Poor petals. The ABC is selling the sob story of scientists paid from the public pocket who feel suppressed because they aren’t allowed to voice their personal unresearched opinion on things like international treaties and energy policy.
Leaked emails from 2015 reveal a bitter dispute within CSIRO, Australia’s leading science body, as management tried to prevent top scientists from breaking ranks before the Paris climate summit.
The disagreement took place after CSIRO declined to make a formal submission to a government consultation about Australia’s new emissions target.
CSIRO has guidelines for its researchers, which encourage them to speak publicly about their areas of expertise — provided they do not stray too far into policy.
Critics say these tensions between CSIRO management and scientists are a symptom of ongoing self-censorship by an organisation fearful of offending government and losing funding.
The ABC entirely misses the plight of skeptical scientists who can’t be suppressed at the CSIRO because they would never even get a grant or a job there.
Put this in perspective, the CSIRO pour out climate reports in full gloss designer color on a regular basis. They forget to mention Australias hot history, worst fires, and often don’t say that our rainfall has increased in the last 100 years.
The ABC is going “hard” – three stories this week.
- CSIRO ‘missing in action’ on climate advice
- This week’s episode of Science Friction
- Science on the frontline: What are CSIRO’s rules of engagement?
The ABC makes out John Church is a suppressed scientist, but back in 2014, CSIRO wasn’t stopping John Church star in The Guardian for bravely offering a hypocritically weak propaganda bet. Church offered to bet $10,000 on “any warming above zero” in the next 20 years, a situation which would be a complete failure of all their models. At the same time he was promoting model predictions and effectively supporting demanding billions of dollars of money from taxpayers. As I said then, show you have the balls and come and talk about a real bet — one that demonstrates you honestly really do think your models work, and you understand the climate.
As usual, the public servants in the ABC are spotlighting the ant and missing the ant-eater. They won’t touch the real suppression, but pump and inflate the irrelevant one. Surprise me — public servants support public servants who all crusade for any policy that means More Money from Taxpayers and a larger public service.
The ABC entirely misses the plight of skeptical scientists who can’t be suppressed at the CSIRO because they would never even get a grant or a job there. Skeptics face exile, namecalling, threats to be sacked, evicted, blackballed, terminated, punished, vilified and generally get bullied. The government funded suppression is so entrenched and well funded there is even support for videos blowing up skeptical kids (as a joke), as well as songs and plays about killing people like you, and in some cases, talk of a RICO investigation.
The invisible hole
Science is in a rut, a hole, and being abused and exploited by a trillion dollar industry, as well as by the largest organisation in our economy — the government. We need real science communicators to help shake it out, but nearly the whole industry of science communicators are fully government funded, and become by default, blind to the problems that government funding creates.
Thanks to the philanthropists here who keep this science commentator out of the bankruptcy file!
This is the modern vogue, the oppressors playing the victims and looking for sympathy. I well remember economist Ross Garnaut portraying himself as the modern Galileo, oppressed in his true science belief that Global Warming was the consequence of industrialization and his professional view that a carbon tax was the only hope for this country. As for 350 CSIRO scientists working on the Climate Change and now Climate solutions and Ocean Acidification and achieving nothing more than glossy brochures, that’s hundreds of millions of our dollars for nothing at all. Of course they are oppressed.
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John Church is a poor scientist, that is why he got the sack.There is so much dead wood lying around government bodies like the CSIRO climate department doing nothing. If the modern crop of graduates with their lightweight PhD’s follow on with their politically inspired trash it means no good for proper science anytime soon.
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John Church is watching sea level rise, which as you know takes a lot of concentration and patience. Anyway he has found a berth at UNSW (a hotbed of intrigue) the very heart of the Klimatariat in Australia.
“John Church is easily Australia’s most credentialled expert on sea-level rise,” Matthew England, the centre’s deputy director, told Fairfax Media. “For a while we risked losing his formidable expertise here in Australia.”
SMH
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That’s very funny. An expert on sea level rise, measured in mm. It is like being an expert on racing snails. You would not think that you could aspire to such a job as Australia’s expert, our most credentialled expert with ‘formidable expertise’. It redefines useless. You wonder why Australia is not leading the free world.
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It makes Crick and Watson’s discovery of the double helix structure of DNA fade into insignificance. Or Australian Howard Florey’s discovery of penicillin with his memorial in the floor of Westminster Abbey. The stump jump plough is nothing compared to the steady watching and significance of 1mm of sea level. We are blessed with our CSIRO.
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I stand corrected El gordo … Yup!
20
‘John Church is a poor scientist ….’
Why is this poor science?
“In the last two decades, the rate of GMSLR (Global Mean Sea Level Rise) has been larger than the 20th-century time-mean, due to increased rates of thermal expansion, glacier mass loss, and ice discharge from both ice-sheets (Church et al., 2011).”
23
I’ll play devil’s advocate.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
23
Well, I suppose you really have to determine how sea levels are measured: do you have a few selected sites around the globe, all confirmed to be geologically stable? Do you just have one extremely accurate site, and extrapolate from there? From what datum point will the level be measured? Or do you use satellite telemetry, and how is its accuracy to be determined and monitored?
Given that the surface of the sea is rarely still enough to determine its level to within 10 cm, let alone 1cm, how valid is any claimed variation that is measured in mm?
205
Oooh, look – I’m out-redthumbing everybody else! Must have touched a few raw nerves, methinks.
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Ha ha, good one Radical Rodent. Then, when the Great Barrier Reef has large sections of bleaching because the local sea level has FALLEN, and now corals are exposed to UV rays at low tide, THAT has nothing to do with sea level, but must be blamed on ocean “acidification” or ocean warming.
We know it’s difficult to win the propaganda battle against the side with all the press, all the hysteria, and all the government paid bureaucrats masquerading as scientists. And yet, slowly, they are losing the PR battle because science is all about dispassionate inquiry, and never about hysteria and propaganda.
