The headline here is that nearly half the population don’t think climate scientists know what they are talking about. Effectively thse people are immune to the 97% consensus figure. Who cares if most “experts” agree, if the blind are leading the blind? The most skeptical of environmental scientists were the people of China, Japan, and Germany. Two thirds of Swedes, on the other hand, still trust environmental scientists.
Ipsos Mori conducted this massive survey. Though, like many international multi-lingual endevours, there are confounding conflicts in the answers. All up, 16,000 online adults based in 20 countries were asked some interesting questions, and sometimes their answers made sense, but unfortunately we just can’t be sure when. In China 75% of respondents think scientists don’t know what they are talking about; 51% think that current climate change is natural, but 93% think it is also largely man-made. So 42% think that it’s our fault but it’s also natural. I suspect there is a language barrier. The Chinese were simultaneously the most paranoid cynics and the most dutiful recyclers. They were the third most skeptical nation while being the single most fervent believers and both simultaneously. Perhaps someone who knows more about China than I do can explain that contradiction?
The four most skeptical nations were respectively, the US, Great Britain, Australia and Russia. A recent large and detailed poll of the UK with full demographic information showed 62% of the UK (or GB, as it is listed below) were skeptical and didn’t believe the recent floods in the UK were “man-made” through climate change. That detailed poll was more internally consistent than this international one. It also showed there was a higher proportion of skeptics among the well educated, and the largest contingent of believers was left in the unskilled worker category.
Ipsos Mori did the survey and their website has all the percentages on every bar as well. Their data is available here.
Environmental scientists don’t know what they are talking about:
Total 48% agree. 42% disagree.
q3 Even the scientists don’t really know what they are talking about on environmental issues.
58% of Germans agree that environmental scientists are guessing what goes on. 54% in India (they are quite skeptical overall). Around 43% of people from Britain, the US and Australia agree.
Look out! Disaster coming.
But what kind of disaster? Other studies show people worry about smog, litter and other stuff before they worry about the climate. And people generally worry about everything else — like the economy and jobs, before they worry about the environment. Only 3% of Americans named “The Environment/Pollution” as the top issue. The question: “We are headed for an environmental disaster unless we change our habits quickly” is the loaded motherhood type question that doesn’t ask people to rank different fears or put a dollar value on their fears. A CSIRO survey showed 80% of Australians chose not to voluntarily pay money for “the environment”.
q1 We are headed for an environmental disaster unless we change our habits quickly.
Governments just want your money:
Europe leads the pack. Fittingly, the Spanish lead the pack that leads the pack.
q2 The government is just using environmental issues as an excuse to raise taxes.
How corrupt and self-serving is that profit hungry company?
Pretty much everyone agrees that companies don’t do enough for the environment. Notably, people in the US were more comfortable with the free market than everyone else except Japan, which was the standout in corporate faith. It’s either a nation of competitive free market libertarians, or it has better behaved companies or both. I think general levels of corruption and the mafia have something to do with the order on this list.
Q5: Companies do not pay enough attention to the environment.
It’s natural!
Total 41% say Yes. Slightly more, 49% say No.
Actually, this is a strangely worded question. “The climate change we are currently seeing is a natural phenomenon that happens from time to time.” The “happens from time to time” is wholly unnecessary, and implies natural climate change is not happening all the time.
Q6 The climate change we are currently seeing is a natural phenomenon that happens from time to time.
…
It’s unnatural!
76% say its largely “unnatural”. So a quarter of the worlds population thinks it IS natural but largely man-made. Perhaps, some people think man-is-natural therefore both can be true. I expect it’s a mish-mash of people misreading either question. Perhaps feeling sure that the weather we seeing really is natural, but at the same time worry that weather will get worse. Note the last question here: The climate change we are seeing is largely a result of human activity. What does that mean exactly? Is that the climate we see out the window (which appears to be natural) or do they mean the “Climate” which fills our TV screens (which we keep being told is man-made).
q8 The climate change we are seeing now is largely a result of human activity
Ipsos notes that the data on developing countries only represents the more affluent internet-connected part of the populus.
” In the US and Canada respondents are aged 18-64, and 16-64 in all other countries. Approximately 1000+ individuals were surveyed in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, Great Britain and the United States of America. Approximately 500+ individuals were surveyed in Argentina, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey. In developed countries where internet access is high, this can be taken as representative of the general working age population. However, in developing nations the results should be viewed as representative of a more affluent and “connected” population.”
H/t goes to Lewis Page of The Register who wrote the article, “Climate: ‘An excuse for tax hikes’, scientists ‘don’t know what they’re talking about'” July 23rd.
It would be interesting to know just who commissioned Ipsos Mori to conduct this massive survey.
80
I have never and never will spend money on the “environment”,whatever that is,considering that the environment”is abstract and could relate to well many different environments.There are “environments” in parts of the world where you would come across pools of acid and the air would be dangerous to breathe,is this what they mean or do they mean an environment where there is very little water and very few lifeforms or do they mean the “environment” that has nice cuddly animals or in the case of Africa not so nice cuddly animals and trees and moss and bugs,or is it some imaginary place somehwere.
But as I said I won’t spend a cent to save the whales nor leadbeaters possum nor the striped arctic snickleback barracuda nor the flying flummoxed finch nor the redbacked funnelweb panda.
On the otherhand I will support our govts making certain that industry doesn’t poison our waterways and the air that we breathe and the soil,which is the “environment”that should be in vogue and not some Mother Earth Gaia scenario(ask Flannery about it).
One thing all this environ malarkey has shown is that there is a correlation between the higher the educational level of a nation the greater that nation’s ignorance grows –education and intelligence follow two different pathways and rarely do they merge
272
When we are borne we do not know that we are borne, we open our ‘eyes’, and don’t know what we see, we don’t know what are eyes, or what seeing is, we are empty of knowledge, our very existence is a thoroughly unexpected surprise which did not have to be. So it’s a constant bonus if we get even one more breath to see wiuh, for we did not earn even our first breath.
But somehow during our ‘education’ we developed a deadness that decided we have the right to dictate terms of our acceptableness parameters with this generous beautiful existence.
This is human arrogance at its worst.
We’re along for the ride until the bonus capacity to breathe and to see and to abstractly cogitate is removed once more. It’s not our job nor or moral responsibility to save or conserve the world. That whole proposition is quite ridiculously anthropocentric and fantastically delusional from the outset. It is not ours to conserve, but it is our lifeline to breathing and eating and sleeping and recreating babies who open their eyes in surprise and delight.
We are here and do what we do the best, and all that which we can do, until we can do it no more.
So make the most of it and enjoy the free ride and peaches as life is rendered sweet and beautiful if we are smart can chose wisely, and ugly brutal and painful, if not.
But whatever it is the cosmos asks that you kindly stop whining like @ssholes all the time.
If you feel an uncontrollable impulse to demand changes to everything you ‘see’, after you’ve been ‘educated’ to startling cleverness, but strangely find yourself inconsolably discontented with everything that meets your troubled jaundiced-eyes, your faltering heart and you shallower breath gasping due to your crenulated mind, then do us all a favor and close your eyes, stop breathing once more and it will all go away.
Fair enough?
280
Well said Unmentionable. I agree so much.
The generation currently from 15 to about 35 have this obsession with the notion that appealing to authority can fix anything. If there is something you don’t like in life, whine for a law to be passed to stop it and everything will be fine. Its a bizarre phenomena that I cannot understand the appeal of. In years past people would find ways to fix or control aspects of their lives and call it the search for improvement. Now its just blog or tweet that x or y should have a law against it and then go back to whining to your friends over latte. I relayed to this site a comment from a young person on a renewable energy blog recently who was calling for a “war economy” to mandate the creation of renewable energy projects. Jo also posted pictures of 20 somethings in the street after the budget with banners saying among other things “f@#k democracy”. I mean really, whats your alternative? Did 10 years of Labour really delude an entire generation that each of them knows what is best for the next one? And that once you know whats best its ok to enforce it on others? Seems so.
Life is awesome, even at its worst, its still life and experience. Before you know it, that blackness you experienced before you were born will return and then your done. Make the most of this brief spark of consciousness, stop carping and start living.
101
Maybe you’ve just given a prime example of how far our education system has been dumbed down?
110
I think you may be being too subtle with them.
Pointman
60
I read an article yesterday on why someone is no longer of the Left. In short, the Left do not do anything productive but just hate. There are reasons for them to be upset but they look for reasons to hate and not problems to be solved, those everyday small things rather than grandiose planet saving follies.
At the heart of it is that we grow up with those in charge correcting us and telling us off so that we see criticism as a stick to put people in their place below us. We also share that percentage of our genes with other social animals to set up a pecking order innately. There is nothing new about what I just wrote nor is there anything new about people wanting to keep the population like this so that it is more compliant, gullible even.
Keeping it simple, if you want to correct someone then correct them but don’t use it as an excuse to hate.
52
No doubt,Lefties are good haters,but they also think they have a mortgage over compassion and hold and defend the moral high ground with vehemence during any debate or discussion.Unfortunately it seems to work for them,look at Bill Shorten’s poll numbers.
51
A fascinating article. Thanks Vic G Gallus.
00
“In short, the Left do not do anything productive but just hate.”
I had not realised so many here are of the left.
17
Philip,
We productively hate the left …
21
Thought you might be sniffing around the blog today. I see “Dr Brian” has made an appearance on Bolt’s.
10
And yet ANOTHER moronic statement.! It seems to be all you have left in you.
We do not hate the left, we just treat them with the contempt they deserve.
31
It seems that Dr Brain has let his monkey(s) have free reign on the keyboard today. 🙂
31
It is true that intellegence and education are not the same thing.
It does not surprise me to see “skeptics” making a virtue out of ignorance.
17
[snip. No yelling please – Jo]
We see absolutely no virtue in YOUR ignorance at all.
31
Except perhaps as a self-perpetuating topic of hilarity and ridicule.
31
Philip,
you lamblast us often on this site, but you have never yet demonstrated to us where we were wrong in our thinking.
