This is a good sign. Fifteen Ivy league professors have offered advice and a warning to students everywhere –to recapture the spirit of truthseeking and free debate. The message might just catch on, because although the young strive to conform to fashionable norms, approximately none of them want to be seen doing so. Who wants to be a the weak minded conformist?
The real bigots are those who fear open-minded enquiry…
It’s sad that it needs to be said, but we don’t train children to question fashionable truths and always look at both sides.
Our advice can be distilled to three words:
Think for yourself.
Now, that might sound easy. But you will find—as you may have discovered already in high school—that thinking for yourself can be a challenge. It always demands self-discipline and these days can require courage.
In today’s climate, it’s all-too-easy to allow your views and outlook to be shaped by dominant opinion on your campus or in the broader academic culture. The danger any student—or faculty member—faces today is falling into the vice of conformism, yielding to groupthink.
It is great to see them stepping into the fray:
Thinking for yourself means questioning dominant ideas even when others insist on their being treated as unquestionable. It means deciding what one believes not by conforming to fashionable opinions, but by taking the trouble to learn and honestly consider the strongest arguments to be advanced on both or all sides of questions—including arguments for positions that others revile and want to stigmatize and against positions others seek to immunize from critical scrutiny.
The love of truth and the desire to attain it should motivate you to think for yourself.
They are calling out the namecallers who have distorted the meaning of the word “bigot” and use it to shut down questions:
Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the word “bigot” is a person “who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.” The only people who need fear open-minded inquiry and robust debate are the actual bigots,…
So don’t be tyrannized by public opinion.
The Wall St Journal comments on it:“The Tyranny of Public Opinion”
“These views should probably come with a trigger warning on Ivy League campuses, but are likely to be celebrated by parental check-writers from sea to shining sea.”
My first reaction is …
too little, too late.
We are not yet aware of the true extent of the damage.
They’ve been burning the furniture for a good while and the smarties are too comfortable to see it.
121
Social media doesn’t lead to consensus.
Social media steers the group-think towards the views of the person with the fastest thumb.
191
Or to the least common denominator thinker.
81
In our family growing up, if you had an idea or theory, you had to be able to defend it to the hilt with facts, or take a absolute hiding from your siblings…..we always had robust debate in our house, but it never ever got nasty.
We learnt to be tough, but would concede if a point couldnt be proved and take it on the chin.
We learnt to very much think for ourselves, and this laser-like approach has served well, if occasioanlly burning off people who are too much “me too” and dim witted but couldnt hadle the fray when it got going…..
Think of medaevil knights in full armour, going at it with broad swords, with no quarter asked for, and you get the general idea…. and yes it was fun….I blame the Scootish, English & CHannel Islander heritage…
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I am a firm believer in the adage that you learn from your mistakes.
I am a most learned man.
100
Me too toorightmate Very learned.
20
…to the illusion of consensus, the same illusion as the infamous 97% or the handwaving ‘confidence’ of the IPCC, all bizarrely circular since the MSM now report social media seizures of group think as “news.”
101
That’s thumb science.
71
Or even of the person with the most thumbs.
00
Anyhow, it is good to see that the academia is slowly waking to life.
70
Doubtful; more likely it’s the rare intelligent one who is finally standing up and making his voice heard. Way too little, way too late, and way too few.
It’ll make zero difference to what has already been established.
41
Russians are not buying into the AGW anti-development, anti-human, anti-CO2 farce !!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/30/climate-communism-the-russians-arent-buying/
41
I’m confident most countries don’t believe the CAGW meme, they just signed up the various Kyoto/Paris agreements because they were to be the beneficiaries of the graft.
Both Russia and China appear far more pragmatic about these things. I just can’t figure out why the English speaking western societies are so totally messed up with their politics.
20
Neither…
… it’s Cli-Sci.
30
John Smith said: “They’ve been burning the furniture for a good while and the smarties are too comfortable to see it.”
Either that or the smarties are comfortable with the furniture burning and want to see more of it.
71
Just maybe the start of the pushback.
Here’s hoping….
121
Thinking for yourself doesn’t take much courage. You can do it easily if you decide to. What takes courage is speaking up to say what you think. Many places an unorthodox opinion, no matter how well you back it up, is like tossing a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse into the middle of a crowded room.
Think all you want but never speak what you think. That’s what rocks the boat. It’s as if words could kill or something close to it.
182
You have obviously not met Mrs Whakaaro.
191
I confess! I haven’t met her. But if she can live with your sense of humor then she must be an extraordinary woman and I’d be delighted to meet her. 😉
161
Roy: the fastest come back on the net!
40
Never let a good opportunity go to waste. And a little heartfelt flattery can never hurt either.
The timing was just a stroke of good luck.
40
One high school teacher was teaching the conspiracy theory around Port Arthur .
Fine to teach keeping an open mind but sheesh .
30
“is like tossing a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse into the middle of a crowded room.”
But you will clear the room of malcontents…..
30
And everyone else too and probably eliminate the room as well. But now that you mention it, I know a few places where that idea could be applied with great positive effect.
20
The tradition of rebellious youth will always be there, rebelling to the left or right is a personal choice with the youth of North Korea being the exception…….hang on.
41
There is no youth in North Korea. Even babies are born old, and expected to carry their share of society.
101
If only Truman had taken MacArthur’s advice instead of firing him…
61
I often wonder what the World would look like today had that been the case Roy. Doubtless we would have some alternate reality and falò delle vanità.
61
The president made the right call, nuclear weapons should only be used as a last resort.
I agree with your earlier comment that thinking for yourself is not the problem, speaking your mind will see you banished from polite society.
81
Gordo,
Truman didn’t have another bomb to drop and surely MacArthur knew that. MacArthur’s sin was to advise the president to keep on fighting right on up to the border with China, which was his job to do if he could make a case for it, but then when Truman said no, General MacArthur kept on saying he should do it, sometimes publically if I remember. And for that he was fired. MacArthur was a man similar to George S. Patton in that regard.
The allied forces had the enemy on the run but stopped at the current north/south border, the 38th parallel and it’s sorta axiomatic that when you’ve a good thing going you keep going. Today would see a totally different Korean peninsula if MacArthur had prevailed. Of course no one could predict what the Chinese would do.
40
Well Truman may by then have had an arsenal of bombs to drop but I don’t think MacArthur wanted him to drop one.
30
Thanks for that insight.
30
No, Macarthur advanced to the Yalu River bordering China . The yellow hord crossed into Korea and pushed the UN back to the 38th parallel. With feet and light arms against the armoured might of the Americans. The Chinese moved along the high country where the Americans were confined to the roads. Their tanks were too heavy to traverse open terrain without bogging.
30
Yep, a strategic nightmare, not the time for atomic bombs.
10
Mark,
You’re right. My memory of history is fading a bit. However, MacArthur was convinced he could do it. But we’ll never know because we never tried.
10
My comment to RW on a previous thread about common sense and the insidious behaviour of the news makers addresses this issue. Kids don’t have much chance of knowing where the solid ground is when all they hear is propaganda.
KK
121
Now that’s a gold star remark if I ever heard one. Unfortunately I do not know how to bestow the gold star so you’ll have to settle for a green thumb
60
And a missing period.
Oh gawd, that sounds awful.
40
Surely, must be the end
11
Fake news
10
ref
Good comment RW.
Common sense implies that the proposition under examination is readily tested by anybody who takes the time to assess it.
A very down to earth peer review is at work.
Common sense is of no use to those pushing the CAGW barrow.
For them, the challenge is to dominate verbally.
This form of slick, content free domination can be heard on the government kiddy radio state, JJJJ.
You don’t need any science to engage in this type of propaganda dissemination.
No wonder that young people are so confused when they take their ABC and JJJ as gospel.
KK
10
Seems Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt is thinking along similar lines!
The peer reviewed Climate Scientists are up in arms!
“A red team, blue team match would test the assumptions of man-made global warming”
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Good article.