But speaking of hysteria, WUWT has a new article up about a giant iceberg along the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula that’s apparently about to calve. I hear that it’s almost the size of the planet Neptune and it could soon be crashing into Melbourne or on impact, could even tip over the entire Australian continent. You folks had better start evacuating and come North (sort of an opposite story to that classical Aussie end of the world tale “On the Beach”). These SOBs want to peddle hysteria, by god I’ll give them some hysteria to peddle.
00
Help me, I’m in one of my moods.
I have a correction to make about the previous post. The calving iceberg is even bigger than the planet Neptune. It’s fully 1/4 of the size of of the Prince of Wales’ head, which comparison was necessary, as the research team obsessed with the big crack in the ice shelf is from Wales (Swansea). Now, for easy comparison and visualization, 1/4 of the size of the Prince of Wales head is about twice the size of Bill Nye’s sanctimony gland. I know what the scientific purists are going to say, that his sanctimony gland is not typical, and in fact, it’s unusually large for a sanctimony gland. Yes, that’s true. But most people just have a good sense of it’s size from watching him on the TV. It’s an easy heuristic type analogy-thingy. And to be sure, doctors once thought there might be a malignant tumor in Bill Nye’s sanctimony gland. But no, it’s just a healthy, prodigious gland, full of pure sanctimony hormones (oh, sorry, trigger warning for all enthusiastic or aggrieved sex industry employed females. oh oh trigger^2, persons, be they trans, cis or whatever). Btw, all this private medical record stuff was leaked to me by Valdimart Putin, so you can believe it I would not lie to you on the Internet.You can trust me. Wow, I have digressed WAY off topic here, so I’ll quit and not make things any more alarming for you Aussies, my tied for second favorite English speaking country in the world. Oh, one more thing, though. Imagine a super hero with the head the size of Prince Charles’ and a sanctimony gland as large as Bill Nye’s! Oh wait, we already have Michael Mann, so never mind. But imagine if there was a cross between Michael Mann and Michael Moore, the screeching lefty filmmaker. You’d have Michael^2 Mooremann. He would be more awesome than the Incredible Hulk. That’s something I’d like to see Stan Lee draw in a comic book (sorry, trigger warning, nerds. I meant graphic novel). Uh, were was I going with this…. Oh, yeah, now I remember. Good job, Jo. I love the blog. Bringing a little dose of sanity to a big land. Let’s just hope, that unlike Guam, it’s too big to tip over.
30
G’day RR,
Well, I know nothing about climate science but I once watched a presentation by Willie Soon on sea level measurement.
Generally, he was none too impressed.
I recall he said (paraphrasing, here) that satellite measurements were referenced to traditional terrestrial tide markers and also pointed out the near impossibility of measuring down to single millilitre number from sensors in space given that quite apart from the sea moving, so do the tide gauges, the satellites and the land based markers.
To complicate matters further, satellites sweep the planet over time, so there is no instantaneous measurement at all points of the globe in any case. Obviously one is left with a series of measurements at disparate times that must then be processed to form some shape or other.
Willie Soon reckoned the whole exercise was futile and that the error bars far exceeded the measurement.
Of course the original use for tide gauges was to ensure ships had sufficient water under their keel so they didn’t plough a track through the Great Barrier Reef. They were never intended nor expected to be accurate to the millilitre.
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So – just to get this straight – what you are saying is that the claims for sea-level rise – that it is increasing in rate, and soon to engulf whole nations – is just a load of baloney? Well, colour me surprised! But it is nice to know that I am not alone…
Whenever I raise these points with less-sceptical persons, I generally get shouted at “BECAUSE IT IS HAPPENING!” without one shred of evidence to back up any claims. When I point out that many of the “threatened” island nations are actually growing in area, as is Bangladesh… well, the most recent implied that that nation was soon to be swallowed by a massive earthquake. Quite how that ties in with “climate change” or sea-level rise was never fully explained.
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‘I generally get shouted at “BECAUSE IT IS HAPPENING!”
😉 Agree with them, its been warm over the past century, but its only natural variability.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/02/27/20-new-papers-affirm-modern-climate-is-in-phase-with-natural-variability/#sthash.4XFfpiRl.dpbs
These 20 papers need to be condensed into 365 words so that the average layman understands and then we can send Cory Bernardi a copy.
20
G’day RR,
Yep, it certainly looks like load of baloney. Not so much because it might not be “happening” but more because we can’t measure it with any accuracy or confidence in any event.
I think I found the Willie Soon video, HERE.
It’s a long presentation and the weighty part covering sea level measurement starts at about 15:09.
20
The movement of the earth’s crust due to earth tides may be of interest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide
10
mm not ml.
If you average ten items of data at one unit it can be valid to give the average at one tenth of a unit.
Whatever the satellites say, it is where the tide gauges are that sea level changes cause or do not cause problems.
Sydney’s Fort Denison has one of the world’s best records over more than a century, showing a remarkably steady rise of .65mm a year up to 2010, when NOAA stopped reporting it. Why?
I looked it up recently, and each month the gauge is “cleaned and calibrated”. So even Fort Denison must now be suspect.
NOAA’s records do show, BTW, that, as you would expect, the great river deltas are sinking, and that some gauges in Alaska are rising at a remarkable rate, such as might be associated with earthquakes at some time. The east coast of the US appears to be sinking slowly. Oz is remarkably stable, showing below average rises. Kiribati is 0.58 mm/yr, + or – 0.87 mm. Note that error margin.
30
One wonders against what it is calibrated or, rather, recalibrated?
10
The sea moving, thanks to wherever the moon is apart from anything else.
