Former Professor Peter Ridd was sacked for criticizing his university colleagues at James Cook Uni. He won a $1.2m claim for wrongful dismissal, but JCU appealed, and won the appeal. So Ridd is taking his case to the High Court. Today’s small win merely means they will hear his appeal.
Meanwhile academics all over Australia know that right now, if they spotted fraud, poor reasoning, or incompetence they can’t point that out publicly. Our academic system is corrupt to the very core, seeking not the truth, but just more grants and to act as a machine to elect the kind of governments that will give them more money, easier conditions and suits most of their personal political tastes too. James Cook Uni has wasted a million or two of taxpayers funds seeking to protect the Vice Chancellors ability to sack anyone she damn-well likes for spurious reasons like “not being collegial” or daring to write a sarcastic line in an email. A few months ago, JAmes Cook still hadn’t got far investigating the actual alleged fraud, nor in releasing data about the Great Barrier Reef that they profess to care so much about. What matters to JCU? Not science.
Peter Ridd is a brave man taking on The Machine:
Sacked James Cook University professor Peter Ridd to have case heard in High Court
“I think it means that academics are going to be really fearful of saying anything that’s robust on any matter and of course, the left wing and the right wing are now agreeing on this,” he said.
Dr Ridd said that if the universities weren’t for robust debate then “what the hell are they there for.”
“Universities are the only organisations that have the academic freedom … We have it for a very good reason because we want our academics to debate and argue to come up with ideas and some of those will be bad ideas and there’ll be shut down.”
“People have always been upset, people were upset with Martin Luther, people were upset with Martin Luther King and, you know, these robust discussions need to be had.”
Publicity over Peter Ridd’s case meant that the Australian Government has changed the law to make sure that Academic free speech is written into employment contracts (though even that banal necessity took several years to achieve).
Though even if Ridd win’s again, in the end, what academic would want to hope that they too could raise funds to take their case to the High Court. As Mark Steyn says, the Process is the Punishment.
Those responsible at JCU must lose their jobs at the very least.
I am wishing him well in this. He deserves to win.
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Is Prof Ridd setting up a go fund me account? It is imperative these lefty losers are found guilty dismissed from their positions and hit with massive costs.
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He already set up a GoFundMe appeal two years ago and the donations have already hit the funding goal he set.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund-2019
$735,295 raised of $730,000 goal.
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This $735,000 is the second GoFundMe appeal to cover the cost of the High Court Appeal.
A previous GoFundMe appeal for the original court case raised another $750,000.
A lot of donors are very keen to see Peter Ridd win!
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Does Sir need more? Legal action, I hear, is really expensive!
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Damo, steady on there, Peter hasn’t been knighted… yet.
Or maybe your use of “Sir” was a typing error, but that was a less exciting interpretation.
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The first trial was the first fund. JCU was asked every day for evidence of scientific assurance. JCU did not (could not) do this. The judge found JCU unable to find Peter wrong on any issue. He ruled in Peter’s favour. JCU appealed to the Qld Supreme court using more taxpayer money.
The second fund evolved. More expensive. The court ruled 2:1 against Peter and the reasoning is unbelievable.
THIS THIRD FUND is for the extremely expensive HIGH COURT. JCU use my taxes. Honesty and integrity is more important to me so over 80 self funded I will give to Peter’s fund.
JCU have unlimited tax funds to pay their costs. Peter Ridd relies on us to fight for scientific integrity. Peter makes clear ideology is not science! All disciplines apply.
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“It is imperative these lefty losers are found guilty dismissed from their positions and hit with massive costs.”
Imperative for whom? Which lefty losers? The Academic Board of JCU? Found guilty of what? What is lefty about their decision to dismiss Professor Ridd for breaching the University’s code of conduct?
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Are you serious? Their decision was based on their collective conviction that universities are not places of reasonable debate anymore, despite the fact that this is why they were originally established and has been their function for centuries. But since veering seriously to the left, the cancel culture has emerged.
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“Are you serious? Their decision was based on their collective conviction that universities are not places of reasonable debate anymore,”
Yes I am serious and JCU did not sack Ridd for conducting reasonable debate but because he breached JCU’s code of conduct.