All you do is call us stupid ect. Which does not teach us what the correct thing is. Your statements are not teaching moments. We learn nothing from your comments.
30
Greg, your inversion of reality is so typical of so many “skeptics” here. I am regularly “lambasted” by people who do not like the scientific arguments I put and tell me how stupid I am. And Griss is right on cue to demonstrate some typical responses.
True I have not bothered with science this time. I got no further than the idiotic generalizations put here, that “the left” (however that is defined), just hates, and that ignorance is a virtue, and decided not to bother, other than to register how ridiculous such comments are.
13
Philip, did you read the article: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/07/ten_reasons_i_am_no_longer_a_leftist.html posted by Vic @ 2.3?
And since you’ve had extra free time (on account of our idiotic generalizations) have you finally read up on Agenda 21?
Or is it that you never read American Thinker and you really don’t want to know what is really happening at the hands of the Left?
20
Yes Mark I did start reading the article and thought it was a list of cartoon stereotypes of “the left”.
Back to the real world.
As noted by those eagle eyed correspondents above, I often dispute Andrew Bolt on the science of climate change.
I also had discussions with Mr Bolt’s lawyers having volunteered to testify for him in his court case on aboriginal identity.
So which am I, “left” or “right”?
And no, I have not read about Agenda 21.
10
Philip, can I call you Phil?
You ask:
Are you ready for this?
Let me step back a bit. The following is my true human to human view. What I think and feel or sense about Philip Shehan is that you are well trained in your field, you were (don’t take that as past tense ageism) successful in your career but not to the point that you were universally respected by peers. You are approachable, more kindly than not and have some very long term friends. But you were immersed in your career deeply enough over the years to have sustained a significant loss of friends you’d have rather not lost.
It might surprise you that I personally like you. You take some hard abuse when you fall back on reflexive responses to some comments but I respect those things you’ve done in your life. You are thoughtful and engaging to a point but have trepidations about being other than collegial at best and sometimes downright bitter to others. This, I wonder, is a learned behavior from those active career years competing with others when putting food on the table.
You rarely step out of your comfort area in comments, that being defined by sharply refined education and career experience. I think you could add more, in fact I’d like to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone more often. As to why you haven’t, it might be that learned behavior or perhaps something else.
You’ve mentioned your age (was it early 70’s?) and I gather that you are officially retired. I speculate that you’ve taken up climate as a pass- time at first, then as career work ended you explored it more deeply. Your first probing and discovery was satisfied by the fall back assumption of nearly infallible prevailing authority. This again supported by your experience in the business (real world) career involving working prototypes and commercially viable products. I think you still cling to most but not all of that authority bias.
I think you have been occasionally surprised at the depth of understanding, tenacity and outside-the-box thinking occasionally seen in the skeptical blog world. I think you really thought visiting a site like Jo’s would be brief and would only confirm a preconception. I think you were and continue to be surprised and that is why you return. You are a man of science, you find flaws (when in your comfort zone) but I know you also recognize some truth in skeptical analysis (yet you refrain from commenting). This is slightly puzzling to me yet I can’t find any reason to disbelieve my sense of what is.
In closing, I’ll get to answering your question.
I’m in the US, here you’d be Left. There is a spectrum to be sure but Left it is at least for now. There are several traits that support my answer but interestingly, it is because you haven’t bothered to look into Agenda 21. I don’t know anyone close to Right thinking that doesn’t know at least enough about A21 to carry on a half-hour conversation about it.
I haven’t ruled you out as beyond reform however but there is work to do. I’ll support you in your road to recovery whenever you need it.
In the best Aussie form I can muster; Cheers!
10
Mark, I think you are making rather a lot of assumptions about me on the basis of limited information.
I will correct you on a couple of points. I am actually 60 years of age.
I “retired” early from an academic career, because I stepped way, way outside of not only my own but other people’s comfort zone by pointing to mismanagement and corrupt conduct in a department of the University of Sydney. I refused an offer of money and a good reference to go quietley and persisited in challenging those suffering from integrity deficit disorder.
And yes I lost a lot of so called “friends” and a career over that episode. In fact I have had a very different view of what actually constitutes friendship since then. But since you have speculated actually I was thought of very highly personally in every other place I worked and recieved excellent references. And actually I was quite well respected by many of those in the University who knew what I was up against, including at the end bureaucrats who had helped others bury me when the truth finally dawned on them.
Part of the reason I blew the whistle was that although I was considered something of a golden boy in the department, with the boss thanking me for “saving” her department in a difficult period, I could no longer remain silent on the treatment of those who were not favaourites.
I might add that The Department of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine collapsed like a house of cards a few years later, and yes I sent an “I told you so” email to the Vice Chancellor on down.
I don’t know if I was “universally” respected by my peers before that episode, but when my supervisor handed me the examiner’s report’s from three international experts on my PhD thesis, he said “Read these and don’t get a swelled head.” So actually I was thought rather highly of as far as scientific ability goes. I consider a highlight being when I asked a future Nobel Prize winner a question after a talk he gave. He said good question but he don’t know the answer. It turned out my question was the basis of what is now known a functional magnetic resonance imaging.
00
Philip, I hope my long distance and incorrect assumptions aren’t taken badly. I certainly don’t find fault in what you have stood up to and for. Corruption is a scourge, wherever it is found, mismanagement commonplace but at least in private enterprise works its way out. Not always so in academia and even harder in government.
As for what I said about what peers thought about you, I should have added more words. I don’t assume that you deserved their scorn.
I do note that you’ve offered no comment on my answer to your Left Right question. This might suggest that I was probably right on a few more assumptions though?
00
Mark, no offfence taken on your remarks.
As for the left/right question, my point is that I don’t think people should be forced into simplistic labelling. On some questions I would and have been called “right”, on others “left”. But then the question is to left or right of who on the spectrum.
Being from the US you may not have understood my reference to Andrew Bolt. He is a columnist who is considered very right wing here. His court case was where he got into trouble for discussing the issue of aboriginal “identity”. It was claimed that he had “offended” people of mixed ancestry with his remarks. I am of partial aboriginal descent and supported his opinions on the matter and his right to make them. (We do not have first ammendment rights here.) This again put me outside the comfort zone of some of my family members. Mr Bolt was convicted. I support the proposal of the current conservative government to ammend the section of legislation under which he was charged.
I also had a run in with some politically correct types in a university tutorial where I was undertaking a graduate diploma in education with the idea of becoming a maths/science teacher. Again it was about race. The topic of discussion was literacy and one young Miss was expounding the thought that literate societies had exploited colonised inigenous populations.
I responded that on the other hand life expectancy in modern societies was twice that in hunter gatherer societies, and was immediately attacked as a racist by two people present. Ironically one of them told me that I should be writing for the newspapers, which I took as a compliment, until she added that I would be welcomed by Andrew Bolt, which I don’t think she meant in a complimentary way.
However, to give you some idea of my political leanings when it comes to having to make a choice between the “left” and “right” alternatives on election day (voting, or at least turning up and having your mname crossed off is compulsory here)I voted Labor at the last election, principally because I do not like the increasing trend to the Americanisation of the health system preferred by the conservatives here, and the privatisation of education so that the children of the better off get a better education for having chosen their parents wisely, which Labor is marginally slower in supporting.
10
“Andrew Bolt….He is a columnist who is considered very right wing here.’
Again, ABSOLUTE RUBBISH !!
Only far-left apologists think he is far right.
ie…. The ones that think anything to the right of Marx is far-right.
He used to work for the Labor party, FFS.
He is now pretty much in the center.. a REALIST.
11
Philip, I’m still interested in defining the Left Right from your perspective. You are absolutely correct that some, maybe more, individuals have leanings or views that can’t be so easily “slotted”. From many previous discussions here it seems that you’d rather not get into political discussions. For me it is impossible NOT to get into political Left Right discussions when exploring AGW. You might prefer to ignore this reality but AGW is inextricably tied to Left leaning philosophy. The topic cannot be discussed in a pure science realm BECAUSE the principal proponents of the hypothesis moved it into the political world early on and at every step!
You’d do well for yourself to accept that fully and discuss them. Agenda 21 is a prime evidence and a culmination of sorts to years of political, geopolitical, and sociological reformation based upon a thoroughly Green worldview. That you’ve been told this and yet avoided looking into it is clearly indicating a sort of denial on your part. You don’t want to know. Perhaps knowing would force you to accept things about the world that put you outside your comfort zone. Perhaps, because you use your real name here you don’t want OTHER people to know that you’ve explored the subject. Maybe you’ve slotted skeptics yourself, as paranoid conspiracy nuts. You don’t want OTHERS to find out that you know there is merit to our arguments and they are NOT paranoid. To get there you’d have to leave behind years of comfort building stereotypes yourself.
Some people bristle at my black and white views. Maybe I’m completely unrealistic. To help you with some insight into how I think about politics I’d start with my dad. Happily he’s still with us but my story starts during WWII with my dad on a transport ship to the Philippines. Him a young man, contemplating fierce fighting and a strong likelihood of severe injury and death ahead. I’m here today, because while they were halfway across the the trip someone else holding a high political office, with an awesome decision to make, did so. Today there are people that second guess that decision. Those people are on the Left. I’ve never once heard someone from the Right express thoughts that bombing Japan was unnecessary. There are a whole bunch of us-es that are here today (in AU like everywhere else) that are present on the globe because of that decision. Some people today regret that so many survived, that it set off a baby boom world wide, that it spurred economic prosperity and unprecedented growth in technology. Every one of them are Leftists. Oddly, my dad is restrained about things political. I don’t remember him ever commenting on how he voted or why. In later years my mother has become vocal but for me in my young formative years I selected clear principles as my guide, freedom fought for by young men and women (the fighting being worldwide the freedom not always). What holds it together here in the USA is the Constitution. I despise attempts to alter or re-interpret it. Those attempts almost always from the Left.
My heritage is of poor immigrants from Europe two generations back. They left behind oppression from government, an economic system that would from their perspective, hold them down forever. They came here, and even though poor much of the time, were free to chart their own destiny. They were happy because they had few restrictions on living life, creating wealth and saying what was on their mind. Humble people, crafty creative people, Faithful people. Today the Left has told us that being poor is not acceptable (in fact make being poor but free impossible through restrictions and codes), made crafty people get licenses, deride and despise Faith.
