Unfortunately this survey closes Saturday Sunday at 5pm EST. One DAY to go now. [Correction: Day was wrong, go for it. h/t Eric Worrall].
Apologies to those who would have liked to send in a submission. Hopefully I covered much on your behalf.
The National Environmental Science Programs wants feedback and to figure out priorities for environmental research in one specific program. This funding is $145m, among other things they fund David Karoly at CSIRO. The form promises a receipt and a PDF reply.
NESP is seeking your feedback
The National Environmental Science Program (NESP) is scheduled for completion in 2021. Early planning for a future environmental research program to succeed NESP has commenced. The details of a future program are subject to Government decisions.
Feedback on key aspects of NESP will help inform the design and administration of a future program. A survey is now available via the Department’s online consultation hub. The survey will close on 30 June 2019.
h/t Darren Nelson
________________________________________________________________________________________
6. What have been the barriers to engagement [with NESP research]?
1. Data and methods are not always publicly available.
2. Published research is not easy to obtain from some journals which require payment.
3. Media releases announce news sometimes that is not even published. This means it’s very difficult for independent commentators to assess or respond to that media.
4. Media releases are often misleading, omitting key information, perspectives, or simply exaggerate the effect or importance.
5. Research with inconvenient results often has no media release, no publicity. Eg: stories of failures of modeling.
7. What would you change to make a future program easier to engage with?
Transparency
Government funded research should be freely available and transparent — the finished paper (or preprints), the full methods, and the full data. All of this should be online and easy to find from the day a media release is issued.
The media release should allow public discussion and response at the site, or on the public broadcaster. Why is there not one place where the public can discuss the results and ask questions?
Preferably this should be at the university — and maintained under FOIA — with responses from the researchers and an obligation to the public to publish all questions and answers. This site should not be able to simply delete inconvenient questions to hide them.
8. What do you think are the key factors for enabling people who have a research need to have it recognised and correctly understood by researchers?
The key factors are:
1. Civility and respect.
2. Funding to replicate and check results.
1. Across Australia, people are often derided for even asking a question. Namecalling and bullying effectively stop people discussing important scientific topics. “Denier” is not a scientific term, and yet David Karoly has resorted to this. (eg https://newmatilda.com/2016/07/07/one-nation-cancelled-an-interview-because-we-called-them-climate-deniers/) Even if other NESP participants don’t use the term, they tacitly encourage it by staying silent while other commentators do.
2. Without funding volunteer audits happen only with self funding or donations.
9. What do you think are barriers that prevent people who have a research need to have it recognised and correctly understood by researchers?
Universities don’t allow free speech, or diversity of views. Nor does the publicly funded broadcaster. Nor does “The Conversation” which universities fund, but many taxpayers, even with university qualifications, are barred from using.
10. What do you think are the key factors for successful research design that meets the needs of research users?
1. Incentives to replicate, audit or check research. Where are they? Science funding incentivizes researchers to find a problem that requires more grants, rather than to solve a problem or find that there is no problem and no further grants are required.
2. Data should be maintained by a group independent of the ones who use it to study. (See the model for medical research especially in the US). Changes to data must be fully documented and approved before acceptance. Raw data should be stored separately and archived permanently and be available.
Australians need climate models that work. Very little research seems to be focused on validation of the current models or replication of research. The current models have been funded to find a crisis due to CO2, not funded to predict the climate. If models that failed were defunded there would be an incentive to get the models right, and there might arise some models that used solar factors which worked — like the solar magnetic field, solar UV/IR or solar wind factors. Until then climate models seem doomed to repeat the same hopeless circle which has not narrowed climate sensitivity in 30 years.
Consider David Karoly’s advice to Mango farmers. The farmers are planting trees suited to a warmer climate, but don’t realize that many scientists — especially astrophysicists and solar experts are predicting a cooler one. The Mango farmers are not warned that climate model projections have a dismal record of failure — on the local, regional, or continental scale, 98% of Climate Models cannot explain why global warming slowed for years, models get the core assumptions wrong – the hot spot is still missing, (that’s the only fingerprint they said mattered, right up until they couldn’t find it). Models didn’t predict or explain the pause, the cause or the long term historic climate movements. Measurements of satellites, cloud cover changes, 3,000 ocean buoys, 6,000 boreholes, a thousand tide gauges, and 28 million weather balloons looking at temperature or humidity can’t find the warming that the models predict. In the oceans, the warming isn’t statistically significant, sea-levels started rising too early, aren’t rising fast enough, aren’t accelerating, nor are warming anywhere near as much as they predicted. Antarctica was supposed to be warming faster than almost anywhere but they were totally wrong. The vast Southern Ocean is cooling not warming. The part of Antarctica where warming is most obvious, sits on top of a volcano chain. Doesn’t David Karoly have a duty to give farmers the full uncertainty and larger perspective?