This is what JCU’s Deputy Vice Chancellor Iain Donald had to say
““The issue has never been about Peter’s right to make statements – it’s about how he has continually broken a code of conduct that we would expect all our staff to stick to, to create a safe, respectful and professional workplace.””
It will be interesting to see the High Court’s ruling.
As for freedom of speech, as an academic I have complete freedom of speech providing it does not breach the University’s code of conduct.
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No Ian it’s because he exposed dodgy science , are you trying to say scientific scrutiny should never happen but you can just agree by consensus that everything is ok ?
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Professor Riddmay have exposed “dodgy science” but he did not expose it in the accepted scientific manner.
What he should have done, which would have not resulted in his dismissal and incurred very expensive litigation, would have been to write a paper that presented his reasons for criticising his colleagues and the funding bodies and submit it to an appropriate journal for publication. That RR is how “dodgy science” is exposed not by running to the media, in this case Sky TV to publicly condemn and criticise colleagues. I guess you’re not a scientist else you would have known that
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Ian, What he should have done.
He did and has many sciece publications.
It is difficult to get published when indirectly exposing the gravy train.
Peter did explain he was aware that it was not only JCU but many places chase the money. It is nott just climate.
Science has been adulterated by politics and graft.
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Me too. I’ve never encountered silencing of any sort to myself or colleagues in 35 years at multiple institutions. The lefty socialist mafia (or whatever) is a bogey man for the right.
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I’ll see your “me too” and raise you this example and note the whistleblower was too scared to come forward .
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/can-you-spot-duplicates-critics-say-these-photos-lionfish-point-fraud
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Me too, that is an example of something I’ve sen often. I never said that academic workplaces are always good places to be and I know of particular individuals who were/are bad people by any measure and people who committed scientific fraud. There is no politics involved in this.
My point was about the institution silencing people because of their views.
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Well that posts explains a lot. Now that I know you have spent decades in ‘institutions’ I will treat your comments as those of an inmate.
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I fear you are right
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Your thougtful colleagues recognise blind faith. I did.
There is no point banging our heads against a brick wall. The wall doesn’t move and your head hurts.
We academics talked privately about the sheeple on staff.
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if you say so. Must be recent though as I don’t recall sheeple beyond 10 years ago.
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Sheeple are thousands of years old. That’s how all religions evolve.
The bible had to be in Latin so that sheeple could not read it
My recognition and experiences with avoiding truth with the gullible started mid 1960s.
Winston Churchill explained it well.
The immature think emotionally, maturity is understanding reality.
AGW is a modern religion. STATE OF FEAR, helps manipulate sheeple.
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Ian,
Of course that is the sort of bollocks they would have everyone believe. The fact he could only comment by going outside the confines of his ‘institution’ says all about them. ‘You know vat happens ven you break ze rules’. Sinister.
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Sophism Ian. dissention should not be an academic crime. Truth being empiricAL OBSERVATION which is lacking at tertiary level.
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Do a reverse cancel number on JCU by sacking (firing) all involved and publicly shaming the swines before removing their cosy entitlements. How much was the VC earning anyway; was it $950G’s or some ridiculous amount and for what benefit?
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It will be interesting to see what the High Court decides. Their credibility is now on the line. By all rights he ought to win the case hands down.
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We can only hope the High Court of Australia has more backbone than the Supreme Court of the United States.
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The High Court will rule in Prof Ridd’s favour.
The Queensland Supreme Court’s decision was partisan and unsustainable.
So many decisions taken in Queensland are partisan and political – the Jo Bjelke gene is an evil root that lives on in the fertile fields of Queensland.
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Peter Ridd said many scientists studying the GBR were “emotionally attached” and “not objective”.
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Perhaps also ‘financially attached’.
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Enlightened self interest.
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Thanks Jo, for letting us know. Also best wishes to Peter Ridd and may he have every success.
Cheers
Dave B
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Calling out bad science if your a scientist used to be normal but if your challenging CAGW science means you have to be silenced at all costs, less the plebs work out what’s going on .