People would find out very quickly that Arrhenius is carrying a big load in all of this.
If I remember correctly I think that Arrhenius actually acknowledged that he was not correct in identifying CO2 as a unique player in atmospheric thermodynamics.
Whatever, the basic physics is all we need to show that CO2 does not “trap” heat. The only “delay” in the transit of ground origin IR to space occurs with water.
Let’s ban water, ice and water vapour: they constitute a heat trapping system. Now the big question is, how do we control all of those phase transformations in water so that it doesn’t trap heat?
The whole thing is just absolutely NUTSO.
KK
151
‘The whole thing is just absolutely NUTSO.’
Amen to that.
“What the American people deserve,” Pruitt told Breitbart, “is a true, legitimate, peer-reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2.”
Vox
111
The “science” is so basic that the CO2 effect can be readily discounted.
111
Is someone discounting CO2 this week? I need to recharge my soda syphon.
80
All fifteen professors are now marked men. Whoever decided public opinion and what is politically correct will force them out. This is not ‘collegiate’ behaviour, respect for their peers and a very dangerous idea. Recommending independence of thought and skepticism? The whole structure will come down if people ask questions. It is politically incorrect to think for yourself. Skepticism will not be tolerated.
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The politically correct can only be grateful that the fifteen did not suggest that Rational science is used, theory, evidence, mathematics and proof. If people started using real science rather than received opinion, the whole nebulous Climate Change story would fall apart. Science and truth should always be decided by committee.
91
The word bigot reminds me of when that little bedwetter Brandeis said ‘Everyone has a right to be a bigot” and immediately shut down any chance of Tony Abbott successfully changing 18 (c).
60
If you want to boil it all down, if the current trajecotry continues, sceptics will need to carry firearms to protect them from rabid leftists. People laugh at this idea, but we are teetering on a Stalist period about to begin and a “purge” of non-conformists…..
Why do you think they have been perfecting places like manus island and Nauru? And why schools have 6′ fences around them as holding facilities?
Look around you….all the signs are there.
51
Many students will just string along,
Like professors, conform with the throng,
And would not risk a brawl,
With a loud know-it-all,
As they like to fit in and belong.
241
Too little too late. The only way the increasing tide of fake science can be turned around is for the WHOLE scientific community to act in unison. I can’t see that ever happening for a long while, if at all. The simple reason is the MSM, governments and the vast majority of the people will continue to listen and agree to the so called “consensus” of the climate science still savagely supporting the AGW hoax.
62
California Governor Brown to tax Californians to build wind power on the moon and to install the first Emperor of the Moon. His advisor in chief is supreme majesty Gore. Will Australia please join at once? We need your support and money. SAVE THE UNIVERSE
110
it will always swing back as long as they haven’t declared martial law etc. The NYT (I think) and WaPo have come in criticism of Antifa which is unheard of. So the journalists are out there, daring to peak above the parapet.
60
What an ironic choice of words!
So I ask, just where has this Ivy League group been for the last two decades? Their clarion call sounds more like desperation. Have they just awoken from their ideological torpitude with a sudden realisation that while they have been intentionally asleep, their ivory tower has been dismantled by Progressivism within and is now about to be smashed to bits by malevolent anarchist forces without; the well orchestrated black-hooded rabble outside, no longer an idea but a fact, a lynch-mob who bay at their very gates, with the threat of a coup de grâce that seems to have finally got their attention. Worried about their funding stream, has morphed to worry about survival. It perfectly demonstrates the result of embracing an ideology that in end renders them irrelevant. I wonder how long it will take the politicians here to figure that one out, if indeed their venality would ever let them?
The omnipresent tension between belonging to the group and expressing one’s individuality is one fundamental and vital cognitive dissonance within humanity. Doesn’t it provide an essential insurance to human survival, a dual option, whether physical or intellectual? Follow the group or strike out as an individual. History serves to highlight a not always pleasant ‘corrective’ space between sentences that begin with instigation, whether noble or draconian and end in widespread discombobulation or coercion.
In the youth, charged as they are with the immunity of little experience and the energy of an over-heated endocrine system, the balancing inhibition may lie in the degree of confidence rather than imposed regulation. The black-hoods are cowards. Their concealment is a flimsy surrogate of confidence and is not consistent with long term survival. And just because youth are brain rinsed through their common core edukashon bereft of critical skills, don’t think for a moment that a fair proportion of them are not genetically ordered skeptics, independents innately resistant to group-think. In fact, the very obvious inculcation of group-think guarantees an independent pathway. It is the trigger for survival behaviour. The epi-genetics of behaviour has yet to be fully understood and determined, but it is clearly present. And, implicit in survival is an unwillingness to broadcast one’s intentions. One simply gets on and does what one needs to do. Social media is definitively NOT the place to determine this truth.
In approaching the end clause of this temporal sentence manifest as widespread discombobulation and coercion, we’re building nicely to a vigorous grand correction, whose precise configuration we can only guess. It will nonetheless be fascinating to see how the next sentence begins.
110
Intense.
20
Poetic
20
Yeah there comes a point though if someone smears a sceptic for being a sceptic you have to verabally lay into them though.
I had to put up with a mongrel of a builder we hired once, and took an absolute mouthful from him one day. Had to exercise great self restraint, but he got sorted out in the long run ( not by me I might add….but by God……..very nasty business…. )
My point is that at some stage, you will have to stand your ground and not move.
If they are going to have a crack at you, make sure you stay calm and absolutely refuse to budge and if necessary look the ring leader in the eye and let them know you cant be cowed…..deep down they know they are cowards and/or bullies…. people only gang up on those they are ultimately scared of.
Its a character thing….
Alea Iacta Est
60
What is odd about this statement is that it is necessary. University was a place where you were taught how to think, not what to think. How to learn, not just what to learn. How to analyse the facts, not just to be fed facts. How to research and develop your own views, not to be a slave to the views of others.
There was another university though, one where simply being at university was the point, not learning, developing. Protesting was the desire and the outlet and the social side. The cause hardly mattered. To such people, there was always the cause celebre, the social side and a long drawn out experience in activism and politics for which no particular skills were needed. These activists will protest at such a statement as it would totally undermine political careers if voters thought for themselves.
150
Your second paragraph describes the London School of Economics, to a tee.
I find your first paragraph to be quite nostalgic. Academia has to get back there, again.
90
Two comments. Firstly it is surprising that most of the signatories are not physical scientists and they still have the purist view that people should think for themselves, that university is not a centre for indoctrination.
Then I have to quote secondary school teacher, famous quizmaster and Labor politician Barry Jones that “Australia is the one country where calling someone an academic is an insult”.
Our academics are unfortunately public servants. In the public service, conformity is everything. The United States is unique in that most academics are not public servants. It clearly makes a huge difference in attitude when you have to earn your own money, even when at university. I would only expect the statement from American academics, where academic is a compliment.
50
And the best British universities where principles are paramount.
20
Morning all,
This is a letter from today’s Sudney Morning Herald:
” My wife and I viewed Al Gore’s latest film, An Inconvenient Sequel, on Tuesday, 6.30pm session At our Bowral cinema we were the only people present. Mr Gore’s task is a long way from completion.
Bob Connor Bowral ”
I wonder if this is an indicator that 97% of Bowral dwellers are thoughful readers of Jo Nova?
Cheers,
Dave B
131
nah… it is a rubbish movie that’s all. Not many paid to see the first one either
53
Hey, red thumber Troll – he’s one of yours. Are you blacklisting him just because he tells the truth?
101
It’s funny that Gee Aye got more red thumbs than David, for stating the truth.
I used to think the red thumbers were a bot, but they are very selective, and partially random in who target for red thumbs.
20
‘Not many paid to see the first one either’
Correct, if you mean willingly with our own money.
However, we paid indirectly via taxes for the government owned media to give it big publicity and reverent reviews.