Full scientific references are listed at the bottom of this page. Eg Anagnostopoulos 2010, Koutsoyannis 2008, Previdi 2014, Christy 2010, Fu 2011, Paltridge 2009, Karl 2006, and many more.
Plus Michael Beenstock, Daniel Felsenstein,*Eyal Frank & Yaniv Reingewertz, (2014) Tide gauge location and the measurement of global sea level rise, Environmental and Ecological Statistics, May 2014
Nils‐Axel Mörner (2014) Deriving the Eustatic Sea Level Component in the Kattaegatt Sea, Global Perspectives on Geography (GPG). American Society of Science and Engineering, Volume 2, 2014, www.as‐se.org/gpg
11. What barriers have you experienced that prevent successful design of research that meets the needs of research users?
Ask Professor Peter Ridd. Without replication, it isn’t science. The problems he experienced are endemic to most academic institutions. That is obvious thanks to the number of Australian universities that spoke up to defend his right to speak freely, ie. zero.
Ask the Australian Bureau of Meteorology why they won’t explain their methods in full so their adjustments can be replicated in full independently. See this page for exact quotes of their admission.
Since the BOM work is the basis of climate research, why aren’t NEST researchers pointing out the profoundly unscientific nature and problems in BOM work?
12. What are the barriers to projects that cross different institutions/groups or disciplines to answer big questions?
The culture of intolerance and denigration where researchers are sacked, evicted, deplatformed, blackballed and subject to career threats will effectively stop people with relevant knowledge from speaking up or being invited to share their knowledge.
A culture where cross disciplinary knowledge is dismissed as automatically wrong. When Nobel prize winners of physics are called “deniers” the culture is truly toxic and outside opinion is not just unwelcome but scorned. . NESP researchers do nothing to address this national problem.
The laws of physics and maths are the same across all fields of science. Why do we pretend that only a climate expert can check the maths and physics of the climate research?
Thousands of engineers and geologists are skeptical of the IPCC main conclusions. Lefsrud and Meyer 2012
These engineers, especially, have cross disciplinary expertise in feedback loops, complicated systems, and mathematical analysis, that environmental researchers have little training in.
13. What are potential ways in which transdisciplinary, large scope projects can be encouraged and supported to answer big questions?
Firstly: A recognition that science needs free speech: namecalling and career punishment will stop whistleblowers speaking up. Bullying doesn’t improve scientific discovery, it protects dead ends and bad ideas.
Secondly: We need recognition that science relies on fully published methods and replication of results,
Thirdly:That science is based on logic and reason. For example: A consensus is fallacious argument from authority or popularity. Evidence is observations from instruments, not results of model runs. If the models are unvalidated, don’t predict observations, the models need to be changed, not the observations. Where are science institutions that defend these core principles? NESP researchers do nothing to correct fallacies made in topics they specialize in. If they won’t speak up, who will?
Fourthly: Scientific conclusions need formal auditing — pal review by two anonymous and unpaid peers would never be accepted in financial accounting. When billions of dollars depends on scientific conclusions, why do we accept such low standards?
Fifthly: Let’s pay people from outside the profession to audit the work and find flaws. If the evidence is “overwhelming” they will find none, but the money won’t be wasted as the research will be seen to be transparent and the answers will be available to all. At the moment auditing is left to volunteers.
14. How important are the following Indigenous-led activities to achieve improved inclusion for Indigenous people in a future program and improved outcomes for Indigenous people
Further comments on the proposed Indigenous-led activities.
Indigenous people and the environment will be served best in a nation where science is rigorous and not subject to political correctness, bullying or fashion.
15. Is there anything else you would like to add regarding strengths and weaknesses of the current program and suggestions for a future program?
It is a major weakness that the current program is not based on the tenets of science and not rigorously adherent to logic and reasoning.
Even if researchers do not produce fallacies in their public releases, it is not enough that they stay silent when others do.
All publicly funded researchers should be obliged to point out fallacious reasoning in their field and to help journalists report without omissions that are relevant to Australian citizens.
Researchers who stay silent, tacitly support fallacies or lies by omission.
Your response ID is ANON-2H8E-PZFC-A
Well done Jo. Good luck with your submission.
I have just had a quick look at the site and it is clearly full of loaded questions.