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PR still hasn’t disproved the dangers to the reef.
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That’s like saying “you haven’t disproved the existence of the Great Spaghetti Monster…. so therefore it must exist?”
By any chance are you a climate scientist?
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PR is no climate scientist either and since the empirical data is falsifiable any competent sceptic could show it ——-which hasn’t happened. So no need for the stupid equivalencies.
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You do mean that any positive news will not be reported by MSM and particularly the ABC. Back to your dark and ignorant corner.
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Harley, there is actually no person trained as a “climate scientist”. The most vocal alarmists or realists are usually converted physicists, geologists, chemists or biologists. PR may even be a physicist. It doesn’t matter. What you need is a “scientist” who deals with complicated natural systems.
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Hang on. As a carbon based life form, biologists have a good understanding of carbon and Co2 and the adaptability of life on this planet. I don’t know one which supports AGW or is a “climate scientist”.
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This case is about being sacked for being critical of what was a sad joke rather than just falsifiable.
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“Spaghetti Monster vs Macaroni Man” – Hollywood’s next big superhero epic.
(A huge hit in Italy for sure)
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But seriously…surely, JCU is damaging its own credibility by sacking a scientist for simply having a contrary opinion. Even if money is now all they care about, their action against Ridd is counterproductive anyway. Commercial entities will not be interested in boasting that their product was assessed at James Cook Uni and found to be 100% safe and effective when potential customers know that any dissenters were likely threatened with dismissal.
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“By any chance are you a climate scientist?”
Are you?
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I was only wondering because of your completely bewildering view that the onus is on Ridd to prove a negative. Is that where climatastrology has got to? The world will end in 12 (or is it 11 now) years unless someone can prove otherwise?
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Harley, you really a leftist Richard Cranium champion of all time.
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Yer, good point Harley.
Even though Ridd never said the reef was perfect and didn’t face some potential threats, he has clearly failed to prove an asteroid isn’t currently hurtling towards earth or that a some madman isn’t plotting in a shed to torpedo the hell out of the reef or that the sun won’t one day consume the earth. He clearly must lose his case if the credibility of science and justice is to be upheld.
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So “plotting in a shed” is a particularly madman oriented pursuit is it? Our saner brethren plot elsewhere.
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Peter Ridd is the first physicist to explain how the GBR is bleached by a momentary drop in sea level.
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I think Jennifer Marohasy has been saying that for years.
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Jennifer has been a strong supporter from the beginning.
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Harley,
Peter Ridd was not proving anything about the reef. He was questioning the standard of research and defending His academic freedom.
Now that’s something hard for socialists, like you and I, to do…
As you know, we do not review and question what we are being told. and freedom to us is a strange word that Mel Gibson shouted in a movie many years ago.
We lemmings stick to our ideology and agenda. Because it is our saving religion.
We believe the science is “settled” so there should be no argument, no debate by anyone.
How dare anyone question that!
Especially someone holding a Doctorate in a University.
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Self edit.. replace last line with “Especially by someone holding a Doctorate in a University.” sorry all
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Lefties don’t do debate do they. It’s almost like a genetic difference such as colour blindness or the inability to roll your tongue. They don’t want to hear logical arguments and reasoning. They really DO prefer commandments backed up by megaphone force and celebrity endorsement.
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“Lefties don’t do debate do they. ”
Looking at the comments on this blog there’s not a lot of evidence that the Conservative Right is doing debate either unless you regard referring to a commenter as a “Richard Cranium” as a debate. Still, on second thoughts perhaps you do
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Ian – good to see you exercising your right to criticize me. Good on you!
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Deano,
Sadly they have a road to travel but must comply with the strict social meme imposed on them from above.
Individual thinking is taboo and will result in exclusion from the path to everlasting inclusivity; a price that few are prepared to risk.
Peter Ridd is an example of what sort of person is needed to bring back our fallen democracy; a democracy in name only.
In the meantime, those who have chosen the path of the fellow traveler will demonstrate their inability to see the whole picture at every opportunity.