Then there’s organized labor. Labor is the tool of the left, the communist left. That is undeniable.
So now you have an idea how I describe the Left, generally more taxes and whining about “fairness” in taxing (but it’s never fair). Always creating a more intrusive bigger government. Always nibbling off freedom via a myriad of restrictions, licenses, permits together with additional taxes they call “fees”. Yes the Right sometimes does the same thing but the Left ALWAYS does so.
21
Nicely put Mark @24216
My father came back from New Guinea damaged after WW11 and the only money we had was what we worked for. No social security.
The left thinks that “social Security” cash comes from heaven or the government manufactures it without any inconvenience to taxpayers.
The main difference between the Left and the Right here is that the Left stab you in the back but at least the right has the good manners to stab you from in front where you can see them coming.
Nothing pretty about politics.
KK
21
Mark D and KK,
I also had relatives in both world wars, some decorated, some KIA. One was at Gallipoli (may not mean much to an American, survived gassing on the western front but died relatively young as a consequence.
My great grandfather was awarded the Military Medal in WW 1, and was captured on the Hindenburg line when his forward post was put too far forward and he and his surviving mates (two of the five killed) ran out of ammunition in a German attack. He escaped the camp, walked to the Baltic and after a few days realised that was as far as he was going to get, and walked back to the camp.
Another relative was in “The Great Escape”, or should have been, but as he was the closest thing in the camp they had to a doctor, gave up his escape ticket to a man who was later executed and felt guilty for the rest of his life. My mother complains that in the movie, the ‘doctor’ has dark hair whereas Flight Leuitenant Cornish was blond. He had joined the air force after his brother,a bomber pilot, was killed over Milne Bay, New Guinea.
I conducted an oral history project interviewing veterand of a WW 2 battalion (the 2/14) who had fought in the middle east, New Guinea and Borneo.
These men were from a variety of backgrounds although they all enlisted in the ranks, some later becoming officers. Among them were staunch trade unionists. The late Jim Coy was given the honour of leading the 7th Division in an ANZAC day parade a few years ago. As the TV commentator said, a very brave man, was a “wharfie”, about as left wing a union as you could get. Yet he volounteered with his mate Chas to fight the commies in the Korean war, The recruiting officer turned them down, possibly recognising Jim was still a little battle happy. His mate Chas responed: “Oh so this is an exclusive sort of a war is it?”
Jim’s mate Ted Hearn (also now deceased)was succesful in volounteering for Korea. Jim gave Ted heaps about that for the next 60 years – “Fancy volunteering for that”. Until at a reunion luncheon where I was a speaker, I told everyone about Jim’s failed attempt to join up.
Not one Australian in 10,000 has heard of the Battle of Kapyong, a forgotten battle in a forgotten war, where an Australian Battallion was awarded a US presidential citation for its vital role in holding off Chinese attempting to break through to Seoul.
Ted, who remember had faced the Japanese on the Kokoda track, where the battalion was reduced to a remnant before being withdrwan and by then Ted had been wounded, said that Battle was worse than anything he experienced in World War 2. ‘They came in waves, like ants, making noises, bugles blowing.’
Anyway, yes, unions often misused their power, but strong unions gave this country the 8 hour day in the 1850’s and wages and conditions such that people did not have to count on tips to survive (I lived and worked in the US for a year) among other things. If you wonder what it would be like without unions (and their power here is decreasing) look at the conditions workers get in the third world.
As far as taxes go, I mentioned earlier that my main concern is that all people regardless of means or choice of parents should be able to access first class health care and education. Unless every kid gets the same opportunity to make the most of his or her talents, any talk of a meritocracy is purest hogwash. And that requires payment of taxes.
The current austerity measures by the conservative government have the less well off doing the heavy lifting.
Jim Coy’s obit. Ted’s does not appear to be available online:
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/obituaries/twice-wounded-in-wwii-but-bravery-rewarded-in-new-guinea-20130701-2p81e.html
10
Found Ted’s obit. Unfortunately no picture of Ted. They are both well worth reading, if I do say so myself. These were brave men and real characters.
http://newsstore.theage.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=age&kw=Ted+Hearn+and+Philip+Shehan&pb=age&dt=selectRange&dr=5years&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=author&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=AGE110625T04426KU53L
10
Philip, I recall Gallipolli but you are right we didn’t have much skin in that game. I did some reading on it and found this very touching memorial:
From Anzak Cove. Beautiful really and with a little adaptation, could be applied at any battlefield in the world.
**********************************************************************
Philip, unions, union hierarchy and their purpose are often different than the individual members. I have many relatives that have been members of many different unions. Labor unions are a fact of life but they absolutely have traceable roots to communism and communists organizers. Does that make all member communists? No. Do union members know what goes on behind the scenes in their union? NO. Do the individuals demand that certain political activities be curbed? NO. Are they all LEFT? YES YES YES!
The Union hierarchy does what it wants, mixes in something attractive for the masses and keeps them quiet. As long as their pay and benefits are high enough, the average union-er remains politically mute and delightfully ignorant. They are nothing more than tools of the LEFT. Don’t worry, I know plenty about unions, union bosses and their history.
I won’t spend time to argue against what the unions have done for health and worker safety except to say that these things would have changed in advancing societies anyway. Perhaps not as fast but unions like to make a big issue about how they saved the workers of the world. In nearly every respect they use their rank and file just like the employer does. In nearly every respect they profit from their members but eschew profits to the employer.
To be clear I don’t mind or care that you support Labor but don’t pass it off as Centrist cause it isn’t. Worse, the effects of Labor on the economics of any country clearly do not end well. They eventually price their members out of jobs and drive costs up. Look at examples all around the world of once thriving now dead industry. Look at Detroit to see what Labor leaves behind.
10
Again, another brilliant comment from mark at 2 4 2 1 10
As an ex unionist for part of my working life I feel entitled to comment on the abuses of the “workers” by the union apparatchiks.
KK
00
I do like scientific arguments..
But you have NEVER had any, except a monkey with a piece of straight wood.
That monkey shows a very mediocre understanding of maths, even for a monkey.
That monkey has been a quite hilarious to watch in its ineptitude. 🙂
31
Philip;
While I believe your understanding of the science is wrong, I would rather engage in the what’s and why’s of both sides of view. There is much to be learned for all parties when we discuss the science.
The Griss shoots from the hip and scatter-guns everybody. That doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is when discussions reduce down to a verbal stand-off, with zero discussion of why each party believes the other is wrong, misled, confused, whatever your favourite term may be.
If we can put forward our understanding of a topic, we may indeed find out that we were wrong. I believe most on this site would change their understanding if it could be reasonably demonstrated be wrong. However; over the years, we’ve seen many pro-CAGW supporters come here yet never engage in discussion of the science (other than to point to another blog post which supposedly explains things, they never do). The reasoning behind the beliefs never get discussed, and the whole post devolves into a food fight.
So, I’m simply trying to encourage you to look past The Griss and engage with us in the details. Not the over simplifications of somebody else’s authority.
00
Greg, A very reasonable post.
I was entitled to reject the assertion in your previous post that I lambast people or call them stupid (although I confess to reaching the limit of my patience on occassions)rather than put scientific arguments.
13
Another survey nooooooo LOL I’ve seriously given up trying to analyze what people think, you could ask the same questions to someone the next day and get completely different answers as they would be influenced by a news report or some expert at work.
I also don’t buy the view of unskilled worker/socioeconomic demographics for the simple reason that many CAGW proponents I consider to be scientific dumbasses have academic achievements and experience way beyond my basic education but still make the same stupid assumptions as someone who never finished high school.
Stupidity is a cruel disease that doesn’t discriminate with any class of person or their standing in society.
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“Stupidity is a cruel disease that doesn’t discriminate with any class of person or their standing in society.”
Yonnie, that is so true. Apparently, stupidity is not only a cruel disease it seems to be highly contagious and most probably airborne! O_o Keep fighting the good fight! -Paul 🙂
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well, there is maybe an interesting and understandable difference between the educated and the rest. Just have a look at the money, who is in it at the left side and is educated has a reason. It’s like being a member of the party in some countries, also to consider is why that party never has more than a very small minority supporting them.
10
Surveys always prove one thing,”That people are not as smart as they think they are”. I think someone famous said that years ago. ( I cant remember who right now) I think we can agree to disagree on consensus about this or that. But if this theory is true and we are all going to die and the world is going to end just because there’s more Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere please explain the 80% discrepancy between the long term mean average Carbon Dioxide levels say over the last 500-600 million years and today’s current levels?
I put that to a “believer” at a party I went resonantly and she replied “Ya we should do something to bring it back down.” To which I replied “No you got it wrong its the other way round. We are in a Carbon recession its normally between 1700 ppm to 2400 ppm, a mean medium average of about 2000 ppm and we are so low at 400 ppm that species are in danger of becoming extinct. It may of already had contributed to some extinctions.” Her reply was,” Really mean average over how long.” “500 to 600 million years” I replied and she was stopped in her footsteps no oh your just a denier or anything. So I just thought I should share that we you. I just wonder why something about our long term Carbon Dioxide levels are never in survey like this one the Jo wrote about or speaken of. Even if its just to ask people what they think the long term mean average Carbon Dioxide levels where. I’m shore it would give them a new prospective on our current levels knowing how many times more it was in the past compared to today’s levels and for how long ha.
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Long term for many Australians is the time between when the ads start and the TV show resumes.
00
i saw Lewis Page’s piece but, as it’s an online poll, with dodgy questions, i felt it said little of worth. however, i did consider the part the English language played in the scepticism of some countries, buy i came to entirely different conclusions to Looney Mooney in the Guardian, who brings up the $900m figure twice, ignores the leftwing govts in the US &, until recently, in Australia. those commenting add the Koch Bros to Mooney’s argument naturally. as for Murdoch, he and his media in US, UK & Australia have overwhelmingly run with all the scary CAGW stories, given little exposure to CAGW scepticism, and he has only publicly expressed his own scepticism in recent weeks:
23 July: Guardian: Chris Mooney: The strange relationship between global warming denial and… speaking English
Polling from IPSO Mori shows US clearly the worst in its climate denial, followed by UK and Australia, reports Climate Desk
PIC: Rupert Murdoch
The US climate change counter movement is comprised of 91 separate organizations, with annual funding, collectively, of “just over $900 million.” And they all speak English.