If I had to reply to this submission they would quickly recognise my anger in the fist two lines!
I’m sure that you will have made an excellent submission and I look forward to their response to you.
Regards GeoffW
260
The second question was impossible, I would by their definition identify as a ‘White Male Denier’ though the option wasn’t available…and you call yourselves a cult, ppfffttt.
120
Geoffrey,
Don’t just leave it to Jo.
Make your own submission, even if you cut and paste her answers.
90
I am sure there are many environmental problems in Australia. Concentrating on a fake problem of man made Global Warming is a complete waste of our money and it is our money. The idea came from overseas. It has been admitted to be social engineering, not science in intent. Government bodies should not be concentrating on stopping progress, such as banning everything, stopping everything but in improving the environment and coping with necessary change. We need dams. We need farming land. We need mining. We need room to live. We need to fish. We need a relationship with the environment where minimum harm is done, but change is inevitable. Species change. The environment changes. The world goes on.
We do not want our money spent on justifying stopping doing anything. Stopping mining. Stopping dams. Stopping water distribution. Stopping fishing. Stopping sightseeing, rock climbing, tourism. Otherwise we are destroying this country in the name of Progressive politics, which is anything but progressive.
Jo you have my full support. I hate to see science perverted to make arguments to stop progress, in the name of environmental science. It is bad enough to ban everything, from fishing to climbing Mt. Arapiles. The site of the first landing in the Derwent river is now surrounded in cyclone fencing and in ruins, in the name of preservation and its tourist potential destroyed since it became a special site. Who wins here? No one. Science should benefit us, especially as they are asking for our money. Better, we want our own science, not a poor carbon copy of overseas imported ideas which are wrong. Otherwise Australia is not the clever country. We are dupes. At our own expense.
270
I read now that there is a movement to stop scientists from saying ab*rigines arrived in this country 50,000 years ago. We are allowed talk about the arrival of Asians into the Americas in three separate migrations, but it seems ab*rigines never came here. They were always here. And no other races came here either. So clearly Adam and Eve were ab*riginal.
This is not science. It is not history. It is not factual. It is politics and social engineering, political science dressed up as equality when it is reverse racism. We are all Australians. Inventing science and inventing history are not worthy of hundreds of millions of dollars a year of our money.
And when can we have our $444Million back for saving the Great Barrier reef from Climate Change? And when is the unjustified Turnbull Snowy III going to be stopped before they spend another $6Billion on something no economist could justify.
Scientists need to earn their own money, if they are just going to parrot what comes from overseas. Not ask us for more. The black throated finch management plan to stop Adani nearly succeeded. It was fake science. Australians have had enough of fake science. We want our country back from fake science and fake scientists who work with public funds to stop everything. We want science back as the servant, not the master. And we want Rational science, not consensus science. And we want people who absolutely refuse to change the data. Rational scientists.
300
I would love to see real Australian (private) science. Not 350 full time CSIRO scientists working on proving Climate Change. There is just so much fake and political science in Australia. Ocean acidification when no ocean is acid, when 98% of all CO2 is dissolved in the water already.
Ausralian scientists have no jobs in industry, so they have become fifth columnists for the IPCC, UN, EU and progressives.
“A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favour of an enemy group or nation.”
As a taxpayer I want to see real original science done. Facts, not politics. We should have stood against man made GLobal Warming, not accommodated it and altered our data to please the WMO and the UN. The billions we spend on science research has become the plaything of the new left to discover reasons to stop any advance in quality of life. Scientists should not get involved in tree worship. We cannot eat trees and grasses are just as good for harvesting sunlight and edible. Luckily early Australian settlers did what had to be done. Like all other lifeforms, we humans are in competition with the planet just like every other species. We are also carnivores evolved only recently to herbivores with the discovery of the plough in the fertile crescent in the Middle East. Now it’s people to the acre, not acres per person. That’s reality. Enjoy your bread.
The only shining light in science in Australia is in medical science which is so well supported directly by the public. We are world leaders. The physical sciences and the new environmental science all have a different master, politics. If an Australian today came up with Darwin’s theory of evolution, he would be fired like Israel Folou. As for inventing WIFI as is claimed daily on television, the CSIRO did not. They successful sued the people who did. The CSIRO had a critical noise reduction technology and were not even involved in the 802.11 committee but the Australian government is now pushing the story that an Australian invented Wifi when in fact it was a progressive discovery run by committees overseas and used many patented technologies. It is good that the CSIRO earned some money from real discoveries. It is bad that children are taught something which is not true. Fake science and fake history.