The only good news is that it reminds us of the dangerous times we live in.
KK
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You ever been a university academic KK? I have and freedom of speech is encouraged providing it is not actionable. An example, the VC in an open meeting said I was cynical. I replied ” Yes I am and my cynicism is due to my employer.” I didn’t get sacked or even spoken to sharply.
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Well it’s not like you said something controversial like “the earth was warmer 10000 years ago so why is the GBR still here?”
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True but I didn’t run to the media and start criticising and condemning my employers or colleagues, That’s the real difference .
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GBR was threatened by Trump.
Though all threats have not been disproved, science shows that when your Devil has been exorcised, threats are reduced as long as we fortify Unity.
Congress is working on permanent exorcism as we speak.
Can’t Unify without exorcism.
Bruce has it right.
If we can defeat e-vil, the glaciers will begin advancing and we’ll be saved.
GBR flourished in the last Ice Age, no?
Science must be fortified immediately.
(Sorry, it’s my new favorite word.)
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Time has. There were emotive hypothesis about many ‘opinions’. Time has shown Peter’s prognosis has been accurate and the ‘collegial’ alarmism has been wrong.
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Time has proved Peter Ridd correct!
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These comments were expected to go at #8 Harley 6.26am
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Off Topic (apologies) :
Jo, have you seen this yet in relation to the USA, Swamp and China ?
https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2021/02/08/the-thirty-tyrants-the-deal-that-the-american-elite-chose-to-make-with-china
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Roger, many thanks for that link – a truly frightening expose of the China Class in the US and how the zillionaire oligarchs of Facebook etc have been bought and paid for.
That said, near the end of the piece I was horrified to read this:
It puts the hatred the China Class have for Trump and the real people of the US into perspective. I thoroughly recommend others to read it – if only for the Greek history lesson (Sparta v Athens) at the beginning!).
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Read this too.
https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale
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“Those responsible at JCU must lose their jobs at the very least.”
I totally agree! The real win to aim for is this. This anti free speech/ anti academic freedom mentality in any university has no place there!
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“Those responsible at JCU must lose their jobs at the very least.”
Copied this to post and see Damo has already done it.
It’s an important part of fixing the system.
It’s great that Peter has been given so much support in this push back but absolutely disgusting that he ever came to be in this mess where he needs $1.4 million to confirm his innocence.
The disincentive in Jo’s quote should be the next step: but we won’t hold our breath on that matter.
KK
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I have spoken with Peter on a number of occasions, and he was very helpful with advice for my son related to degree choice (he has chosen a Maths degree). He went out of his way to help him and was under no obligation to do so, he is that type of bloke.
I can assure all here that Peter knows his stuff and is a world away from the ever greater no of Leftist academic types who;
Ignore & exclude data which does not align with their hypothesis
Manufacture data if necessary
“Torture data” to achieve the desired result even if the result has nothing whatsoever to do with the trends in the raw data
Wave through similarly aligned mates papers in the completely fraudulent “peer review” process that Leftists adore and perpetuates falsehoods.
Ensure only their type is employed at our universities
Malign and (in Peters case) sack those who dare to expose the total academic fraud that is now the “truth” in so many institutions
If “Peters” were the norm in our academic institutions then our future would be assured. Instead our future is in severe danger as climate change and covid clearly show. And its even more obvious when the vast majority of people simply cannot see the corruption that is evident.
I will end with a very good line from Sundance at Theconservativetreehouse. “Once you have seen the strings on the marionette, you can never unsee them”. Peter exposed the strings at JCU…
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Prophet of Boom – Your observation that they “Ensure only their type is employed at our universities” is so true.
I believe left wing groups could never support themselves by their own merits so they infest existing organizations that are popular, successful and, initially apolitical (think charities, sports administrations and, yes, universities). They probably get a foot in the door as media liaison officer which gives them the ability to edit media releases and start pushing their own agendas. They create the public image of those organizations which then has to be maintained.
They eventually ruin the organization that supported them but of course, having killed it, merely move onto the next victim.