10
Commonsense of Bowral 2
Money for Al Gore 0
51
On a more serious note it is well known that the Green vote comes from the wards with larger and more expensive houses – at least in my Federal electorate where the percent Green vote in the more expensive areas is 3-5 times that in more rural areas.
Bowral and surrounds aren’t noted as a poverty stricken ghetto so if the usual Greens there can’t be bothered to see Al Gore then enthusiasm to Climate Change© must be waning.
71
Lord Monckton attracted large crowds to his talk in Bathurst.
81
If only!
20
I think there is possibly a little irony in the current situation. If students follow the advice (or better still have already worked it out for themselves) and are able to get through the University system thinking for themselves and as Roy says above, speaking out with those thoughts when appropriate, they are very likely to come out a much better quality graduate, in terms of usefulness in the workplace. Obviously they will be much people in society as well.
The only problem with this idealistic view, is they will probably suffer with the grades they get because of their views ( I had niece who studied early childhood education –she learnt very quickly that if you did not give the lecturer “what they wanted” your grades suffered).
61
Peter Ustinov used to tell a story about a time when he had to sit a music examination.
One of the questions was: “Name a Russian Composer”.
He wrote, “Rimsky-Korsakov”. The correct answer was, apparently, “Tchaikovsky”
60
But what if he had replied Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov? A procession to the door?
50
So many people take the instruction “Think for yourself” as “Ignore the facts, your opinion is all that matters.”
Sad.
Call me out if you ever see me doing that.
90
Ignore the facts, your opinion is all that matters.”
You have just desribed the very shallow end of the intellectual pool, called Social Media…
50
That end of the pool is so shallow that only slime can survive there.
So be very careful. Slime can be slippery stuff.
50
Yes, a good dose of intellectual “bleach” should do the job….
I have always advocated that smartphones give voice to people who really just shouldnt….
The concept of the same people voting gives me the same concerns…..having said that, you can then understand why the Establishment being able to manipulate peoples opinions through the MSM is so important.
20
If that’s true Rereke, then 97% of the pool is ankle depth only, and the deep end is waaaaaay over there somewhere.
No; what OriginalSteve states is the typical thought process of the majority.
00
I think the damage is too serious to rectify easily and perhaps not at all.
There has been a deliberate dumbing down of the education system via the weapon of Cultural Marxism for 40 to 50 years and so many or most academics are themselves the product of this infestation and are not capable of independent thought or action.
Then we have the other twin weapons being used to destroy Western Civilisation, these being expensive “Green” energy bought about by Globull Warming lies whose purpose is to destroy economies plus the deliberate mass importation into Civilised countries of some of the world’s most uneducated, unassimilable and violent people who create civil disorder and massive life-long welfare bills.
90
And this is why the USA’s 2nd Ammendment is such a profoundly clever thing to have…
40
Absolutely.
10
This dumbing down has occurred at the top end as well. We have vets and dentists calling themselves Doctors who don’t have a doctorate but bachelor degrees. Medical practitioners with double pass bachelor degrees have been calling themselves Doctors for a fairly long time. In America what should be called a MBBS, they call MD. Doctoral degrees in these fields do exist but there appears no incentive to pursue them as there appear to be no apparent difference.
40
It would be good if this message was conveyed to older generations who cling to the fashionable truths of their youth.
33
In the old days we called flipping burgers opportunity .
We had respect for the law and our parents .
My father taught me how to hunt and fish not steal and deal .
Their generation also gave us cheap reliable energy and planned for future building of coal fired power generation as population increased and old stations needed to be replaced .
81
I get it. Your truths were right and the ones you assert exist today are wrong.
So no need for you to examine yourself because you got it right.
39
No you miss the point as always. Back then when we were young we were naive but not so dumb we didn’t eventually learn the truth as we grew up and became more mature with wisdom, which only comes from experience and age. Today more of the young are dumb as well as naive, and that tends to block them from learning the truth.
102
says you because you have convinced yourself of this. I think the Profs were speaking about this exact delusion. And apart from anything else, all you’ve done is assert what you immutably believe to be true. This is called irony.
38
Your whole post is called child-minded gibberish !!
72
Cripes. What’s eating you?
50
It’s having a very bad time.
Highly excitable and overactive.
Is this something like the Milankovic cycle?
41
“I get it. Your truths were right and the ones you assert exist today are wrong.
So no need for you to examine yourself because you got it right.”
Also taught better to keep my mouth shut so no one can call you an idiot rather than open it and confirm you are .
We learn values , morals, humility , ethics and commonsense from an early age , those that dont will not see an old age or will become dependant on others .
Some very old people are indeed set in their ways and beliefs and as long as they’re not doing anything illegal they’ve earned that right .
Farmers are doing things much different to their fathers and grandfathers for a variety of reasons .
Being prepared to admit when you’re wrong and being able to learn something new everyday is sadly lacking these days .
I’m yet to see a “troll” admit a mistake , but I always see them change the subject or give a whatever type answer , I’m here to learn not distract .
81
GA, I’m sure you have never spent ANY time examining yourself (except physically, perhaps)
Look for the mindless gibberish and mental sludge.. then you will get close to knowing yourself.
62
GI that was simply a drive by comment. If you want to be critical of Robert’s comment, then make a comment with actual content.
61
I can reply how I like when his comment neither enhanced nor opposed mine. It was just something he thought he’d say to show he did the right thing – maybe he could have brought that into a point of some sort.
02
“could have brought that into a point of some sort”
Not likely you ever will. !.. Your posts are unanimously POINTLESS.
20
at least I am consistent.
I mean
at least I am CONSISTENT.
03
Gee Aye, you’re also doing exactly what you accuse others of doing, i.e. assert they are wrong because…. you said so.
00
Consistently POINTLESS… that is for sure.
00
What do you mean, by “this message”, Gee Aye?
Are you referring to August 29, 2007, Princeton University Paper, “Some Thoughts and Advice for Our Students and All Students”?
If so, we have found some intellectual ground that we can agree upon.
40
I was being on topic
so yes (although 2017) with the emphasis on the last paragraph which talks about questioning your own ideas. The old ones who obstinately cling to the fashion of their own day despite what the, now dead, even older ones shook their heads at, need similar humility.
26
‘…recapture the spirit of truth seeking…’
The idea has merit and can be realised here on the blogosphere, an interactive tutorial would help students become more enlightened.
30
2017 – I stand corrected.
30
A very strange and twisted comment.
Mary F.
30
very simple… nothing has changed and the more you claim that how you (not you specifically Mary) were brought up was superior to today etc, the more you sound like the people who watched you growing.
28
Gee, your self-pretence of any actual ability to “think” is quite hilarious.
You seem to mistake your mindless gibberish for some sort of actual thought process….
WRONG !!!
52
lol
26
Gee, another girlish giggle.
Is that your current form of attention-seeking ??
62
GI you mean of course those ideas that were developed and refined, as a result of experience, over centuries.
You of course know better.
61
what ideas that were refined over centuries did I disagree with?
01
You are not the one to be teaching humility Gee…
Look at your own posts in this thread.
00
*second last paragraph
24
I guess I am somewhat more sanguine about the ability and desire of the human species to change its spots when and if needed towards making life somewhat more comfortable for itself.
Whether that life and those aims are towards being more comfortable be political or physical or mental or economic or what ever.
First is that one of the few things I might have learn’t over my lifetime is that when the citizenry or just a very small part of it begins to talk with considerable displeasure about some subject or situation then that subject or situation is already starting to change.
OK, maybe thats a bit subtle for most but one needs to look back a long way sometimes before you realise that what appeared to fixed in stone for all eternity all that time back was actually little more than veneer of froth and bubble created by a small group which was quite successful damping down for a time the true aims of a desire for individuality and self expression that is to be found amongst most individuals in our community.
The second thought here is the apparent [ very mistaken ] belief in the immutability of human thought, beliefs and actions and attitudes as prepared and taught in the education and media propaganda systems of the time.