For its $1000Million a year the CSIRO should be doing far better in patented technologies. The CSIRO filed for a tiny 45 patents in 2017. Retailer Amazon earned 1662 US patents in the same year and they are not publicly funded. As industry with IBM, Microsoft and Google, our publicly funded scientists need to perform, not just demand more funds.
291
1000 thumbs up if I could Sir, their PC doctrines have labelled I. Newton as an oppressive white colonist while dismantling the great work he did for the Royal Society.
If Irony had an elemental symbol it’d be IPCC.
111
I got the date wrong. It closes tomorrow at 5pm. Please add your voices, even if you only reply one or two lines to each question — or only to the key questions that matter the most to you.
It does help. They do have to read it, and they do need to reply.
Stay polite.
Thanks! You have my permission to repeat any points I made if you agree with them.
160
Thanks. I just get so annoyed at these surveys and have answered many. Made submissions. Unfortunately you end up a statistic and give tacit support to what they are doing. Are they doing a good job? No. Words fail on the black throated finch.
My neighbour advised a farmer client to complain that transmission lines affected the sex lives of his sheep. It actually worked for him. It was a joke.
In the real world, they should have to justify what they have achieved and ask for our money to continue, not suggest we might have an input and they just might listen. I am disgusted with Australian science. It does nothing, apart from medical science and the CSL. Public Service science is a contradiction, so they serve their political masters not us.
As for Ab*riginal Ecology, this one group receive twice as much government money per person as anyone else in Australia and pay no taxes. This is nuts. The BOM even has a link to ‘Indigenous Weather Knowledge’. In fact the annoying government advertisement about how clever we are quotes that Australians have been inventing for 60,000 years. I think the patent on the boomerang has expired.
Still I would encourage everyone to respond because politicians count numbers. The truth is something else. That’s real science.
150
All this breast beating about the climate is trivial compared with the magnetic excursion we are facing later this century.
It was the Laschamp magnetic excursion which got Neanderthal Man and the Dennisovans 41,000 Years Ago. The Lake Mungo one 33,700 YA (in sediments from Lake Mungo, NSW) ensured any survivors of the Laschamp were finished off.
Your electricity grid and ours (NZ) won’t survive. Neither country is prepared for that.
The climate will become freezing cold. The Earth’s magnetic field lost 5% of its strength over the previous decade. The fall appears to be acceleratiing. During the excursion it could fall to as low as only 5% – 10% of its normal strength. Berkeley scientists have said it could happen in 80 years or less, so it’s going to be this century.
It’s not caused by CO2. So paying attention to fixing emissions is a distraction leaching resources away. We need to prepare to put cities and roads underground, stockpile fuels (yes, fossil fuels. There is no time for anything else.) Food has to be stockpiled and access to fresh water engineered. Plant and equipment to repair the grid — both countries will most likely have to manufacture it themselves — has to be stockpiled.
Survival has to be planned. It’s a truly existential problem. A 1° or 2° Celcius climate hiccup is just a distraction.
So where is the planning?
Where is the necessary construction to avoid extinction?
Where is the stockpiling needed?
So far … None.
70
TdeF, I suspect they would welcome and try to implement
A ‘science’ program that attempted
To resettle us all in some other part of the world
Except of course the Aborigines
Who alone know how to look after and connect with this continent.
Sarc off !
PS : Somebody should try a submission on those lines. An acceptance would give us all the opportunity to laugh at the village idiots.
🙂
110
Indigenous weather knowledge
Learn more about the Indigenous Weather Knowledge (IWK) website and the Bureau of Meteorology’s commitment to strengthening respectful and collaborative relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have developed an intricate understanding of the environment over many thousands years.
http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/
20
And do we listen to Indigenous accounts of bushfires that turned the sky black, or long droughts and major floods? I don’t think so…
40
Brilliant but will they even read it? You have challenged every sacred cow in the climate hoax. You have challenged the dubious data produced by the BoM and effectively called it unscientific. No Jo. I cannot see them reading your submission because they will be exposed to heresy, at least in their clouded eyes. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
140
LAwrie, I have an ID’d submission. They have said they will reply with a PDF. I will be waiting.
130
28 Jun: CBC: B.C. government projects the city will have to spend $1B this century to mitigate rising sea levels
The Canadian Press
Vancouver city council has voted in favour of a motion that demands global fossil fuel companies pay their share of costs arising from climate change.
The motion, which passed 7-4 on Thursday, points to a B.C. government report that projects the City of Vancouver will have to spend $1 billion this century to mitigate rising sea levels.
