Alan Jones, interviews Peter Ridd, James Cook university professor of physics about the state of the Great Barrier Reef
The coral reef recovers.
Peter Ridd: Coral Reefs recover — “the scientists make hay when it dies in a spectacular way but they are quiet when it recovers.”
On symbionts — “There is a large variety of symbionts and some allow coral to grow faster but are more sensitive to bleaching.”
All the corals on the Great Barrier Reef live and grow much faster in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Thailand where the water is much hotter than it is on the reef and the corals just juggle these symbionts. 4:20
Corals have a little thermometer built in them, when you take a core of them from many years ago we know what the temperature of the water was back when Captain Cook sailed up the coast, it was actually about the same temperature then. It was colder 100 years ago, but it has recovered from that. The temperatures on the reef are not even significantly warmer than average on a hundred year timescale.
Corals that bleach in one year will be less susceptible to bleaching in following years.
On the failure of modern science:
Peter Ridd: We can no longer rely on our science institutions. This is a very sad thing.
We are like a ship upon the ocean when our science fails and we need to do something about it. … This science is almost never checked.
Alan Jones: All these things [bleaching, crown of thorns] have been around for millennia, I love this line, as you write “long before scientists got hold of any scuba gear.”
Peter Ridd: These things only became a problem when scientists pop up on the scene.
Scientists are trying to close down, or affect adversely the sugar cane, the cattle, and the coal industry, and they are also telling the world the reef is dead which affects the tourist industry in Queensland.
Like a bushfire… It [bleaching] looks terrible when it happens but it grows back.
On the future:
Peter Ridd: There needs to be a properly funded group of scientists who sole job is to find fault in the science with which we are basing expensive public policy decisions ….
h/t Jim Simpson.
The real environmental pollution – it is not the Barrier Reef that it suffering, it is the pollution of the environment and landscape and decimation of birdlife by wind turbines.
And then we have all these other climate change related disasters!
– De-industrialization due to high power costs and interrupted power supply.
– Wasted expenditure on dud technology.
– Opportunities for monopolist power companies (and governments) to gouge profits on power supply.
– Businesses going broke because they cant pay their power bills. Employees losing jobs.
– Large proportion of the population unable to heat their homes due to inability to pay sky high power rates. Resultant sickness due to colds.
– Certain individuals and companies probably experiencing windfall profits from all of the above at the expense of the population.
The list goes on and on. Where are the consumer watch dogs who are meant to be protecting us against organized scams? All of the above, under the catch cry “climate change” is a hoax that will hit the history books in the years to come as one of the biggest scams of all time!
856
It is not profit they receive, it is theft by deception on an unbelievably massive scale. To earn a profit, one must create a value that you are willing to trade with another creator of value for the value they have created. They must equally be willing to trade value for value. The trade is accomplished as a win for both parties in the trade.
The profit accrues to both parties in that they value what they received more than they gave in the trade. A measure of profit for each party is the the difference between the cost to create the value given and the cost to create the value received. When money is used as a medium of exchange, the monetary value of the profit is the difference between the monetary cost to produce the value given and the monetary value received by selling the value received in the trade.
Without true profit, there is no production. For example, you plant a 100 pounds of potatoes, later you harvest only 100 pounds of potatoes. There is no net gain in potatoes and you lost the cost of planting, harvesting, and a season of caring for the crop. This lost must be paid for by prior profits from actual production either saved or borrowed. In a very real sense, profit is simply the cost of having the capacity of producing in the future.
The word “profit” has been seriously contaminated by those who wish to take without producing values for exchange. Not the least of which is the labor theory of value in which the value of a good or service is equal to the brute labor it took to produce it. Forgotten in the theory is the value of the knowledge, skill, intellectual property, trade secrets, facilities, capital equipment, and management that focuses the labor and makes it both efficient and effective. This is presumed to be of no value yet it is the source of all values created. Without them, brute labor produces nothing.
This is part of our challenge to be precise and accurate in our use of language. This is necessary to avoid the many double bind equivocation traps set to justify taking your stuff without paying for it.
Reality is real, it is what it is, and your words must point to real things that actually exist. Otherwise you are part of the problem.
To live, man must produce the values necessary for living. To have a future, man must profit from his trading of value for value. This is the nature of man and is relationship to reality.
552
‘W/out true profit there is no production – too true, Lionell,
why would yer bother?
160
When your true purpose is to destroy value.
See solar panels and wind turbine generators. For almost every use, they are produced, installed, and used at a loss. That loss is paid for out of the life’s production of every productive individual alive and to be born for many generations.
The ultimate goal of such things is not to save the earth. It is to destroy modern technological civilization and the population that both sustains it and is sustained by it. The remainder of the population will soon follow. The earth is to become another useless and unused speck of rock dust in the vastness of the universe.
Bottom line: what you do is determined by your purpose. Even if you don’t admit what that purpose actually is. Your actual purpose is measured by what you repeatedly accomplish. Your words on the matter are irrelevant to your accomplishments.
373
It is the dark side.
100
Yes, good point. Wind turbines do not in any way accomplish the purpose that they are intended to accomplish. For this reason, and the following, they are inherently evil and would never exist if politics and public money were not involved in their concept.
On top of this, the pollution from these turbines is monumental. How to totally ruin, big time, a vast naturally beautiful environment – install a wind farm. Immense visual pollution, chemical pollution, fire risk pollution, sound and infra sound vibration pollution, chemical pollution and indiscriminate slaughter of wildlife that is not limited to birdlife but also includes any animal species that suffers heavy disruption due to the sound and vibration pollution in their native environment.
242
Intended purpose? Suggest stated purpose. There is often a huge difference between the stated purpose and actual purpose as measured by what is actually accomplished.
A fundamental principle of systems is “The purpose of a system is what it does.” This law is a direct corollary of Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety: “The larger the variety of actions available to a control system, the larger the variety of perturbations it is able to compensate.” Meaning that a system can only do what it is designed and built to do. This has no necessary relationship to what it was said to be able to do.
The disconnect between stated purpose and actual purpose is especially evident in systems that are repeatedly replicated and put into play that produce different results or more significant side effects than suggested by its stated purpose. See for example: Wind Turbines, PVC panels, and the like.
140
Lionell,
My neighbors with solar panels are telling me their solar panels “profit” them with lower electricity bills. How do we fight this shortsightedness? That’s the whole problem with solar. With subsidies and Edison being forced by law to buy back whatever your solar installation produces it can easily be a better deal for the consumer than not using solar. And the punch line only comes along later when Edison can no longer supply your peak demand, of course, by state or federal fiat that you can’t effectively fight.
173
It is the constant problem of failure to account for the unseen and unacknowledged. AKA privatized gain and socialized loss as in beggar thy neighbor as long thee comes out ahead. In my book this is simply one more theft by deception.
173
Roy mentions this:
This took a bit of chasing down, but what I wanted to show you was how utterly ridiculous and, more importantly, how utterly useless this rooftop solar power thing is when Con Edison is forced to purchase power from rooftop solar installations.
Okay, it seems (to me) that Con Edison is only a supplier in NY State, and they supply roughly half of the power to that State, and I only utilised figures from the data for that State, New York.
NY State has (around) 500MW of rooftop solar installations that are grid connected, hence feeding power back to the grid that Con Ed has to purchase. Roughly half is connected to ConEd suppliers, and ConEd supplies roughly half the power in that State. Half that generated rooftop power is actually being consumed by the home itself, so that other half is fed back to the grid.
The upshot is that Con Ed is forced to purchase back power generated by rooftop solar installations that amounts to around 0.15% of it’s total daily generation of power for consumption, and that’s the yearly average, because in Summer, it will be more, and in Winter, less, probably around zero in Winter, that far North.
So, it’s only a fraction of one percent, power that is generated, not in the one place, but across the whole State, so a drib here, a drab there, amounting to power that cannot actually be used for anything at all, because of the absolutely tiny amount.
The losses alone of power (on any grid, anywhere) amount to around 7% overall, so one quarter of one percent wouldn’t even count towards the losses.
There’s the outright $tupidity of all this.
Even adding the fact that ConEd does not have to supply power TO those residences still is only that extra fraction of one percent, again, the equivalent of a f@rt in a tornado.
And you wonder why I laugh when people say that rooftop power will supply the power of the future.
Incidentally, New York State generates around 75% of the total power consumed by the WHOLE of Australia.
Tony.
153
Out-of-date-Tony strikes again.
Here is what Con Edison have to say:
“We’re working to generate half of New York’s electricity with solar or wind by 2030. ”
“Con Edison Development has more than 1000 MW of solar photovoltaic projects in various stages of operation and development nationwide.”
Sounds like they are well into it, and nobody’s “forcing” them to buy electricity from the microgenerators that they encourage on their grid.
As for your “losses” – with 33% of New York’s power coming from outside the New York area, transmission losses are mitigated by the power generated and consumed locally by microgenerators, whether that makes it to the grid or not.
And – for anybody around here who is young enough to accept smart new ideas and move with the times – here is how they see it playing out:
“In the same way that cloud computing and smartphones have revolutionized how consumers get and store information, smaller-scale generation and storage devices throughout the grid will make the system more efficient and resilient”
623
The careless Craig Thomas falls off his horse yet again with:
Tony was responding to Roy who said:
I bolded the relevant part of the passage to help you NOT miss it, again, Craig. In plain English: Edison is being forced to buy back solar generated power. Only an idiot ignores the law.
122
Oh Craig,
rooftop solar power for New York.
Just one word mate.
Manhattan!
Tony.
103
Craig,
Fail!
Your awesomely humungous 1000MW ….. Nationwide is huuuuge!
Just imagine.
800MW peak for one hour either side of Midday in Summer.
Just for New York alone, the power consumption at Midday in Summer is 31,000MW, so using that, umm, Nationwide total, that’s 2.6% of the absolute requirement.
Impressive Craig, really impressive.
Tony.
Oh, and just in case, that’s sarcasm Craig.
203
Tony,
It’s Southern California Edison. But same problem. It matters not where they are. They get ordered to jump and they never ask why. They never say, hey there, wait a minute, we’re not an arm of the the State of X, we’re in business to make money like every other business that wants to keep operating. They just ask how high, knowing that the public utilities commission will always allow them to charge whatever is necessary to stay profitable. No other business in this world has such a protected status, no other group, NONE, ZIP, ZERO!
Roy
And then there’s indefatigable Craig Thomas, still on his horse backward and wondering why he can’t see where he’s going. If this nonsense wasn’t becoming so hard to get out from under I could be laughing. But there’s nowhere to run anymore. Wake up, Craig, wake up!
130
And to Craig,
Should the mouse believe what the cat says or should he run for cover? Or can you understand that?
It means that Con Edison must talk like it eats carrots instead of mice. Otherwise they don’t attract the mice to come out to be eaten.
Have fun while you can because pretty soon you too will find it impossible to laugh at the situation.
120
I was going to ignore the rest of what Craig had to say but then I realized that Jo has been faithfully recording just exactly how this has “played out” in South Australia for everyone to read. And I guess Craig didn’t read it or his fantasy overrules his judgment. I don’t know exactly how he rationalizes away actual history, indisputable facts, complete with a thorough post mortem done by no less than the SA power authority if I’m not mistaken. But apparently he does.
Being young wasn’t so great, Craig. I made a lot of mistakes before I had enough experience to know my conventional generating plant from my imaginary distributed renewable power disaster. Perhaps listening to someone old enough to know his “anatomy” from a hole in the ground wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
100
Your words on the matter are irrelevant to your accomplishments.
And yet Progressives universally judge themselves by their words, not their “accomplishments.”
190
“Actions speak louder than words.”
The eco-Marxists, the policy-based scientivist, the Left-worshipping Fourth Estate are hungry for two age old things, money and power. Daily their actions betray their intentions. The UNFCCC definition of “climate change,” the UN definition of “civil society,” The Kyoto Protocol, The Paris Accord, Michael E. Mann and his “schtick,” the infamous “98%,” the MSM bias toward Brexit, the US Presidential Race, the current White House, the stream of bilious Fake News,
…..all a product of intentional, deliberate actions that betray motives and agendas. So we see power and influence driven by funding arising from power and influence…. unsustainable by any definition except totalitarianism, and even then unsustainable.
But what I don’t understand is the bigger picture “why,” why the suspension of critical thought, of healthy skepticism. The same people who peddle the eco-Marxist meme and its permutations organise their finances, their families, their relationships, and their work with far greater intellectual attention and “sustainability” than they apply to their “news” or their “politics”. And there is an overlay. An innate tension between a desire for individuality and the desire to belong to a group that may be expressed in a broad spectrum between outright independence and absolute collectivism. We see this to some extent in the voting pattern.
Perhaps it is the same “belief” phenomena observed in religions, where religious belief both justifies and enables a suspension of the rational? In the West, traditional Christian belief has been supplanted by belief in the consumer nightmare. Greed according to Gordon Gekko, is good. More is better.
Independents cannot exist on pure belief, but collectives can for a while. There are usually enough do-ers in collectives to carry or force the navel gazers, for awhile at least.
Then it all falls over as Lionell says, when Atlas shrugs.
100
This battle between the individual and the group is the key to understanding the psychology behind the Climate Change scam.
In an ideal world, for an individual to have their ideas/findings adopted by society, those ideas must have first evolved into a position of effectiveness and successful operation. However if that individual is one of the elite who has inordinate power in the group and is able to just layer them onto the group due to inordinate influence, unevolved and untested ideas can be adopted and layered onto society by the power of the group
in a free society, society adopts those ideas that pass the empirical test of evolution, not because of who says they work for their intended purpose but because they do actually work.
On the other hand decisions made by the group are more often than not based on how powerful those in the group who made those decisions are and not on whether the knowledge has evolved through an evolutionary test of empirical survival.
Climate change policies never passed the evolutionary test, they only became adopted because the people who dreamed them up had enormous power in the influential group.
50
This is my understanding of the “bigger picture”. Fundamentally, reality demands that for a human to live he must learn how to think critically and have a healthy skepticism for all extraordinary claims. He must accept that magic is inoperative in this universe. He must know that successful action must come from careful investigation, acquisition of reliable knowledge, rational thought, careful and deliberate choosing, and positive action consistent with those things. It is hard and demanding work necessitating a high character, absolute honesty, and a consistent integrity.