I was born in mid 1938 so lived through all of WW2.
I and my entire generation were indoctrinated by the authorities and education and media system of the time to regard the germans and japanese as lower class international criminals intent on nothing other than world domination and the killing of anybody who dared to doubt let alone confront them.
History of course has shown this attitude to be not far from the real truth as it turned out.
But forward to only a half dozen years after the end of WW2, my teenage years and following those school years of continuous indoctrination of the evilness of those Axis powers and the blood thirsty killers who peopled those nations of the axis powers
The Italians and the greeks and those of the Baltic states, the “wops” and “wogs” and “balts” who turned up on the refugee ships out of a destroyed Europe and began laying square miles of concrete in the towns and cities of Australia.
Who built the Snowy hydro and irrigation scheme.
Who shovelled coal on the steam trains, ran lathes and machine tools in workshops across the nation , became builders and steel worker of the era and much, much more.
And when their time was up working for the government as prescribed to fufill their refugee requirements they started new eateries with food stuffs we didn’t even know existed.
And we flocked to those eateries.
And some of those refugees from those very nasty world domination seeking nations even became members of our Parliaments. Although I am not sure that is a recommendation or just a continuation.
They married Australian women and men.
The started families.
They became us!
And the very nasty military dominated Japanese of WW2 that killed one third of the nearly 22,000 Australian POW’s during the WW2 conflict had by 1950 become the mainstay and UN’s allied nations logistics centre for the Korean war of 1950 to 1953.
And then the Japanse who turned out total rubbish which we bought reluctantly because it was cheap began to become wealthy and soon we were welcoming them as tourists .
And we paid extra for those japanese products because they were of good quality, much better than the Chinese rubbish those very nasty intent on world domination Chinese communists were trying to sell us.
Despite the heavy indoctrination that is ongoing in our education and higher education systems and in the media pushing mostly left wing causes, in the end most individuals will change attitudes and outlooks quite a lot during their life time.
And those with the most sensible and accomodating attitudes to life and people and politics and social mores are usually those who have been exposed to many of life’s different facets, socially, economically and situational.
The most rigid, fixed in mental stone attitudes are likely to be found where a student has gone from a leftist university course on graduating, into a political office or a political bureacracy somewhere inntheir attempt to work their way up the ladders of political power from which they will rarely if ever leave or escape from for the rest of their lives.
70
ROM mentions this: (my bolding here)
While off topic, this is a truly inspirational story, how the Snowy Scheme was constructed.
It is perhaps the single greatest example of multiculturalism in Australia’s history, where it actually worked.
While there are numerous coffee table type books with images from that time, without doubt the best book ever released on The Snowy was a non fiction one written by Brad Collis titled Snowy. The making of modern Australia. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton firstly in 1990 (ISBN 0 340 49640 1) You can get a copy from your local library or get one on the second hand sites, and I wholly recommend it.
Bill Hudson specifically recruited in Europe, because he wanted people who could work in the cold, and they came from every corner of Europe. Once in the Mountains, they worked like navvies, and they all got on well with each other, even forgetting the animosities from the just finished WW2. They lived in tents all year round, and one surprise, although not really, was that a goodly number of theor Europeans also doubled as (good, and well respected) cooks as well. The Australian Unions saw that any qualifications they had from Europe were not recognised here, and carpenters etc worked at shovelling rocks. After hours, they all (from every Country) attended English classes, virtually all of them, the best attended classes of any type up there. Once reasonably capable in English, they took the requisite exams to gain their Australian qualifications, because Hudson found a lot of them were better tradesmen than the Australians, and that was something actively encouraged. They assiduously banked virtually all their money, and they mixed freely and very happily amongst themselves. The police said that the only trouble they got was from the Australians. The only Europeans who did not get along were the Serbs and the Croats. In one of the HQ towns up there, they had a row of flags where all those representative European Countries had their flags flying. The only one which gave any trouble was the Yugoslav flag (the source of the Serbian Croatian conflict on site.) Most mornings that flag would be missing, torn down during the night, and they just kept raising a new one. Eventually, one side just sawed down the flag pole.
Organised crime, sorry, some Sydney entrepreneurs would bring down some, err, ladies from Sydney on pay weekends for the Australians and the Americans, and hardly ever frequented by any of the Europeans. The Australian just gambled, and pi$$ed all their money up against the wall, while the Europeans saved virtually every penny. A number of Italians saved enough to eventually leave and what they did was to buy up failing or failed market gardens around the Dandenong area in Melbourne.They brought their own families out with them when they raised enough to do it, and while very few families were in the Snowys, some of the Europeans had their families at the migrant centre in Uranquinty near Wagga Wagga, and would commute on pay weekends only. They were really hard times in the Mountains in those days, but it proved absolutely that multiculturalism could actually work, and work well it did.
While that book details the engineering aspects, it also deals with the personal stories as well, and it was an absolutely fascinating read.
That sort of engineering could be done these days, but in those days, it was all done by hand, some of the most amazing engineering feats in our Australian History. There are 16 dams and pondages, 7 Power Stations, 2 major Pumping Stations, and the real feat, 12 tunnels, some only a mile in length and two of them 15 miles in length, 26 feet across, and all through the Mountains, with 2 consortiums doing the work, each starting at each one end, and meeting in the middle, almost perfectly in fact.
That’s what makes Snowy one of the engineering marvels of the World, not just what it is, but when they actually did all this.
Tony.
151
Tony I think multi-nationalism rather than multi-culturalism; which is why it worked.
60
The migrants who arrived until the 1980’s were the people who made this nation great. They worked hard and were great citizens.
The bludgers who have arrived during the past 20 years are making our nation weak. They do not work and have no intention of becoming Australian citizens, but they don’t dare miss Friday prayers.
50
As one of our former bank managers here in Horsham told us after he had been shifted in the 1970’s to Werribee, south west of Melbourne and on the route to Geelong as a new branch manager, the Italians and Greeks had established extensive market gardens around Werribee, all gone now of course, if they wanted to buy a new car or what ever, it was a case of going out into somewhere in the back yard and digging up an earthern-ware pipe, grabbing a hand full of cash out of it and heading off to the do the purchase.
Tax ! tax ! only the mug Australian’s pay tax !
30
True.
There is a suburb here in Newcastle that has that sort of reputation.
It meant being paid for four of the five working days, after tax.
Some got to keep the whole five days.
00
Even if they dodged tax, they still worked for their money.
These Friday-praying bludgers wont work, full stop.
20
Righto, in this new age of truth and questioning, can we go back and relook at the freon question. Germany is about to introduce CO2 as car refrigerant to avoid using the flammable replacement for R134a. CO2 runs at extraordinary high manifold pressures and temperatures…it will be a high pressure bomb!
The consequences of the consensus are far reaching and unintended. The results of which take more extreme engineering to overcome. The answers are invariably less safe.
Hope this us the beginning of the new age of renaissance.
50
LPG is the best vehicle A/C refrigerant
And you can get or could get a slighly modified LPG that was accepted as a vehicle A/C refrigerant.
LPG , even straight LPG which we used on the farm tractors and machiery in their A/C’s gave much lower head pressures, was a better heat remover and was very safe and non toxic and gave a much better reliability to the A/C’s operating under very harsh conditions than even the old class of freon refrigerants.
50
Isn’t there a flammability issue with LPG?
20
.
Dave Ligget 2 # 23.1.1
.
Quite possibly yes but in our part of the west Vic grain growing areas I never heard of any flammability problems with using LPG as the refrigerant.
We had some serious flammability problems with the Freon replacement for the original banned in 1988 Freon [ can’t remember the designations or numbers ] but not of the type of flammability problems that most would even think of.
The LPG and modified refridgerant LPG as I said above, ran very much cooler head temperatures and much lower A/C system pressures in the compressors and consequently cooled much better and therefore ran at lower settings and cycled less often and consequently was far easier driving.