“I do not find these results surprising,” says Riley Dunlap, a sociologist at Oklahoma State University who has extensively studied the climate denial movement. “It’s the countries where neo-liberalism is most hegemonic and with strong neo-liberal regimes (both in power and lurking on the sidelines to retake power) that have bred the most active denial campaigns—US, UK, Australia and now Canada…
According to a study in the journal Climatic Change earlier this year, the US is home to 91 different organisations (think tanks, advocacy groups, and trade associations) that collectively comprise a “climate change counter-movement.” The annual funding of these organisations, collectively, is “just over $900 million.” That is a truly massive amount of English-speaking climate “sceptic” activity…
Ben Page, the chief executive of Ipsos MORI (which released the data) adds another possible causative factor behind the survey’s results, noting that environmental concern is very high in China today, due to the omnipresent conditions of environmental pollution. By contrast, that’s not a part of your everyday experience in England or Australia. “In many surveys in China, environment is the top concern,” Page comments. “In contrast, in the west, it’s a long way down the list behind the economy and crime.”
Whatever the precise concatenation of causes, the evidence seems clear. We English speakers have a special problem when it comes to understanding and accepting climate science. In language, we’re Anglophones; but in climate science, we’re a bunch of Anglophonies.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/23/the-strange-relationship-between-global-warming-denial-and-speaking-english
as for my conclusion? i figured the English-speaking countries are the ones with WUWT, JoanneNova, Climate Audit, Climate Depot, Bishop Hill, Delingpole etc, plus The Global Warming Swindle. give thanx for the power of the internet and the CAGW sceptic websites.
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” … And they all speak English. “I do not find these results surprising,” …”
Good grief! Surprising? Really? Been living under a rock since the English language book Silent-Spring was published maybe? Has everyone forgotten, or not even realized this is perhaps because the ecological “systems-approach” global paradigm and resulting political-leftist environmental extremism group-think was developed first within the English-language dominated Western ‘developed’ world, last century? Eco-extremism was also the most perverse and corrupt within the English-speaking West in groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, and numerous others.
Which resulted in a predictable reaction to their extremely distorted and false propaganda and concerted undermining of public debate, to generate willful damage to society, to policy and to economic well-being and stability. Their claim to be working for sustainability amounts to an agenda of promoting instability in the English- language dominated and (once) most industrialized world
Not surprising then that the reaction against this greenish lie-assault has been concentrated within the English language press and blogs, and has annoyed and motivated a large number of English speakers to undermine its constant lies and gross misrepresentation of science.
I’m not the slightest bit surprised the Chinese are horrified by the state of their own mismanagement of their landscape’s environment and their cities. But what has this to do with misrepresenting and damning English speakers? Or is it yet another of the tedious brainless anti-anglo diatribes? If it walks like a duck …
but let me know when you’ve achieved greater, and are not just playing catch-up and copying and emulating our culture and technology, as then I’ll clap and cheer you one and sincerely congratulate you. But until then you can blow your scantily-clad anti-anglo racism and leftist jealousy and insecurity out of your ventral orifice … mmmkay?
/rant
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Seriously? They want to call it a “climate denial movement”? The only movement I’m involved in requires the use of a bathroom and is quite private. As for the “climate denial” portion of that phrase, who denies there is a climate?
The absolutely arrogant stupidity that comes out of the mouths of our academics these days is beyond words.
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“Pretty much everyone agrees that companies don’t do enough for the environment. ”
Classic case of responsibility transference. Companies are made up of people, managers, shareholders and workers. The recent case involving senior Greenpeace executives “not doing enough for the environment” is a perfect example. When a supposed “Good” is always someone else’s job, it’s a sign of institutionalised hypocrisy.
“It also showed there was a higher proportion of skeptics among the well educated, and the largest contingent of believers was left in the unskilled worker category.”
Confirms my intuition over the relevance of Alarmist Climate Science qualifications and the Left Wing Indurrlectuals who support them. A notable sceptic scientist, giving evidence to a Commons Select Committee, pointed out that climate scientists weren’t the brightest bunnies in the briar patch, as the hard science”cream” had mostly gone into more productive areas of the economy. The common links between the bedwetting classes and the unskilled working class are a pathalogical fear of the unknown and an instinctive Luddism. Innovation and risk management are unknown, hence dangerous, concepts to them.
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I can shut up any warmist by asking them to explain, using science, how ‘greenhouse gases’ trap heat and just how does the other 99.9% of gases in the atmosphere cool down once they are warmed by convection. If people don’t fight back about this scam they deserve to lose their money.
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Richard111. I agree 100%. In my opinion, the phrase ‘greenhouse gases trap heat’ was coined as proof to the average citizen that the presence of atmospheric greenhouse gases will increase the Earth’s surface temperature via the mechanism of “trapping heat”. Once people believe greenhouse gases “trap heat” it’s a small step to atmospheric greenhouse gases cause Earth surface warming. When the average person is asked what he means by the phrase “trapping heat”, the fun begins.
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Quite so, Reed. Then get on the subject of TRANSPARENT GASSES to really wind them up. 🙂
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I would point out to them the reason carbon dioxide is used in green/glasshouses is not to heat it but to assist in the growth of plants.
It is mainly the sun and water vapour that is used to heat the greenhouses with some outside heating used during periods of cold weather
00
Tim says-
“It would be interesting to know just who commissioned Ipsos Mori to conduct this massive survey”
Ofgem/Decc & other Govt depts/agencies commission Ipsos Mori but, in this particular case, my best guess (given Ipsos Mori don’t provide this info) is:
.pdf: European Commission: 2013 Annual Activity Report:Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA)
Secondly, BEPA also focused on the positioning of the Commission on the international stage. Over the last two years, BEPA has been steering the Inter-Institutional Project “ESPAS” (European Strategy and Policy Analysis System), which delivered its initial results in the shape of a major report entitled “Global Trends 2030…
In February 2013 BEPA organised the first international annual ESPAS conference, which represented an important contribution to the on-going work of the project and whose findings contributed to the delivery of three studies (global trends reports) by ***external contractors devoted respectively to the economy, society and international governance and power…
For the future, the precise nature of any inter-institutional agreement will be important as will the substance of the ESPAS Global Trends Report due in ***mid-2014…
Monitoring public opinion in Europe
Following its success in 2012, BEPA organised during 2013 (together with DG COMM) a second seminar on public opinion with the participation of Directors General, Cabinets members and members of the Spokespersons Service. Key speakers included Dominique Reynie, Director of Fondapol, and ***Bobby Duffy, from the IPSOS MORI Institute …
http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/synthesis/aar/doc/bepa_aar_2013.pdf
btw Bobby Duffy is Managing Director of the Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute.
the Environment survey is only part of Global Trends Report 2014:
16 July: UK Independent: Antonia Molloy: The UK is one of the most traditional countries in the world, but also one of the most technology-obsessed, survey finds
(Additional reporting by Press Association)
The inaugural Ipsos MORI Global Trends report covered attitudes to things including technology, and globalisation across 20 countries.
The inaugural Ipsos MORI Global Trends report covered attitudes to technology, privacy, tradition, health, simplicity, globalisation, inequality, trust and brands.
The survey of adults aged up to 64 was conducted in September last year in China, India, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, South Africa, Italy, Australia, Poland, America, Russia, Canada, Britain, France, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Japan.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-uk-is-one-of-the-most-traditional-countries-in-the-world-but-also-one-of-the-most-technologyobsessed-survey-finds-9609420.html
from the Methodology page of the Poll Jo links to for this thread:
The survey was conducted in 20 countries around the world via the Ipsos Online Panel system – Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.
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re Ben Page, who is quoted by Chris Mooney in the Guardian piece. love how he worked for Murdoch’s Sky!
Ipsos-Mori: Ben Page – Chief Executive
From 1987-1992 Ben worked in our private sector business on corporate reputation and consumer research, working for companies like Shell, BAE Systems, ***Sky TV and IBM. Since 1992 he has worked closely with both Conservative and Labour ministers and senior policy makers across government, leading on work for Downing Street, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office and the Department of Health, as well as a wide range of local authorities and NHS Trusts.
Named one of the “100 most influential people in the public sector” by the Guardian, and one of the 50 “most influential” by both Local Government Chronicle and the Health Service Journal, he is a winner of a British Market Research Association (BMRA) award and a 2005 Market Research Society (MRS) medal. Ben is currently on advisory groups at the CBI, Design Council, Kings Fund, Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), and the Social Market Foundation (SMF).
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/aboutus/seniorstaff.aspx
at same link, re Bobby Duffy, includes –
While at Ipsos MORI, Bobby has spent time on secondment at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and as a User Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE…
He is a frequent public speaker and commentator, having appeared on most of the key outlets, including the Today programme, Newsnight, ITV News at 10, BBC News at 6 and many others. He has written widely on social policy issues, including in the Guardian, Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal, Prospect, New Statesman, Public Finance, Huffington Post and many others.
u have to laugh.
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Thanks Pat – much appreciated. The weather cannot be changed; but people’s attitudes and beliefs regarding it can. So I guess this possibly comes under ‘international policies and strategies’ to do just that.
We needed a worthy replacement for Memory Vault. Congratulations.
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What happened to Memory Vault?
30
I admire your choice of source publication.
Good idea.
😉
20
This reply should be at #10
Not here
10
A “replacement”? Usually swathes of copypasta with no analysis, filtering, historical perspective, insight, flair, or original thought. It’s absolutely nothing like Memory Vault’s comments. Maybe you meant “substitute”.