10
Thanks rodent, I’ll put this up so we can stare at SLR hour by hour.
http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/projects/abslmp/data/index.shtml
10
That is the problem. All parameters are to be discussed. Isostatic rebound – old hat and soooo Paleo like,whatever. The Romans, Saxons, Vikings roamed up the rivers of Britain far beyond present travel;this is accepted. Unfortunately we have this ignorant view that human CO2 has somehow changed all that.
82
Glen they are moving the goal posts, their models tell them that since 1950 GHG have dominated and produced a spike.
Church was part of the et al on this recent paper, if we take away their models they are blind and don’t have a leg to stand on.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n7/full/nclimate2991.html
10
They are splitting hairs to remain relevant, using their models as a crutch, torturing the data until it screams.
‘New computer modelling has shown that human influences were responsible for two-thirds of sea level rise from 1970 to 2005. By contrast, natural forces were responsible for about two-thirds of the rise in sea levels detected from 1900 to 1950.’
Climate Central / Upton / April 2016
20
el gordo,
I followed your link to the NASA site. It also has a tab on “The Scientific Consensus.” It’s disheartening, to say the least, that a supposed government science agency pushes the consensus meme and uses “peer-reviewed” articles from John Cook, Naomi Oreskes, and Doran & M. K. Zimmerman as evidence that a consensus is real. Their funding really needs to be cut.
111
I can appreciate where you’re coming from Phil, but in the first instance we need to prove their science is flat out wrong or we won’t get a look in.
20
The government talks about good debt versus bad debt but ignores the fact that they are wasting a lot of money on bad science instead of propping up more good science. Turnbull either turns off the tap for the bad science, such as climate change research and instead divert the monies towards more cancer research and the like.
182
Crikey, the ABC must be slipping.
We all know the only approved description is “hacked” . . whether it be e-mails from the DNC or the Climategate e-mails.
72
What gets me is how the lines have been blurred, so far that now they have all just blended together.
Someone who has a degree in one specific field of Science, a degree, a Masters and a PhD, well, because it is in one specific branch of scientific endeavour is now considered, because they are a quote unquote Scientist, then it is now excepted that they have become an expert in EVERY field of scientific endeavour, especially when it comes to Climate Science. That reared its ugly head more than nine years back now when I noticed that (and I wasn’t Robinson Crusoe when it cane to this) that any submission for funding at a University got the inside running is Global Warming was highlighted as being related to the need for funding, later morphing into Climate Change.
So now, any scientific endeavour became inextricably linked to Climate Science, so even though their narrow field of scientific pursuit was in one area only, they were now automatically accepted as an expert in Climate Science, no matter that their field of endeavour may have been as far from that as you could guess. The whole thing then snowballed, and now ….. ANY scientist at all is automatically associated with climate science, and the pretence had to be sustained for fear of losing any ongoing funding.
That has now carried over so far that these scientists, any of them, now HAVE to support each other, hence even though they know nothing about it, they are accepted as quote unquote experts.
Now they have devolved down to experts on renewable energy, extrapolated out because that of itself is perceived as an ….. ANSWER to their climate science meme, and so, without even having the first clue about any form of renewable energy, which is Engineering and not Science, those scientists are now perceived as experts in that field as well.
As I have said often, I fear the day when the truth comes out about renewable power, and it will, and then science will be damaged, and damaged very badly, because scientists with no understanding of that other field of endeavour have been cast as the experts that they are not.
It’ll be too late then to backpedal, because they have hitched their wagon to it now.
Everybody is an expert on renewable power, scientists, and more commonly now, Economists, everyone except electrical engineers, because perish the thought that any one of them will raise his head above the parapet and tell the real facts, only to be scoffed at by ….. some scientist somewhere whose field of endeavour is most definitely not electrical engineering.
Science will go on. It will recover, but it will be severely damaged. I can see scientists in (some) establishments actually saying, hang on , I can’t say that because I don’t actually know for certain, and those bean counter economists at the establishment crying out for that taxpayer funding tell them that they have to support it, and if they don’t then, it might mean their job. Hence scientists are now commentators on ALL science, and now Engineering as well.
Tony.
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Nice comment Tony. I too have noticed that someone with a BS in Marxist Sociology can claim to be a “climate scientist” and have the grants, voice, and power of a real scientist. But even more shameful because they know better, is the physicists, astronomers, etc. pulling the same scam and saying they are experts in climate change. Perhaps we can feel sorry for the Hollywood actors, and Marxist Sociologists because they are pushing a theory and a narrative beyond their comprehension. But real scientists in an area as far from climate scientists as far from understanding climate, renewable energy, grid technology, and power plant operations are only degrading respect for competent science in all fields.
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Or economics or psychology or ecology or medicine or even dead kangaroos or sociology.
102
Or Tim Flannery on hot rocks (where the Federal government invested and lost $93 million of our money) or even on Nuclear Power. Dr Flannery is of course an expert on nuclear power.
172
Surely it could be argued that trying, and failing, and learning from that failure is itself a valuable bit of knowledge?
Am I happy that so much taxpayer money went to that project? No, not really, because I very much doubt it was spent as efficiently as it could have been. Am I happy the work was done – yes, for a few reasons (in no particular order); 1) it kept me employed while they were drilling their later wells. 2) the concept was shown to have some potential, even if current (affordable) technology cant keep up. 3) a lot more is known about the geology, heat flow, and stress regime than was known before multiple wells were drilled.
It’s a moot point, and a spurious argument to put forward, but I would rather see taxpayers money spent on projects which failed to achieve their goals, and were stopped, but still generated some useful knowledge, than taxpayers money spent on subsidising
renewableintermittent/unreliable power generators and the likes.31
Poster boy Brian Cox, for example, comes to mind. I vividly remember this person ostentatiously waving a NASA chart on Q&A, purporting to show global temperatures going through the roof during the hottest year evah. No mention by the “expert” that said chart was constructed with a wildly exaggerated Y axis, and that the purported record temperature was not a measured maximum temperature, but a departure from the mean over a certain period, or that the jaw dropping max was 0ª.01C, or thereabouts, while the margin of error was an order of magnitude greater!