The replacement Freon for the original 1988 banned Freon ran much higher head temperatures and much higher pressures and took a good deal more power to drive.
The end result was that magnetic clutch bearings or compressor bearings siezed up sometimes unfortunately a couple of times per season, and / or siezed the whole compressor up as it was forced to ran continuously, tore up the compressor drive belt and started a nice little fire in the engine bay particularly on harvesting machinery with all the dry dust and chaff and etc flying around .
And inevitably on a 37C to 40C plus day when the A/C was running almost continually to keep the steerer/ operator in some comfort in the cab.
[ Today of course the operator doesn’t have to touch the steering wheel for most of the day as all the field harvesting [ and sowing , and haymaking , and spraying , and , and, are all automated and GPS guided self steering to a couple of centimetres accuracy over hundreds of hectares of operations ]
The end result providing you woke up to the problem in time usually from the smell of burning belt rubber or smoke appearing in the rear view mirrors as the temps in the cab rose at a rapid rate, was a great deal of excitement by all concerned as burning rubber around chaff and an in an engine bay of a half a million dollar harvesting machine out in the middle of a few hundred hectares of very inflammable straw stubble and ripe for harvesting crop got one fairly interested fairly quickly and operating at a near supersonic rate of activity as well as instantaneously increasing the adrenaline to near unmeasureable levels and got the whole neighbour hood on the blower asking if you were Ok and could you handle it.
Generally you could and did handle the problem particularly if you had some previous practice but occassionaly somebody didn’t and there was much tutting as the neighbour hood looked over the burnt out hulk of a half a million dollar harvesting machine when they finally got their own harvest out of the way a few days or weeks later.
40
So ROM, in a nutshell, they changed the refridgerant with doing any tests to establish the reliability.
This led to situations which were life threatening and damaging to the expensive machinery.
Sounds like a modern government intervention.
Sounded good on paper.
KK
20
With. = without.
10
Are you sure? Have you checked. Maybe they did do the tests but went with the crap option anyway due to the pressure to offer something.
10
Very conveniently according to many reports Dupont had R134a ready to go in the 1988 Montreal Convention and its consequent Protocol eliminating the old supposedly ozone destroying and ozone hole creating chlorofluorocarbons ie; Freon, so go it went !
Or so the rumour around DuPont’s Freon replacement CFC and the incredible coincidence of Du Pont’s replacement CFC just happening to be becoming available as the Montreal Confernce reached its conlusions and created the Protocol to phase out Ozone destroying chemicals such as the older versions of the extremely good and stable for refrigeration purposes [ and many other purposes ] CFC’s.
DuPont would have done a lot of work on the efficiency, the lubrication properties , the heat transfer characteristics, liquid and vapour phase characteristics, reactive characteristics for corrosion and oil compatabilities and numerous other tests on their new product.
The changed effects of the newest CFC on the vast array of refridgeration compressors and air cons out there in the wilds of manufacturing wouldn’t have bothered DuPont much at all.
Their new CFC met the required standards after all its testing and if some compressor designs didn’t handle the new product as well as they did the older product, well bad luck.
Change your compressor design or change your manufacturer.
The Ozone hole of course is increasingly being recognised as being created by solar UV rauys or lack of due to the very low or close to nil solar UV impacting on the high atmosphere during the southern winter.
Some of the now older scientists and ozone hole scammers can’t and won’t let go as any admission they got it wrong is effectively is a straight admission that all their hype [ the ozone hole debacle was a warm up act for global warming morphing into climate change when the GW meme didn’t get the required horrified reaction from the public anymore. ] over the Ozone Hole and its extremely dangerous appearance threatening all life on earth was nothing but another huge scientically packaged scam and gravy train for a goodly percentage of antarctic scientists , which included a bunch of incompetent self styled, arm waving, gravy train riding, grant farming “scientists”.
A quick dig around with google and this came up with a minimum of any mention of CFC’s but a lot on the solar [ UV ] influences on the Ozone Hole.
Nature 2004 ;
Solar wind hammers the ozone layer
The Arctic ultraviolet shield took a battering from storms in 2004.
Ozone Holes are just about dead science to the scammers and public these days even as work on understanding the causes and effects of the Antarctic Ozone hole goes on.
And that damn deadly dangerous Ozone Hole was going to be healed up within a decade or so of stopping those deadly CFC’s way back around 1990.
It didn’t!
Now it “might” heal up by 2050.
Can that same lot of scientific scammers ever get around to admitting that the Ozone Hole is something that in every likelihood is entirely natural and flexes and comes and goes at the whim of that Fusion driven ball of energy and its UV output that rides across from horizion to horizion on the whole earth every single day.
30
No plus link save 1000 words
12
gotta keep it under 140 letters for GA, that’s all twit can cope with.
20
“Righto, in this new age of truth and questioning, can we go back and relook at the freon question”
The replacement for F-11, F-22 are far worse than those refrigerants. The new ones leak. The only problem with early freon was its misuse. When fixing air conditioning in large multistory buildings released tons of the stuff into the atmosphere; now that is no longer done by law. Also there is no evidence that Ozone holes over the poles were caused by freon, or had any damaging effect what so ever! All marketing effort only.
30
I just grabbed one name from among the ivy-league fifteen and searched a bit. This from a Prospect article co-authored by Christakis, who is into something called “network science”:
“…from healthcare to climate change, governments today face a range of problems where they must persuade people to change their behaviour. But instead of relying on their powers of persuasion, politicians should consider taking a class in network science.”
With academia as with media, the answer is not to look for a better class of fox to mind the henhouse…but to stay right out of the henhouse.
50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QereR0CViMY
20
“Yes…were all individuals!!!”
“I’m not”
“Shhhhhh”
– Life of Brian
60
Blessed are the cheesemakers.
20
Unfortunately we are too often blindsided by very well financed and highly self interested vested interests into perhaps believing that the comunity as a whole is by a large majority in support of some supposedly very worth cause such as saving the planet by using and increasing the Renewable energy industry of wind and solar.
The polls on renewable energy of course suggests that 81% of Australians support Renewable Energy to replace coal; [ SMH ; Australians want focus on renewables not coal, Lowy poll finds]
Thats what they are telling the pollsters and they apparently are not thinking for themselves at all about the consequences and costs of a greater penetration of renewable energy ;
BUT reality!
.
We are thinking for themselves but we aren’t going to admit it and get crucified by a twitter storm from the thuggees of the renewable energy lobby and greens.
…….
The Australian; Newspoll: 45 per cent won’t pay more for energy renewables
Looks like around 70% of Australians aren’t following the correct text re renewable energy and saving the planet.
They are thinking for themselves and on behalf of themselves and the hell with any political correctness as designated by the academics and politicals and the assorted thuggees from the greens and renewable energy scammers..
50
Hmmm…..interconnection or group Stokholm Syndrome…..?
One wonders…wouldnt a wind blowing across the UK also be across scandanavia? Or are they all Muskovites ( Musk battery owners ) and charge up all their batteries and play “shunt-the-excess-power” when no one is looking? It does resemble re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic to create the illusion of progress.
We’ve seeen how well SA didnt do, now imagine connecting a lot of unstable power sources together and it could be like watching an army march across the flimsy rope bridge….
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/16/europes-renewable-energy-revolution-weatherwatch
30
a relevant tale:
the writers:
Todd A. Eisenstadt is a professor in the Department of Government at American University
Mahfuzul Haque is a faculty member in the Public Policy and Governance Program at North South University
Eisenstadt and Haque were part of a research team from American University and North South University who spent last week interviewing victims in flood areas on a grant from the American University Vice Provost for Graduate Study and Research. The team is designing a broad survey to better understand climate victims around the country.