Now, on the plus side, if an automated Google search based on recently mentioned events or keywords is what you’re looking for, pat is your one stop shop. Also the sort of unusually retaliatory derision that led to MV being reprimanded (and leaving in a huff over double standards) has so far not been exhibited by pat. So being insufficient as a replacement for MV is not all bad news.
Considering Fly binned MV for atypically saying, on one day, two comments less abusive than what “The Griss” continues to routinely get away with nearly every week, his departure was pretty darn unjust.
No use bellyaching about it now, though. You can still get your occasional MV fix, but you have to search some other place.
00
WASHINGTON—
In a worrying development that could have dire implications for the health of the planet,
a report published Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests that the number of climate change skeptics could reach catastrophic levels by the year 2020.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-climate-change-skeptics-could-reach-catastr,36521/
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These people are dangerous lunatics.
90
Oh…. it’s satire.
00
I admire your choice of source publication.
What an idea.
😉
20
This was a classic from the onion 2006:
Nation’s Snowmen March Against Global Warming
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nations-snowmen-march-against-global-warming,1880/
. . .
Of course, globally, 2014 has seen more snow & ice than ever and snow people flourish in both hemispheres:
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/noaa-28504-low-max-records-set-in-last-365-days/
28,504 Low Max Records were set in last 365 days according to the NOAA.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/hottest-year-ever-brings-five-feet-of-snow-to-victoria/
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Imagine that. A catastrophic level of people who don’t believe the EPA. What catastrophe? Where is a single prediction of dire consequences that has come true?
Oh! Excuse me. I wasn’t supposed to ask that question you say? But since I did, can you answer it?… … …No???
Well I can. You haven’t a single prediction that has come true or is even about to come true.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. EPA. It will surely do you more good than what you’re smoking now.
Dangerous, cold and calculating to be sure. But probably not lunatics, not with the weight of the Federal Government behind them.
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And if you think we’re so dangerous here’s my challenge to you. Do something about us.
This citizen is just waiting for a good fight. The Constitution still protects my freedom of speech so go ahead and try to shut me up. I’ll be replaced by dozens of others.
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In fact, Gina McCarthy, if you’re so sure about what you say, bring your goons to my house personally. I want to see if you can put your commitment where your mouth is.
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But I don’t think you have the guts for it.
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About all you have going for you is the load of crap only something like The Onion would publish.
20
You could try countering us with sound science instead of consensus. You could report things going on around the world honestly. That would help a lot.
In the meantime, people with more actual knowledge of the science than you have are running circles around you.
In a word, it’s all about honesty. And you aren’t honest.
50
And it’s not going to make me cry a bit to know you think it’s too late to reverse the trend.
40
Now someone will probably point out what the Onion really is, huh.
20
Amen…
00
i CERTAINLY HOPE SO……..
10
There are so many reasons to be very concerned about the environment, but Global Warming is not one of them. However this worldwide scam has done enormous damage to people’s trust in scientists to be impartial. Worse, there are people doing real damage like the recent disastrous floods in England due partly to the decision to let the canals clog and return the wetlands to the natural river barriers they were.
Even scientists are blinded by their received opinions, like Chris Turney who could have killed a whole boatload of people by his stubborn refusal to believe there was record ice in Antarctica. We had the same thing with a TV crew who went the length of the Murray to film an empty river in the drought only to find that the 26 locks kept it full of water.
Water is the biggest environmental problem. In Australia, there has not been a big dam built in 50 years, despite the established pattern of major drought. In the worst case, the earthworks dam at Wivenhoe, containing nearly three Sydney Harbours nearly went over the top and destroyed the dam and the whole of the Brisbane valley simply because we had been assured by Tim Flannery that the rains would not come. A dam with a safety margin of 100% was allowed to go to 198%. When they finally opened the sluices, it was almost too late and one more rain and goodbye Brisbane and millions of people. Sorry.
No the faux scientists have done enormous damage not only by wasting a billion dollars a day on medieval windmills and failed projects and massively subsidized personal solar electricity, but by the opportunities missed to provide for the future. To be fair we do have a hundred billion dollars worth of desalination plants lying idle. Now nothing more than an imminent real disaster will get those sort of public funds and then too late.
Most of all, it has destroyed faith in Science organizations like the CSIRO. Here was an organization which spent 50 years trying to make rain by seeding clouds and then told us that the drought was our fault and we should pay more. At least they are consistent.
The only other time faux science has become religion and gone for our wallets was the creation of the Church of Scientology created by science fiction writer and serial opportunist L. Ron Hubbard. Is it too late for Tim Flannery to create his church of Hot Rocks?
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To this day, most people in Brisbane are not aware how close they came to being swept away because of Flannery and his ilk. We were tipped off, had all our prized possessions and documents stored in all our vehicles bar one, parked on top of a hill at Corinda.
I can now reveal that Flannery’s dud predictions was the prime reason why he was sacked!
71
Chilling images.
00
I certainly agree with the statement “Environmental scientists don’t know what they are talking about” I would go further that there is no so-called climate scientist that understands the engineering subjects of thermodynamics and heat transfer ( and that includes those that maybe somewhat sceptical of the IPCC position). Further, from what I have seen there is no person association with the IPCC (ie authors, committee members, reviewers etc) that has any qualifications or experience in in the above engineering subjects and other engineering science such as fluid dynamics, reaction kinetics, mass transfer, process control, dimensional analysis, cost estimation etc.
Scientists with their narrow thinking and political bias to cover their incompetence are giving technology a bad name. Back some 15 years ago that great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was rated second to William Shakespeare in the list of Great Britons. “Man’s” progress has come from engineering innovation not from alchemy.
80
Then there are people who just can’t take some surveys seriously!
Now that can really be fun. 🙂
30
Climategate 1 and Climategate 2.
Nudge Nudge Say No More
40
Tim Flannery predictions, you know them, did not happen.
Nudge Nudge Wink Wink Say No More
41
Shall I go on?
42
In a survey you get the answers to the question you ask.
Asking the apparent question in a certain and carefully crafted way can provide the answer you want, a typical propaganda technique.
Ask the question in another way and the answers you get to that question might tell you nothing at all as the question has just confused people.
Something I have experienced in most of a couple of the questions in most of the survey’s I have ever taken part in and which I now just refuse to get involved in in any way as I regard them as a waste of time and generally highly inaccurate in outcomes and often nothing more than designed to be used as propaganda when assessing the public’s pulse on a controversial subject.
And an ever more sophisticated public is indulging in gaming the answers far more when it comes to surveys today.
Asking the question after it has been thoroughly checked and filtered so as to most likely give a genuine and accurate response and assessment of the surveyed public and which is not shaped by the content and structure of the question, then you might get a close to reality picture of the surveyed public’s attitudes and reactions to the narrowing point of the question.
Our own biases show through quite dramatically in the questions we ask, the way we ask them and the answers we accept as being a genuine outcomes to the question.
It is a psychological reaction to having to constantly process vast amounts of information so we filter that information to fit our own perceptions derived from past experiences involving similar scenarios.
So as to prevent our minds from just becoming completely overloaded and to prevent complete metal confusion and breakdown by mentally selecting a simple strategy that we can comprehend, follow and implement and simplifying by eliminating most other factors whether they are later shown to be relevant or not.
So we answer those survey questions from our own mental perspective at that point in time and not necessarily the way in which we would answer that question later when closer or further from the event or circumstance surrounding the survey question.
The survey company folk who draw up these survey questions, despite all their most careful attempts to remove any personal or most obviously their collective bias in connection with the subject still fall for the questioner’s bias problems inherent in any drawing up any question on any particularly controversial subject.
And if an organisation or company has employed and instructed a survey company to run a survey on their behalf, would you as a survey company then design a survey that was going to tell your paymasters that they were all regarded as lower than wet bovine excreta in the eyes of the public ?
40
“tell your paymasters that they were regarded as lower than wet bovine excreta…..”
Yes Rom, if you are in business that is exactly what you need to know and why. You want from the survey an accurate picture of the way your target customers think to predict their response to whatever you are planning – your business survival will depend on it. Such a survey includes neutral and test questions to detect biases (and gaming). That is a market survey and will usually stay unpublished.
Of course, if you want a survey as “evidence” to support and promote a narrative then everything you say holds true. I’m quite sure you recognise which type this one is.
I don’t ignore surveys, but I do game them disgracefully.
But that is because I’m a ****.
50
ROM,
Another very interesting comment.
To me it looks impossible to get any government bureaucracy to work itself out of a job. And it’s equally impossible to get some high paid consultant to discover that he’s not necessary. So the source of the questions needs to be looked at very closely. And better yet. Look at the same survey results from different groups, even groups that may agree with each other.
You don’t always have that luxury of course. But where you do, the differences or agreements in the results can give a lot of insight into the reliability of the survey. The survey results Jo so well and accurately documents and the Ipsos Mori survey don’t give us the same essential data to look at. So it’s hard to tell.
I just find it interesting, if not also intuitive, that people tend to care most about the things having the most negative impact on them. Yet climate change has invaded popular culture. “Green” and “carbon footprint” are now being used to sell products across the United States. I don’t know how to read this. It’s a conflict to me that numbers and surveys can’t resolve.
30
It’s the other half, who’re naïve enough to think scientists know what they’re going on about, which worries me.
Pointman
100
Off topic and again a complete vindication for what Tony from Oz and others here have been saying for a long time.
I am also a bit puzzled and am beginning to wonder if Tony Abbot hasn’t pulled the trigger on some sort of Renewable Energy and Climate Catastrophe Science tipping point by so publicly legislating for the demise of the hated carbon tax.
The amount of anti Wind and Solar Renewable energy news and increasingly hostile news and blog items on various national Carbon tax and Carbon trading schemes seems to be accelerating very rapidly at the moment.
This one below needs lots of publicity right now here in Australia to try and get the damn RET wiped out as soon as possible and here’s why.
_______________
The Economist [ via the GWPF site ]’
Sun, wind and drain
Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought.
