood.
It can happen again.
It will happen again.
When?
Who knows the future and if they claim they do then they lie through their teeth.
[ alternatively, often known as climate alarmist scientists, climate modellers and climate activists ]
Ref; The greatest River Murray flood eclipses 1956 levels
—
A paleoclimate rainfall reconstruction in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), Australia: 2. Assessing hydroclimatic risk using paleoclimate records of wet and dry epochs
—
DROUGHTS IN THE MURRAY DARLING BASIN SINCE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT
71
In the mid 18th century there was a huge flood on the Murray which was as deep and wide as the Danube.
20
ROM
This might be repetitious.
Geoff Pickup from CSIRO Alice Springs quite a while ago talked about the signs by which paleo floods could be recognised.
Our local creek experience. 2012 was probably the biggest flood seen by Europeans. That left about two feet of the bank of the dam in the first hollow east of the creek above water, at a level about a metre below the ground on which the house is built, which is west of the creek. Which is on a sandhill and there is a fair chance that the sand came from the creek. If the water were to get to that level it would be completely over the dam bank and maybe half a km east of the creek where Europeans haven’t seen flood water. A flood of that level would be definitely interesting times.
Further up the creek there is a large sandhill around the junction of two creeks which may well date from the same time
20
Here’s a photo of the 1956 flood marker erected at Mannum.
10
The link didn’t work. Try again.
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6402413
10
And William Briggs would have had a field day with “derogatory remarks that don’t derog” as with this O/T example of with Hillary’s “deplorables”
http://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/103472-ive-been-called-many-things/
Fully in the “Rats of Tobruk” spirit
40
William, whatever you do don’t go quoting some wacky, discredited coolists like…well, like the New York Times:
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/ny-times-1975-05-21.pdf
60
Friends of the Earth tries to impose CAGW orthodoxy on academia:
13 Sept: HuffPo Blog: Can UK Universities Lead The Way On Climate Change?
by Craig Bennett, Chief Executive, Friends of the Earth
Every sector with influence needs to show that they ‘get’ that climate change is urgent, and the most urgent and difficult challenges humanity faces.
To this end, British universities have a clear leadership role in in steering a path away from climate disaster. We already have many of the world’s leading climate scientists, and our universities are well placed – with their cross-sectoral focus – to provide the multi-disciplinary co-operation needed to address the simultaneous economic, social and environmental challenges posed by the rapidly escalating climate crisis.
UK universities can lead the way. But are they, and are they doing enough?
Since Paris, Friends of the Earth wrote to 59 UK academic institutions, asking them how they were changing their plans to reflect the Paris Agreement’s new 1.5 degree goal. We publish the results of that survey today…
Please do read our report (LINK) and I urge you to engage your local university in taking greater steps to tackle climate change. Here are the 5 stand-out conclusions from our survey:…
1.5 degrees is not yet embedded
We hope that the big international conference (LINK) on 1.5 degrees in Oxford on the 20th-22nd September will be lead to concrete and strengthened research and advocacy on 1.5 degrees right across the UK university sector…
Communicating a strong, positive vision
At root, this is about recognising that a central role for universities has always been about transforming society for the better. Tackling climate change will involve societal transformation at a colossal scale: universities can champion this change with a clear vision of how they are leading the way in effecting this change…READ ON
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/craig-bennett/can-uk-universities-lead-_b_11971850.html
the piece has a single comment…and a cute one it is.
40
12 Sept: Sputnik: SPUTNIK EXCLUSIVE: Research Proves Google Manipulates Millions to Favor Clinton
In this exclusive report, distinguished research psychologist Robert Epstein explains the new study and reviews evidence that Google’s search suggestions are biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. He estimates that biased search suggestions might be able to shift as many as 3 million votes in the upcoming presidential election in the US.
[Postscript: Google declined to comment on the record when queried about some of the concerns I have raised in this article. Instead, on August 17th, a company representative sent me to a blog post released by the company on June 16th; you can read Google’s official position on autocomplete there. For the record, I am a moderate politically, and I support Hillary Clinton for president. I do not believe, however, that it would be right for her to win the presidency because of the invisible, large-scale manipulations of a private company. That would make democracy meaningless, and that is why I am trying to keep the public informed about my research findings. Also for the record, I have chosen to publish this article through Sputnik News because Sputnik agreed to publish it in unedited form in order to preserve the article’s accuracy. —R.E.]
https://sputniknews.com/us/20160912/1045214398/google-clinton-manipulation-election.html
13 Sept: Megafeed: Don Lemmings: Guccifer 2.0: New Clinton Leaks Reveals Donor List. Big Donors Awarded Federal Positions After Their Donations.
http://magafeed.com/new-clinton-leaks-reveals-donor-list-big-donors-awarded-federal-positions/
EXCELLENT TWITTER FEED ON GUCCIFER 2.0 DNC LEAKS
https://mobile.twitter.com/basedmattforney
30
Regarding Climate Change.