28 Aug: NewSecurityBeat: Flooding in Bangladesh: Calling Out Climate Change From the High Ground
By Todd A. Eisenstadt & Mahfuzul Haque
Floods have taken the lives of more than 100 people in northern Bangladesh over the last two weeks. Fully one third of the country has been flooded and some 600,000 people have been displaced in the riverine nation as a result of monsoons in India and Nepal. At international climate forums, Bangladeshi diplomats consistently decry such disasters as part of their urgent calls for action to mitigate changing weather patterns worldwide. But here in the country’s Rangpur-Kurigam region, both authorities and citizens have been reluctant to attribute these deadly disasters to the effects of climate change.
As part of a team of social scientists from American University (Washington, DC,) and North South University (Dhaka, Bangladesh), we have been traveling the country to find out why…
But very few of the dozens of citizens we interviewed in this slum of 175,000 people, just blocks from Dhaka’s most elite neighborhood, had heard of climate change or said it was the government’s responsibility to address it…
A disconnect seems to exist, which our research team hopes to further study, between the embrace of climate change by diplomats from vulnerable countries playing “the victim card” (in the words of one Bangladeshi researcher), the reluctance of government officials to publicly refer to climate change in the aftermath of flooding, and the views of citizens, who accept conditions as “God’s will” when in flood-prone areas, but demand change after migrating to Dhaka and learning that they could expect more…
Several officials at the Bangladeshi Meteorological Department that our research team met with this week insisted that despite an increase of more than one degree Fahrenheit since 1971 and increasingly unpredictable extreme weather events, they have insufficient data to declare that climate change has arrived. “We do not speak up in government meetings on the issue [even if we disagree that climate change is definitely the cause], however,” said one of the candid meteorologists, “because we do know that talking about climate change [as a source of problems] means there will be an increase in our budget.”…
While many, like Bangladesh authorities, are tempted to label these catastrophes as “natural disasters,” provide immediate relief, and remain complacent, to truly protect people, we must understand that these events are likely consequences of the bigger worldwide problem of climate change.
https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2017/08/flooding-bangladesh-calling-climate-change-high-ground/
20
The tragedy in Bangladesh yesterday was the Australian cricket team.
41
lol.
40
for those who watch the temps.
ESPN commentators keep referring to how cool the weather is at this year’s Open. it’s in the 60s and 70s instead of the usual 80s and 90s, said one yesterday, while today one said the weather is more like October than August:
29 Aug: Reuters: Tennis-Five things to watch out for on Day 2 of U.S. Open
Partly cloudy and cooler-than-average temperatures are expected throughout the tournament, which wraps up on Sept. 10…
https://uk.reuters.com/article/tennis-usopen-watch-idUKL4N1LF0F6
30
full of irony, but read all nonetheless:
30 Aug: WaPo: Google is coming after critics in academia and journalism. It’s time to stop them.
By Zephyr Teachout
(Zephyr Teachout is an associate professor of law at Fordham University)
This summer, a small team of well-respected researchers and journalists, the Open Markets team at the New America think tank (where I have been a fellow since 2014), dared to speak up about Google, in the mildest way. When the European Union fined Google for preferring its own subsidiary companies to its rival companies in search results, it was natural that Open Markets, a group dedicated to studying and exposing distortions in markets, including monopoly power, would comment. The researchers put out a 150-word statement praising the E.U.’s actions. They wrote, “By requiring that Google give equal treatment to rival services instead of privileging its own, [the E.U.] is protecting the free flow of information and commerce upon which all democracies depend.” They called upon the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice and state attorneys general to apply the traditional American monopoly law, which would require separate ownership of products and services and the networks that sell products and services.
Google has been funding New America for years at high levels (LINK)…
Within 24 hours of the statement going live, Google representatives called New America’s leadership (LINK) expressing their displeasure. Two planned hires for the Open Markets team suddenly were canceled. Three days later, the head of the Open Markets team, the accomplished journalist Barry C. Lynn, received a letter from the head of the think tank, demanding that the entire team leave New America. The reason? The statement praising the E.U.’s decision against Google was, according to New America President Anne-Marie Slaughter, “imperiling the institution (LINK).” (As of this writing, Slaughter has denounced the story as false (LINK), claiming that Lynn was dismissed for failures of “openness” and ***“collegiality.”)…READ ALL
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/30/zephyr-teachout-google-is-coming-after-critics-in-academia-and-journalism-its-time-to-stop-them/?utm_term=.3adb7709a6c4
A FAIR QUESTION EARLY IN THE 300+ COMMENTS FOR THOSE WHO KNOW WHO KNOW ABOUT THE DAMORE CASE; IF YOU DON’T YOU CAN LOOK IT UP:
rjphelps: How, in a story about Google firing someone that Google doesn’t agree with, does a competent journalist not mention Google’s firing of Damore not even a month ago? This is classic selective outrage.
Wikipedia: New America (organization)
New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a ***non-partisan think tank in the United States…
***Ted Halstead served as New America’s founding President and CEO from 1999 to 2007…
FUNDING
The list of organizations and individuals that supported the foundation in 2013 includes more than 140 contributors. The top donors, giving more than $1,000,000 each, were the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, Eric and Wendy Schmidt, and the US Department of State…
***Wikipedia: Ted Halstead
Ted Halstead… has founded three public policy think tanks: the Climate Leadership Council, ***NEW AMERICA, and Redefining Progress. His areas of expertise include climate policy, economic policy, environmental policy, healthcare, and political reform…
Halstead is the founder, President and CEO of the Climate Leadership Council, an international research and advocacy organization whose mission is to mobilize global opinion leaders around the most effective, popular, and equitable climate solutions…
As a central part of its mission, the Climate Leadership Council develops and promotes new policy frameworks based on carbon dividends—carbon taxes whose proceeds are returned to citizens in the form of dividends—adapted to each of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitting regions…
The Climate Leadership Council was officially launched on February 8, 2017 with the publication of “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends”, co-authored by James A. Baker III, Martin Feldstein, Halstead, Gregory Mankiw, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., George P. Shultz, Thomas Stephenson, and Rob Walton…
20
O/T but just read this in the free local paper:
31 Aug: Courier Mail: Judith Kerr: Logan elderly ‘confused’ by NBN rollout
Others are complaining the new NBN phone services are not as reliable because they depend on an internet connection…
Logan resident Keith Frindt said he was waiting until the last minute to connect. “The NBN isn’t working properly at the moment and friends have had great troubles with their phones all of a sudden not working,” he said.
“I have friends whose back-to-base alarm system is not compatible with the NBN and have been told they have to pay $300 to make it compatible.”…READ ON
http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/logan/logan-elderly-confused-by-nbn-rollout/news-story/2e526be92cb4f34a56e9cca2beaedfcf
30
IMHO the NBN just makes ASOIs job easier…very little to do with upgrading technology.
41
will August be declared the HOTTEST ever?
15 Aug: TulsaWorldOklahoma: Bill Haisten: Coolest August since 2004 results in uncommon …
At the start of an Aug. 7 morning practice at Wagoner, the temperature was 73 degrees.
“Pretty nice,” Bulldogs coach Dale Condict said. “You don’t get many of these in August.”…
On Saturday morning, when the Bixby Spartans convened for a two-hour session, there was cloud cover and a temperature of 72…
While most people savor a break from punishing heat, football coaches are not most people.
“I’m actually really worried about it,” TU’s Philip Montgomery said. “The tempo at which we want to play — we’ve got to get in shape to do that. We’re getting a good volume of work, but we’re not getting the heat. Our guys need to feel it because we’ll have some hot games.
“During the first two weeks of camp, I would have preferred the weather to be smoking hot. This is crazy.”…
“This is unbelievable,” Miles said following an 85-degree afternoon practice. “It concerns me. We will run every day. I wish it was 90 degrees, and we could tax this club with heat and practice.