[ graphs ]
SUBSIDIES for renewable energy are one of the most contested areas of public policy. Billions are spent nursing the infant solar- and wind-power industries in the hope that they will one day undercut fossil fuels and drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere. The idea seems to be working. Photovoltaic panels have halved in price since 2008 and the capital cost of a solar-power plant—of which panels account for slightly under half—fell by 22% in 2010-13. In a few sunny places, solar power is providing electricity to the grid as cheaply as conventional coal- or gas-fired power plants.
But whereas the cost of a solar panel is easy to calculate, the cost of electricity is harder to assess. It depends not only on the fuel used, but also on the cost of capital (power plants take years to build and last for decades), how much of the time a plant operates, and whether it generates power at times of peak demand. To take account of all this, economists use “levelised costs”—the net present value of all costs (capital and operating) of a generating unit over its life cycle, divided by the number of megawatt-hours of electricity it is expected to supply.
The trouble, as Paul Joskow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pointed out, is that levelised costs do not take account of the costs of intermittency.* Wind power is not generated on a calm day, nor solar power at night, so conventional power plants must be kept on standby—but are not included in the levelised cost of renewables. Electricity demand also varies during the day in ways that the supply from wind and solar generation may not match, so even if renewable forms of energy have the same levelised cost as conventional ones, the value of the power they produce may be lower. In short, levelised costs are poor at comparing different forms of power generation.
To get around that problem Charles Frank of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, uses a cost-benefit analysis to rank various forms of energy. The costs include those of building and running power plants, and those associated with particular technologies, such as balancing the electricity system when wind or solar plants go offline or disposing of spent nuclear-fuel rods. The benefits of renewable energy include the value of the fuel that would have been used if coal- or gas-fired plants had produced the same amount of electricity and the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions that they avoid. The table summarises these costs and benefits. It makes wind and solar power look far more expensive than they appear on the basis of levelised costs.
Mr Frank took four sorts of zero-carbon energy (solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear), plus a low-carbon sort (an especially efficient type of gas-burning plant), and compared them with various sorts of conventional power. Obviously, low- and no-carbon power plants do not avoid emissions when they are not working, though they do incur some costs. So nuclear-power plants, which run at about 90% of capacity, avoid almost four times as much CO{-2} per unit of capacity as do wind turbines, which run at about 25%; they avoid six times as much as solar arrays do. If you assume a carbon price of $50 a tonne—way over most actual prices—nuclear energy avoids over $400,000-worth of carbon emissions per megawatt (MW) of capacity, compared with only $69,500 for solar and $107,000 for wind.
Nuclear power plants, however, are vastly expensive. A new plant at Hinkley Point, in south-west England, for example, is likely to cost at least $27 billion. They are also uninsurable commercially. Yet the fact that they run around the clock makes them only 75% more expensive to build and run per MW of capacity than a solar-power plant, Mr Frank reckons.
To determine the overall cost or benefit, though, the cost of the fossil-fuel plants that have to be kept hanging around for the times when solar and wind plants stand idle must also be factored in. Mr Frank calls these “avoided capacity costs”—costs that would not have been incurred had the green-energy plants not been built. Thus a 1MW wind farm running at about 25% of capacity can replace only about 0.23MW of a coal plant running at 90% of capacity. Solar farms run at only about 15% of capacity, so they can replace even less. Seven solar plants or four wind farms would thus be needed to produce the same amount of electricity over time as a similar-sized coal-fired plant. And all that extra solar and wind capacity is expensive.
A levelised playing field
If all the costs and benefits are totted up using Mr Frank’s calculation, solar power is by far the most expensive way of reducing carbon emissions. It costs $189,000 to replace 1MW per year of power from coal. Wind is the next most expensive. Hydropower provides a modest net benefit. But the most cost-effective zero-emission technology is nuclear power. The pattern is similar if 1MW of gas-fired capacity is displaced instead of coal. And all this assumes a carbon price of $50 a tonne. Using actual carbon prices (below $10 in Europe) makes solar and wind look even worse. The carbon price would have to rise to $185 a tonne before solar power shows a net benefit.
[ a bit more ]
___________________
Comment
These figures compare the costs on an annual basis and as you can read the intermittency of the solar and wind are now included in the cost associated with wind and solar compared to the nukes and fossil fueled plants.
But what does not seem to have been included is the length of operating life and the capital replacement costs of replacing the entire wind turbine generation capacity after some 15 years beyond which even if still operating, the turbines become very uneconomic due to blade aerodynamic deformation and the blade aerodynamic changes plus gear and generator wear and tear and drop offs in generating efficiencies which get down to as little as 30 or 40% of the plated capacity after 15 or 20 years and therefore become very uneconomic to continue to operate.
Solar will require panel replacement after perhaps 25 years IF they are lucky to last that long.
But Solar’s sub systems will likely fail in large lumps prior to that 25 year long period.
Nukes are now good to go for a 60 year life cycle nowadays and coal for around the 40 to 50 year economic life with the CCGT’s probably around the 30 year mark for life cycles.
Add that to the already above lousy economic figures for wind and solar and their real actual costs per MW of power zoom skywards even faster.
When all the very recent anti Wind and Solar news is considered, bad luck if your super fund has been conned into putting your hard earned investments into renewable energy.
90
. Don’t Chinese just tend to agree? They are such agreeable people .
Doesn’t it just depend how you express the question ? If the Answer choices are in terms of Agree / Disagree isn’t it odds on that a Chinese will opt – for Agree ? Now what was the Question ?
Perhaps it comes from having to get along together but I don’t know.
30
Interesting point. Could it come from having to get along with their government?
40
Incredibly poor, and loaded, questions. The confused outcome just shows how poor the questions were.
70
Hi Jo Had a look at that survey yesterday could not make heads or tails of anything in it. Basically it seems that very few people anywhere give a ###t about the environment of climate change LOL
30
” The Chinese were simultaneously the most paranoid cynics and the most dutiful recyclers.”
What’s wrong with that? I’m a paranoid cynic and I recycle, produce very little waste, have a solar water heater, and a small PV set up. I collect rain water off the roof that goes into the washing machine. The gray water that comes out goes to flush the dunny.
There is no reason to be a wasteful, over-cosumer type to see through the IPCC propaganda and demand rigorous science.
70
Absolutely right Greg.
50
Greg,
I agree with you. There’s no need to be wasteful. And we should demand rigorous accounting for everything from anyone trying to tell us how to live.
But I hope you’ll answer a couple of questions for me since you have two solar systems installed and running.
1. I once had solar water heating, high quality stuff too, not junk, except for materials used when they installed it and mixed galvanized pipe with copper (bad mistake). It not only didn’t save me anything but the pumps froze up and the pipes rusted closed. It was a disaster except for inflation in the housing market that allowed me to pay off the loan with inflated money. How is your system serving you? Do you save significantly on water heating? If so what is the payback period beyond which you’re actually putting money in your pocket? Are there any problems with the system?
2. How is your PV system doing for you? I assume it generates some power which you either sell back to the utility or that you use and don’t have to buy from them. So what is the payback point beyond which you’re actually saving money with the PV installation? And what is the expected life of the system? Does it have any problems?
60
Roy,
Our experience with a name brand solar hws (actually 2). We ran the first on bore water and it rusted out in about 7 years. Didn’t check the sacrificial anode for condition. Ante’d up for a replacement which has also rusted out in about 12 years, this one run on rain water when possible. Plenty of meat left on the anode in this one.
Plus intermittent problems with the booster thermostat didn’t help the power bill either we’re finding.
Plumber who installed the on-demand gas system knows of only 2 solar systems left in an area with plenty of sunshine, and muttered warnings about heat pump systems too.
50
Ian,
Your experience parallels mine. Of course even standard gas water heaters have a failure rate giving a lifetime of about 10 – 11 years (or less). I attribute this to the way they’re made, glass lined instead of galvanized heavily with zink. The gas water heater in my grandfathers house dated from the early 1930s and was still going strong in the late 50’s when he finally replaced it with a more modern automatic heater. A sacrificial anode doesn’t make up for the galvanized construction. My bet is that the lining eventually cracks somewhere from heat stress exposing the tank directly to the water.
Of course, zink is a lot more expensive these days. So…
Also the ph of the water has its effect too. When I installed a new water heater and the plumber noticed that I had a water softener he warned me that it would shorten the life of the heater. And it did.
The other thing that gets them is connecting to copper pipe without the proper insulating connector. Steel tank, copper pipe and non distilled tap water might as well be a battery, with very destructive consequences to the steel or galvanized iron pipe.
The solar panels themselves were great dirt collectors and had I been more astute about it, should have been cleaned off with soap and a brush then rinsed and squeegeed dry to prevent water spots. I’ve no idea how much their efficiency suffered but it must have been considerable. One the other hand, was I about to get up on the roof every week or two to clean them? Probably not.
Handling water is always some kind of problem. It’s electrically conductive, a catalyst for rust regardless of anything else and it’s a universal solvent for a long list of things. The one repair I did with PVC, replacing the run from the meter to the front of the house, is the only thing that has never needed attention. These days there are plastics that can withstand use as the blower housing for a forced draft furnace — it gets too hot to touch without harm to the housing. But there’s nothing that can both withstand the pressure and the direct flame needed for a water heater. At least none I know of.
These days the rage is tankless water heaters — copper all the way through so it’s not subject to the usual corrosion factors. Unfortunately when I asked my plumber about them he said I don’t have the necessary diameter gas service to make it work.
30
Roy,
I presume your tankless water heaters are what we call on-demand systems?
If so the nod for remote locations here at the moment seems to be Rinnai Infinity systems, which we run from a standard 100 lb household LP gas cylinder on the stove circuit with no problems, so not sure of your gas supply diameter problem.
And to put it bluntly – our solar HWS systems were an expensive hobby that I could have done without and which came nowhere near to breaking even on cost.
Theoretically sound but practically imperfect IMO
00
As a university teacher in China, for the past 10 years, I have chuckled and head-shaked 5 times a day and been in uproarious fits of laughter on many occasions. They are totally dysfunctional in regards to family, friends and government. Even more so than the west. My smarter students (1 in a 100) have left the country. Their ‘education’ system is laughable, it’s not education it’s training.
Mind you, I like the chinese people but the majority are like simple-minded children.