The motion says the city will send letters to 20 of the world’s largest oil, gas and coal companies with its demand…
Vancouver says it is the 24th community in British Columbia to pass such a motion since 2017…
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/climate-change-motion-vancouver-1.5194425
50
apologies – meant to post the CBC piece on jo’s previous thread.
50
It’s all the same story. Embedded rent seekers wanting more cash and fully intend to ignore the opinions of the people who will be robbed to pay for it all.
90
So the public servants of Vancouver want $1,000,000,000 in cash from oil, gas and coal companies. I assume that is only to pay for the committees. Rent seeking opportunists and ambulance chasers with fake science. I suppose they want open borders too. The loony left wants more and more money from the people who actually do any work. The remora of the business world.
110
Ok, but to pay for it, the oil, gas and coal companies will have to quadruple the price of all oil, gas and coal, as well as related electricity supplies, going into Vancouver.
Starting NOW.
Fair is fair. !
61
First let me say that this is a very honest and worthy effort to furnish answers, and a lot of work and thought has gone into it.
But there’s a sales trick here on the part of NESP.
You don’t ask a punter if he wants to buy a particular model of car. You ask him for preferred details: colour, auto or manual, upholstery etc. Sales gurus call it ABC, Always Be Closing, and many stick to ABC at all times, refusing to allow the possibility of a non-sale with any comment or question. (I don’t know if these experts have their own Centre of Excellence yet, but I’m sure they’re working on it. What’s better than a presumption of superiority in your very title?) ABC is what’s going on with this “survey”. The aim is to exhaust and draw us, not to inform them.
Every one of these NESP questions is a grenade box of presumptions and givens; it’s a typical push poll masked as self-critique. Of course, the climate racket has forever been based on presumptions and givens. We were informed that debate was needed, then we were informed that the time for debate was long past. All the info and proof was in before you could open your yap. If you missed the debate you must have gone to the bathroom for a number one or taken a micro-nap. You snooze, you lose. You *iss, you miss. Luv game to the IPCC and an Oslo Emmy for Gore.
Like the spook site Climate Etc, this push poll is about opening up to criticism and skepticism while continuing to control every bit of the agenda.
130
So its actually a Strawman survey?
Makes sense really when considering a survey might have SOME substance to its angle of questioning.
60
It’s a Yes Minister survey.
60
Ok,
I made a submission. They did not ask anything about me except my email address. I will share 2 responses:
1. Q3. If you are a current user of NESP research are you:
Taxpayer
2. Q 15. Is there anything else you would like to add regarding strengths and weaknesses of the current program and suggestions for a future program?
I am struggling to understand the reason for the existence of this program.
The whole thing is a mishmass of confusion and social policy. Even “woke” researchers will have trouble trying to answer it
110
The whole survey is BS.
None the less send a reply. It will cause embarrassment at the very least.
They have promised a response as each individual who completes the survey gets an identifying number.
60
The Queensland marine scientists should assume that the reef is fine and that temperature variations, bleaching, even crown of thorns starfish are cyclical and there is nothing we can or should do about them. Until proven otherwise by real data. If you find a drowned polar bear, it does not mean they are all drowning from Global Warming. As they found in Tahiti, the crown of thorns is a cyclical nett benefit to the reefs and does not need stopping.
There is plenty to do documenting the rich ecosystem and of course any obvious impacts Australians are having on the reef which are adverse. However they buy into the Climate Catastrophe and use their position and our billions to justify shutting down Australia and Australian tourism and the income of others while doing very nicely in paradise where jobs are in short supply for everyone else.
The parasitic position of these unaccountable and irresponsible giant businesses living on other people’s money is noted by the rest of the country who are getting tired of the political agenda being pushed as science, even environmental science. We have seen what happened to the head of Physics at JCU for daring to suggest that the science is rigged, non professional and half the conclusions are wrong and no one bothers with confirmation. Consensus science. Why even collect data?
It is such a waste of resources and young lives. Parasitic universities. No real jobs. Environmental opportunists. The people against everything in the name of the environment. And the government truly wants to know what to do next? Tell them to get a real job. You can add the CSIRO/ABC/SBS/BOM. Sell the lot. At $20Million a filed patent, the CSIRO has completely lost its way. Perhaps a better boomerang?
50
I also object to the animist religion spread politically that we have invaded the earth or that we are part of Gaia, a rerun of Avatar where even the cruellest of predators were our friends and we spoke to the trees.
No. We humans are on our own in a savage planet which can devastate our cities in an instant, where droughts can last decades and storms and meteors and earthquakes and volcanoes are a constant threat. What would our ecological friends advise? Not to mine for dead plant matter because we might threaten the survival of a rare species of finch?