A spoiled child wants none of those things. He wants is wishes delivered immediately BECAUSE he wishes for them and without effort. Then, when it doesn’t happen, he blames the adults around him for not using their magic to make it so.
He screams, yells, and has a fit DEMANDING that it be made so. Secretly, he dreams of the day when he will be powerful enough to force those who denied him, to stand and deliver. All coming from the belief, conviction, and faith that brute force will make his wishes come true. He will teach THEM to deny him his wishes.
Now, in the real world, this does not work. A sense of resentment against the requirements of being a human builds to the point of white hot hate. Up to and and including wishing to destroy anything human – anything the product of the human mind. Only arbitrary whim is to be master of all – his whim! Yet, he feels that others have the secret he is denied. That somehow they know. So he joins in the collective striving to be indistinguishable from it. He goes along to get along.
Down deep, where it really counts is still that deep resentment of the requirements to be human. It is his unconscious purpose and justification for his actions that is frustrated at every turn. The result of this seething hatred is policies that fail, choices that are destructive, and justification of actions that are done with the “best of intentions” with total evasion of responsibility for the results or even his deeper purpose. In effect, if he can’t have it HIS way, his drive is that no one can have anything.
All because, as a child, he abandoned the path of reason and chose the path force and faith. This truly is the dark side from whence all evil comes. The bigger picture is not all that big. It is small, pathetic, and empty. It is nothing but a spoiled child who refused to grow up.
70
“Intellectual Property”
“Trade Secrets”
Both are terms invented by lawyers for the purpose of rent-seeking.
21
Your assertion comes from the fallacious notion that the value of things produced comes from mere labor rather than the products of the mind. Try making a single nail by flailing around aimlessly with out thought, focus, purpose, or knowledge of how to make a nail. It cannot be done. If it could be, the dinosaurs would have fabulous nails to use as well as many other technological things we use and value. All they had was tooth, claw, and horns backed by brute force. In the end, they vanished because ALL they had was brute force.
You don’t have the right to any part of another’s life nor to any of them have the right to any part of your life. The right to own the products of your mind descends from your right to YOUR life because you expended your life to bring it into existence. Since the only proper function of government is to protect and defend individual rights, it is proper that it also defends your right to the products of your mind.
In a very real sense, all property and all production is the result of the use of one’s intellect. Hence, intellectual property and trade secrets are the real value here and the end product is simply the consequence.
Lest you think that by using my intellectual property you take nothing from me, consider the following. My ability to produce valuable intellectual property comes from the fact I spent a life time working very hard to develop my mind such that I could. The use of the results of that effort was hard work in and of itself and demanded I stay in focus, in full contact with reality, and actually do the work required to invent things that work and that are of high value.
By using MY intellectual property without my permission, you are stealing the products of MY mind without so much as a by your leave or gratitude that I spent a life time to be able to create it. If it hadn’t been for me, it would not have existed and you would not be able to steal it. Why then should I trust ANY thing you say?
I suggest think again.
120
I stand by what I said.
You come up with an idea. Great. Good for you. But what you come up with, any other human is also capable of coming up with it. By locking it down as YOURS—your “property”—and then preventing anyone else who might come up with the same idea as yours, you are actually impeding economic growth and function. You are strangling it by preventing the free flow and exchange of ideas, by turning ideas into “goods” which they most patently aren’t.
I point to the early days of the Internet: people came up with ideas and hung them out. Others took them and improved on them and still others improved on the improvements. Nobody locked them down. The rate of growth and change was extremely rapid. Then the lawyers arrived.
There is no such thing as “Intellectual Property.” It’s an invented term to justify the extension of rent seeking to what should not be so covered. Rent seeking is always economically damaging, and the rent-seeking attached to so-called “Intellectual Property” creates an enormous barrier for economic activity and the expense of it does substantial economic harm.
“Clipping the ticket” is how people make a living by not working. It’s amusing to see you call them parasites and then claim the office of parasitism as your right.
Go look at the collected opinion, legal, expert and otherwise, on Patents and Patent Trolls.
Here is a good book on how the economy really works.
02
I see. I am clipping tickets in that I did not WORK to come up with my inventions and the intellectual property behind them. I only used my mind over my entire life time. That isn’t work? Try it sometime. You might be surprised what you can do if you really worked to use your mind rather than parrot the party line.
As for other people being able to do what I have done, thousands of PhD’s worked for decades to do it and could not. The government attests to that fact by letting me register over ten patents on the subject. According to you, it wasn’t work for me.
I only started working on it in 1981 when it was logically possible but technically not possible to do. Now it is a fully developed technology ready to go onto the market. I did what was thought impossible by the experts by using my mind. I spent a major portion of my life inventing and developing it into a product.
Yet, you say it was not work because I didn’t sweat from exerting mindless effort. You say you feel justified using my ideas without my permission and without paying for the privilege of using the product of my mind AND my life because it wasn’t *WORK* in the sense of being raw brute labor. Yet I am rather confident you couldn’t invent it on your own without a massive taking of my work. If you think you can, prove it!
Fortunately the government and the market place does not agree with you. Go ahead, re-invent it but you can’t sell it or make a profit from it without my hitting you hard with an infringement suite. It has been tried several times. I won every time.
I suggest YOU learn how the real economy works. Invent something genuinely new, useful and valuable. Put it on the market and try to profit from it. It is easy being a verbal Marxist and stealing the ideas of others but it isn’t easy earning your keep the honest way by trading value for value with each party in the trade coming out a winner.
50
There are many published papers about bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. For instance:
“Most of the coral reef bleaching events of the 1980s occurred during years of large-scale ENSO activity (Glynn 1988 a; Jaap 1988). Four bleaching events were reported in the non-ENSO year of 1988: two occurred first in 1987 and continued into 1988 and two were confined to 1988. ENSO conditions known to cause coral bleaching and mortality include (a) sudden sea level drops resulting in reef exposures and reduced circulation, (b) low cloud cover, increased irradiance and warming of shoal reef waters, (c) high rainfall and lowered salinities, (d) large scale sea warming, and (e) calm seas with doldrum-like conditions.
Recent work by Indonesian scientists confirm such observations. Coral bleaching is an El Nino-related event, caused by extremely low tides (confirmed by the Cairns tide gauge) and stationary-slow moving high pressure systems. Solar irradiance of exposed corals results, and is the principal cause of coral bleaching.
112
Great blog Robert, but I would add that man made ‘climate change’ is worse than a hoax-it is fraudulent.
GeoffW
61
Robert, what do you mean “one of the biggest scams of all time“?
20
Thanks Jo.
At last an explanation for Peter Ridd’s greater awareness of coral ecology than the dozens of scientists who gather the data and make the observations.
940
You miss the point of the article as usual. Other scientists with a background in Geology and Geophysics also question the unrelenting propaganda emitted from institutions such as JCU and the Marine Park authority. The late Bob Carter comes to mind as a geologist with an interest in ancient as well as existing coral reefs who questioned the alarmism promoted by so called marine biologists more interested in media appearances than good science.
373
Pity you missed the science bits GA.
192
What science bits?
47
Craig:
The bits of science that your geographers ignore. They only talk about The Science being settled because they know no real science.
73
So where can we find Ridd’s “science bits”?
Not on a radio talk show. Are they even written down anywhere?
25
“What science bits?”
You would NEVER recognise them, CT.
63
The probably isn’t one of recognition, it’s a problem of these “science bits” being entirely imaginary so far as I can see.
26
At last an explanation for Peter Ridd’s greater awareness of coral ecology than the dozens of scientists who gather the data and make the observations.
Shouldnt that be “fake the data ” and make the observations fit the meme ?
184
Gee Aye
July 27, 2017 at 2:37 pm · Reply
Thanks Jo.
4:20
At last an explanation for Peter Ridd’s greater awareness of coral ecology than the dozens of scientists who fudge the data and make the observations fit the meme .
There fixed it for you !
143
A better idea is to get up there and have a look. Oh that’s right,you’re not qualified. Just bumble along with the rest of the brainwashed sheep.
143
The key question in my head when we hear anything in the news that has the word “crisis” in it is this –
“How could this be used to kill off industry in this country?”
The marxists and occult NWO barrow boys hate our industrialized civilisation, as such, they will manufacture fake news to create a frenzy from the lap dog media and Socialist luvvies / hand wringers to pass laws to make investment in industry difficult or impossible, with the aim of crashing our country simialr to the communists in the unions who deliberately refused to load supply ships during WW2…..
242
Original Steve:
And their level of logic is so low that they haven’t considered what will happen when industry folds. No more money for the politicians to waste on liars, time servers and those who think that their comfortable sinecure is essential.
10
Congratulations Professor Ridd.
What a smart and brave man, scolding the govt. funded boffins and telling the truth….
“…. the reef grows back!” Schock, Horror!
Just like our former great friend and fellow climate JCU realist, Professor Bob Carter, Ridd is putting his own head on the chopping block of political correctness!!!
Good luck Professor, you’ll need it!
423
Politically, there is a limit to the number of heads that can be seen to be, “going to the block”, for calling out the truth.
I have zero experience with Canberra, but in the Thatcher years in the UK, the number whistle-blowers required, was three or four “Senior People” from academia or industry.
It is pretty hard for any politician or activist to say that they know better than somebody who has devoted their entire working life to the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Even if they are not necessarily experts in the field in question, they can invariably spot a dodgy slight of hand, when they see one.
232
Canberra is part of Australia. Over the last seventy years, along with some decent people, we inherited a lot of the dregs of The Old Dart, a remarkable number of whom found their way into positions of influence in Australia, many in Canberra.
As a result cynicism rules for many of those who have passed through our academies. We have put more than four good men and women besides up front over the years without getting satisfaction in policy change.
Even when we elected a government with a landslide majority in the house of reps to abolish the RET, we were thwarted by Al Gore’s imposition on the bloke we thought was our very own Trump, who turned out to be a ready tool.
150
Did a little Googling. Had forgotten that Peter Ridd had been censured for disagreeing with colleagues at JCU. So he must believe that they won’t carry through on this one.
Can he be your “fourth” Senior Person? Can this be the tipping point for the turn back? He isn’t the first, nor the highest ranking scientist to complain about the corruption of the science. But it’s a powerful call!
Methinks Trump has already shaken the self confidence of the swamp dwellers.
140
RW
There is sleight of hand
In this game there is also “sleight of tongue”
50
Ian, how did you beat the spell checker/predictive text?
30
Ted
What spell checker? What predictive text?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleight_of_hand
20
RW’s slight for sleight.
00
It is possibly the explosive growth in the ecology industry. Part science, part activist, part alarmist there is real money, fame and international and domestic travel in being an ecological alarmist. There is none of that in just noting the facts and looking for natural explanations. My interest is in the 300 full time PhD level researchers in the CSIRO who studied Climate Change/Global Warming in Australia and made up some lovely colour brochures. They are now looking to help Australians cope with the disaster? Except they didn’t find one.
Ethically, how do you live with that? How do you even justify going to work? All that study and those ideas of science and you now study something that does not exist and look for cures which are not necessary. There is always well earned retirement. I guess that’s public service science and there are plenty of public servants who do nothing really. At least the CSIRO invented WiFi, except it didn’t.
283
I’m surprised that the CSIRO impostors haven’t laid claim to inventing the stump jump plough.
71
Professor Ridd is proposing a similar thing to Trump – running a red team/blue team exercise on the AGW “science” and as I have said previously, the alarmist scientists are running scared.
But well said Professor, so many of us are tired with the lack of debate and the refusal of so many in the media or political circles to question the often ridiculous claims they are being spoon fed.
283
For me, the refusal to suffer questions was my first clue that they were ridiculous.
110
Agreed. “The science is settled” was one of the most UNscientific statements, EVAH.
50
Except that instead of doing the real red-team v. blue-team thing, Ridd is just spouting unsupported opinions on a shock-jock’s radio show.
This suggests Ridd has nothing that he can publish in the relevant places in order to advance the science.
414
What science? In real (honest) Science if the facts don’t fit the theory, then the theory is wrong and must be changed. In Climatology when the facts don’t fit then they are changed and the theory kept to fool the gullible.
Are you paid to post stupid comments here? Or does it come naturally?
101
What facts don’t fit the theory, precisely?
And when will you publish your findings so that all the world can marvel at the amazing things you’ve found out, that all the smart PhD’s with decades of research behind them somehow missed?
212
There’s CT showing yet again, that he is more interested in journalism and yapping , than actual science.
81
Where is the 3 degrees of warming we were promised in 30 years in 1987 ( by James Hansen )?
Where are the increased numbers of hurricanes hitting the east coast of the USA?
Where is the everlasting drought in Australia promised by Tim Flannery?
Where are the children in England who haven’t known snow since 2007, or 2010 or 2013?
Why is there still ice in the Arctic?
Why is the Great Barrier Reef in danger when it was going to die in 2000, 2003 or 2006 etc.?
Why hasn’t 27000+ wind turbines barely reduced Germany’s emissions in electricity generation? (34% renewables for maybe 2.6%)
Why is it necessary for Climatologists to ‘adjust’ temperatures to maintain warming?
And why haven’t your “greatest scientists” EVER produced direct scientifically valid proof that CO2 increases warming?
122
What a fish gallop you have there.
Why not start with one: Flannery. Instead of making up stuff, why not quote what he actually said truthfully?
29
Let’s look at real science then Craig my boy:-
Why is there no hot spot?
How exactly can you heat up the surface by 3.3 degrees with only 3.7watts per square meter when that 3.3 degrees causes 16.5 watts of extra surface emission.
Why does the OCO satellite not show high CO2 over populated areas and show the highest CO2 over unpopulated areas ?
Why does IR emission of the earth as measured by satellites increase with temperature when the models say it must decrease.
How exactly does 0.6 watts per square of energy cause melting of ice that absorbs over 30 watts per square meter.
How exactly does that same 0.6 watts cause evaporation that absorbs 6 watts per square metre.
Do tell Craig, for your grandmothers sake, you know the one shivering in the dark because she can’t afford her electricity bill!