I have just completed a car drive from Melbourne to Lake Keepit (near Tamworth) and back, dodging severe rain and flooding both ways.
At Forbes (on the way North), I was told that the last equivalent flood event was 1990. The BOM has been helpful because they publish the current synoptic chart and a 4 day forecast, which helped make up my mind about timing the return journey and choosing an inland route via Cowra, to avoid the plains around Forbes on the Newell Highway.
I made it home!
Previously it was known as climate variability. Now it is Climate Change!
61
I heard that it was previously known as the WEATHER
71
Now that we have gone O/T, I normally buy one tonne of wood for winter which is plenty. This year however it is the middle of September and I have run out and am contemplating buying some more.
Damn you climate change
70
‘… The cold, brrrrr, climate – change Little Ice Age
‘n glacial creep has significant effect on forests,pastures (
and crops.) Tsk!
60
Starting to flood in Adelaide Beth not sure the effect on our projected record crops at this stage
Cheers
30
Apres la deluge!
40
Lucky you aren’t getting any older. Then you would really feel the cold!
30
That’s true. I have been twentysix for as long as I remember, and I never feel the cold.
10
The Polar Ocean Challenge yacht “Northabout” has completed the Northwest passage thereby proving:
David Hempleman-Adams does somewhat gloss over all the problems of the North East Passage (Russian side) which was much more problematic.
Fortunately hardly anyone is interested.
ps Roald Amundsen (also first to the South Pole) was the first to traverse the North West Passage by sea, taking 3 years from 1903-1906.
The North West passage has almost mythical status due to the many attempts at passage including an attempt from the western entrance by Sir Francis Drake raiding expedition in 1579
21
“it is extremely worrying to see this lack of ice so starkly “
Seriously ?
They barely scraped through the Vilkitsky Strait
Then they dodge the masses of sea ice blocking the main entrance to the NW passage.
Even then they were on full throttle fossil fuel while dodging sea ice on their final stretch out of the NW passage
The main reason they didn’t see much sea ice in some parts was because the satellite sea ice charts told them how to avoid it.
81
I suggest people watch the Arctic sea ice charts over the next few weeks.
The level has turned early and is re-freezing quickly.
41
The claim that both the NE And NW passages were ‘Sailed’ is spurious. To finish the NE, the arctic circle must be crossed west of Alaska. Similarly, to begin the NW, the Arctic circle must be entered west of Alaska. Neither was achieved.
51
And the NW passage was definitely NOT sailed.
They had their fossil fuelled engine going flat chat the whole way through.
51
This recent paper gives hope that earthquakes are predictable, some will say its lunacy while others might think it logical.
http://www.nature.com/news/moon-s-pull-can-trigger-big-earthquakes-1.20551
50
Looks like the New York Times is the walking dead.
An Obituary of The New York Times
40
From sceptick blog site to an editorial position on The New York Times? It’s fun to dream, Jo.
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For TdeF, Terrestrial Energy USA has been invited by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to submit the second part of its application for a US federal loan guarantee to support the licensing and construction of its Integrated Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR).
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Terrestrial-Energy-to-complete-US-loan-guarantee-application-1409167.html
The likely customer for the unit is Duke Energy, IMO, since they have joined Terrestrial’s advisory board, although it would need to be licenced by the NRC first. A very good write up by Rod Adams.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/09/14/terrestrial-energys-advanced-nuclear-technology-the-imsr-takes-several-steps-forward/#7af5cc60733e
The IMSR is the MSR, I mentioned which was closest to commercialisation, largely because it is a uranium burner (ie non-breeding).
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On climate, a breath of fresh air,
If Briggs got the editor’s chair,
For the N.Y.T. post,
Being likely the most,
Suited through knowledge and flair.
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Another brilliant limerick Ruairi 🙂
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Yes, the brilliance never wanes. Depressing, isn’t it.
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WB says:
Whereas, if someone from Mann’s tribe who was going for the job, that quote would say:
Personally, I think we need a movement: WB4NYT!
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Another “derogatory statement that doesn’t derog”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/deplorable-me-tees/
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14 Sept: NYT: Reuters: Climate Change ‘Significant and Direct’ Threat to U.S. Military: Reports
WASHINGTON — The effects of climate change endanger U.S. military operations and could increase the danger of international conflict, according to three new documents endorsed by retired top U.S. military officers and former national security officials.