This survey is about an intent to refund these people, without conditions. Ecologists should work for Australia. If we want a new train line, they should advise on how we can do the least damage ecologically, not just stop it. Species come and species always go, mankind included. We are just the lastest species and only around for the last 100,000 years. The neanderthal scientists would have had us destroyed.
We need a new political view of science. It is there to seek the truth above all. Only then can we make informed decisions. Man made Global Warming is not true. Climate Change is meaningless drivel. We are not destroying the Great Barrier Reef, but there is nothing else to complain about I guess and the politicians are thrilled to be able to bang the table and accuse democracies of worse ecology crimes than dictatorships.
Hopefully with the popular resistance which is rising we can start to get some perspective into Environmental Science, which is to help preserve the environments where possible and stop abuses, not stop all progress in Australia. We are being pushed into poverty by environmentalists. Still we have a lot to learn from ab*riginals about how to live on an diet of kangaroos, wombats, possums and oysters. It was a world without books, writing, telephones, cars, beer, cheese, bicycles, roads, toilets, cutlery, underpants. Everything in fact. We have a lot to learn.
80
Done,
They probably won’t like my response much pointed out how activist environmental researchers should be taught maths, physics and chemistry and that they should stop violating the law of conservation of energy and ignoring the principle of entropy.
111
and natural selection. It’s as if Darwin never existed. I would first need to be convinced that there was any science at all in this program, not just a sheltered workshop for science illiterate incompetents or job refugees.
60
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament#/media/File:Pleniere.JPG
We have engaged community feedback in our deliberative process. All good.
30
Why can’t they take the $145million out of the $444 million gifted without application or reason by Mr & Mrs Turnbull to their friends? Or the $6Billion rto pump the Snowy water back up hill. Or the huge debt from 3 giant desalination plants which have never been turned on. Or an $800 million Victorian water pipeline never needed and rammed through properties by a police state without any environmental consideration. It’s like a river of our cash to the alleged protectors of our environment, real money from real families. For what exactly?
What would we lose if they just stopped the lot? Would Dr. Karoly (I’m a Climate Scientist and so there) lose his income and have to get a real job. That would be really tough. Like all the people at Hazelwood or the Nickel Refinery at Townsville or all the workers in Queensland denied jobs because of his extreme anti coal views without any science at all. Or even the 35 workers in the only plastics recycler in South Australia who lost their jobs because the electricity is too expensive. There is no recycling, unless you count dumping the rubbish in land fill or sending it overseas like Canada or Australia. Everyone sorting their rubbish into two piles, picked up by two separate trucks when they end up in the same hole. It’s farce, not environmentalism.
Why shouldn’t these people justify their existence like everyone else, tell us what great things they are going to do, what things they have done.
If I was going to respond, it would be that I shouldn’t be setting the rules and they shouldn’t be pretending that I can. They should be obliged to explain why they should exist in the first place. Like everyone else. Like the ABC/SBS/CSIRO/BOM. So they saved the black throated finch so it could be wiped out later by the invasion of the really nasty finch? Apart from a few avid bird watchers, how has that improved our world. Or doesn’t that matter?
The National Environment Science Program is no such thing if it employs Karoly.
60
The real protected species are the people getting the $145 million. For what?
60
As G-20 reaffirms fight against climate change, Trump again stands apart
Washington Post-15 minutes ago
29 Jun: Deutsche Welle: G20 summit: World leaders agree on climate deal
by law/ng (AFP, dpa)
Leaders have agreed on a climate deal similar to the one struck in Argentina in 2018. The US has again refused to commit to tackling climate change.
Speaking at the conclusion of the summit, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the leaders had found common ground on climate change despite “big differences” in the members’ views.
“We will have a similar text to Argentina. A 19+1 declaration,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting.
As at the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, the new declaration states that the US reiterated its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement “because it disadvantages American workers and taxpayers.”…
“In our view, climate change will determine the destiny of mankind, so it is imperative that our generation makes the right choices,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a news conference with his French counterpart and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres following the climate change talks.
https://www.dw.com/en/g20-summit-world-leaders-agree-on-climate-deal/a-49408651
01
29 Jun: Rappler: AFP: ‘Nobody reads the communique:’ Top G20 moments
Here are some of the top moments and bon-mots from the 2 day meeting hosted by Japan in the city of Osaka
At a summit expected to be dominated by trade, climate change proved an unexpected hot potato, with France’s Emmanuel Macron saying the issue was a “red line” before talks even began.