No real scientist or statistician who valued his reputation would make such a ludicrous claim, but Cox did!
30
Your point about people who have no qualifications become climate scientists…its a bit like getitng an arts degree…but at least loo paper is useful at least *once*….
This is what I call “the smart phone effect” – namely people have access to lots of information and feel clever becasue of it, but are ultimately useless because they cant apply said information………
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There is no climate science degree, it’s covered in environmental science the entry requirement it to be above the 56th percentile which is one of the lowest entry scores there is. That’s lower than journalism (arts) and far far lower entry score than engineering. So yes, Andrew Bolt IS smarter than the average climate Scientist…
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I came across my old Advanced Engineering Maths book by Kryszeig the other day ( 5th Ed..) and marvelled at how much maths my B. Eng. ( Elec ) had, but also wondered how many people these days could still wade through heavy duty study, clearly climate “science”-ists don’t…. the standards thses days are more lightweight like like a B. Arts or B Econ….he he
60
‘There is no climate science degree.’
In a funny way I see this blog as Climate Science 101. Modules: Atmospheric Science, Political Science and Paleoclimate History.
We are all fully qualified tutors just waiting for a flood of students to come through the door, shouldn’t be too much longer.
20
I see that now they’ve lowered the threshold for paying back those University student loans.
I guess that means those burger flippers at Maccas have another outgoing then, eh!
Tony.
I have a good friend in St. Louis, a graduate of ‘Ole Miss’ The University of Mississippi. He has a good friend who is a graduate of The University of Florida. You have no idea how huge College football is in the U.S. The ‘Ole Miss’ football team is The Rebels, and UF are The Gators, and there is no bigger rivalry in college football than between these two teams. My friend in St Louis told me a common joke was in reference to The Gators, and what were the words most uttered by Gators graduates …… “Would like fries with that!”
73
Applying information, there’s the rub.
Few do it well, regardless of education level.
Access to information is the life force of science.
The few are losing control of that life force.
Pedigree matters less everyday.
The good appliers will rise from the mud carrying a smart phone.
31
Hi Tony, As a fellow Electrical Engineer, I too am disturbed about the nonsense that passes for ‘expert’ comment on renewable energy. There are so many problems associated with renewable energy that I cannot see that the current crop of wind generation systems will survive in the long term. My hope is that South Australia and Victoria will end up being such a disaster as they ratchet up their percentage of renewables that it will become painfully obvious, even to the so-called ‘experts’, that renewables can, at best, only be a minor player in providing reliable and affordable electric power.
172
Based on some fairly sound reasoning (aka Enerconics), I worked out that if the price paid for “unreliables” was more than double the average price, that it becomes likely that if we take the full energy costs involved in their manufacture, transport, sales, propaganda, the people who work for the manufacturing coys etc., that we will find that unreliables are a NET CONSUMER of energy.
From an “enerconic” viewpoint, they are in effect massive batteries – charged up with (Chinese coal) energy during manufacture which is then released to the grid in gullible countries in the West.
In other words … unreliables are still just coal power … but disguised behind greenwash. The only really significant changes are not the amount of CO2, but who makes the money (China), how reliable the electricity supply, and who suffers in terms of pollution of the visual landscape and the death of birds and bats from these bird-choppers.
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Yes, and the the value of energy is also intrinsically linked to its utility.
So, in reality, solar is “free” energy, just as wind is “free” and so is coal.
The costs associated with bringing those “free” components to some utility is where the value becomes established.
If you were given a gallon of Petrol (gas), you might choose to drive to work for a day or two, or go on a shopping trip on the weekend.
With petrol (or coal) you get to choose how and when to use the available energy to improve your life.
“Unreliables” are unable to compete in terms of that utility.
Hmm . . I hope I’ve thought this through.
40
Great insight Mike. What you say is quite true.
We only have to look at the progress in the so called ‘decarbonisation’ of the leading world economies:-they are all going backwards. And that’s after (15 or more) years of bulding them. Wind ‘renewables’ requires more energy to construct than it will ever produce in its working lifetime.
GeoffW
10
delishly ironic placement of this comment. Well done.
From Monckton to this person there are many who profess, “received a Bachelor of Science first class and won the FH Faulding and the Swan Brewery prizes at the University of Western Australia. A Graduate Certificate in Scientific Communication from the Australian National University in 1989.”
44
In case some guy named Dave is reading. I’m an atheist. OK!
35
“I’m an atheist.”
You most definite ARE NOT.
You are a cult member of the AGW religion/scam.
84
Lol
22
Have you been drinking? Its a bit early in the day,your posts make no sense.
63
I like Monckton. Don’t we all?
GeoffW
21
10
OK. it’s obvious I screwed-up the block quoting due to a few “delishly” tasty jars.
I’m shorry.
10
Agreed, Tony.
F’rinstance . . I expect we’ve all seen the photo of Michael Mann holding that slice of a tree, no doubt in homage to a sapling that gave up it’s life to promote some dubious postulation or other.
Next up, let us present some other guy who studiously studied the length of Parrot feathers leading to some other conclusion.
The question is of course, has Michael Mann studied anything to do with Parrot feathers or has the other guy ever cut a tree down to examine the rings?
It’s highly unlikely, of course, but they’d still be counted in a John Cook 97% paper as if there were not a cigarette paper between them. Absurdity.
It’s all a question of watching the pea.
70
Sorry to say Tony but it’s already too late. Science today has been spoiled beyond repair without a total reversal en mass by the scientists. That is not going to happen because scientists often are too full of pride and self-righteousness to admit they got anything wrong. Hence the hoax will continue until the end at which time the people will have to stand up and demand the leaders be put behind bars for perpetrating the biggest hoax of all time. The politicians of course must not get off since they have used the hoax to scam us taxpayers.