72
I notice you haven’t actually refuted anything, which implies you accept it…have you become a sceptic Craig? If so, well done!
61
Bobl blabbered:
“Why is there no hot spot?
…
Why does IR emission of the earth as measured by satellites increase with temperature when the models say it must decrease.”
Make your mind up – does a warming Earth produce a hot spot, or a cold spot?
If you *really* want to understand these things you can refer to the published science instead of making stuff up.
27
Amazing ignorance my boy, and of course you resort to insults. You try to claim the increase in Emission proves the hotspot and somehow those two statements are contradictory but that’s WRONG and betrays your grade school science knowledge.
There is no Tropical hotspot that just about every model predicts (apart from the sceptic written ones) and Delta IR increases with Delta T (increase) where models say it should be the opposite.
The increase in emission with temperature that the satellites measure is the reason WHY THE HOTSPOT DOESN’T APPEAR. As temperature rises COOLING (IR emission) INCREASES per the laws of thermodynamics, and heat therefore ISN’T BEING RETAINED in the Tropical troposphere (which would REDUCE IR emission). So the Hotspot doesn’t happen, it just radiates away as you would expect.
Ergo, observation proves the models wrong.
The problem here is that you don’t actually understand thermodynamics, you need to learn some stuff
Utill the models can reproduce this behaviour the NULL Hypothesis (Warming is natural) prevails.
I note no comments on so-called climate scientists trying to repeal the law of conservation of energy!
41
Original Steve,
I’m only playing with the Gorebot Craig, he thinks he’s clever but has the science backward, that’s what you get from Gore. That’s why he thinks CO2 causes warming when science shows warming causes CO2.
Once you do the math, the conclusions are obvious – but Gorebots are trained to not do the math.
42
The “job” of scientist is better described as “Priest”. Actually there is no profession called scientist, for there are physicists, chemists, biologists, geologists, etc., all who, from time to time, use the scientific method.
Climate science is all about prophesy, using scientese uttered by techno-priests to warn us of the future if our present day habits continue.
287
Good point. And so true. I like the concept of “scientese”.
You can put a pig in a frock, and you can put lipstick on the pig. But it still remains a pig, no matter how you look at it.
173
I can only hope this is theory.
80
It was merely a metaphoric anthroposophical observation on the nature of human wisdom.
91
So a sheep would work as well?
90
No. There’s just too much fur on a sheep. They simply can’t scrub up as pretty as a pig.
40
Well, with a sheep you can pull the wool over peoples eyes . .
80
Gotta’ be wary of that revisionism, yr ‘neo’-
‘something’ by someone, somewhere – a philosopher priest
or a philosopher scientist with an agenda, (like Plato
in HIS Republic where HE’d be the philosopher king,)
– revising the meaning of ‘freedom’ to mean ‘free to
be and act in yr own place within the hierarchy,’ like
bein’ free ter be a serf, for instance.
There’s ‘neo’-platonism, Plato’s ideal forms morphed
into Hegel’s ‘world spirits,’ and ‘neo’-liberalism,
where individual liberty within a limited rule of law
becomes a nanny-state-centred thing run by leftist elites.
You’ve also got ‘neo’-modernism, or ‘post’-modernism,
(‘post’ can be like ‘neo,’) in which you get to use words
like ‘hermoneutics’ and ‘transformative,’ and where reason
and science are said to be jest myths created by humans.
91
Science is now sold as a product to the highest bidder . Want scary global warming stories no problem .
Write the cheque and the half truth , hide the decline propaganda will be custom made .
Where is the “scientist ” that fed Al Gore the thread of credibility to make stupid false predictions about the ice free Arctic which was to have already happened ?
What other dumb ass stuff as the forgotten invisible scientist spewed out or was the pontification just a one timer ? Used and ditched .
White coats have been traded in for black coats that feed low brow promoters to sell an overblown scam .
President Trump knew full well it is a hoax . To bad the light weigh liberal leaders of countries like France and Canada are still promoting it .
202
The French speaking nations have the best politicians that money can buy. It is a tradition going back to the time of the French Revolution, and we all know how much the French love their traditions.
141
French language reminds us that the word Parliament is comprised of two verbs. Parle – to speak Mentir – to lie
170
Anything over the lowest denomination note would be overpaying for Trudeau.
20
And those scientists whose pronouncements and predictions which are the basis of policy and which are shown to be failures either by the passing of time or unbiased science should be held accountable.
244
This was supposed to be the CSIRO. Which is why we spend $20Million a week on them, properly funded. Unfortunately they are an integral part of the problem and the output of fake science. Along with the politicians of the BOM who believe it is far easier to adjust the data than explain the discrepancies. A bit like the ABC/SBS combination, another $30Million a week for fake news. They even have the gall to have their own fact checking group in case you doubt their objectivity.
174
This is why I suggest we maintain copies of original data pre-fiddle ( pre-“homogenization” ) so there is always a gold reference.
The best way to corrupt science, is to make sure the reference data has been modified to suit “the cause”.
The reality of data being mangled is as much an important story as antythng else, is it cuts to the core of the deliberate corruption of science in this country by the Left.
32
Who will watch the watchers?
We have here a problem of infinite regress.
The buck stops with the individual. Each must have the character, knowledge, skill, and willingness to judge for himself. If not for the complexities of a science, at least to be able to judge the same qualities in the experts he uses for advice and council.
That we are in serious trouble here is due to the fact that so many have defaulted to the easy way out. They willingly follow the crowd. Each of whom are similarly willing to follow the crowd. As in “Who am I to judge?” It is either learn how to judge and actually judge or follow the crowd into the endless, dark, and cold abyss.
Your choice. Choose wisely.
91
It’s obviously very early, but NASA satellites show that sea levels may have begun to recede:
There will need to be many years before we can call a trend, but the satellite data suggests a near 2mm decline in around 18 months.
Watch this space?
33
Interesting. Tho’ Satellite sea level data is very adjusted — raw readings were around 1mm a year in the 90s before the adjustments. Take all numbers with a pinch…
I notice there were similar declines in sea level in 2010 so I’m not seeing something out beyond the normal bounds. Though it obviously would be very interesting if that trend did break.
54
I’m currently arguing with someone who says all that water in 2010/2011 fell on Australia.
21
Ha ha ha! What went into all that snow and ice we had in the UK at the same time?
11
That is what happened. Did you think maybe you should do some reading before picking an arbitrary opinion?
610
“Did you think maybe you should do some reading before picking an arbitrary opinion?”
Why.. you never do !!
53
That is what happened. Did you think maybe you should do some reading before picking an arbitrary opinion?
511
You are correct Craig and it did wonders for the Artesian Basin.
21
NOAA also has SLR plateauing, clearly its an aberration.
31
Every time this kind of variation occurs, somebody starts claiming sea levels are going down, only to be shown to have been completely wrong two years later when the long-term accelerating rising trend once again becomes obvious.
79
Its different this time, the hiatus in the atmosphere is being felt in the oceans, and without the assistance of la Nina.
14
You mean like NASA?
NASA interactive graph:
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
___________________________
12
Even if it was heading up, it’s 1.5 mm a YEAR! That’s around 3 grains of 1/2 mm sand deep. Color me unimpressed, in that mother nature can lay down or strip that much sand from a beach in less than a minute. My dog can make a big enough pile of dirt in a year to forestall at least 100 years of that sort of SLR and all I need to do is throw him a bone (he’s a bone burying canine). For this the econuts are in a panic, 3 grains of sand in a year, you’ve gotta laugh at them.
32
No, current rate is 3.4mm per year.
37
It’s 1.5mm but let’s call it 3mm for your comfort, So my dog can only offset 50 years of global warming burying his bones, and mother nature takes two minutes to lay down, (Or excavate) that much instead of just one. (6 grains of sand deeper a YEAR instead of 3, big deal).
Scale Craig that’s what you are missing, a snail could stay ahead of sea level rise by 1000 times. A 1 Metre high pile of dirt beats 3mm SLR for 300 years! SLR is a non problem.
12
Been a dribble of rise since the late 1700s. Places like Juneau and Stockholm show falling levels due to post-glacial rebound, other old gauges show more of a rise than less geo-affected sites like stable Sydney.
Sydney had a level off around WW2, then the upward dribble again. What you’re bound to get in a healthy interglacial. Let’s hope it keeps up.
No bigger beat-up than the sea level beat-up. They’d be better off with Russian hackers than sea levels. Think of something better, warmies. Getting supposedly “global” stats and giving them a sharp upward twist on the right hand side is getting lame.
Hey, there’s some winter heat happening! Why not pretend that’s new? Everyone’s forgotten Sydney’s beach weather in June 1931. I remember heading to the beach at Freshwater with the crowds in August 1982…but I bet that’s forgotten by most.
No. Really. Sensible adult persons do not object to living in the more clement periods of an interglacial. It will be a pity if the dribble of sea-level rise stops or goes the other way. That never means anything good.
53
I love throwing in isostatic rebound with the climate cognoscenti . A tad left field for computer programmers. To practical the good, honest and pragmatic hard science of geology.
31
I seem to recall Peter Ridd has already been cautioned by the pc crowd at JCU. I hope he has a Plan B in place.
Peter, if you are reading this, put me on your contact list. I think that clicking my name puts you through to my web page.
82
Martin,
…After attempting to blow the whistle on what he found — healthy corals — Professor Ridd was censured by James Cook University and threatened with the sack. After a formal investigation, Professor Ridd — a renowned campaigner for quality assurance over coral research from JCU’s Marine Geophysics Laboratory — was found guilty of “failing to act in a collegial way and in the academic spirit of the institution”.
The Australian. June 11. 2016. Graham Lloyd…
…Professor Ridd was disciplined for breaching principle 1 of JCU’s code of conduct by “not displaying responsibility in respecting the reputations of other colleagues”. He has been told that if he does it again he may be found guilty of serious misconduct…
I have no time for conspiracies or paranoia but in this instance involving Professor Ridd…They are out to get him and to silence him.
Blatantly.
BTW,
I wonder if Mr Einstein was subject to such regulation as to displaying a nicety for the repuation of his collegues?
Marshall and Warren in regards to Helicobacter pylori/Gut Ulcers?
Lets ensure that all scientists that challenge orthodoxy and The Establishment are suitably respectful and collegiate.
Then again let’s just defund them, sack and silence them.
Prevents a lack of deference right at the source and sends a big message to all others contemplating upsetting The Consensus.
244
RobbertBobbert:
If they get rid of him for being ‘wrong’ think what a huge precedent they have created for the future.
22
Oh, well, we can ignore thousands of data points produced by hundreds of participants who work around these reefs and just go with one person saying “I found healthy coral” then.
Ridd’s problem is that he has no relevant information to justify his criticism of the people who *do* have the relevant information.
Here is what an honest presentation of the issue looks like:
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/about-the-reef/reef-health
611
Craig the illiterate:
Peter Ridd: Coral Reefs recover — “the scientists make hay when it dies in a spectacular way but they are quiet when it recovers.”
Look at the pretty picture on the link you provided. The coral has recovered or is recovering up north. And if you can read, or get someone to read the article to you, there is a bit in there about storm damage.
And as for the thousands of data points produced which one shows a definite link to the putative cause? All your faith is based on assumptions and blind gullibility.
102
Er, the green does not denote “recovery”, that’s just your fantasy. Try to think.
And how are they being “quiet” when they publish the same report this year as they did last year?
412
A fall in sea level caused the bleaching.
https://www.biogeosciences.net/14/817/2017/
22
Oh! Silly me, I thought green indicating little or no bleaching meant little or no bleaching.
Meanwhile you fake Irishman with a fake photo pushing fake ‘science’ how about answering the question? Are you paid to blog here or are you one of the gullible believers desperately trying to prop up the collapsing nonsense that wiil in the future appear in a revised edition of Extraordinary popular Delusions and the Madness of crowds?
51
Correct. Little or no bleaching. Not “recovery”.
28
Its school holidays , I think….
11
Scleractinian corals must be new to the Earth, since they would not have survived the high CO2 levels and high temps of the Cretaceous, and certainly not the extinction event following. More recently they would have had to survive the Optimum’s warmer waters only five thousand or so years back.
Either that or there was no Cretaceous and hard corals were put here by a deity a few thousand years ago, at creation time. Sediments etc were tricked up by the same deity to make it look like corals had been around for hundreds of millions of years.
Tricky deity! The way some people talk you’d think corals were as tough, resilient and persistent as lantana. But you can tell by looking at all the pretty colours that corals are fragile. You can just tell.
122
In a sense they are and the fact that they are is completely irrelevant. None (zero, zilch, nadda) of the corals alive today survived through the cretaceous but they did evolve from their ancestors that did. The cold water deep sea corals alive today are also evolved from those corals and you wont see them being too pleased to be relocated to shallow tropical seas or the tropical corals dumped deep into cold dark seas.
712
Golly. You mean corals change? Like climate? Like that big shift that filled up Bass Strait a bit over ten thousand years ago – and then overfilled it?
Hombre, I’ll bet our youthful modern corals were none too happy about sudden relocation after the chilly Younger Dryas. That would have been no (zero, zilch, nadda) fun for them.
143
what is your point mr bamboo? You seem to be saying that because a bunch of corals, now extinct but with descendants that have evolved to live in modern ecosystems, survived through a particular era then this proves that the modern corals can cope with whatever is thrown at them.
718
The GBR is able to adapt through cross fertilisation.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2014/06/17/great-barrier-reef-may-withstand-warming-seas/
71
No. Not my point. If “whatever was thrown at them” was my point I would have made that point. Instead I made the point that there have been recent warmings and corals survived those warmings. I might have added that there have been recent coolings, such as the Bond Events and the coolings which brought about the Old Kingdom fall and Bronze Age collapse. But the plunge into the Younger Dryas would have been the shocker.
Ten thousand years is not even yesterday for corals, and the real climate roller coaster for modern species, including man, consisted of the quadruple shift icy-warmer-Younger Dryas-Optimum which roughly formed a five thousand year period starting a mere fifteen thousand years back. Hence Bass Strait, English Channel, Storegga Slides and so on. All pretty new, some of it occurring within the period of built human settlements like Jericho and Göbekli Tepe.