“There are few easy answers, but one thing is clear: the current trajectory of climatic change presents a strategically-significant risk to U.S. national security, and inaction is not a viable option,” said a statement published on Wednesday by the Center for Climate and Security, a Washington-based think tank…
They called on the next U.S. president to create a cabinet level position to deal with climate change and its impact on national security.
A separate report by a panel of retired military officials, also published on Wednesday by the Center for Climate and Security, said more frequent extreme weather is a threat to U.S. coastal military installations…
Francesco Femia, co-founder and president of the Center for Climate and Security, said the reports show bipartisan national security and military officials think the existing U.S. response to climate change “is not commensurate to the threat”…
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that global warming is a concept “created by the and for the Chinese” to hurt U.S. business…
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/09/14/us/14reuters-usa-climatechange.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
reminder…a MUST-READ…to the end:
2014: WashingtonTimes: Rowan Scarborough: Retired officers poised to profit after Pentagon’s alarmist climate change report
Urgent Obama call can funnel funds to projects
The other vice chairman, retired Army Brig. Gen. Gerald E. Galloway Jr., is a prominent adviser to the Center for Climate and Security, a climate change group.
In all, four CNA board members sit on the panel of advisers to the Center for Climate and Security, whose statements on climate change are similar to those found in the CNA report…
The greatest influence on CNA reports seems to come from the Center for Climate and Security, whose position is that the debate on climate change, or man-made global warming, is over…
***The Center for Climate and Security has taken donations from the Tides Foundation, which gets money from Democratic Party financier and liberal billionaire George Soros…
The CNA report was celebrated by other global warming foreboders, particularly The New York Times, which gave it home page prominence on its website…
Climate change has become big business…
Gen. Keys, who joined the Center for Climate and Security in March, owns RK Solutions, a consulting firm that advises the Pentagon on climate change, according to the center’s biography for him…
CNA also lists as clients the liberal Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/26/sponsors-of-pentagons-alarm-raising-climate-study-/
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14 Sept: Washington Times: Jennifer Harper: American trust in news media falls to lowest level in history: Gallup poll
Confidence in fairness and accuracy ‘sinks to a new low’
A major pollster has some stark news: “Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media ‘to report the news fully, accurately and fairly’ has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32 percent saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year,” writes Art Swift, an analyst for the Gallup poll, which first asked the nation to weigh in on the press in 1972…
***“Republicans who say they have trust in the media has plummeted to 14 percent from 32% a year ago. This is easily the lowest confidence among Republicans in 20 years,” the analyst noted.
Among Democrats, the number is 51 percent, among independents, it is 30 percent…
“While it is clear Americans’ trust in the media has been eroding over time, the election campaign may be the reason that it has fallen so sharply this year,” Mr. Swift said.
“With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more. It is also possible that Republicans think less of the media as a result of Trump’s sharp criticisms of the press.”…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/14/gallup-poll-american-trust-in-news-media-falls-to-/
reminder of the 6 PERCENT:
17 Apr: AP: Poll: Getting facts right key to Americans’ trust in media
By CAROLE FELDMAN and EMILY SWANSON
Just ***6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions. In this presidential campaign year, Democrats were more likely to trust the news media than Republicans or independents…according to a study by the Media Insight Project, a partnership of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute…
About Michael Goodwin, see links below: Michael Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist known for never letting the political elite forget their job is to represent taxpayers. He started his career with The New York Times as a housing reporter and then City Hall bureau chief. He was the editorial page editor at the Daily News, where he directed a series of reports on the Apollo Theater that won the Pulitzer. A series documenting abuse of farm workers earned the board the Polk Award…
14 Sept: NY Post: Michael Goodwin: Hillary collapse coverage reveals absurdity of biased media
http://nypost.com/2016/09/14/hillary-collapse-coverage-reveals-absurdity-of-biased-media/
11 Sept: NY Post: Michael Goodwin: Hillary’s media is torching its standards to cover the election
http://nypost.com/2016/09/11/hillarys-media-is-torching-its-standards-to-cover-the-election/
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comment #27 on trust in media is in moderation.
[Pat, making these comments does not speed up their release nor does the numbering actually match what you think it is. WordPress has it’s own idea. Post freely but there is no reason to urge us to free your comments. By nature of the quirks of WordPress, that happens on our time line not yours.]ED
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sorry about that. it seemed the right thing to do.
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Briggs is (a) pretty hilarious; and (b) kinda spooky.
(b) because the potted history in one of his posts is so close to my own potted history that it’s bizarre.