“My lines don’t have colors,” joked European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who nonetheless agreed that strong action was needed.
Negotiators worked through the night to agree language that mirrored that of the last G20, claiming it as a small victory.
“We avoided going backwards… but we must go much further,” Macron said after the summit…
‘Nobody reads the communique’
On climate, they won a deal to repeat the so-called 19+1 formula, with 19 countries endorsing the “irreversibility” of the Paris climate agreement while Washington repeated its plans to withdraw from the accord.
But Juncker made a candid admission even as negotiations were ongoing, saying jetlag had prompted him to break a longstanding tradition of not reading the communique.
“I’m not the only one in this room who does not read the communique. Nobody in fact reads the communique.”
https://www.rappler.com/world/global-affairs/234228-nobody-reads-the-communique-top-g20-moments
G20 Documents: G20 Osaka Leaders’ Declaration
https://g20.org/en/documents/
(excerpt) 36. The United States reiterates its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement because it disadvantages American workers and taxpayers. The U.S. reaffirms its strong commitment to promoting economic growth, energy security and access, and environmental protection. The U.S.’s balanced approach to energy and environment allows for the delivery of affordable, reliable, and secure energy to all its citizens while utilizing all energy sources and technologies, including clean and advanced fossil fuels and technologies, renewables, and civil nuclear power, while also reducing emissions and promoting economic growth. The United States is a world leader in reducing emissions. U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 14% between 2005 and 2017 even as its economy grew by 19.4% largely due to the development and deployment of innovative energy technologies. The United States remains committed to the development and deployment of advanced technologies to continue to reduce emissions and provide for a cleaner environment.
READ THE DOCUMENT FOR THE VAGUE ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ LANGUAGE OF THE 19.
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29 Jun: National UAE: Abu Dhabi Climate Meeting set to spur leaders to action
by Ramola Talwar Badam
The two-day meeting in the UAE capital will gather more than 1,700 government ministers, business leaders and experts from the private and public sector from 160 countries who will assess the progress made to implement the Paris deal and the challenges that lie ahead.
A group of young people will interview Mr Guterres following his opening remarks, reflecting an awareness that the younger generation plays a key role in the clean green energy revolution.
Dwelling on the opportunities offered by investing in the green economy, Mr Guterres has said, “people around the world are demanding immediate climate action and inclusive development”.
“The green economy offers countless benefits. But to reap them we need rapid transition, deep transformation and political will,” he wrote on Twitter while attending the G20 summit in Osaka this week…
“The heatwaves reaching Europe are proof that climate change is striking everywhere and it is a serious public health threat,” Mr Guterres tweeted.
“Climate Action cannot wait.”…
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, leader of conservation group WWF for global climate and energy practice, said the meeting would give people a chance to take stock of the progress being made before the September high-level conference…
“Governments have a range of levers at their disposal – of tried and tested mechanisms, such as carbon pricing, energy efficiency standards and clean energy mandates – that can encourage companies and individuals to reduce their climate impacts,” he said.
The conference will also host a climate and health ministers meeting with non-government representatives to pinpoint measures that could save billions of dollars in health costs while battling climate change.
https://www.thenational.ae/uae/environment/abu-dhabi-climate-meeting-set-to-spur-leaders-to-action-1.880626
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There is only one logical answer about what to do with The National Environmental Science Program and that is scrap it. It serves no reasonable function and gives the leftist green blob people on it a false sense of importance.
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HUGE DEMONSTRATION OF “DOZENS”!
maximum number of protesters shown in pics/video is about 15!
29 Jun: HullDailyMail: Climate change campaigners lie on the ground in Queen Victoria Square in ***huge demonstration
Extinction Rebellion is calling on the Government to take immediate action on the climate and ecological crisis
By Michael Mutch
***Dozens of protestors have been demonstrating in Hull city centre to demand immediate action on climate change…
Francesca Dale, 26, of the Avenues, says that due to rising sea levels it was important to stage the rebellion in Hull…
She said: “Extinction Rebellion was founded last year by a group of scholars and they are backed by 97 per cent of academics and scientists.
“We refuse to be led silently into extinction…
“The planet is going to be unliveable in a couple of decades.
“We are talking about our children’s future here. In our group we have got a lot of parents who care about the future of their young kids…
“It is important to do this in Hull as it is one of the top five cities for flooding. I believe it is 1.5m under sea level. It is only going to get worse.
“There is an online map and as you go up the years it shows Hull is flooded by 2045…
“That means the end of Hull City, our football club, Hull KR, and the end of life as we know it.