“I want to make sure that we have heat, and that this team is trained for that trip (to Pasadena, California, for the 2004 opener against UCLA).”…
While Tulsa’s average high temperature in August 2012 as a whole was 96 degrees, KJRH channel 2 meteorologist Mike Collier reports that August 2017 average thus far has been only 86…
August 2017 isn’t the new Oklahoma reality. ***It’s been an anomaly.
A phenomenal anomaly.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/tu/bill-haisten-coolest-august-since-results-in-uncommon-comfort-for/article_5ef986bb-cb61-52bb-ac15-46b5cde0a473.html
8 Aug: Grand Island Independent Nebraska: Robert Pore: August starts with near-record cool temperatures; weather relieves crop stress
According to the weather service, both Grand Island and Hastings started August on the cool side even though it’s typically one of the warmest months of the year…
For Grand Island, the weather service recorded the coolest first week of August in 43 years and the third-coolest on record out of the 121 years for which weather records for Grand Island have been kept…
During the first five days of the month, Grand Island was 8.6 degrees below the 30-year average…
For Hastings, the weather service said it was the coolest first week of August in the last 43 years and tied for second-coolest August on record for the 111 years during which weather records have been kept for the town. Hastings was 8.9 degrees below normal for the first five days of the month, with an average daily temperature of 67.4 degrees…
http://www.theindependent.com/news/ag_news/august-starts-with-near-record-cool-temperatures-weather-relieves-crop/article_b8bc5d74-7cad-11e7-bb74-8bf9419724d2.html
Pleasant and partly cloudy Hump Day in store for DC
WJLA-17 hours ago
Today will be drier and warmer than yesterday. Yesterday’s high of 69 at Reagan National was the coolest August day in 25 years!
Despite warm July, summer trending below average
ABC17News.com-28 Aug. 2017
If August were to end today, it would go down as the 15th coolest August ever recorded in Columbia.
26 Aug: Fox9 Minneapolis, Minnesota: Cody Matz: Coolest August since 2004
While it won’t be a top 10 cool August (and probably not even a top 25) it will be the coolest late summer month we have seen in more than a decade…
http://www.fox9.com/news/276303334-story
Meteor shower in the forecast; Coolest August in 8 years
Fox 59 – 8 Aug. 2017
Scanning weather records – this is the coolest opening week to a August in Indianapolis in 8 years.
10
lots of pics, tho a few seem to be missing….scroll down to the end:
29 Aug: RussiaBehindTheHeadlines: Eleonora Goldman: Last days of Russian summer bring snow to Yakutia
The first snow has fallen – of the summer or winter? – in Yakutia and the Zabaykalsky Territory (Siberia). Shocked locals rushed to share their photos and on Instagram.
https://www.rbth.com/arts/lifestyle/2017/08/29/last-days-of-russian-summer-bring-snow-to-yakutia_830630
30
Its fine and warm in Moscow according to Lord Monckton, who is attending a climate forum.
‘From my end of the round table, I delivered the body-blow to the eco-Communist. “Does the panel not agree with me that ‘renewable’ energy has four mutually-reinforcing problems: low energy density, high cost per TWh delivered, intermittency, and very high environmental damage per TWh generated?”
wuwt
70
Being open minded or thinking for yourself does not include science denial. It does not include indulging in conspiratorial ideation, either.
310
“thinking for yourself does not include science denial”
Then WHY do you constantly DENY science, twotter?
Unable to produce one single bit of science that proves empirically that CO2 causes warming of a convective atmosphere.
DENIAL is the ONLY way you can get around that fact.
Why do you DENY that Agenda 21 exists.. (renamed now to something else.)
The absolute proof is on their very own web sites.
104
‘…indulging in conspiratorial ideation …’
As a member of the Denialati I blame Stephan Lewandowsky.
51
This is a must read …
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2017/08/turnbulls-snowy-20-does-the-conroyrudd-beer-coaster-method-of-project-planning-finance-proud.html#comments
40
Tony:
My father was one of those who served in the German army in WWII. As part of the resettlement agreement for our family, he worked for several years on the Snowy project.
He told me that it was standard practice for a convoy of ladies of negotiable affection to travel from Sydney to the works site on paydays.
One weekend the NSW police force decided that they needed to “teach the wogs a lesson”. So the police formed their own convoy of several dozen police, and proceeded to the site.
Onsite, the police tried to stop the affectionate socializing, and arrest the participants.
When the dust had settled, a very thoroughly bloodied and beaten police convoy left the site, never to return.
My father said that, while a very close relationship developed between the workers and the ladies, the NSW police force never again dared to appear onsite.
And a good, multi-cultural, time was had by all.
80
William, are you aware of the origin of the word “WOG”?
It was during WW1 in Egypt and the allied soldiers on R&R in Cairo were referring to the locals as “Gypos” and worse so high command circulated a notice explaining that the locals are our hosts and should be shown respect, worthy oriental gentlemen.
So the soldiers inn typical fashion shortened it to WOGS.
50
Oklahoma now coolest August in 20 years, not 13 years as per previous link.
***what does the “80” mean for midnight?
19 Aug: KOCO Oklahoma: Brad Sowder: Coolest August weather in 20 years
A strong cold front has moved through Oklahoma, this will leave some of the state with the coolest August weather in more than 20 years.
Many parts of the state will not make it out of the 60s Wednesday afternoon…
While cool, this will not be record cool numbers for the day, since high temperatures were reached around midnight where it was still around ***80…
The record cold will come Thursday morning after skies have cleared. For August 20, the record in Oklahoma City is 56 set in 1950. Tulsa’s record low for the same day is 58 from 1991.
Thursday morning, Oklahoma City will likely break the record low temperature for the date as the low falls all the way down to about 54 degrees. Tulsa looks to possibly set a record with a forecast of 55…
A low of 54 degrees will also be the coldest August temperature for Oklahoma City since 1994, when a cool morning started out at 53 degrees.
http://www.koco.com/article/coolest-august-weather-in-20-years/4305534
24 Aug: KWQC TV6 Iowa: Below Normal Temperatures Continue
Once again temps will run well below normal in the Quad Cities. Highs today will reach the mid 70s which is nearly 10° below normal. We have only had 4 days above normal this month and as of now ranks the 21st coolest August on record. What makes this different is, normally cooler Augusts are accompanied with above normal rain. Obviously that is not the case this year.
KTVQ Montana: Ed McIntosh: Q2 Weather: It stays cool all week
The Billings airport reported 73 degrees for a high, or 15 degrees cooler than the early August average.
Sheridan, Wyoming topped off at 68 degrees Saturday. That is the coolest August 5 high temperature on record, breaking the old mark of 70 degrees set in 1924…
10
A great read, from LCMofB.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/30/climate-communism-the-russians-arent-buying/
41
18 Aug ITV UK: Chilly and wet first half of August in the Anglia region
The Met Office says that provisional figures show mean temperatures have generally been below average for August by about 1°C, but central southern England has seen the greatest differences compared to the 1981-2010 average.
For south-east and central southern England the period 1-13 August 2017 has been the coldest since 1987.
For the first 16 days of August, the Anglia region have seen average maximum temperatures of 20.7°C which is 1.3°C below the normal for the time of year.
Night time temperatures have also been lower than normal averaging 11.8°C.
The highest temperature so far achieved in the region during the first half of August was 24.6°C recorded at Cavendish in Suffolk on the 15th.
Sunshine has also been in relatively short supply.
The average daily sunshine in August for the Anglia region is 6.2 hours but so far this month we have seen only 5.8 hours per day on average.
http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2017-08-18/chilly-and-wet-first-half-of-august-in-the-anglia-region/
25 Aug: UK Times: No warm farewell to dismal August
On Wednesday, Weybourne on the north Norfolk coast hit 25.6C (78.1F). Ordinarily that would hardly be headline news, but this was the highest temperature for August so far in the UK, and a sad indictment of this month’s miserable weather. Temperatures have been so low that southeast and central southern England have experienced their coldest August so far for 30 years, according to Met Office figures.