Not that climate change has ever stopped or that climate has ever been stable. We’ve just been getting a bit lucky lately. Keep fingers crossed. That last LIA was a doozy and civilisations aren’t as resilient as corals or my flaming lantana.
172
Following on from that, looking at the paper by Felis et al 2013.
‘The relatively warm SSTs in the GBR during the YD are consistent with an Antarctic-type pattern of deglacial warming as observed further to the south.’
It has to be the bipolar seesaw, the YD signal showed up in Vanuatu.
51
I’d say some of them climate-scientists
are likewise see-saw-bi-polar, el gordo.
80
Trial ‘n error evolution … say, corals adapt?
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KUxEGcteEB0/hqdefault.jpg
50
Corals adapted at the LGM by flirting with the New Guinea natives, as the SST fell by three degrees it was a do or die moment.
In the same way the mingling of humans around Lake Carpentaria at the LGM involved the Denisovans, a timely coincidence.
10
shootout at the OK coral 🙂
10
oh for tuna!
10
Cohenite has reiterated this point from the good professor:
Peter Ridd: There needs to be a properly funded group of scientists who sole job is to find fault in the science with which we are basing expensive public policy decisions ….
I thought that was what ‘peer review’ was meant to do?
As for the scientists practising scientese I very much hope that the old adage ‘the higher they rise the harder they fall’ will apply – or is there a terminal velocity in this area?
93
No, peer review is a editorial review prior to publishing that looks for obvious errors, no peer reviewer is required to confirm results or replicate experiments. It’s a glorified spell and arithmetic check, sometimes peer reviewers might check method, but not often. Peer review is NOT part of the scientific process, it is part of the publishing process.
21
Truth is refreshing and oh so delightful! Life is tedious trying to fight/ignore lie after lie by the warmunists.
72
Here’s a headline of “the 2nd warmist year, to date” on the NOAA website, today, together with a photo of a shark waiting to eat the climate sceptics (only kidding but there is a menacing shark for what ever reason}. And I thought Trump was going to drain the swamp.
82
Very disappointing that the NOAA swamp still has lots of predatory beasts in it.
13
Gosh, just imagine the National body in charge of OCEANIC research including pictures of gummy sharks on their website. Proof positive the moon landings were faked I reckon.
310
Craig if you could browse through this I would appreciate your opinion.
https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/media/ccia/2.1.6/cms_page_media/472/Grose%20etal%202015%20AMOJ%2065%202.pdf
Its about the lack of rain in south east Australia in winter.
31
The usual thing – the models show rainfall changes because the models are based on historical observations, eg,
http://www.bom.gov.au/web01/ncc/www/cli_chg/trendmap/rain/0112/aus/1970/latest.gif
This is what Tim Flannery was on about when the denliars verballed him: he was talking about that brown area around Brisbane and saying that reduced rainfall could become a serious issue.
35
@TdeF: ‘There is none of that [fame, etc.] in just noting the facts and looking for natural explanations.’
The core of the problem. And it extends way beyond speculations on the climate.
I wonder when electorates will realise doing nothing ought to be a default setting. Perhaps over time the voting public will learn that they do not need to goad their representatives into action, but, rather, restrain them from acting on flights of fancy.
120
Yes Mark. That resonates.
So much so that it motivated me to pull out this old reference for old times’ sake:
“THE IMPORTANCE OF DOING NOTHING”
By Bill Bonner September 19, 2005
http://www.kitco.com/ind/bonner/sep192005.html
It still makes me smile.
70
***”former” should be in the headline; nonetheless, a complex story:
26 Jul: The Hill: Devin Henry: EPA transition official dismisses climate science strategy as ‘silliness’
A ***former transition official at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is dismissing the agency’s plan to debate climate change science as “silliness.”…
But David Schnare, a 34-year EPA veteran and former transition official for the Trump administration, dismissed that approach in an op-ed for InsideEPA…
“The Red team-blue team concept simply does not apply within the scientific community,” he wrote…
“That … is not how science works. Science is supposed to be done by individuals ‘disinterested’ in the outcome of their observations. It is not supposed to be a political blood sport.”…
Schnare said scientific discussions into climate change should be conducted instead by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is currently writing a “National Climate Assessment” report…
Schnare retired from the EPA in 2011 and returned to the agency as a transition official once Trump was elected. He has publicly questioned climate science and was a frequent critic of the agency under former President Barack Obama…
Administrator position before he resigned from the transition team in March…
At the time, Schnare didn’t expand on why he left the agency. But he wrote in his op-ed this week that the transition team was facing “antagonism” by employees and “open hostility” from some Pruitt appointees.
Pruitt himself, Schnare wrote, rarely met with career staff to address “time- and policy-sensitive” issues facing the agency.
“In simple terms, Mr. Pruitt and I simply never meshed,” Schnare wrote. “In my case, Mr. Pruitt and I had basic irreconcilable differences in management approach and professional ethics.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/343976-epa-transition-official-dismisses-pruitt-climate-science-strategy
MUST-READ ALL:
25 Jul: InsideEPA: (David) Schnare, Former Transition Official, On His Departure, EPA Climate Science Review
It is a high honor to be asked to serve on a presidential transition team — an even higher one to be asked to go back into an agency into a major role. The Presidential Personnel Office, with the full support of Transition Team Leader and Senior White House Advisor, Don Benton, asked me to act as, and then become permanently appointed as the Assistant Deputy Administrator, a position Administrator Pruitt described as the Chief Operating Officer for the Agency. A few days before the White House officially made that assignment, I resigned. As a 34 year-veteran of EPA, a PhD environmental scientist and attorney who retired from the Agency in 2011, President Trump’s team asked me to go into the agency in a leadership role implementing the EPA transition plan. Based on discussions with the entire EPA transition team, I had drafted approximately 80% of the agency transition plan. Why resign and why explain why?
My commitment to the President and his agenda is ongoing, despite my resignation. Over 20 news organizations have asked me to spell out why I left, and previously I have not as I saw no value to President Trump in doing so. However, telling this brief tale deflates attention on my resignation and allows attention to go to an important issue that demands attention from within and outside the Agency — specifically, how to address the highly controversial issue of climate and the human influence on climate.
In simple terms, Mr. Pruitt and I simply never meshed…
I came to Inside EPA to highlight this problem as it is the loudest megaphone into the Agency and within the environmental policy community. It needs to be raised now and strongly, or the President will lose the opportunity to carry out one of his key election promises: reexamination of climate science and how that science informs policy-making that has vast economic and political implications.
There are three problems involving climate science that many others within the Administration do not understand: (i) The law does not assign responsibility for assessing the significance of greenhouse gas emissions to EPA; (ii) the law does not permit the federal government to assume the science is settled; and, (iii) the Red team — Blue team concept simply does not apply within the scientific community. I opt for the Red, White and Blue team approach, with a heavy dash of Karl Popper thrown in.
Who is responsible for assessing climate science?
The Subcommittee on Global Change Research (GCRC) of the Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability of the National Science and Technology Council was established to plan and coordinate the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), as described in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606). The USGCRP provides for development and coordination of a comprehensive and integrated research program, which assesses, predicts and responds to human-induced and natural processes of global change. Among its eleven functions is the duty to conduct a periodic scientific assessment which addresses the following…
The staff at the Office of Science and Technology Policy are currently engaged in writing the statutorily mandated 2017 “National Climate Assessment.” This is a legacy of the Obama administration, one being done as quickly and quietly as possible by the Obama holdovers ensconced at OSTP. The Assessment draws on the science as discussed in another statutorily mandated report, the “Research Plan.” Both the Assessment (currently in draft) and the Research Plan parrot an alarmist view of the “settled” science. The Research Plan was published days before President Trump took office. Both the Research Plan and the Assessment need to go back to ground zero and be redone, and a properly appointed OSTP leadership and staff have all the authority and tools needed to reexamine the science.
How do we know a redux is needed? The National Academy of Science (well known to lean toward climate alarmism), said so…READ ON
https://insideepa.com/share/203829?s=07252017
32
excerpts from cached versions:
26 Jul: E&E News: Kevin Bogardus: Transition aide blasts Pruitt, ‘red team, blue team’ scheme
Schnare made similar allegations about wrongdoing at EPA during his brief return in a statement to E&E News when he resigned in March ***(Greenwire, March 16).
After his retirement in 2011, Schnare became a vocal critic of EPA. He was general counsel for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, and has often sued the agency as well as universities under public records laws to seek information from climate scientists and government officials.
Schnare declined to comment beyond his op-ed when contacted by E&E News.
EPA press officials didn’t respond to messages from E&E News asking for comment for this story…
Schnare also believes EPA is not the right agency to debate climate science. Instead, he said, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy should take the lead in the review, since it has the legal authority to conduct it.
“OSTP and its [Subcommittee on Global Change Research] have the authority and resources to conduct a reexamination of the science. EPA can play, but it isn’t in charge and doesn’t have the authority under the Global Change Research Act of 1990 to unilaterally undertake this effort,” Schnare said.
Trump has yet to pick a science adviser to lead that White House office, which Schnare urged him to do in his op-ed.
“The President needs to appoint a head of OSTP and he or she needs to reorganize and recommit to a proper examination of climate science,” Schnare said…
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/07/26/stories/1060057950
***16 Mar: E&E News Greenwire: Questions trail agency critic’s exit
by Kevin Bogardus
In a separate email today to E&E News, Schnare said there was more to why he resigned from EPA.
“The backstory to my resignation is extremely complex. I will be writing about it myself. It is a story not about me, but about a much more interesting set of events involving misuse of federal funds, failure to honor oaths of office, and a lack of loyalty to the President,” Schnare said.
After leaving EPA, he was general counsel for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute. He has also directed the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic.
In those roles, Schnare accused the Obama administration of colluding with green groups to set policy. He also often sued EPA as well as universities under public records laws to seek information from climate scientists and government officials.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/03/16/stories/1060051580
12
“OSTP and its [Subcommittee on Global Change Research] have the authority and resources to conduct a reexamination of the science. EPA can play, but it isn’t in charge and doesn’t have the authority under the Global Change Research Act of 1990 to unilaterally undertake this effort,” Schnare said.
As a scientist, I would say this pinpoints the “Global Change Research Act of 1990” itself as yet another false authority. Schnare obviously thinks the system, which includes that Act, is working. He is an idiot for thinking so, at this late date (after all we have learned about the true crisis of incompetence in the academic–“consensus”–science.
And climate “science” is just the tip of the iceberg. The re-formation of the Earth’s surface (and solar system) less than 20,000 years ago–in what I discovered, and call “The Great Design of the ‘gods'”–puts the lie to all of the earth and life sciences as they are currently conceived (which allows today’s miseducated scientists to believe the global mean temperature is not inherently stable against any and all changes within the planet-plus-atmosphere system). No one understands the true extent of the problem, which is a failed scientific paradigm, of assumed undirected “evolution” of all that is observed in the physical world we inhabit.
34
There is fake news and now fake science…
74
Plus in homogenizing everything to fit the theory, fake data.
114
If you wanted to find out the average height of men and women in english-speaking countries, what would you do?
Add a bunch of data in feet and inches to a bunch of data in centimetres?
Or would you homogenise it?
I ask this because I am very sceptical about whether there is any rational basis for your scepticism.
47
Craig. In the example you give there are actual figures. Metric may be converted to actual ft. and inches. Then actual calculations may be made. In homogenising guesses are made.
There is no fact in your comment.
92
Good Ross, so you’re with me so far.
Next, we go beyond the data and look at the way it is collected. What we find is:
– Country #1 measures to mm precision.
– Country #2 rounds to the nearest cm.
– Country #3 has a policy of rounding always up to the nearest full centimetre
– Country #4 measure to mm accuracy but in their database only the cm part of the measurement is present
– Country #5 is notorious for its inaccurate measuring tapes
– Country #6 cycled through each of the above policies/problems at least once over the last 30 years
– Country #7 has lost its records for several of the years intended to be encompassed by the study
An incompetent scientist might just slap all these “raw” numbers together.
A competent scientist will be well aware that his results will be far more accurate if he homogenises the data first.
Some of the things he might do would include:
– undo the biases introduced by poor rounding by altering each value by the predicted average error across the dataset.
– create artificial precision in the less precise measurements using a statistical technique that introduces no bias
– creating datasets of greater or lesser impact according to the reliability of the measurements.
– using a statistical technique based on the available data to fill in missing data in a dataset
– apply different methods to different years within a country’s dataset depending on the problem
So the question is – if *you* were the scientist, would you be aiming at using bad data to produce bad results, or would you do a competent job, publish your results as well as all your methods and invite others to replicate the results using their own ideas?
410
Good example Craig, I would do the good Scientist. This makes me so different because I would publish how I made the adjustments. Compare this with BOM who refuse. In particular Prof.Mann who refuse to publish.
If you think you can rely on incomplete, non verifiable data, peer reviewed by people who do not have the data then I am afraid that you believe in unscientific data.
We are all waiting for the basis of the CO2 meme to be properly examined.
93
The “refuse to publish” is a complete fantasy.
The whole point of published research is to describe a method and a result.
Homogenisation has been documented extensively by a number of people who are interested in the topic.
You could start here:
– Torok and Nicholls (1996); a high-quality homogenisation for reliably monitoring climate trends and variability at annual and decadal timescales.
– Nicholls et al (1996); describing the 1 degree drop associated with new screening at measuring stations.
– Peterson et al. (1998); “…a suite of quality control tests are justified and documented …”
– Della-Marta & Collins (2003); updating the temperature record to take into account improvements in methods.
312
Craig – homogenization is fiddling the books.
Even you must recognize inherently this is ethically and morally aa huge no no…..unless you’re a leftist who realizes the scam won’t work if people can actually see the original data, so they wreck it to stop people seeing the lie.
Grow up, son….
62
Steve, I’ve just demonstrated why data needs to be homogenised and you appear to have learnt nothing.
What if Country #8 always takes its height measurements at 6pm, while Country #9 always takes its height measurements at 6am?
You’re not seriously telling me you could combine those two datasets without homogenising them first?
Because if that’s what you believe, it simply means you are utterly clueless in relation to ensuring integrity of data and analysis.
46
Wrong. There is no way to make the data “more accurate”.
But you could apply for a job at the BOM, Graig.