20
Exactly….I remember back in Rudd peak hysteria times when the Australian Catholic Uni got a lazy couple of hundred grand for studying climate change via bible scriptures! Kev couldn’t hand out our money fast enough to further his ‘greatest moral challenge’ propaganda campaign.
00
Little wonder the CSIRO is being told to shut up, and to stop promoting their own agendas – Remember this from Tony Thomas Sept 9 2012 in Quadrant on-line?
“After the conference, CSIRO’s Dr Smith told CSIRO interviewer Glen Paul more about his dreams for a supra-national UN council backed by the authority of the dictatorship-laden UN General Assembly. The council would assemble some sort of “triple helix” as he put it, to combine economic, environmental and social engineering. This would lead to “a suite of universal sustainable development goals”, he said. CSIRO interviewer Paul then signed off, remarking that he too had just got a grant for a US study trip.”
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One outcome of the march through the institutions is the elevation of the profession “science” – in that if you have any level of qualification, because you are doing science, your opinions are superior to non scientists. It is the belief that wearing a lab coat and ‘doing’ science, as the ‘scientist’ said in the Jason Bourne series “legacy of Bourne etc, “I do science”.
As far as the Cultural Commies are concerned, the possession of ‘scientific’ certificates of proficiency allows you to narrate on matters science.
This mess is the outcome of their policies.
The only solution is to start up private universities, via the Internet, to compete. Unfortunately I suspect once this is started, the CC’s will then deploy state power to shut down those new enterprises.
They are actually priests, not scientists, by the way. There are geologists, biologists, engineers, etc, all who use the scientific method but should not be lumped together as scientists. Priests are unable to change their minds when their authorities are challenged by new facts, and react accordingly.
62
The sneers I get when asked for my qualification, the single lowliest Associate Diploma in Electrical Engineering.
First it’s Engineering, sneer sneer.
Then Electrical, almost as if it’s lower than any engineering branch, sneer sneer.
Then it’s just a Diploma, even bigger sneer, not even a degree, sneer sneer.
Then it’s Associate, jee$uS, not even a real qualification, just awarded for study and work done, and the sneering became outright laughter.
Followed by, well, what have you done recently then, and so I mentioned Hazelwood.
The ‘smart phone’ guy sneering at me then asked ….. Huh, what’s a hazelwood?
I just smiled, and turned away, and as he walked off, I actually started to laugh.
Oh, the filthy look I got.
Worth every second of sneering. let me tell you.
Tony.
303
I always wonder why some engineers actually lock into this nonsense particularly since ANY engineer is capable of working out that POWER OUT >= POWER IN is impossible anywhere in any passive system, yet the climate models all claim that you can get 3 deg of surface warming for 3.7Watts per square meter forcing which by SB theorem requires that the earth GIVE OFF 16.5 watts per square meter IR as a result of that 3.3 degrees of heating. POWER OUT > POWER IN a passive system.
No self respecting engineer should ever consider accepting this without extraordinary proof of major active elements (energy sources) within the system but yet some still do. I call for every engineer in the CSIRO to speak out against this perpetual energy machine the environmental scientists are selling.
152
You are forgetting the heating effect of ‘Think of the children” – this has been effective in raising the temperature of many in the CAGW cult so why not the Earth’s temperature as well?
40
Well , of course,you defeat them with logic- common sense and they just sneer. Sad wings.
11
I’ve often wondered whether “Sceptic” might begin to replace “scientist” as a accolade for those working to the highest standards. For example a “Scientist” (aka an academic who might have a relevant qualification in the subject and probably has no data to back them up) can say “the world is currently warming due to CO2” (even though it’s certainly cooled since the El Nino of 2016). In contrast a sceptic would have a say: “the available evidence indicates … that between data1 and date2 we’ve seen a 0.0x C change in temperature. (Full stop) The science suggests that rising CO2 should be responsible for some warming … however many other facts both known and unknown affect the climate … and we cannot as yet attribute any change with any certainty to any cause.”
72
I was speaking to a judge the other day – he told me how he hated labour supporters and always increased the sentence of of anyone from a labour area.
… of course I’ve just made it up … and it’s absurd that a judge would so casually tell me their views about issues that come before them. But that’s what’s so absurd about supposedly neutral, impartial, unbiased JUDGES of science sprouting off on the highly policy subject of science policy.
82
Jo,
The line:
The ABC makes our John Church..
should be
The ABC makes out John Church…
42
“Morning Non-News!”
“Morning Non-News!”
“ABC, distraction spin, yes men in short supply!”
“Morning Non-News!”
“Morning Non-News!”
“ABC, news less news, scientists’ fear golden gagging order, case proved”
“Morning Non-News!”
“Morning Non-News!”
“ABC, distraction times, scientists’ alarm of well paid jobs have restrictions!”
“Morning Non-News!”
“Morning Non-News!”
…
10
OT…. but sort of relevant
The WARMEST part, Holocene Optimum, of the Holocene was 9000-6000 year ago, when CO2 was at its LOWEST !!!
The COOLEST part (last 1000 years or so), is when CO2 was at its HIGHEST.
Someone has made a VERY BIG OOPS !!!
https://s19.postimg.org/f8gntt3ar/Holocene-_CO2-10500-0-_R.jpg
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HUGE APOLOGIES FOR BEING OFF TOPIC BUT….this is so insane it is simply beyond belief….
(Hat tip George.)
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/23/saturday-silliness-wind-turbine-photo-of-the-year/
(You will have to click on the link to see the photo.)
The entire rationale for wind turbines is to stop global warming by reducing the amount of CO2 being returned to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
In the attached picture, recently taken in Sweden, freezing cold weather has caused the rotor blades of a wind turbine to ice up bringing the blades to a complete stop.