No surprise about their responses to a survey.
60
Having married into that culture, you are absolutely correct. The in-laws are whip smart but very naïve and gullible. They are amazed that people in the US would screw them just as fast as their home folks. Give them a little more time and the cynicism will take root.
40
We don’t have to debate this issue. It only takes one scientist to prove all the others wrong.
For example, not too long ago, everyone seemed pretty sure about the cause of peptic ulcers… or so they thought. But Barry Marshall and Robin Warren stood up against the entire global medical profession to explain the real cause of peptic ulcers. And they received a Nobel Prize for their discovery.
That says it all.
90
I always found it baffling that Swedes, of all people, are the most worried about AGW.
Their roofs collapse in the winter under too much snow, the sea freezes around their ferries so passengers have to walk to shore…
If I was there I’d WANT more warming. Human made or natural, who cares.
110
Swedes love their Environment & their Government.
They are also endearingly trusting like the Chinese but more positive in their outlook because they feel in control.
They are the only Scandinavian country in the survey. How much does their view represent Scandinavian countries as a whole ?
10
Adrian O, a distant relative of mine still living in Sweden told me they were mightily concerned about AGW disrupting the warm north flowing Gulf Stream. Of course this is all part of the Great Climate Scare that warmists deny being a part of.
20
The problem in Sweden is that the media is dominated by the greens (MP) and by the left (VP – we’re not talking democrat left here, it’s communist left).
In a study conducted 2012 41% of the swedish journalists voted for the green MP.
You wouldn’t believe how much crap the media is filling up the swedes with.
Around 1975 wolves started to show up again in Sweden and Norway and many believed that they were reintroduced by man.
When a norwegian documentary presented many proofs that this was the case, do you think that the swedish state television showed the documentary? With 52% of their journalist voting green, of course they didn’t.
In line with the rewilding europe initiative (http://www.rewildingeurope.com/) small sheep farmers is closing down and planting trees on the pastures.
The next logical step for the greens is to make it less profitable to own forest properties.
As in many other countries hunting is popular in Sweden and we’re heading the same way as they did in Yellowstone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk4miKKNax4&app=desktop
10
So in the end, most people appear to be worrying about the things that hurt them, the things that have a daily negative impact on their lives.
I wonder why that could be? 😉
60
And that, of course, is why I follow and worry so much about national and state politics. They are beginning to hurt me, my financial security and even my safety and that of my wife because budgets are always cut from essential services to preserve the free lunch and the regulation gets more restrictive and more expensive. And I’m just a source of money to those who work in government offices from the president on down.
Now I even have a fight with the county board of supervisors with no idea if I can win it or not.
60
I strongly suspect that the proportion of “Don’t know” answers in this type of surveys is way too small, and does not really catch the actual sentiments among ordinary people. Isn’t there yet another “uncertainty monster” buried here?
Having occasionally asked ordinary people, like my neighbours, about all this climate stuff, most of them actually say “don’t know”. They have seen something on TV and read something in the press or the like, but are not particularly well informed, and the obvious reason is that they are not really alarmed – they more or less shrug it off.
From time to time I will get a phone call from some Gallup interviewer asking me some questions about political preferences and such. Then s/he proceeds to ask me about e.g. washing powder. My answers are this and that, I even agree to “rate” some stuff that I have absolutely not the faintest idea about – I just want to be done with it, not being especially interested in nor alarmed about washing powder.
I suspect many people answer the questions in much the same way that I “rate” washing powder.
Nevertheless, I suppose these surveys may tell something of the efficacy of the massive ideological propaganda from the climate activists.
30
Jo
O/T but FYI
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/26/solar-cycle-driven-ocean-temperature-variations/#more-113363
20
I wonder how the scepticism shown in GB splits between Scotland, where most of the windfarms are being sited and the rest of GB.
The first Windfarm has just been announced for Rannoch, a huge unspoilt area of wilderness that takes in the mythical Glencoe & the Fairy Mountain Schiehallion, from which the weight of planet Earth was first measured in 1774, the ancient Black Wood forests of Carrie & Rannoch and one of the world’s Greatest Railway Journeys across Rannoch Moor.
http://www.keeprannochwild.org.uk/page6.php
Plans for a luxury resort complex housing two golf courses were thrown out by planners following local & national outrage a few years ago.
These 140 metre turbines, each bigger than Big Ben and almost the height of the London Eye, 25 of them will be a lot more intrusive than a couple of golf courses but will the Scottish Government, hell bent as it is on ‘renewables’ have the fortitude to resist. I seriously doubt it.
This is where real concern for the environment begins.
You needn’t be a resident to object btw.. Anyone who appreciates the wildscapes of Scotland may make their views known to the Planners, by 5 August.
60
Check out how many trees have been destroyed by these despicable wind towers in Scotland !
http://quixoteslaststand.com/2014/01/01/scotland-5-million-trees-chopped-down-for-wind-turbines-thats-whats-called-saving-the-planet/
UNBELIEVABLE !!!!
60
Translation required
Alex Salmond was visiting a Scottish primary school and the class was in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.
The teacher asked Mr. Salmond if he would like to lead the discussion on the word ‘Tragedy’. So the illustrious SNP leader asked the class for an example of a ‘Tragedy’.
A little boy stood up and offered, “If ma best freen, wha’ lives on a ferm, is playin’ in the field and a tractor rins ower him and kills him, that wid be a tragedy.”
“Incorrect”, said Alex, in his best trying-not-to-sound-too- patronising-Scottish-accent, “That would be an accident.”
A little girl raised her hand, “If a school bus kerryin’ fifty children drove ow’r a cliff, killing a’body inside, that wid be a tragedy”
‘I’m afraid not’, explained Alex, “that’s what we would refer to as a great loss’’.
The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Alex searched the room.
“Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?”
Finally, at the back of the room, a wee lad raised his hand and, in a quiet voice, said: “If a plane kerryin’ you and your deputy ‘ wiz struck by a ‘freendly fire’ missile & blawn tae smithereens, that wid be a tragedy.”
“Fantastic!” exclaimed Alex, “and can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?”
“Weel”, says the lad, “it has tae be a tragedy, because it certainly widnae be a great loss, and it probably widnae be an accident either!”
10
97% of scientists agree they don’t know what theyre talking about?
40
Punctuation is important;
97% of scientists agree. They don’t know what they are talking about.
Doug
30
ABC keeps the dream alive:
26 July: ABC AM: Sydney and Melbourne forge ahead with carbon reduction targets
LISA TUCKER/ABC: Renewable energy is a key factor.
Sydney’s goal is to produce 70 per cent of its electricity needs from tri-generation, a more environmentally friendly, low-carbon production method. Solar and wind power will make up the rest.
Melbourne’s aiming for a renewable energy contribution of 50 per cent…
CLOVER MOORE: It’s much better if the National Government is also committed to taking action on climate change. We already know with the winding back of the carbon pricing that it’s making it harder to achieve our tri-generation precincts in Sydney…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4054362.htm
meanwhile, back in the real world:
26 July: from UK Telegraph: Emil Gosden: Half of Britain to be opened up to fracking
The Department for Energy and Climate Change is expected to launch the so-called “14th onshore licensing round”, which will invite companies to bid for the rights to explore in as-yet untouched parts of the country.
The move is expected to be hugely controversial because it could potentially result in fracking taking place across more than half of Britain. Industry sources said the plans could be announced at a press conference tomorrow…
Ministers said they would offer energy companies the chance for rights to drill across more than 37,000 square miles, stretching from central Scotland to the south coast…
However, the report warned that communities close to drilling sites could see a large increase in traffic. Residents could face as many as 51 lorry journeys each day for three years, the study said.
It also warned of potential strain on facilities for handling the waste water generated by hydraulic fracturing, the process known as fracking, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into rocks at high pressure to extract gas.
There were also concerns over the potential environmental impact on the countryside.
Controversies include plans to offer land within national parks, despite National Trust opposition…
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/half-britain-opened-fracking-213018924.html
26 July: NewIndiaExpress: TANGEDCO’s Coal Imports Likely to Go Up by 60%
Tamil Nadu requires an additional 3.4 million tonnes of imported coal to stave off power crisis this year. It is 60 per cent more than what it imported last year and the increased import comes in the wake of shortage of domestic coal supply even as the demand for thermal power is increasing in the state as more power plants will reach full capacity this year…
Meanwhile, in the next few years, as the number of coal-based plants are added to the state, including those in Udangudi, Kattupali and for the Ennore Expansion Thermal Power Project, increasing coal imports are imminent.
As per estimate, with these plants getting commissioned in the next four years, the demand for coal would increase by over 35 percent. A large chunk of this increase will have to come from imports since the domestic coal supply has already fallen short of demand…
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/TANGEDCO%E2%80%99s-Coal-Imports-Likely-to-Go-Up-by-60/2014/07/26/article2349284.ece
00
pat says here:
That’s just one State in India mind you, but that 3.4 Million Tonnes of coal is barely six months supply ….. for ONE large scale coal fired power plant (2000MW Nameplate)
So, where you see what seems to be huge numbers like this, be aware what that amount actually means.
Note also it says if it doesn’t do this, then there will be a power crisis this year.
The lack of six months supply for ONE power plant will lead to a crisis.
What that tells me is that there is (much like most of Africa, large parts of China, and all the rest of the Developing World) a dearth of power supply for that State, which has a population of 75 Million people.
Tony.
10
***the ABC – having found nothing to satirise “about Labor/Greens’ impossible process of taking grand, uncosted, inadequately planned and fundamentally flawed CAGW schemes – and passing them off as ‘saving the planet'” – finds its comedic edge once again, now that the Coalition is in power! what a laugh…not:
27 July: The Age: Peter Martin: Abbott and infrastructure: Nation building, one elephant at a time
The team from Frontline and The Hollowmen is at it again.
This time their angle is “nation building – one white elephant at a time.”
***Entitled Utopia their new program is “a satire about the difficult process of taking grand, uncosted, inadequately planned and fundamentally flawed schemes – and passing them off as nation building”.