Like him, my first paid work was ‘yard’ work (for him: mowing the lawn for an elderly neighbour; for me: mowing the lawns at Bandiana Primary School… I was 14-ish at the time). We both did the bare minimum required (if that).
We both joined – then left- the military; we both kinda half-cured our inherent laziness; we both went on to advanced study in technical disciplines; we both have a proper, practitioner’s understanding of the shortcomings of numerical models (his book, “Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics” sounds like it would be OK); we both have a particular disdain for climate models and climate ‘science’ generally, mostly driven by professional shame in seeing something related to our discipline done badly.
We both have made recent jokes about the whole ‘identify with whatever takes your fancy’…
Briggs (September 14 2016):
Me (9 months ago):
(Note: I pre-emptively edited the blockquote of my declaration of ‘identification’. It was funnier unedited.)
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It just crossed my mind that one major point of difference is that Briggs was almost certainly never a smutterman.
Since I left that job (in 1984 after a motorcycle accident) I have never met another person who knew what it is.
It’s also the job I look back on the most fondly; simple, but complex; great co-workers; no ‘side’ or gravitas (I detest gravitas: it’s always an attempt to get more credit than you deserve).
Had I never been a smutterman, I would never have known the pleasure of sitting – on a cold winter’s night – atop 8 ‘conditioning’ bins, each holding 20 tonnes of slightly-moistened wheat (when wheat is being ‘conditioned’ it generates heat, making the top of the bins lovely and warm: in winter I used to sit up in the “smuts” and read for hours during night shift).
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Even the corn, who has ears, refuses to listen to the 97% science …
“MAXWELL, Iowa — Pale green and 8 feet tall, tightly packed corn stalks reach to the horizon throughout the Midwest in what is likely to be the biggest harvest the U.S. has ever seen.
Aside from a sense of pride in breaking the previous record by nearly a billion bushels, farmers won’t benefit. They’ll lose money on virtually every cob.
It’ll be the third consecutive year in which most corn farmers will spend more than they’ll earn.”
~ ~ ~
Union of Concerned Scientists: Disruptions to Food Supplies
“Global warming has the potential to seriously disrupt our food supply, drive costs upward, and affect everything from coffee to cattle, from staple food crops (picture of corn) to the garden in your backyard.
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On the intellectual front, Peter O’Brien in Quadrant doesn’t hold back any punches.
‘More than a secular religion, catastropharianism is a cult — and like all cults built around prophecies of doom, the refusal of events to confirm predictions is shrugged off, the omens of pending disaster re-interpreted, and the day of reckoning assigned a new date.’
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Thank you for your time. In closing, would you like to tell us a good joke?
Briggs: One snowman said to the other, “That’s funny. I smell carrots, too.”
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14 Sept: Deutsche Welle: Kay-Alexander Scholz: Club of Rome’s new book reads like an eco manifesto
A renowned think tank is calling for a radical shift in solving the world’s problems. Among other things, countries should slow down economic growth to only 1 percent, and promote a one-child policy. Wishful thinking?
The Club of Rome’s new report includes some drastic claims. The think tank’s mission is to reinvent prosperity through managing economic growth, reducing unemployment and inequality, and addressing climate change. Its new hardcover “One percent growth is enough” was officially launched in Berlin on Tuesday (13.09.2016).
The calls for action do come from experts – the organization has more than four decades of experience…
Its members include entrepreneurs, scientists, industrialists and other prominent figures. Like US economist Joseph Stiglitz, former Prime Minister of India Mammohan Singh, and German natural scientist and politician Ernst Ulrich von Weizsacker. Weizsacker has been the co-president of the Switzerland-based Club of Rome since 2012…
Conventional solutions like wealth tax, boosting infrastructure spending or encouraging more entrepreneurs will not help to reduce climate change,# inequality and joblessness, they write.
Thus there is only one – unconventional – solution: paradigm shift…
“It’s not about less growth, but about a different growth,” said German Development Minister Gerd Müller at the public launch in Berlin…
***According to the minister, western consumption habits, “like our cars, our lifestyle,” cannot be the way to go for India or Africa. There’s just not enough resources and energy available, he stressed.
But why should anyone want to withhold that lifestyle from people in Africa or India? This was followed by a ripe silence…
http://www.dw.com/en/club-of-romes-new-book-reads-like-an-eco-manifesto/a-19549957
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Jo
FYI. And think what William Briggs might have said about it.
” indefatigablefrog
September 14, 2016 at 6:38 pm
You can find similarly meaningless pretentious drivel at this automatically generated internet page.
The page is re-generated each time it is visited or refreshed. http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
”
From https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/14/dont-say-climate-change-its-a-poisonous-term-to-use/
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