To fix the “problem” a helicopter is employed (burning aviation fuel) to spray hot water (which is heated in the frigid temperatures using a truck equipped with a 260 kW oil burner) on the blades of the turbine to de-ice them.
The aviation fuel, the diesel for the truck, and the oil burned to heat the water, could produce more electricity (at the right time to meet demand) than the unfrozen wind turbine could ever produce. (Before it freezes up again).
The attached picture is a metaphor of the complete insanity of the climate change debate.
In decades to come this one photo alone with sum up an era of stupidity, when rational thought, logic and commonsense was abandoned and immense wealth and resources needlessly sacrificed.
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Yep, we all had a very good laugh at that bizarre event 🙂
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Yes, I remember seeing that last year. That completely knocks out any suggestion of saving CO2 emmissions…as if we need to anyway! Oh my goodness, the world is truly mad!
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Another misspelling…groan! A bad day…emissions…
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I would like to clarify Jo’s remarks regarding public servants, whilst I accept PS working in gov organisations that interface with the public is tax office, ces etc should be subject to ridicule there are some PS that work closely with defence.
These PS should not be lumped in with the ones referenced by Jo.
Regards
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yeah she should add a disclaimer.
“All public servants* are leaches sucking at the teat of the public purse, inventing the need for their own job etc etc rant etc”
*Public servants who contribute to this blog and agree with my views are not included in this description.
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You are a fool
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Getting this one in before pat spams it.
Hydro electricity versus coal-fired power in north Queensland set to be major state election issue
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-02/hydro-electricity-vs-coal-fired-power-north-qld-state-election/8490232
Bwaahhaaaahaha.
Oh hang on, the Queenslanders are almost kooky enough to vote for hydro. (I live there, but they’ll never accept me as one of their own.)
Oddly, the voice of reason gets the last word in this article.
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Pumped hydro eh.
This scheme was first mooted by Sir Joh, back in the 1980s when Burdekin was supposed to be Stages One Two and Three. Federal labor canned stage two and three. Joh tried to fund it on his own, and then when Goss came in, with Rudd as his senior adviser, all dams were canned, so it’s so nice to see Labor, backed up by that yapping little dog $horta$$ with his $200 Million, both federal and state Labor now proposing a pumped hydro policy from Sir Joh. The word irony comes to mind here.
Yeah, give me strength, This pumped hydro is meant to ease the stress on Northern Queensland’s power supplies. Really, ease the stress. Where are they going to get the power to pump the water back up into the dam again so they can send it back down through the turbines during peak periods. So the cost of the power to pump it back up, so now the hydro power during peak has to recover the cost of buying the power to pump it up, plus the cost of the hydro scheme itself, effectively turning cheap power into expensive power. Alleviate the stress, or make more stress consuming power to pump it back up again.
However, this hydro scheme will be lapped up ….. or maybe not, because what will the Greens say.
Oh dear the $tupidity boggles the mind. Beats me how this now passes for science.
Tony.
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Tony
“Where are they going to get the power to pump the water back up into the dam again so they can send it back down through the turbines during peak periods? ”
Easy,
That justifies more wind and solar
(/s just in case)
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Wind power in North Queensland. Well, not really. I don’t think that there’s an entrepreneur anywhere game enough to invest a hell of a lot of money in a wind plant in what is the most Cyclone prone area of (Eastern) Australia.
However, it raises a point.
Politicians raise these
thought bubblesproposals, throw them out there, the media picks up on them, splits down party lines (Labor good, Conservatives bad) and beats it up in the media.However, the whole process, pumped hydro, and now battery storage are now viewed as ….. NEW power, because no one has bothered to check, and that’s not just for things like this, but a generic overall thing even when it comes to Science as well. It’s either played down, or not even mentioned that the power has to come from somewhere else to make both of these work. It’s passed off as easing the cost of electricity, when by specific design, it MUST increase the cost of electricity.
It’s not true until a journalist writes it down for the media, and THEN it’s true.
the public see that and because it’s there ….. in black and white, it must be true, and there’s now no reason for them to check either. So they just believe what is written, about this, about renewable power, and even about science. No one ever checks the real truth.
I also love the way that somehow, a new 500MW wind plant is the same as any large scale coal fired plant, generates and delivers the same power, and no one ever mentions life span.
And that muppet from the ABC report I mentioned here the other day mentioning how soon, Queensland will have the same rooftop solar power CAPACITY (Nameplate) as coal fired power, without even thinking to check that the rooftop solar only generates around 20% of the power of the same Nameplate coal fired power, if that at all. It’s somehow equal.
It’s telling fibs by omission, and not really fibs, because the journalist believes what he is told, because the person telling him is supposedly an expert on the subject, so the journalist has no reason at all to actually go and check, because ….. NOW, so many people have said the same thing.
You tell the people the actual truth, and no one will believe it at all.
That’s why it’s going to take a crash of power generation on a huge scale to bring it home, and even then, politicians (and by extrapolation journalists) will find someone or something to blame to deflect from the truth of the matter.
It’s a case of misinformation on a monumental level.
Tony.
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There is a plan to use the old Kidston open cut gold mine as a pumped hydro scheme. It will also have two solar subsidy farms to pump the water to make the power when the sun doesn’t shine to make up for the deficiencies of the solar system.
Pumped hydro has its place but it has only ever been intended for peak load management, not as a battery to backup deficient solar and wind systems.
http://www.genexpower.com.au/
Here is a good article on the infeasibility of using pumped storage as a battery backup for the unreliables.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
“If we adopt solar and wind as major components of our energy infrastructure as we are weaned from fossil fuels, we have to solve the energy storage problem in a big way. An earlier post demonstrated that we do not likely possess enough materials in the world to simply build giant lead-acid (or nickel-based or lithium-based) batteries to do the job. Comments frequently pointed to pumped hydro storage as a far more sensible answer. Indeed, pumped storage is currently the dominant—and nearly only—grid-scale storage solution out there. Here, we will take a peek at pumped hydro and evaluate what it can do for us.”