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I am fond of saying you can’t unlearn something, you can ignore it but you can’t unlearn it. Our resident socialists either have to ignore the Math and science put here (choose deliberately to not do it in order to remain ignorant), or willingly lie about AGW, because you can’t unlearn stuff or unsee stuff.
AGW scepticism is a one way trip, like Jo I once believed the green mantra; then Kevin Rudd wanted to stick his hand in my back pocket and extract $2000 a year to pay to make it better. I decided to look at the economics, I didn’t get far because I didn’t get past checking the IPCC pseudoscience.
I mathematically proved these things
1. If ALL warming since the little ice age is AGW caused (it’s not) then demonstrated warming for a doubling of CO2 doesn’t exceed 1.4deg per doubling. On IPCCs own estimate only half the 1.4 can be attributed to AGW leaving an untroubling estimate of 0.7deg per doubling about 1/5th – 1/9th of the warming the catastrophists were peddling at the time (6 deg per century – Flannery et al).
2 I used the overall warming over blackbody, 33 deg, to estimate the effect of a 1 ATM. CO2 atmosphere, (what would happen if we had a 100% CO2 atmosphere) and showed that the doublings to 1 atm CO2 atmosphere results in a totally impossible 70+ deg rise (implying no liquid water on earth) vs 5.6 deg based on the 33 deg rise so far… This simple mathematical calculation puts a ceiling on CO2 effects at around 0.5deg per doubling… Note the consistency, first method under 0.7 second method under 0.5.
3 IPCC were spouting that flooding (rainfall) would increase 8% due to AGW. I proved mathematically that an 8% global rise in precipitation ( which requires an 8 % global rise in evaporation) requires greater than 5 Watts per square Meter of energy to cause and that greater than 0.8% was impossible without planetary cooling based on catastrophist Hansen’s famous planetary energy balance.
4 Finally I estimated the cost of AGW mitigation based on the Kev/ Gillard government carbon tax to be an impossible 2 Quadrillion dollars per annum per degree C mitigation, some 4 times world GDP at the time.
There are only so many impossible things one can know without changing your mind, it was clear we were being lied to by Flannery et Al. Scepticism was a predictable outcome of knowing the lies.
That’s what led me here from Greenie to sceptic. Since then I proved more lies mathematically.
* Showed mathematically that violations of energy conservation exist in the basic AGW math.
* Determined that Bode’s amplification theorems (drawn from electronics engineering) are misapplied in climate … IE the use of Bode’s theorems is applied where Bode said they could not be used.
* Determined that scalar models cannot be used in climate because of multiple feedback paths with differing time delays (phase shifts between output and input). Only a dynamic model is appropriate – scalar models cannot model the climate, and all the climate models are simple scalar models.
* Showed that West Antarctica ice melt is NOT due to AGW as claimed as the claimed melting requires over 50W/square Meter.
* Showed that AGW cannot produce super-storms.
* Identified that climate science does not consider significant climate energy flows – important in that climate science has no actual idea of planetary energy balance because they don’t consider flows down to at least 2 orders of magnitude below the supposed imbalance.IE the supposed imbalance is 0.6W/m2 so solid engineering dictates we must consider ALL energy flows down to around 0.006 W/m2 and preferably 0.0006 W/m2. I doubt we even know what they are. Orbital energy is 200 billion times annual solar insolation, how much orbital energy leaks into the climate. Rotational energy is billions of times greater than solar. We KNOW for a fact that rotational energy leaks into the climate as tidal forces (friction)… We even have to adjust our clocks every now.and again due to the tidal energy losses.
Too many lies, not enough science and mathematics.
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Thanks for the insights Bobl.
I was lucky enough that my period of belief in the “green house effect” (as it was called in the 1970s) was short lived. I read a very very good book in the 70s which at first I was alarmed was disproving what I wanted to believe in. But I soldiered on and then reread parts and realised that the greenhouse effect aka global warming aka climate change aka ?? was unsupported scientifically and that any study of the past (as the author had carefully done and laid out) shows huge temp changes without CO2 being involved.