You’d be a shoe in, I reckon.
63
” Homogenisation has been documented extensively ”
Craig Thomas #19.1.1.1.1
Yes- to the extent that a case has been made that there may be statistical
procedures for improving on raw data under defined conditions.
No- as, except where results were of no political significance, the exact
procedures used have not been made public. Publishing would enable another
investigator to reproduce results and comment on process integrity.
So far, the use of homogenization appears to be an excuse for changing data in
order to get a politically desired result. This has been extensively described
by Curry and others on the notorious ‘hockey stick’.
See also the report of the expert committee on BoM normalization procedures.
They said what BoM did was ok, legit, and they are fine people, etc.
However, the committee said in their report that they were unable to determine
what the procedures were, and recommended that BoM publish such procedures.
That conclusion would not have been needed if they had found a properly
documented and bias free process.
The committee did not refer directly to fatal flaws in the BoM normalizations
pointed out by Marohasy, Nova, etc as this was not in their terms of reference.
The terms of reference were written by BoM.
32
Of course if you did so then you would be guaranteed to be wrong! Since for example is that cm aligned data rounded or truncated?. Maybe some is rounded and some is truncated. Was it measured with shoes on or off, did they have a hairdo? Did they measure it with a bent stick or a laser ruler. Was it calibrated?. Me I’d discard the unreliable data and get reliable data to use. I certainly wouldn’t use your crappy homogenised cesspool to make policy decisions that kill grannies! But then I’m an engineer that is legally liable for my mistakes and you’re what?
31
Craig, to quote John McEnroe, you cannot be serious. That’s conversion of units. Nothing changes.
50
So you agree the raw data needs to be changed?
36
No. Its called perversion of the truth.
Even you can grasp that.
11
That’s confusing – I’ve opened this bag of nuts and the first nut says that converting units changes nothing while the second nut says it’s a “perversion of the truth”. That’s how I know it’s a bag of mixed nuts.
35
In fact you are defending something without even understanding it. Typical.
30
Craig, that’s just like trying to average the boiling point of pure water by measuring the room temperature at which it was put on the heat.
44
“Add a bunch of data in feet and inches to a bunch of data in centimetres?”
Oh dear.. poor CT is STILL struggling with metric conversion.
Seems to think it is some sort of “adjustment”
Sad. !!
73
This certainly needs more than a fact-check.
July 14, 2017, SMH, Goodweekend:
Charlie Veron is the world’s leading expert on coral reefs.
His prognosis for the future of the Great Barrier Reef, and the world, is dire.
“… climate change – the cataclysmic wrath of which will be upon us, Veron believes, in 10 to 15 years.
“We have crossed a bridge now, and we have burnt it,” he says, sitting on his patio overlooking the creek, eating a ham and cheese roll.”
“Charlie is eccentric,” says the University of Queensland marine scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.
(At one point he likens himself to “an Aborigine”, due to his ability to enter meditative, nature-induced trances.)
Personally, I prefer the realistic time-frame predictions of Madam Zenda, the horoscopic harridan, who correctly predicts her own tipping point … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie-NyQIG_3I
31
excerpt from cached version:
26 Jul: E&E News: Arianna Skibell: Dems float carbon tax at conservative think tank
Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii have introduced legislation to instate a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Whitehouse and Schatz presented “The American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act” at a discussion today hosted by the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute…
The plan, with its revenue intended to reduce corporate taxes, is meant to hit a “political sweet spot” so it can be “politically palatable” to Republicans, Whitehouse told a packed conference room at AEI’s headquarters in Washington.
In fact, the senators chose the venue as a way to woo conservatives and say they are looking for GOP lawmakers to work with. They did not mention any potential gets…
“We’re in conversation with Republicans in both chambers, and we feel we’re making progress, but that progress might stop if we gave you names,” Schatz said.
The measure would impose a $49-per-ton fee on carbon dioxide, with that amount rising 2 percent annually. According to the think tank Resources for the Future, the tax would reduce energy-related CO2 emissions by 36 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, lower than a previously estimated 80 percent reduction.
In the next 10 years, the fee would lead the United States to beat its carbon reduction goals set in the Paris Agreement, according to RFF. And it would slash utility-sector carbon emissions in half by 2030, outpacing the Obama administration’s signature climate regulations under the Clean Power Plan, RFF found.
“Most economists agree that a proposal like this represents an optimally efficient way to achieve real carbon reductions,” RFF senior fellow Ray Kopp said in a statement. “The senators deserve great credit for putting this before the public for full discussion and analysis.”
The legislation would raise an estimated $2 trillion in the first decade, with revenues intended to lower corporate tax rates and fund credits for workers, ***as well as payments to low-income people, veterans and Social Security recipients.
While the carbon tax is generally considered a political non-starter, a growing number of Republicans have come out in support of such a tax, including former Treasury Secretaries James Baker, George Shultz and Henry Paulson; former U.S. EPA Administrators William Ruckelshaus, Lee Thomas, William Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman; and former presidential economic advisers Arthur Laffer, Gregory Mankiw and Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
“Virtually every person on the Republican side who has thought the climate change problem through to a solution has come to the same place: Price carbon emissions to encourage cleaner energy and return the revenue to the American people,” Whitehouse said.
“Sen. Schatz and I extend an open hand,” he said. “Find Sen. Schatz and me a Republican to negotiate with. Then let’s talk about the economics. Let’s talk about the revenue.”…
Whitehouse said that when he first arrived on the Hill in 2007, there was much talk of taking bipartisan action against climate change. This ended, he said, with the Supreme Court Citizens United ruling.
“The fossil fuel industry immediately launched a veritable Soviet May Day parade of political artillery. No special interest had that kind of political muscle before Citizens United,” he said. “The combination of this industry political weaponry, plus the proliferation of dark money, plus the shady science simulacrum of climate denial has been formidable.”
Still, he said, there’s room for optimism. He said there are Republicans who are willing to work on the issue, but they need “safe passage” through the “political kill zone” left by the fossil fuel industry…
After the senators spoke, several panelists discussing the issue expressed skepticism about its political viability and policy wisdom.
Among them were Veronique de Rugy, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center; Myron Ebell, energy and environment chief at the Competitive Enterprise Institute; and George Frampton, co-founder of the Partnership for Responsible Growth.
They said carbon emissions were already on the downturn, questioned the effectiveness of the tax and said most conservatives would still oppose such a proposal.
Ebell said, “This bill is dead on arrival.” He said, “Regulations are disappearing now because President Trump is withdrawing them. So what is the reason for a carbon tax?”
De Rugy said, “The issue of climate change is not going to go away. Consumers are asking for solutions and businesses have proven they want to fulfill this demand for greener energy. So yes, trade offs, absolutely. Just show me there’s an actual real benefit.”
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/07/26/stories/1060057974
***how often are we told much of the money raised via a carbon tax will be given to the needy! lol.
32
I consider from your information that they are gaming the system, looking to make money for good old Uncle Sam (and who else, eh?) without regard for the scientific truth, that there is no global warming greenhouse effect and hence no “greenhouse gases” to put a tax on (or a fine–they’ll try to work it either way, as was done with Obamacare).
The reality, as their effort shows yet again, is that the system they are trying to game ISN’T WORKING. The system is broken. Period. Because it is actively avoiding the hard truth, both in science and in party “politics” (in quotes, because the Democrats–now The Insane Left–are a criminal mob, not a legitimate political party).
23
Bishop Hill Discussion, page 3.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2680568?currentPage=3
10
” There needs to be a properly funded group of scientists who sole job is to find
fault in the science with which we are basing expensive public policy decisions ….”
As I see it, the proposal is-
Many government scientists are producing biased conclusions.
To balance this, governments should pay for more scientists to check and balance.
What will happen-
The second group respond to the same pressures that caused the original bias,
especially when they are chosen by the first group.
Experience shows us that commissions of review just say what a fine job was done,
then make some trivial recommendation. (Penn State, BoM..)
Solution-
Substantial chops in government spending.
Scientists will then need to justify their work to those who are paying their
own money or are responsible to shareholders rather than gaining points from
spending other people’s money.
50
I think the idea of a red team is fabulous, they are chosen because of their scientific integrity, I nominate Judith Curry for one.
The red team proves beyond reasonable doubt that SLR has stopped, temperatures have paused for two decades and there has been mass model failure. The MSM run the stories hoping to smash the recalcitrant red team with ridicule, but the Klimatariat back off and refuse to be drawn because they are on a hiding to nothing.
Victory will be so sweet when the masses realise that CO2 is innocent of all charges laid against it.
40
Which is exactly the exercise BEST engaged in.
Only problem was, the BEST study caused the researchers to realise they were wrong when its results came in.
By all means, get Koch to fund another Red Team like BEST. Only stop rabbiting on about what you imagine the results will be until those results actually come in.
47
Best is funded totally and completely by FAR-LEFT globalist. ($147 on-line donations)
It is AGENDA driven muck.
45
BEST was funded by Koch, numbnuts.
36
Language. Take 100 lines….
00
This will be a government funded venture with a Lukewarm panel as honest brokers.
I’m happy to wait for the debate to finally breakout in the MSM, the science of climate change can no longer be suppressed for a perceived noble cause.
31
I wonder where some of this data comes from; here for instance is David Karoly’s cartoon version of the sea surface temperature for the Coral Sea back to 1900 which shows something like a 0.75C – 1C warming since 1940 while this data from Willis Island in the centre of the Coral Sea shows virtually no change 1982 – 2011 and no change in the air temperature since 1940.
92
What possesses any scientist to draw a RED line heading up and off into space? Since when do simple fits become theory and able to be extrapolated infinitely without a working model? That is just scurrilous science. Lines in space, like Pigs in Space from the Muppets.
122
“What possesses any scientist to draw a RED line heading up and off into space?”
Correlation of projected earnings?
00
You’ve linked to some sort of blog by the ever-unreliable John “Coldest year since 1965” McLean which doesn’t show any trend analysis, just some graphs produced by data from a single location, covering a limited time period.
You’re comparing that, with a blog post by a relevant expert which includes an illustration of the current wamring trend.
If you wanted to make an effort you could have checked:
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/about-the-reef/reef-health/record-breaking-sea-surface-temperatures
As you can see, the choice of 1983 and 2011 as the start and end dates looks……let’s just call it “odd”. What is clear from looking at the relevant data is that the trend is a definite rise in temperature.
48
Well you’ve flung around a few ad hominem which is par for the course, personal attacks are a feeble response, but you haven’t shed any light on the puzzle, Willis Island if you don’t know is in the middle of the Coral Sea.
Here are two more reconstructions which show flat mean annual air temperature trends for Willis Island.
Oh, here’s another from John Daly (deceased).
41
John McLean made a prediction which failed. That’s not an ad hominem argument
36
Yep a 2011 prediction based on ENSO was not his finest moment.
Nate the ABC weather man (BoM trained) said a strong El Nino is approaching, it apparently happens every 22 years like clockwork.
If he is correct then the ENSO enigma may have a solar connection.
10
OT, haven’t read all comments yet, but want to ask if there is any substance to a rumour that both Loy Yang A and B have given the required 3 years notice of closure ?
50
OT, haven’t read all comments yet, but want to ask if there is any substance to a rumour that both Loy Yang A and B have given the required 3 years notice of closure ?
40
Someone here will know , if it’s true while not surprising from our glorious leader it’s going to ruin this state and the whole eastern sea board in terms of industry and manufacturing.
I have an inside source I will send an email to and see if it’s true but where did you hear it from .
50
As for the troll I tell you what , our side is willing to give up mining coal on the Great Barrier Reef , does that not please you .
50
I get nothing from my source , and think it might be fake news .
50
I read it from one of the comments on Pickering Post. Drove through Traralgon this afternoon and pondered how such a closure if true would almost completely devastate that fair city of over 40,000.
60
Giving notice of closure would be a clever ploy on the part of Loy Yang in order to panic the government into coming to its senses re providing real energy security by supporting traditional, reliable electricity producers ahead of the useless renewables industries.
90
As far as I’m aware A and B are owned by different companies and B has had upgrades recently .
30
Jo,
Maybe Alan should interview a coral biologist instead of Peter to get his facts on the reef ?
55
Alan could also enquire re. the ‘coral biologist’s’ views on the Climategate Emails, Post Normal Science and the Precautionary Principal (and whether it applies in science).
53
Let’s hope JCU doesn’t treat Peter Ridd as shabbily as they did Bob Carter.
But I beg to differ on the COT. I visited the GBR a few times before the first outbreak and it has not recovered it’s full glory.
41
Nothing can save Barrier Reef tourism. A week in Bali, with two dives now costs the same as a single dive trip out from Cairns.
I’d really like to see a genuine economic assessment of the value of the GBR on the economy. That number of 60,000 employment because of it includes every service station attendant, fast food worker, sporting goods sales assistant etc in the eastern half of Queensland. The real number is probably more like a few thousand.
52
I’m in Townsville. If you exclude Magnetic Is and Reef HQ aquarium, neither of which are within 60 KM of the reef, there is almost zero reef tourism.
There is a small dive industry but the best value dive is the SS Yongala wreck and that is [accidentally] man made.
41
quite a bit in this interview has Ridd on the shortcomings of peer review:
AUDIO: 11mins21secs: 25 Jul: 2GB: Chris Smith Show: Great Barrier Reef not at risk
Chris Smith speaks with Professor Peter Ridd (James Cook Uni) about the misleading research on the reef.
http://www.2gb.com/podcast/great-barrier-reef-not-at-risk/
33
When JCU was set up initially as a College of Queensland Uni, I joined the first year, not in its first year, but in its second, with credits from elsewhere.
As almost a Founding Student, I take particular interest in its progress and particular shame from some reports of treatment of professionals like Professor Ridd. What a terrible Star Chamber treatment that was, to advise him of being punishable for venturing his scientific opinion. Geoff
153
science is never settled?
27 Jul: UK Telegraph: Sarah Knapton: ‘Don’t finish the course of antibiotics’ – experts turn medical advice on its head
Current guidance from the NHS and the World Health Organisation says it is essential to ‘finish a course’ of antibiotics to avoid triggering more virulent forms of disease.