Having said that, pumped hydro as a battery is cheaper than any electrochemical cell.
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Look at this, if only to compare the lifespan with wind and solar power.
Plant – Nameplate – Year Open – Age Now
Guthega – 60MW – 1955 – 62 years
Tumut 1 – 300MW – 1958 – 59 years
Tumut 2 – 286MW – 1961 – 56 years*
Blowering – 80MW – 1967 – 50 years
Murray 1 – 950MW – 1967 – 50 years
Murray 2 – 550MW – 1969 – 48 years
Tumut 3 – 1800MW – 1974 – 43 years**
Total – 4035MW
* Tumut 2 is fed by Tumut 1, so the water is used twice to generate power.
** Tumut 3 has 6 units, and three of those also act as pumps to pump the water back up into Talbingo, and would undoubtedly use power from Victoria’s brown coal plants after midnight, so close down more of them, and there goes Tumut 3.
Now note the ages, and the most recent is still 18 to 23 years older than ANY wind plant will ever be.
Few people realise the vastness of that Snowy Scheme. There are 16 dams in all. There are also 12 Tunnels varying in length from a mile to the longest two of them at 15 miles long each. The tunnels are between 20 and 26 feet across and were blasted and dug through the Mountains, and all the long ones, around five of them were started at each end and met in the middle. The water is moved around from dam to dam through these tunnels, and there are two major pumping stations to assist with this, so in a number of cases the same water is used a number of times.
Now imagine if you will a second Snowy Scheme. All the infrastructure is already there. All they need do is install new turbines and new generators, and in all probability, they could increase power generation by probably double, perhaps even more.
Now, that would be a good result. However, something like this would probably just be made out to be a thought bubble, but hey, there would be no new dams at all, as they are already there, and thank heavens Bill Hudson had the idea back in the late 40’s early 50’s, because it wouldn’t get off the ground now.
Again, look at those ages for these plants. Still just thumping along nicely, thank you very much.
Tony.
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Misinformation has created serious problems for all humanity, worldwide.
Jon Rappoport offers us an intriguing challenge in “If I Were King Advice For Trump“ –
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/05/02/new-book-if-i-were-king-advice-for-president-trump/
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The Problem: We are distracted from reality by a thousand forms of misleading bits of
misinformation every hour.
The Goal: “Help others shake out the cobwebs so they can think about a country and a world that truly reflects hearts, intelligent minds, and creative innovations.”
My Question: “Must we first dismantle the international web with hyperlinks to false information and start over?”
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Is enlightenment to be found on the Internet or in a monastery?
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One might find enlightenment in either but it’s more common to find entitlement on the internet. Every minor group of any description under the sun can find some reason via the internet to explain why they are more important than anyone else, and have a right to take over the world at the expense of everyone else.
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We only need to penetrate journalism schools with our heresy to get the right outcome.
http://www.journoz.com/journ.html
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I feel so ignorant sometimes…
Someone refresh my memory for me. Exactly why do we even have international climate summits? Why is there a Paris to be arguing over in the first place?
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To remind ourselves to have another one, before it’s too late ?
Wouldn’t have to miss many to begin wondering what we missed.
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Roy,
We need international climate summits to reinforce and consolidate the group-think.
You might recall back before Al Gore invented the internet, universities were somewhat isolated. They could only communicate via phone or traditional snail mail.
Back then, different groups might work on different problems independently.
But with a combination of modern communication technology and sufficient funding, not only can these folks consolidate their thinking, they can celebrate their group-think at taxpayer expense at some of the most picturesque places on the planet.
Please don’t rock the boat.
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Rock the boat? Who? Me?
I want to capsize the damned thing, not rock it. I want to torpedo it so thoroughly that it will never rise again.
If the internet had never been “invented” by Al Gore they would still find some other way. My fax machine can fax a document from my computer to anyone in the world in minutes and my fax mailbox service delivers my incoming stuff right back to that same computer. The world got along for centuries, actually millennia and dictators from Alexander to Adolf got along with snail mail, telegraph, telephone and courier and they ended up owning much of the world.
So don’t fool yourself that they couldn’t have consolidate their group-think without the internet. Al’s great invention just sped up the procedure, it wasn’t a necessary condition for it to happen. 🙂
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Rules for Climate Radicals; “Accuse the Other Side of That Which You Are Guilty”
One the most common and effective propaganda tactics of the left is to “Accuse the Other Side of That Which You Are Guilty.” That tactic was clearly demonstrated by Michael “I’m a Victim” Mann in the recent congressional testimony. In the testimony Michael “They’re Picking on Me” Mann claimed to be the victim of ad-hominem attacks and lies.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/rules-for-climate-radicals-accuse-the-other-side-of-that-which-you-are-guilty/
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The head of the CSIRO, Larry Marshall, has a traditional evidence-based PhD in laser physics. I’m not sure why he’s allowing this anti-science attitude however perhaps he has not yet been there ling enough to “drain the swamp”. On the other hand he did get rid of 350 climate “scientists” but I understand the government forced the reinstatement of many of those (is that correct?).
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CSIRO website still lists climate change research under Environment:
“We work to understand the role of the atmosphere in the Earth system and provide comprehensive, rigorous science to help Australia understand, respond to and plan for a changing climate”.
“Over the last two centuries, humans have emitted about 480 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere as a result of deforestation and burning fossil fuels. Of this, the oceans have absorbed between 99 and 137 billion tonnes. This enormous amount of carbon entering the oceans as carbon dioxide has changed the chemistry of the oceans, making them slightly more acidic.