I have been sceptical for almost 40 years and remain alarmed that the basic arguments I saw in that book have never been disproved. Of course now we seem to have an even more stupid political class…and a lemming like desire to follow anything the Leftists decree is politically correct…
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Murry Salby might try if Peter Ridd is successful.
He should have a pretty good case against Macquarie University.
He was treated abominably…and I think a lot of people would probably want to help.
His ‘crime’ was to depart from the diktat on CO2-induced CAGW.
Not sure if he’s still in Australia though.
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Murry was a credible scientist working with NASA to investigate plant growth. Murry did not have an opinion he only sought objective data.
Murry found the earth is greening. That evidence offended the AGW alarmist so Murry became an enemy.
Like Peter Ridd the university avoided the science in their dismissal.
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I hope PR can win his High Court Case…if he doesn’t, then “scientific research” in every branch of Science is a dead-end, and the Pagan/Flat Earth/Geocentric woke left has won again (God Help Humanity)
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Not wishing to preempt the High Court decision on the freedom to speak and debate in academia, it should theoretically give us a win.
It won’t be heard until later this year, so that gives us time to consider our options in a positive light.
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Universities have become businesses for sale. If ex-Professor Peter Ridd wins in the High Court, it will be a disaster for the million dollar executives who run JCU while posing as academics. At the same time the collapse of the gravy train of foreign students is devastating the fake standards and degrees of these cash hungry businesses.
Fake Climate Change science has flourished because scientists are scared for their jobs, from Vice Chancellors down. You can tell biosphere CO2 from fossil CO2 because the first has C14 and one does not. It could not be clearer. There is under 5% man made CO2, so whether it warms is irrelevant. It is in rapid equilibrium over which we have no control at all.
And how on earth CO2 selectively warms the oceans around the Great Barrier Reef is not even suggested, whether or not it is damaging in the long term, we do not control the world’s oceans and their heat content is 1400x that of the thin atmosphere. But where are the university scientists? Silent.
The extreme and relentless punishment of Peter Ridd is meant to be a salutary lesson in silence for all academics who dare speak out. And this is supported by the board of the JCU and the Queensland government.
It may end up a lesson in democracy for the business managers who are pushing fake science for real money. Fake news in the media, fake history and fake science in the Universities. All driven by oceans of cash in the university trough. They couldn’t leave Professor Ridd and his perfectly fair settlement alone. He had to be silenced permanently. And the tens of thousands of people who have supported his long quest for justice are waiting, a lesson for the politicians who want their votes.
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For skeptics no freedom to doubt,
Any drivel their colleagues might spout,
But must do as they say,
And their ‘science’ obey,
To bring their consensus about.
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Big Victory in War of Academic Freedom
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/11/big-victory-in-battle-of-academic-freedom/
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This article also contains a link to a three-part interview with Peter Ridd and others about this issue titled “Inside Peter Ridd’s fight for freedom of speech on climate change.”
https://ipa.org.au/TheHeretic
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So, does this mean scientists with anti Anthropogenic Global Warming data will now be free to argue their findings without risk to their employment? Does this not put ‘the science is in’ governments in a position where they have to look more closely at the decisions they get from their Chief Scientist and request validation?
Or will the Universities and the government agencies have to select very carefully the people they employ, to have provided the basis for their investment funds and policy making? Shouldn’t the contractual demand for free speech destroy the current basis for universities having any prestige at all? Or for having universities at all, as they should be exposed as mere propaganda fools’ tools? Politicians should become responsible for the economic damage they have done by enforcing policies on a known false premise!
One could actually say the current complaints from China re our University standards are even more valid than those they complain about. When Universities become mere purveyors of a new religious faith, disallowing valid argument against the science they propound, they become mere pulpits. When their output is skewed to support activist articles of faith, demanding ‘collegiality’, with the aim of procuring funding, they betray their own raison d’etre.
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DOC ‘collegiality’ Has different implications than ‘consensus’, doesn’t it. Should make it into ‘Quotable Quotes’.
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“Ridd” needs to trademark his brand as a superior green Marxist repellent, available at a high court near you ;).
Go Pete !!!
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