“People can call it heresy so we are composing a list of resources who are reporting on this so everyone can do their own research.”…AND ON AND ON
https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/climate-change-demonstration-hull-city-3034707
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So it’s going to be the end of their football club? Really? Across the channel Amsterdam is 2 metres below sea level and some areas are 7 metres. They have great footballers. Even if it were true, can’t the great city of Hull build a sea wall, like everyone else. It’s been 31 years of rapid sea rise. How much has it gone up in that time?
And the usual claim that 97% of academics and scientists are behind them. I am surprised that Hull has only a couple of dozen loonies.
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Sorry, 31 years was the time man made Global Warming, 10 years to live was first announced. Allegedly we have had the problem for 120 years, so how much has the sea risen on the sea wall at Hull?
Table: Estimated contributions to sea level rise over the last 100 years
Component contributions Low Middle High
Thermal expansion 2 4 7
Glaciers/ice caps 2 3.5 5
Greenland ice sheet -4 0 4
Antarctic ice sheet -14 0 14
Surface water and ground water storage -5 0.5 7
Total from above -19 8 37
Total based on tide gauges 10 15 20
So if we go with the mean, nothing from Antarctica, we have a sea level rise of 15 cm in 100 years. I fail to see why another 15 cm in the next hundred years threatens Hull which is 1-2 metres above sea level, like a lot of coastal towns because they needed to be at sea level.
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no text on the page, at least at time of posting:
29 Jun: SouthChinaMorningPost: G20 split as US refuses to sign joint statement on climate change
•But there was no mention of unilateralism in the leaders’ declaration, despite Beijing’s focus on opposing it
•Wrangling over the part on tackling greenhouse gas emissions continued into the early hours of Saturday
by Liu Zhen
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3016630/g20-split-us-refuses-sign-joint-statement-climate-change
29 Jun: Reuters: United States remains outlier as G20 split over tackling climate change
Reporting by Malcolm Foster and Chang-Ran Kim in Osaka; Writing by Malcolm Foster in Tokyo
After much wrangling, the Group of 20 major economies on Saturday agreed to disagree on fighting climate change, with the United States dissenting from a commitment to carry out the 2015 Paris climate change agreement…
The G20 did manage to agree on tackling plastic trash in the ocean. In the statement the grouping said it adopted an “Osaka Blue Ocean Vision” that aims to stamp out additional pollution by marine plastic litter by 2050.
There were no details of how the goal would be met, except that members would adopt “a comprehensive life-cycle approach” by improving waste management and finding innovative solutions while recognising the importance of plastics for society.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-summit-climate/us-remains-outlier-as-g20-split-over-tackling-climate-change-idUSKCN1TU0DQ
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29 Jun: Politico: G20 leaders agree declaration after climate fight
19 of the 20 countries backed the Paris agreement.
By Jakob Hanke
Two senior EU negotiators said they had fought with the United States over the climate chapter until 4 a.m. on Saturday, when they decided to pause talks as they saw no way out of the deadlock.
Around 11 a.m., things started moving again as sherpas handed over the baton to heads of state, who agreed to back the ’19 to 1′ format.
Crucially, China backed the EU and fought to keep countries committed to the Paris agreement. In a joint statement released Saturday morning, China and France pushed countries to stick to the climate deal…
https://www.politico.eu/article/merkel-g20-leaders-agree-declaration-after-climate-fight/
all the 19 are agreed on is they still back the phony, non-binding Paris climate accord! big deal.
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And “Trump snubs May G20 plea to tackle climate ‘crisis’ as all other leaders sign committment’
No lame duck has ever been so lame.
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Frankly I think it very poor form for Teresa May to be signing any documents as Prime Minister. Except that everyone knows it’s a nonsense piece of political chicanery.
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John Anderson interview with Helen Pluckrose, very much on topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVDneOXfgNk
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The interview is about errors in academic output which come from factual errors in the field of social justice, but applies to the belief systems of AGW which generate similar errors.
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Good stuff.
These new concepts of “equality” and “social justice” do not fit into the real world in any useful or meaningful way.
Outside of the boundaries of modern Universities the needs of society are much more elementary and might include such things as cooperation, hard work, thrift, consideration for your neighbour and moral leadership.
Above all, we must demand that politicians take a ground up, building approach to leadership rather than the current “redistributive” one.
Eventually you run out of other people’s hard work to distribute, or they just stop working in frustration.
KK
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I agree. Needs of society might also include “food” and “water”.
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Surely, you don’t mean building real dams and encouraging farmers to farm?
That would be counter to society’s direction of the last 45 years.
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