The consequences of this change in ocean chemistry are not well understood yet, but are likely to include changes to the ability of certain marine organisms to maintain their skeletons or shells”.
Rigorous science, now that’s what I’d like to see. But too many of the articles on their website talk gloom and doom, the science is settled.
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“CSIRO is pleased to announce that after a competitive international search process, Dr Peter Mayfield has been appointed as Executive Director for Environment, Energy and Resources.
Dr Mayfield will lead CSIRO’s Environment, Energy and Resources (EER) Group which spans atmosphere and climate, biodiversity, land and water, solar and alternative energy, coal and gas production research.
Dr Mayfield, a chemical engineer, has spent almost 25 years in research and development in industry and government sectors including extensive experience in research management over the breadth of the energy and resources domains.
Based in Newcastle, Dr Mayfield has overseen CSIRO research that spans developing technologies for more greenhouse effective ways to use fossil fuels such as coal, to the development and integration of renewable technologies such as solar and wind as well as finding more efficient ways to generate, distribute and use energy”.
Prior to joining CSIRO’s Energy Technology group in 2010, Dr Mayfield held several positions in BHP’s technology areas.
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Dave,
I don’t know the answer,but the ABC squeeled so much that I doubt any of them (350 climate scientists) got the sack.
GeoffW
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I’ve just come onine so haven’t had time to watch any of this, but will do so this evening. hickman sees it as more proof CAGW is real.
multiple links, multiple videos, but not the complete documentary:
2 May: CarbonBrief: Leo Hickman: The 1981 TV documentary that warned about global warming
On the evening of Tuesday, 8 December, 1981, the UK’s only commercial TV channel, ITV, broadcast an hour-long documentary called “Warming Warning”.
It was among the earliest occasions – possibly the earliest – anywhere in the world where a major broadcaster aired a documentary dedicated solely to the topic of human-caused climate change.
The documentary, which was made by the now-defunct Thames Television, has sat in the archives largely unseen ever since. Until now.
Carbon Brief has tracked down the copyright holder, FremantleMedia Ltd, and persuaded it to release into the public domain a selection of key clips from the documentary…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/warming-warning-1981-tv-documentary-warned-climate-change
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comment gone into moderation re: 2 May: CarbonBrief: Leo Hickman: The 1981 TV documentary that warned about global warming
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re the documentary (comment in moderation). doubt if Hickman has chosen any segment predicting 20C temperature rise by 2050.
British Universities Film and Video Council: Warming Warning
SynopsisThe carbon dioxide content of the earth’s atmosphere acts like the glass in a greenhouse. Burned at the present rate, the resulting emission of carbon dioxide will have warmed the earth’s atmosphere by about ***20 degrees C by the mid-21st century***.
Scientists predict that the increase in carbon dioxide, due to the pollution caused by burning fossil fuels and the use of aerosols will cause a ‘greenhouse’ effect warming the atmosphere and radically altering the weather. Part of the Antarctic ice sheet could melt and sea levels rise by as much as 20 feet.
Producer: Richard Broad; Contributors: Howard Bradburn; Isobel Hinshelwood; Thames Television
http://bufvc.ac.uk/dvdfind/index.php/title/23161
Dec 1981 New Scientist review of “Warming Warning”. wheat crops/grains could fail, starvation could spread to huge areas.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FPxItYa5rgUC&pg=PA687&lpg=PA687&dq=%22Warming+Warning%22+thames+television&source=bl&ots=cIUkCF8wqM&sig=w4lcV5XXn7w_yXEiDAf_R0RTAVo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi51-DOmOrSAhXLIcAKHfYPC5MQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=%22Warming%20Warning%22%20thames%20television&f=false
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2 May: BBC: British territories’ environment ‘at risk’
By Roger Harrabin
Wildlife and the environment in far-flung British territories are under threat, says a report.
Environment ministers from Britain’s overseas territories say the government has cut funds and been distracted by Brexit…
Representatives of 14 of the territories – ranging from Bermuda to Pitcairn and Gibraltar – joined the meeting of the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum on the Channel island of Alderney.
The islands are highly vulnerable to climate change, but ministers complained that the government had almost halved Foreign Office spending on the climate…
Claude Hogan from Montserrat said: “There is confusion in policy. We don’t know the best person to approach and we end up going round in circles between different ministries.
“To protect the island and adapt to climate change we need to put in sea defences – but we only get enough money to go from one consultancy to the next.”…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39771047
money isn’t a problem! CAGW mob might like to classify this as CAGW money, given their obsession about tobacco:
1 May: UK Daily Mail: Martin Robinson: Fresh foreign aid row as Britain hands over £15MILLION of taxpayers’ cash to fund anti-smoking classes in some of world’s most corrupt countries
Critics have said that the money should be spent improving NHS in Britain
Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said: ‘It is foreign aid madness. we hand it like confetti’
In total Britain’s foreign aid pledge is around £13.3billion and Theresa May has pledged to protect it…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4462352/15M-taxpayers-cash-anti-smoking-classes-abroad.html
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I doubt inhabitants of Alderney would worry too much about a bit of global warming; it’s often perishing cold there and some years ago (c1997 iirc) one of the pilots in Aurigney commented that Alderney was the ‘home of the 100 mph fog!’
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The late, great John Daly (who’s writings first piqued my own skepticism) had an ongoing and very amusing war of words and ideas with Church as far back as the early 2000’s.
Despite all of the evidence, Church is still like a talking toy – repeating the same banal things over and over.
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https://www.google.com.au/search?num=100&as_sitesearch=john-daly.com&as_q=church&gws_rd=cr&ei=JkgMWY-VPISV0gSTo4_oAw
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Science outside the system is alive and well here is some new science https://vimeo.com/214639880 if a password is needed it is force5. This is a teaser for more is to come. Wayne
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