But in a new article in the ***British Medical Journal (BMJ), 10 leading experts said the public health message is not backed by evidence and should be dropped. They claim it actually puts the public at greater risk from antimicrobial resistance.
“Historically, antibiotic courses were driven by fear of undertreatment, with less concern about overuse,” said lead author Martin Llewelyn professor of infectious diseases at Brighton and Sussex Medical School.
“The idea that stopping antibiotic treatment early encourages antibiotic resistance is not supported by evidence, while taking antibiotics for longer than necessary increases the risk of resistance.
“We encourage policy makers, educators, and doctors to stop advocating ‘complete the course’ when communicating with the public.”
Fears that stopping antibiotics early could trigger more dangerous forms of disease date back to Alexander Fleming…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/07/26/gps-must-stop-telling-patients-finish-course-antibiotics-say/
***link to BMJ didn’t work for me, so here it is:
26 Jul: BMJ: The antibiotic course has had its day
With little evidence that failing to complete a prescribed antibiotic course contributes to antibiotic resistance, it’s time for policy makers, educators, and doctors to drop this message, argue Martin Llewelyn and colleagues…
http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3418
no link provided by BBC, which seems more inclined towards upholding the status quo:
27 Jul: BBC: Should you finish a course of antibiotics?
By Smitha Mundasad
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-40731465
32
novel length, nasty. click on author’s name to get a taste of his previous CAGW alarmist pieces:
27 Jul: Rolling Stone: Scott Pruitt’s Crimes Against Nature
Trump’s EPA chief is gutting the agency, defunding science and serving the fossil-fuel industry
By Jeff Goodell
“If there was ever an example of the fox guarding the henhouse, this is it,” says Michael Mann, a noted climate scientist at Penn State University. “We have a Koch-brothers-connected industry shill who is now in charge of climate and environmental policy for the entire country.”…
“Scott Pruitt is not secretary of commerce,” says a former top Obama administration official. “His job is not to protect the fossil-fuel industry. It’s to make difficult decisions, based on science and risk-reward analysis, that protect the environment and the health of the American people. And he’s not doing that.” Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, who opposed Pruitt’s confirmation, says that having a guy like Pruitt in charge of the EPA is evidence of the “dangerous, bizarro world we now live in.”…
“The appointment of Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator is as serious a threat to our environment as we’ve ever faced,” says Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Pruitt’s entire career represents the exact opposite of the EPA’s mission, which is to protect us from the reckless polluters and the disastrous consequences of climate change.”…
Some events seemed orchestrated to demoralize the agency’s staff. Trump invited coal miners into the Rachel Carson Room to witness the dismantling of Obama’s Clean Power Plan. “Inviting the miners to come over to the EPA for the signing was such an invasion,” one EPA staffer says, noting the rollback took place in the very room where McCarthy had signed the Clean Power Plan. “They knew exactly what they were doing – it was staged to be totally in-your-face.” Posters of Pruitt shaking hands with miners now adorn the halls of the agency…
“It’s been six months,” another EPA staffer says, “and people are still crying at their desks.”…
Still, Pruitt hesitates to erode confidence in climate science with full-frontal attacks. “The new denialism is to admit that the climate is changing, but that the science is still unsettled, and the role that human activity plays is still unclear, and until we figure that out, there’s no real reason to take action,” says Mann, the Penn State climate scientist. As evidence of this approach, Mann points to an idea Pruitt recently floated of bringing together a red team and a blue team to debate various issues in climate science in public – perhaps even on TV. It’s an idea that might work in a debate over, say, health care policy. But climate science is based on physical facts, not political or economic theory. As Mann says, “If our civilization doesn’t survive, it will be because of this kind of malicious stupidity.”…READ ON
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/scott-pruitt-is-gutting-the-epa-serving-fossil-fuel-industry-w494156
Sept 2013: WUWT: Anthony Watts: On the cover of the Rolling Stone? Not quite, but I did get a single word in
Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell demonstrates what a biased journalist he is.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/12/on-the-cover-of-the-rolling-stone-not-quite-but-i-did-get-a-single-word-in/
Wikipedia: Jeff Goodell
He is a 2016 Fellow at the New America Foundation (founded by Ted Halstead, who also founded The Climate Leadership Council, launched February 8, 2017 with the publication of “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends,” co-authored by James A. Baker III, Martin Feldstein, Ted Halstead, Gregory Mankiw, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., George P. Shultz, Thomas Stephenson, and Rob Walton; Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, is the chairman of the foundation’s board of directors)…
In 2006 Goodell published his most popular book to date, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future…
Awards and Honors
2011 Grantham Prize (Award of Special Merit).
2012 Sierra Club David R. Brower Award for excellence in environmental journalism.
Rolling Stone is full-on political these days and was in the news earlier today with:
26 Jul: Globe&Mail: Andrew MacDougall: The Rolling Stone cover: Trudeau’s celebrity helps Trudeau, not Canada
(Andrew MacDougall was a former director of communications to Stephen Harper)
You know things are bad in the United States when they put the Canadian prime minister on the cover of Rolling Stone with the headline: “Why can’t he be our President?”…
The Rolling Stone profile is but the latest round of a seemingly endless game of which foreign publication can puff the Prime Minister most comprehensively. To wit, a recent front page profile in a Rhode Island newspaper ahead of Mr. Trudeau’s (politically important and astute) address to the U.S. Governors Association opened with a command to Google Mr. Trudeau’s “butt.”
What is it about Mr. Trudeau that turns foreign reporters into crack addicts? “His dark hair is a colour found in nature,” Stephen Rodrick, the Rolling Stone reporter, squeals in his piece…
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/trudeaus-celebrity-helps-trudeau-not-canada/article35807527/
26 Jul: National Post: Marie Danielle-Smith: A few things in Rolling Stone’s profile of Justin Trudeau that were just plain wrong
The online version of the cover story was widely mocked Wednesday morning for its fawning coverage of Trudeau and gratuitous comparisons to Trump — it also got a number of things wrong
http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-few-things-in-rolling-stones-profile-of-justin-trudeau-that-were-just-plain-wrong/wcm/29f86941-27aa-4896-adde-694ecb816bcd
26 Jul: CTV: Josh K. Elliott: ‘Mountain’ Police?: Rolling Stone bumbles facts in Trudeau profile
The profile is the latest in a series of gushing cover stories about Trudeau in American publications, following on the heels of other features in magazines such as Vogue and Delta Airlines’ in-flight magazine Sky…
“For Trudeau, listening is seducing,” one part of the story reads…
It also cites Trudeau’s partial Scottish ancestry in the way he “swats away Trump-baiting questions with a look that says, ‘Not today, laddie.’”…
The story also says Trudeau’s birth on Dec. 25, 1971, was hailed as “King of the North front-page news,” when it was actually overshadowed by an Air Canada hijacking in Cuba.
22
Where ever coral is protected ( only 2% of the world) where man does not go ( Bikini atoll) and where pesticides are not used ( Cuba) coral grows like a forest and is in pristine condition.
Climate change seems to be very selective where it affects Coral.
73
My understanding was that chemicals in common sun-screens caused far more damage to corals than the minor changes in water temp through the seasons and ocean current cycles. So if that is true, then yeah, if no one is swimming about in the area shedding sun-screen lotion all around them, the corals will be a bit healthier.
31
If you start out looking for evidence that the reef is dying you have too much incentive to find that it’s dying. The proper question is not, what is killing the reef but what, if anything is happening to the reef? One approach leads to biased findings and the other to a much more honest report on the reef.
That latter question may also take a lot longer to answer correctly which may coincidentally push researchers toward the first question instead of the second. But I don’t think it’s honest to make an a priori judgment and then search for evidence to prove you’re hasty judgment was correct.
122
No, it’s not honest, but it is the charter of the IPCC.
102
Peter Ridd: Coral Reefs recover — “the scientists make hay when it dies in a spectacular way but they are quiet when it recovers.”
Why are politicians so beholden to he science they pay for ?
33
Because the politicians are beholden to the ones they are in pay of and I don’t mean the taxpayers.
52
One example in New South Wales is a now deceased Labor premier who arranged for transfer of transportation of goods from government railways to trucking firms, his interstate colleagues cooperated. This was in the 1970-1980 period. And when he left politics Wran QC was handed a cleaning contract covering TNT Limited premises including Ansett Airlines terminals Australia wide.
30
On this day, or yesterday, or something …
July 27, 1988: “Experts guess we have a window of about 20 years to undo the atmospheric damage.”
https://twitter.com/youthvgov/status/890645365333999616
31
Sorry if this has been answered before, but has anyone projected a timeline for electricity generation supply/ capacity loss vs demand, with an estimate of when lights will significantly go dim or out? Having lost SA, Hazelwood etc when will demand routinely exceed supply?
If it takes 5 yrs to build and bring on line a new coal fired plant, what is the expected period of what I’m going to call “The Dark Ages”.
thanks
31
Antoine, the AEMO website provides a three year outlook by state that shows many days each summer where there is a projected reserve shortfall in SA and Vic.
50
thanks Robber. Which, if any, existing power plants are projected to close in that time I wonder? See I’m in Qld, quite close to 2 coal fired power plants. And I’m wondering when the demand from down south will exceed the our capacity to meet the shortfall. Cause NOBODY has announced a new coal fired plant, although in true pre-election style the Tim Nicholls, leader of the LNP is running around the state complaining about how we export coal and gas but don’t want to use it ourselves. But in 3 yrs in govt, the LNP did not start building more coal power plants. Nor has NSW, in 5yrs or more in govt. So it’s much too late to prevent it getting very dark, very regularly, right?
20
The current plan under the RET is to double wind/solar in the next 3 years so “renewables” will provide 23.5% of power on average by 2020. There is no formal closure plan for coal stations, but on the list will be, because of age: Yallourn and Loy Yang in Victoria and for New South Wales, Mt Piper, Liddell, Bayswater, Eraring and Vales Point, and Tarong in Queensland.
Until we break the climate change drive, I doubt that any new stations will be built. But the way electricity prices are escalating, I doubt that there will be any growth in electricity demand. If anything, it may decline as the aluminium industry shuts down, to be followed by other energy intensive industries.
30
An interesting article out last year received far too little attention (though I was pleased – and deeply surprised – that the LAT’s (from the San Diego Trib) actually allowed it to be picked up:
These scientists studying coral reefs were brought to tears — but in a good way
92
Prof Reid makes a good point. Individual scientists now and in history are interested in science. No one would suggest Einstein or Madame Curie or our own Howard Florey did what they did to get rich, seek fame or publicity. Individual scientists love what they do and in most cases are very badly paid. They leave that to others and there are real compensations like job security, good pensions and in some institutions like the Universities and government jobs and defence often no pressure to actually succeed at anything.
However institutions, organizations, associations are run by people seeking money, fame and publicity. They want the spotlight, income, travel, plum government jobs as advisers and to hob nob with the politicians and dignitaries. Whether NASA or the American Institute of Physics or the Royal Society, the people who run the institutions are very different. They often ignore their own members and push populist agendas. Does anyone think the Australian Chief Scientist would be appointed if he disagreed with the science of man made Global Warming? It would be the first question.
It is notable that some of the most outspoken and qualified critics of AGW in the US are retired NASA scientists. Almost always it is retired scientists and the occasional financially independent expert who speaks out.
For Michael Mann and our own Tim Flannery, Global Warming was so obviously the vehicle to fame and fortune. The IPCC is possibly the most outrageous organization, a government panel of politicians formed to push Climate Change (in their title), they are free to ignore, amend, edit any report they are given but still claim they speak on behalf of scientists. The firing and humiliation of Prof Murry Selby by Macquarie University was perhaps one of the darkest hours in the history of the university, removing someone for disagreeing with public policy by daring to express his professional opinion. Courage is not a word you would often use with scientists and perhaps he did not realise at the time that he was risking instant dismissal for telling the truth. There is no correlation between temperature and CO2.
So Peter Reid is right. Our institutions have failed us. Mouthpieces for their political masters. Opportunists. Toadies. Make them accountable. The CSIRO/BOM really are no longer needed. Look at CSL, booming in every way after privatization. If the century old institutions are now irrelevant and worthless and massively underperforming, why should we pay? Include the ABC/SBS media giant as well. Sell them. The Al Grassby ethnic channel SBS long ago lost any reason to exist on public funds. We need a clean out of our institutions and that includes James Cook University.
62
Add non-government organisations that are taxpayer funded, like the Pedestrian Council of Australia, one example of numerous organisations duplicating at least in part work carried out by federal, state/territory and local government.
The Abbott Coalition government defunded Flannery’s Office of Climate Change and a few others, they also removed many red and green tape regulations, and promised more to follow.
But since the Turnbull government took over nothing further has been done to cut these unnecessary budget expenses.
51
O/T
No kidding!
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/productivity-commission-warns-sas-big-battery-and-snowy-20-hydro-scheme-could-drive-up-prices/news-story/e5c38858dab3b11d373d0ee033589e69
“SOUTH Australia’s “big battery” and the Snowy 2.0 hydro-electricity scheme could become white elephants and trigger power price hikes, the Productivity Commission has warned.”
51
Sort of O/T as this isn’t GBR
The news is spreading. I just got this in an email from a friend who’s getting the message and who links to others
“http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-27/nasa-confirms-falling-sea-levels-two-years-amidst-media-blackout
The silence is deafening!”
42
It’s the heat that disappeared into the oceans since 1998 gobbling up sea water.
11
Yes, that is interesting news. I’ve been wondering what the CU sealevel people were up to as their data has not been updated since mid 2016. Last time they had a long delay like this they were busily inventing an “isostatic adjustment” to make the numbers conform to their pet theory. It is a fair bet that they are trying to invent some other fiddle to disguise reality. What a corruption of science, we don’t like the numbers so hide them!
51
You egg on your face when you started obsessing about this same kind of variability in 2011.
The upward trend is perfectly obvious now, as it was then.
43
Recent trend has reversed.. get over it, CT
25
There is absolutely NO CO2 signature in the sea level data.
Get over it, CT.
24
What a bizarre assertion. There is in fact strong correlation between CO2 and sea levels:
http://www.johnenglander.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Englander%20420kyr%20CO2-T-SL%20rev.jpg
Do you ever get sick of being completely wrong, Andy?