29 Aug: BarrheadNews Scotland: Laura Forsyth: Indian summer on its way after coldest August for 30 years
SCOTLAND is set for the hottest Indian Summer for 11 years – after one of the coldest Augusts for 30 years…
Scotland has suffered one of its coldest Augusts for 30 years – with “abysmal” peak temperatures as just two days clawed above 21°C (70°F). The 24.1°C (75°F) maximum temperature in Scotland this month is colder than peak August temperatures in all but five years since 1987.
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The lack of sunshine in the Anglia region is a result of the solar panels stealing the sunshine.
Similarly England will soon run out of wind due to overgrazing on wind farms.
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What about a new memorial pre-election defeat, a wind turbine flag pole on top of Parliament House, Canberra?
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I am sure you are all having a wonderful time rabbiting on BUT…
We are being deluded, distracted and red herringed into analysing, criticizing reviewing and generally disagreeing with all the global warming stuff being promulgated.
The climate will do what it must and the reasons for its variability may never be known BUT what we should be doing is showing, proving and explaining that CO2 is NOT! the major, and only cause of this variability.
That is the prime directive, just prove that and all the rest is moot.
All Davis Evans work seems to have been lost. Dozens of studies on the unimportance of CO2 and the possible other causes of warming are published and are all being studiously ignored, as are we here in this blog.
If it is possible to get a large cohort of well-respected expert, educated and peer reviewed people together to agree that CO2 is a very minor participant and limiting its production is not only futile but causing untold harm to the economies of the world, and get that result aggressively advertised in all media outlets..
Once that is accepted the world can proceed with coal and gas fired base load power, let wind power live or die on its own merits, stop feed in tariffs for roof top solar, and stop wasting trillions of dollars chasing the deluded dream of power hungry scaremongers.
I take you back to Jo’s statement:-
“The climate is complex, but the only thing that matters here is whether adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the world much warmer.”
What did Jo start this site for?
Discus that and only that!
Back to basics please.
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🙂
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“people together to agree that CO2 is a very minor participant and limiting its production is not only futile”
Where is your evidence or any evidence that change in atmospheric CO2 between 180ppmv and 4000ppmv affects surface temperature at any location. Can you please explain some meaning for the phrase Global Average Temperature? All is but political nonsense, never science! 🙂
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“Where is your evidence or any evidence that change in atmospheric CO2 between 180ppmv and 4000ppmv affects surface temperature at any location.”
That will be a very EMPTY list !!
I have been asking for empirical proof of CO2 causing warming in a convective atmosphere on several web sites..
so far NADA, NOTHING…. Empty as an alarmista mind !!
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It is very simple: the green house gases are the sole group responsible for 20% of otherwise available warming firelight from the sun never reaching our planet.
Sunlight is 54% infrared and near infrared. 40% of that is true infrared.
Green house gases stop half that true infrared from reaching earth.
When insulation is mixed into a bath that is conduction chilling a sun-warmed rock,
it can’t make instruments on the rock depict more and more light warming it
as it’s making less and less light reach it and warm it.
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Don A.
“BUT what we should be doing is showing, proving and explaining that CO2 is NOT! the major, and only cause of this variability.”
You would if you could, but you can’t.
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Poor twooter…
YOU cannot provide one iota of empirical evidence that CO2 causes any warming in our convective atmosphere.
You poor empty sad-sack.
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Professor Canute, chained to his beach chair, with the tide of conformity lapping at his chin, said in an interview with the Grauniad today: “Well, we said to think for yourself. We didn’t say to think crazy things, like ‘AGW is a huge hoax.’ No, indeedy. Can I have my tenure back, now?”
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The issue goes way beyond science, rational or otherwise. Each of the fifteen mentioned works from a ground of transcendence. That translates into a notion of truth and, perhaps more importantly, truthfulness. It’s curiously difficult to find a historical anthropology of truthfulness and honesty. I’ve been looking for some time, and I admit to (probably hopelessly) unsatisfactory resources, and so to little avail. My own starting point was the falsity of much written on the Australian and especially civilian experience of the Great War, most particularly regarding bereavement. I require, and I think it implicit in the work of the fifteen mentioned, a strongly-grounded concept of human equality and worth such that one may not, for instance, exclude certain people from historical reconstruction of the past on account of their religious faith, for example. And such a foundation is very difficult to locate. Further, few in any educational institution will agree with either proposition: the need, let alone the difficulty.
Developing one’s own critical faculties is neither easy nor comforting. It requires great devotion to the subject at hand; as far as possible it means knowing the subject document by document. And with it will likely come some personal cost, small or great. For myself, I now wish I had never learned to read, not as such for I have no wish to have foregone Dickens or Sayers or J. I. M. Stewart, for example, but to read history and much else—such as this blog—uncritically would be splendid. In fact I shouldn’t bother with any of it—just accept government and other decisions without substantial question. Perhaps I could watch television (which I ceased at least five years ago) and listen to radio (a little later) or read newspapers (ditto).
Manfred (#14) asks where these people have been “for the last two decades”. Look at their publications and you will see. Some of the names are familiar and have been for a long time. Thus Mary Ann Glendron (with David Blankenhorn), for example, published in 1995 Seedbeds of Virtue: Sources of Competence, Character, and Citizenship in American Society (Lanham, Md, Madison Books 1995). Thomas Kelly was then a student completing his PhD in 2002. His first publication was “The Rationality of Belief and Some Other Propositional Attitudes”, Philosophical Studies 110 (2002): 163–196, in which he set out to “explore the question of whether the expected consequences of holding a belief can affect the rationality of doing so”. Not irrelevant. Or consider Paul Bloom of Yale who is primarily interested “in the development and nature of our common-sense understanding of ourselves and other people”. His most recent work is Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion (New York: Ecco [HarperCollins], 2016). Related, too, is the recent work of Nicholas Christakis, also of Yale, and James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (New York: Little, Brown, 2009); see also. In 1993 Robert P. George (Harvard Law School) published Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford: OUP, 1993). Twenty years later, and confronting the seriousness of the times, he published Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Inst. 2013). And so it goes on.
One more or less implicitly shared concern of the Fifteen is countering modernity. See for example, Noël Valis, Sacred Realism: Religion and the Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010). Of this work, David T. Gies, University of Virginia remarked: “A brilliant analysis of the role religion has played in the development of the Spanish novel. . . . This is a gutsy book, full of insightful criticism, serious meditation on important issues, and one not afraid to argue against the tide of trendiness” (my emphasis).
A real question is whether this Fifteen would have the support of the six mentioned in a comment regarding Professor Ridd of James Cook University. Or vice versa.
Alternatively consider the trivialisation of the questions at the TLS. This last is likely the closest to the prevailing intellectual culture—unlike the entreaties of the Fifteen for whom one can only have the greatest admiration.
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I note that one of the signers of that letter was William Happer, who has been fighting against the climate zealots for a very long time.
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AGW is a conservation of energy inversion scam. GHGs stop 20% of total available warming firelight from the sun from every reaching our planet.
When insulation
stops a light-warmed object
from receiving as much warming light,
that’s called cooling.
When your scientific departments are claiming that insulation
mixed into a bath
making 20% of the total available firelight warming something
is making instruments detect and depict more and more firelight warming it –
with every percent LESS, that’s NOT warming it – that’s called a scam.
The teaching it could happen is the teaching that leaves it’s believers unable to properly answer the test question, ”What happens to temperatures of light warmed rocks, 20% less light warms?”
That’s sad.
That’s what modern schools have been teaching your kids.
That when insulation – in this case refractive gh gases – stop 20% of available warming sunlight from reaching earth,
each percent reduction in available light not warming it,
makes instruments depict
more and more light warming it.
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This is my first time posting but I have been reading here and other places about the falsehood of AGW.
Although I teach elementary school outside my home which is the US, I have been somewhat disturbed by the obvious herd following behavior practiced by modern educators and once cherished educational institutions.
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