30
“Do you ever get sick of being completely wrong, Andy?”
No, he doesn’t!
10
Thermal expansion has slowed, indicating that SST are cooling.
11
Oops, you have to be more careful.
“the plane slowed, indicating that its engines were in reverse”.
30
Aaahhhh,
Here’s Craig again.
“Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread…………….”
And there’s no fool like a “Craig Thomas fool”.
13
And why would *I* be the fool?
Because I deny that sea levels are on the rise, CO2 has risen, temperatures are going up, that sort of thing?
30
The sea level has fallen for a couple of years during La Nina events before. The aftermath of the 2016 La Nina is obvious release of ocean heat. That was evidenced in the southern autumn with antarctic sea ice being at lower level than recent years so a greater portion of the ocean exposed to release heat rather than being insulated by the ice. During the La Nina there was record precipitation in the west of the US that is still to melt and find its way back into oceans. Australian east coast also got a dose of rain and flooding that is still finding it was back into the oceans.
Also note that Greenland has had near record ice accumulation over the past 8 months.
It appears that the oceans are beginning to warm again after 12 months or so of cooling but it is not much. The latest NOAA data for the Mar-Jun 2017 period is anomaly of 0.169C compared with 0.157C for the the same period 2015. That period for 2016 was cooler at 0.138C. If you go though the data it is not unusual of the ocean 0-700m to lose heat along its gradual warming trend:
https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month_mt/T-dC-w0-700m4-6.dat
I do not see any indication of a cooling trend forming in the oceans 0-700m that would indicate an end of the warming trend. The temperature in this region of the planet is really what determines Earth’s climate on a time scale of human interest. It has huge thermal inertia so nothing is happening fast. The warming has been around 0.2C over the past 50 years. Makes living in Melbourne a little more bearable.
21
I wasn’t aware we had a La Nina in 2016-17, there was a lot of hype but to my knowledge it didn’t eventuate.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_June_2017_v6.jpg
01
I got my La and El mixed. It should read El Nino 2016. The hot tropical phase in the Pacific in 2016 subsequently reduced the Antarctic sea ice in 2017 as the heat was transported south.
00
the electric State!
27 Jul: Courier Mail: Sarah Vogler: Queensland’s new ‘electric super highway
THE State will spend $3 million rolling out electric car charging stations along an “electric super highway” from the Gold Coast to Cairns, in a bid to encourage the use of the green technology.
Acting Main Roads Minister Steven Miles said the stations would be rolled out at 18 locations, with the energy supplied to be free for the first 12 months…
Charging stations will be installed at locations including Coolangatta, Helensvale, Springfield, Brisbane, Gatton, Toowoomba, Cooroy, Maryborough, Childers, Miriam Vale, Rockhampton, Mackay, Bowen, Townsville, Tully and Cairns…
“The most recent Queensland Household Energy Survey showed that 50 per cent of Queenslanders will consider an electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid or regenerative braking hybrid, when purchasing a new car in the next two years and that majority said improvements to public fast-charging infrastructure would further tempt them into purchasing an EV,” he said.
“The Queensland Electric Super Highway has the potential to revolutionise the way we travel around Queensland in the future.”…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queenslands-new-electric-super-highway/news-story/d80129c940963094b716964fb41babc0
27 Jul: ABC: Queensland electric car ‘super highway’ announced, with 18 fast charging locations
By Kristian Silva
Acting Roads Minister Steven Miles said the stations would be able to charge electric vehicles in about 30 minutes, and would be made free for at least 12 months.
The rollout will take place over the next six months…
“This project is ambitious, but we want as many people as possible on board the electric vehicle revolution, as part of our transition to a low emissions future,” Mr Miles said…
Early usage of the charging stations is expected to be low, given there are only about 700 fully electric electric vehicles registered in Queensland.
And a report by the Electric Vehicle Council released in June said only 1,369 electric vehicles were sold in Australia last year, making up 0.1 per cent of the market.
Of those, about half were fully electric and the rest were hybrid-electric vehicles…
While it is cheaper to recharge an electric car than re-fuel a petrol-powered car, the drawback for many is lower travel range and limited number of public charging stations…
Ray Newman, the owner of a $128,000 Tesla vehicle, said he had driven 60,000 kilometres since buying his car two years ago.
“I plug it in at home, which costs me just over $1,000 a year in electricity,” he said.
Electric Vehicle Council CEO Behyad Jafari said the investment in the charging stations was a sign the Queensland Government was serious about the industry.
“I encourage all governments across Australia to follow suit, particularly as this support will help to provide motorists with increased choice of cars that are cheaper and healthier to operate,” he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-27/free-charging-stations-to-boost-queensland-electric-car-numbers/8748246
02
Further proof of ABC bias , I was just listening to morning radio and Gay Patterson was talking to a university of Melbourne professor about the subject of climate change and how important it was for cities to have a 20-30% tree coverage to mitigate for a warming climate .
He said that heat was the biggest cause of deaths by far and more than any other natural phenomenon, given his credentials you would have to assume he checked the W.H.O for the no1 killer which is not heat but cold .
So is he totally inept , morally bankrupt , incompetent or an ex used car salesman, seems you can make up any thing you want about CAGW and as long as it’s doom and gloom the truth is irrelevant and the MSM prestitutes will jump all over it without question .
Who was it that said if you want to be uninformed don’t read the newspaper and if you want to be misinformed read the newspaper?
70
Mark Twaine.
20
In my experience used-car salesman won’t lie.
10
28 Jul: Daily Telegraph: Natasha Bita: Australian building crisis: Shoddy builders using foam bricks in cheap homes
National building and property maintenance consultant Roscon Property Services said developers were putting residents at risk by using polystyrene bricks to cut costs on the “Esky” homes.
It comes as one of Australia’s biggest insurance companies told a Senate inquiry that eco-friendly building laws are creating death traps.
Senator Nick Xenophon demanded a ban on flammable foam imports, and will introduce a private member’s bill to parliament this year to protect homeowners.
“The government should stop dithering because we need a total ban — this is a ticking time bomb,’’ he said.
Roscon general manager Sahil Bhasin said builders rendered the lightweight polystyrene walls so they resembled real brick work — and buyers only discovered they had a foam home when it started leaking.
“From the exterior it looks like a brand new solid brick home that’s been rendered,’’ he said. “You could just slice open the house. In 30 or 40 years all these homes will have to be demolished.’’
Mr Bhasin said polystyrene walls were legal because the National Construction Code was changed in 1996 to let builders use “alternative solutions’’ to brick and timber…
“(Developers) are using polystyrene as a shortcut in the building process to save costs and get around the ‘green’ building laws. Buildings should be made to last but they’re being built as disposable items,’’ Mr Bhasin said.
Meanwhile, insurance giant IAG has blamed “green’’ energy-efficiency targets for the popularity of combustible cladding…
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/australian-building-crisis-shoddy-builders-using-foam-bricks-in-cheap-homes/news-story/9dd56113477c872ddec04cd986f260d6
32
It seems both Bikini Atoll and Chernobyl have prolific increases of wildlife, much to the surprise of the usual suspects.
70
No surprise really, most of the radioactive by-products from bombs are relatively short lived and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were liveable from a safety point of view not too long after the bombings.
52
O/T
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/speed-bumps-disappear-uk-roads-air-pollution-government-plan-emissions-councils-remove-a7862811.html?amp
22
Ice age cometh?
http://climatechangedispatch.com/plummeting-july-27-temperatures-in-the-u-s/
32
28 Jul: UK Daily Mail: Alex Brummer: So how on earth are we going to power nine million electric cars
Like many others over the past decades, I feel I have been a victim of irresponsibly confusing messages from government ministers and the motor industry…
Then we were assured by Tony Blair’s Labour government that diesel was cleaner than petrol and we were given financial incentives to buy diesel vehicles.
On top of this, we were told lies by car manufacturers — such as Volkswagen — as they deceived us by cheating in emissions tests to pretend their products were less polluting than they actually were.
And so, as the Government announces its latest oh-so-clever green policy — levies on diesel vehicles in heavily-polluted areas and banning all petrol and diesel vehicles from Britain’s roads from 2040 — it is not surprising that we motorists are deeply distrustful of any environmental initiative involving politicians…
This is pie-in-the sky politics with little thought given to where the extra electricity will come from. Unless, of course, ministers want to plaster more of the countryside with wind turbines — which a government adviser once admitted that, even if ten per cent of Britain was covered with them, would generate only one sixth of the nation’s energy needs…
Even without electric cars, there are fears of future blackouts during winter cold spells…
And there is another paradox about the Government’s obsession with electric vehicles. For this is a time in history when the availability of carbon fuels has never been so great…
No one in government has even told us the cost of spending millions of unnecessary money on the National Grid in order to supply electricity to all those new plug-points.
Moreover, there has not been any discussion of the safety impact of building electricity pillars in homes. Already, there are fears that circuit-breakers would pop under strain, thus cutting off supplies…READ ON
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4734028/Electric-cars-numbering-9m-need-powered-somehow.html
behind paywall:
26 Jul: UK Telegraph Editorial: The Government’s plan to scrap diesel and petrol cars does not inspire confidence
When governments make terrible decisions, their successors in office should not be embarrassed about reversing them. So Wednesday’s announcement that new petrol and diesel car sales will be banned by 2040 in order to improve the quality of our air is not inherently outrageous. The original sin lies at the door of the Labour government, which heavy-handedly encouraged consumers to buy diesel vehicles more than 15 years ago. Financial incentives were deployed to boost sales of what turned out to be a relatively dirty, unhealthy mode of transport. Who should pick up the bill now that it turns out that encouragement was misguided? …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2017/07/26/governments-plan-scrap-diesel-petrol-cars-does-not-inspire-confidence/
27 Jul: UK Sun Editorial: THE SUN SAYS Tory Government needs to wise up and sort out its moronic transport revolution on diesel and petrol motors
Launching such a shake-up takes more than one casual announcement – it needs to be followed up with realistic plans
MICHAEL Gove has tossed a grenade into the lives of 99 per cent of Britain’s drivers. The Government now needs to clean up the mess.
It is not enough to blithely announce the end of new petrol and diesel car sales in 2040 — and a complete ban by 2050 — without a co-ordinated, costed national plan for achieving it…READ ON FOR QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERING
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4107534/tory-government-needs-to-wise-up-and-sort-out-its-moronic-transport-revolution-on-diesel-and-petrol-motors/
12
Uh oh…in yet another blow against green alarmism….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-28/impacts-of-logging-and-palm-oil-on-png-rare-birds/8750680
Man-made plantations, more CO2, more food, more birds….win-win….
“Perth researchers have battled soaring heat, humidity and non-stop rain in the wilds of Papua New Guinea to understand how logging and palm oil plantations is affecting rare bird numbers there — and the results might surprise you.
Their fieldwork took place on New Britain, a large island east of the mainland.
Rob Davis from Perth’s Edith Cowan University has just published the group’s findings in the journal of Bird Conservation International.
“In an 11-year period, between 1989 and 2000, 20 per cent of all the lowland forest was cleared — that is catastrophically quick,” Dr Davis said.
“We were really interested in trying to understand whether the birds using those palm oil landscapes [were] persisting.”
Their findings — which will inform the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species — were surprising.
“We found that overall many species that we were worried about were actually doing OK,” Dr Davis said.
“There was only one species that we said should be worsened in its status, and seven that we were concerned about, we actually uplisted”
51
I assume Prof Ridd is nearing retirement age so won’t care when his email account is deleted and he is moved to the Department of Inconsequential Studies.
42
Scary horror story time about “climate change” impact as applied to Australian farming.
We are doomed, I tell you.
One horror fiction story after another.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/how-to-make-spaghetti-bolognese/8652644
“Social researcher and author Rebecca Huntley uses the recipe for this very popular and accessible dish to highlight the varied threats to our future food supply from global climate change.
A very personal look at the effect a warming climate might have on both our agricultural output and our consumption habits.”
24
28 Jul: Daily Telegraph: Simon Breheny: Scientific debate about climate change has been silenced
(Simon Breheny is the director of policy at the Institute of Public Affairs. This is an edited extract from the essay Free Speech And Climate Change by Simon Breheny in Climate Change: The Facts 2017, a new book released this week by the Institute of Public Affairs)
CLIMATE change policy should be informed by a sober assessment of the data and ultimately determined by the people’s representatives, weighing up the costs against the impact any policy is likely to deliver.
That is why it is so disturbing that there is a campaign by the political class, entrenched academia and professional activists to silence scientific debate about climate change.
This is an expression of political power in service of a mythical consensus, the assertion of which threatens the scientific method and the fundamental right to freedom of speech. At its worst, the campaign against climate change debate is nothing less than an abuse of office…
Depressingly, this campaign of intimidation has been supported by academia and the media…READ ALL
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/simon-breheny-scientific-debate-about-climate-change-has-been-silenced/news-story/22dbe325bcc00f75acac3ff106991b12
52
yet another dubious poll:
28 Jul: Daily Mail: Ariel Zilber: More than half of Americans agree humans contribute to climate change, but they are NOT willing to alter their lifestyles to reduce their impact, new poll finds
According to YouGov , 57 percent of Americans say they agree that human activity and natural causes are both making the planet warmer
A majority also opposed President Donald Trump’s decision to take the United States out of the Paris Accord on climate change…
YouGov also asked the survey participants how long they believed the Earth would be habitable for human beings.
A plurality – 31 percent – said that humans have fewer than 300 years left to live on Earth, while 19 percent said it was between 300 and 500 years
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4736124/Most-Americans-agree-humans-contribute-climate-change.html
quotes from Marc Morano, Anthony Watts:
27 Jul: Washington Times: Valerie Richardson: Not so hot: Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Sequel’ meets with skepticism even from left
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/27/al-gores-inconvenient-sequel-meets-with-skepticism/
12
And what happens in 300-500 years that makes the world uninhabitable, I wonder?
22
YouGov has really smart questions, beginning with nonsense such as: “since hearing about climate change”:
24 Jul: YouGov: Gregory McCarriston: Most climate change believers haven’t changed their lifestyles
***David Wallace-Wells’ recent New York Magazine article painted a vivid picture of the future with regards to the environment…
LINK TO FULL RESULTS
https://today.yougov.com/news/2017/07/24/climate-change-believers-havent-changed-lifestyles/
27 Jul: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: John Mecklin: UCLA’s Jon Christensen on the theory and practice of climate change communication
To call Jon Christensen multifaceted overstretches the prefix multi-. He is an adjunct assistant professor in UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (or IoES), the Department of History, and the Center for Digital Humanities. At the IoES, he is also a journalist-in-residence
A longtime environmental journalist and science writer—his work has appeared in the New York Times, Nature, and many other prominent print, online, and broadcast outlets…ETC ETC
In a recent conversation with Bulletin editor in chief John Mecklin, Christensen discussed his communications-related role in a recent report from 50 researchers and scholars in the University of California system, “Bending the Curve: Ten Scalable Solutions for Carbon Neutrality and Climate Stability.” …
Christensen was a senior editor for “Bending the Curve” and since its publication has been involved in coordinating a partnership between UC and the heavily trafficked Vox website, which, by its own account, “explains the news” and is aimed primarily (though not entirely) at millennials…
Mecklin: It’s been much bruited about — this idea that climate change is hard to explain, hard to get across to a general audience; for whatever reason, it’s easy to undermine a scientific discussion of climate change in any number of ways. I thought I’d start to get into that, first off, with this recent ***(DAVID WALLACE-WELLS) New York Magazine piece (“The Uninhabitable Earth: Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak—sooner than you think”) about worst possible climate end points.
Christensen: I’ve followed the debate about it, too, and overall, I think it’s terrific. The fact that this is the most viewed article ever in New York magazine is fantastic. Just in terms of getting people to discuss and debate and think about climate change and its potential impacts — even if we’re talking about what is the low-probability, worst-case scenario — those are risks that we need to consider and talk about and think about. I know there are particular problems with the article that have been debated, and there’s even an annotated version of the article now on the New York magazine website that addresses some of those critiques, makes some corrections. I think this is a great model for how the debates and discussion should happen.
It was interesting that a lot of scientists came out immediately and said that gloom and doom doesn’t work; this is a bad message, it’s not effective, it turns people off. I was surprised by the overwhelming response from scientists on that, because scientists have been using gloom and doom messages for the last 20, 30 years. But now there seems to have been this big shift in the perception of the efficacy of those messages. I was actually quite surprised by how they’ve come around, almost en masse now, to that point of view…
In some ways gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic messages are not particularly effective. They can be disempowering. They can turn people off…
What changed my thinking about this was watching how effectively Jerry Brown, the governor of California, since his reelection, has used apocalyptic discourse in a way that I think is genius. He continues to talk about climate change as an existential threat to humanity and to our civilization and way of life. Jerry Brown is mobilizing apocalyptic thinking to say, “We need to do something now so that we don’t become the past of this future that we don’t want to see happen.”
The real genius is the next move that he made, which was to connect [climate change] to things that we see around us, which are controversial in scientific fields. Big wildfires in California, the drought that we were going through—he tied those to climate change…
http://thebulletin.org/ucla%E2%80%99s-jon-christensen-theory-and-practice-climate-change-communication10976
22
Pat
“the Center for Digital Humanities. ”
Studying where fingers get put?
10
Goes without saying-
“…whereby dense cities have been empirically found to be up to twenty degrees Fahrenheit warmer than their surrounding hinterlands.”
http://www.yalescientific.org/2013/05/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-cities/
00
“More than half of Americans agree humans contribute to climate change”
More than half of Americans can’t fiind the USA on an atlas.
00
27 Jul: Sacramento Bee: Ben Boychuk: Who’s really lying on climate change? Hint: their first names are Jerry and Arnold
(Ben Boychuk is associate editor of City Journal, where he writes on education and California politics. Previously, he served as managing editor of the Heartland Institute’s School Reform News and the Claremont Review of Books. He is also a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California)
Arnold Schwarzenegger really should be careful about calling people liars. Especially when he’s trying to pass off faith as scientific fact.
Maybe you saw the former governor and erstwhile action star berating conservatives the other day for refusing to accept his view that the answer to climate change is the heavy hand of government.
“Don’t those conservative Republicans get the message?” he asked. “And can’t they just think about it for a second and say, ‘Maybe we should stop lying to the people.’ Stop lying to the people. Stop it.”
Lying, eh? It’s a wonder he didn’t add, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”…
Schwarzenegger was on hand Tuesday for Gov. Jerry Brown’s big cap-and-trade bill signing ceremony on Treasure Island in San Francisco…
Schwarzenegger was there to lend a bipartisan veneer to the spectacle. Remember, he signed Assembly Bill 32, the “Global Warming Solutions Act,” at the same location a decade ago. The law mandated that Californians cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and another 80 percent by 2050 in “a manner that minimizes costs and maximizes benefits for the California economy.”…
How has that worked so far? Schwarzenegger thinks it’s going just great. He said California showed how bipartisan cooperation can work, though he was a little iffy on the details.
California’s cap-and-trade program is full of carve-outs for industry. That’s the only way it can work without manufacturers abandoning the state wholesale and electricity and fuel prices climbing even higher than they are already…
California’s gasoline and electricity prices are the highest in the western United States. We had the highest gasoline taxes at around 54 cents a gallon, and they’re about to go up again in November between 12 cents and 19 cents per gallon, depending on the type of fuel. Cap-and-trade mandates will likely add another 63 cents a gallon by 2021, according to Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor. Low-income Californians will be hardest hit. The state’s answer seems to be, “Let them eat solar.”
But far be it from me to call the former governor a liar. He’s merely an actor on a stage playing a role.
Gov. Brown, on the other hand, reiterated that “if we don’t do something about” the changing climate, “it is the end of the world as we know it.” Note his unconditional use of the infinitive to be. “Is” – not “might be” or “could be.”
That isn’t science. It’s religious zealotry…
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/ben-boychuk/article164013842.html
22
28 Jul: SMH: from WaPo: Elizabeth Winkler: The climate crisis could rapidly become a food crisis
In the summer of 2010, Russia faced a severe drought, a heat wave and a series of catastrophic wildfires, destroying a third of the country’s wheat harvest. Half a year later, the Arab Spring began.
The two are connected…
Now a new report by Chatham House, a London-based think tank, details how climate change further threatens that network, as the type of extreme weather event that knocked out the Russian harvest becomes all the more common…
While it’s difficult to connect any specific weather event to climate change, models suggest the shifting climate is making such events more common…
http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-climate-crisis-could-rapidly-become-a-food-crisis-20170727-gxkdxs.html
Fairfax jumps on board with WaPo on month-old story:
27 Jun: Chatham House: Rob Bailey/Laura Wellesley: Chokepoints and Vulnerabilities in Global Food Trade
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/chokepoints-vulnerabilities-global-food-trade
re Authors from Chatham House website:
Rob Bailey became director of the Energy, Environment and Resources Department in 2014, having joined as a senior research fellow in 2011 from Oxfam GB where he was responsible for policy on food security, trade, agriculture and climate change. Prior to this he worked at the advisory firm Oliver Wyman, where his clients included many of the world’s leading banking, insurance and investment companies. His publications have covered a range of topics including food security, conflict and resources, low-carbon development, bioenergy, and resource governance… He holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics.
2015- Coordinating Lead Author, UNEP Sixth Global Environmental Outlook
2006-11 Head of Economic Justice, Oxfam GB
Laura Wellesley: Prior to joining Chatham House, Laura worked as a researcher at Global Witness, with a focus on mineral extraction and governance in Afghanistan. She has an MSc in Africa and International Development from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in Modern and Medieval Languages (French and Spanish) from the University of Cambridge.
22
27 Jul: InsuranceJournal: Report: Climate Change May Pose Threat to Nation’s Electric Grid
By Don Jergler
The report was prepared by Johns Hopkins University with help from Swiss Re
“Lights out: The risks of climate and natural disaster related disruption to the electric grid” is the fourth report on which the university and international reinsurer have partnered.
Last year the collaborative produced a report on the impact of climate change on the spread of pandemics, which was covered by Insurance Journal (LINK). Previous reports produced by Johns Hopkins and Swiss Re were on climate and wildfire risk (LINK) in the U.S., and on resiliency in the Columbia River (LINK) basin…
The latest report (LINK) calls attention to the risk of climate change creating more frequent extreme weather events.
The report states that climate change “presents epistemic risks beyond predictable, ordinary weather-related risks to the electric grid,” which could put the structural integrity of the nation’s ageing electric infrastructure under greater strain.
“A combination of higher average temperatures, more destructive storms and hurricanes, and increased risk of wildfire will ultimately worsen risk exposure for utilities,” the report states…
This is all evidence, in Kaplan’s view, that the insurance industry has an opportunity to step in and provide products to help deal with this risk instead of relying on utilities foot the bill – and ultimately pass the buck on to rate payers – or for the government to step in with emergency funding.
“There is the capability of transferring that risk off of private citizens into private market,” he said…
***“If we can avoid sending these costs though to populations, and particularly low-income populations, that’s pretty important,” he said…READ ALL
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/07/27/459196.htm
***so caring!
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27 Jul: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: CLAIM: Global Warming Will ‘Prevent A Large Number Of Deaths’
“Based upon real-world data, it is obvious that global warming is going to directly prevent a large number of deaths,” Cato Institute scientists Patrick Michaels and Craig Idso wrote in a blog post Thursday analyzing weather mortality data.
“The truth be told, as shown by real-world numbers, humanity has much more to gain in terms of physical health from rising, as opposed to falling, temperatures,” they wrote.
The Cato scientists also pointed to a recent study looking at emergency room visits in 12 Chinese cities. Researchers found cold spells put more people in emergency rooms than heat waves.
That study found “the effects of cold spells on emergency department visits were much more persistent, lasting a full 30 days compared to the more acute, but short lived, effects of warm spells that lasted a mere three days,” Michaels and Idso wrote.
For years, environmentalists have argued global warming will result in more heat wave deaths…
The Lancet published a study in 2015 (LINK) on temperature-related mortality that analyzed more than 74 million deaths going back to the mid-1980s. Researchers found deaths from cold spells outweighed heat deaths by a 17 to 1 ratio.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/27/claim-global-warming-will-prevent-a-large-number-of-deaths/
the indoctrination continues:
27 Jul: WashingtonExaminer: John Siciliano: Al Gore teams up with Heinz for symbolic Pittsburgh climate meeting
Former Vice President Al Gore on Thursday joined forces with Teresa Heinz Kerry to recruit and train climate change activists in Pittsburgh in the run-up to a new environmental campaign set to start with the release of Gore’s new global warming documentary Aug. 4.
Gore said his work with the Heinz Endowments in Pittsburgh sends the right message to the Trump administration as a symbol of local leadership in the wake of the president’s June 1 decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement…
Teresa Heinz is chairman emeritus of the Heinz Endowments, which is both sponsor and partner in hosting the special climate change session in Pittsburgh with Gore’s Climate Reality Project. She has managed the philanthropic side of the Heinz family business…
Her husband, former Secretary of State John Kerry, was a vocal proponent for America’s joining the 2015 Paris climate change agreement with the United Nations…
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/al-gore-teams-up-with-heinz-for-symbolic-pittsburgh-climate-meeting/article/2629885
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meant to include this excerpt from the Daily Caller Michaels/Idso piece:
“Given that our cities are heating up on their own — without needing a push from greenhouse gases—under our hypothesis, heat-related mortality should be dropping, which it is,” Michaels and Idso wrote.
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I was fortunate to attend with my wife last night an IPA function where the book “Climate Change – the facts 2017” was launched. The book was edited by Jennifer Marohasy and she was a keynote speaker at the launch, along with Peter Ridd. Both did an excellent job in explaining the problems with the policies of both the BOM and reef “scientists” to an audience of over 300. The interesting thing was that the average age of the audience would have been over 65 – so perhaps Bill Nye was on to something! The book is terrific and the first print run is already sold out, but a second run is happening, so contact the IPA and get your copy.
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Excellent that you attended Peter P.
I wish that I could have been there.
My copy of Climate Change the Facts 2017 arrived in the post today. I supported the publication with a donation. I would rather do that ( no tax deduction ) than support any environmental charity!
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Why does the IPA want to “Change the Facts”?
The IPA used to do a great job exposing political correctness. Now they’ve gone off the deep end with conspiracy theories and anti-science propaganda. Such a shame.
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Willis E on the US EPA and other things
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/27/the-potus-and-the-wotus/
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Whenever you hear a climate alarmist like Al Gore, think of it a job interview – would you pay good money to employ this person?
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First time in ages that I’ve tried to read such an article. Took a couple of hours. It was amusing, and rewarding, to find so much real science opposing so much from people whose PhDs are all ‘D’ and no “Ph”.
First looked at the glaciated pavement at Hallett Cove SA in 1950 with a top line science teacher and have taken an interest in climate changes ever since. That includes ten years as an executive Exploration Manager and then Mining Company CEO in the Andes after having been often looking at billion-years old glacial rocks in Australia and the Rockies of USA. The old Greenland ones were no surprise.
My original training was in Mining Engineering having spent time underground at Broken Hill and Mount Isa but I converted to a degree in Physics and Geology with an Honours in economic geology (listed as just ‘geology’) followed by broadly based work at Cobar in NSW. Then study for a PhD for a couple of years before three children and a second hand VW beetle sent me back to work running exploration in SA, Western NSW and the NT for Kennecott, which led to running the first drill-up phase at Ok Tedi (PNG) by default then stock exchange as a mineral stocks adviser followed by a couple of years running exploration in what was then Irian Jaya. Thence to the Australian Atomic energy Commission as Director of Planning in the Exploration Division during Whitlam’s and Fraser’s times etc etc as the only geo with post grad level physics of nuclear reactors. 62 years in AusIMM and GSA. The more one knows the more one realises how little one knows. So thanks to Helen Dyer for sending me this to read.
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Another point of view:
https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/06/07/australian-newspaper-misrepresents-science-great-barrier-reef-bleaching-editorial-says-scientist-it-quoted
https://www.readfearn.com/2016/06/historical-pictures-of-reef-degradation-really-misused-as-the-australian
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