But it’s not the sort of thing you would see in real life, is it? Certainly not repeatedly, deliberately, at the hands of the Coalition…
Here’s the ABC publicity blurb….BLURB BLURB
On climate change the Coalition’s detractors accuse it of being anti-science. On roads they could accuse it of being anti-numbers.
And of providing material for Utopia.
Utopia premieres Wednesday August 13 at 8.30pm on ABC TV.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/peter-martin-abbott-and-infrastructure-nation-building-one-elephant-at-a-time-20140725-zwolj.html
20
25 July: Miami Herald: Robert E. Rubin: Ignoring climate change could sink the US economy
(Robert Rubin, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, was U.S. treasury secretary from 1995 to 1999)
(Special To The Washington Post)
The scientific community is all but unanimous in its agreement that climate change is a serious threat. According to Gallup, nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that global warming is caused by human activity…
But climate change is a present danger…
What we already know is frightening, but what we don’t know is more frightening still…
I recently participated in a bipartisan effort to measure the economic risks of unchecked climate change in the United States. We commissioned an independent analysis, led by a highly respected group of economists and climate scientists, and our inaugural report, “Risky Business,” was released in June…
Second, investors should demand that companies disclose their exposure to climate risks, including the impact that climate change could have on their businesses and assets, the value of their assets that could be stranded by climate change, and the costs they may someday incur to address their carbon emissions. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was a co-chair of the “Risky Business” report, and former Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Schapiro are leading an effort to encourage businesses to incorporate such reporting into their quarterly disclosures, but such reporting is still considered optional by the SEC. I believe that such disclosures should be considered material and mandated by the SEC, not just requested by investors…
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/25/4255303/ignoring-climate-change-could.html
LOL…above & below links:
16 July: Politico: Tom Steyer (Risky Business) struggles to find big-money donors
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and KENNETH P. VOGEL
His super PAC, NextGen Climate Action, has raised just $1.2 million from other donors toward that goal, according to still-unreleased figures that his aides shared with POLITICO…
The numbers show just how hard it may be for Steyer to persuade rich liberals to spend their millions on climate change while voters focus on the economy, immigration and Obamacare. They also call into question whether Steyer can really become the big-money titan in Democratic politics — a counterweight to the dominance that deep-pocketed donors like the Koch brothers have achieved in conservative circles…
Some donors complain that Steyer isn’t offering would-be check writers the high-level courtship they’ve come to expect, instead delegating much of the schmoozing to top advisers. In addition, anyone donating to Steyer’s super PAC would risk being drawn into the fierce attacks that conservative groups are trying to mount on the billionaire’s credibility.
More than a half-dozen other wealthy, green-minded donors either declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries from POLITICO about whether they will donate to Steyer’s cause. Several said they were still considering their options…
In its most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, NextGen Climate Action reported raising $7.3 million from Jan. 1 through June 4, with almost all of that money coming from Steyer. Only $210,000 in major contributions came from outside donors, including Berger’s money — and $100,000 apiece from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and former Goldman Sachs executive Larry Linden.
NextGen aides told POLITICO that outside donations to the super PAC have increased to about $1.2 million since the last filing deadline, a total that will be reflected when the group files upcoming reports with the FEC…
But some potential contributors questioned Steyer’s motives in seeking so much outside money. “He would be taking/getting 100 percent credit for the outcome while using other people’s resources for 50 percent of the spending,” one Democratic donor, who requested anonymity to discuss Steyer, said in an email…
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/tom-steyer-donor-struggle-109016.html
***if the people allow them, they will:
2010: HuffPo: Larry Summers, Robert Rubin: Will The Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt The University And The Country?***
by Harry R. Lewis, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard and former Dean of Harvard College
Harvard lost $11 billion from its endowment last year, plus another $2 billion by gambling with operating cash and $1 billion in bad bets on interest rate fluctuations. Harvard had been borrowing vast sums to leverage its assets and to expand its physical plant; its president, Lawrence Summers, had described as “extraordinary investments” what ordinary people would call crushing debt. The only way to balance the looming deficits was through huge investment returns. The speculating worked for a while, but when the bubble burst, Harvard was left almost insolvent.
A presidential resignation might have been expected, but Summers, the president most responsible for Harvard’s unsustainable growth plan, had resigned already–he is now a top economic adviser to Barack Obama…
Harvard’s board is intertwined with the shadow elite of Wedel’s Chapter 5: the team of experts who disastrously advised the Russian government on capitalism in the 1990s. Engaged by the U.S. to show the Russians how the West controls corruption, the advisers became models of what to avoid…
When Robert Rubin became Treasury Secretary in 1995, Summers became his Deputy Secretary, later succeeding him as Secretary…
Rubin is now gone from his leadership role and his board membership at Citigroup, hauling away $126M from a firm that was $65B poorer than when he joined it, with 75,000 fewer jobs. But he remains on the Harvard board, in spite of the financial meltdowns at both Citigroup and Harvard and his poor oversight of the problematic president he persuaded Harvard to hire…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-r-lewis/larry-summers-robert-rubi_b_419224.html
00
22 July: Forbes: Loren Steffy: Why Tom Steyer’s Millions Aren’t Going To Save The Planet
Do as I say, not as I’ve done…
The New York Times recently published a lengthy article about how Steyer’s former investment firm, Farallon Capital Management, has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into coal projects around the world in the past 15 years…
Even if Americans did far more — if everyone, for example, stopped driving completely — it would be unlikely to reverse the effects of climate change. That’s because carbon emissions from the Asia Pacific is growing at a more rapid rate than the developing world can offset…
Steyer is essentially asking millions of people to embrace a life of abject poverty in the hope of averting climate change. He offers no assurance. In fact, even though he purports to be a student of science, he ignores the inconvenient truth that climate change may be unstoppable because billions of poor people don’t want to be denied the living standards he has enjoyed his whole life…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorensteffy/2014/07/22/why-steyers-millions-arent-going-to-save-the-planet/
10
25 July: San Francisco Chronicle Blog: Carla Marinucci: Obama slams “corporate deserters” – critics cry hypocrisy
President Barack Obama’s Los Angeles speech Thursday — slamming “corporate deserters” who take their big bucks overseas to sidestep U.S. taxes — comes a year after he starred at a fundraiser in the San Francisco home of billionaire Tom Steyer, who’s been accused of the same thing, critics say…
Sabrina Lockhart, communications director for Californians Against Higher Oil Taxes: “Hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, who hides his coal fortune in exotic off-shore tax havens, probably disagrees with the President’s characterization of him as a ‘corporate deserter.’ Steyer’s secret Cayman tax shelters and proposals for higher gas and energy prices show how out of touch he is with average Californians and even his own party.”
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/07/25/obama-slams-corporate-deserters-critics-cry-hypocrisy/
00
I’m no China expert, but they strike me as rational environmentalists. When you have 1.3bn in fairly poor conditions, improving the LOCAL circumstances are important.
Your hotel reminds you to economise on water when showering – or Beijing runs out. They recycle, because it’s cheaper than consuming new. They use electric bikes, not to reduce global CO2s but to reduce pollution in the local air they’re breathing today. Same reason as LA brought in emission standards – they have mountains that trap the air.
In Xian, with 1/3 the population of AUS, there was no one windmill. But many homes had rudimentary solar hot water – because it makes sense, is cheap and works.
Improving local enviro conditions is rational for us, and life saving for them. They absolutely could not give a rats about gerbil working except that silly gweilo care so will buy windmills and solar from them. Their wind farms are only there are a demonstration / sales model.
10
The Chinese waste nothing. They eat the whole prawn and pull out the shell. Around every building site are shops which sell anything and everything left over. In food, as Christopher Morley once said, they eat everything on four legs except a table, everything on two legs except a waiter. Now you could see this as dutiful recycling or environmentalism, but in fact it is just poverty or poverty based tradition. Nothing is wasted in poor Russia either. An old zip can be traded and buttons. One person leaves something out and the next takes it in. In Bangkok, there is the house of springs where the whole joint bounces because all they have are second hand springs. In an older, poorer Australia, people bathed in each other’s bath water once a week to save heat and water on bath night where in US hotels, you could fill a bathtub in a few minutes and half the food served is still thrown out. So it is easy to misinterpret motives.
What is certain is that most surveys are not representative at all. They are based on results from people who have the time and inclination to answer surveys, which eliminates a lot of people whose opinions matter. They are also confusing as topics like ‘disaster is coming’ can mean such different things. Global, local or just a bad feeling about the toaster.
20
My point is that it is easy to confuse recycling with necessity.
The negativity of the Chinese is also understandable. The Chinese are like everyone else, want quality of life, but the crowding in their cities has to be seen, with about 40 Melbourne size cities and giant places like Shanghai, with perhaps 37 million people around one city. You have to see the circle of buildings like our Housing Commission about 30km out, blocks of 20 storey buildings in groups 20 x 10 then a park and then another set 20×10 and then a park, all the way around. The population of Australia in a giant circle. Of course these people want a green planet, a life among the flowers and fresh water and education, but they have crowding and competition for open space we cannot imagine. So I am not surprised they have a bleak picture of the future and are scared. So what they see as a climate problem is a little different, if you have experienced the weather in Shanghai in summer where you can cut the air with a knife.
We can only assume they read about our concerns in the West with a mixture of alarm and amusement. We already have a quality of life they can only dream about and our weather is lovely, particularly in Australia. The Greens should try to sell their back to basics ideas in China. No one wants to go back to log cabins and open fires in the country. You could not sell such an incredible fantasy.
10
The overlap between people who think climate change is man-made and those who think it is natural is down to the “experts“. Anything that confirms the CAGW theory is a sign of things to come, whilst any awkward anomalies are natural variation. The term “climate change” also has a double-meaning.
20
“The great thing about a joke with a double meaning, is that it can only mean one thing.”
The Late Great Ronnie Barker.
10
In the Henry Ergas column in the Australian this morning, 60% of Australians believe a Carbon Tax will make no difference to world temperature. What is really puzzling is that 40% of people believe an Australian tax will make a difference to temperature? How does that work?
Or does the result simply match the % of people who vote Labor/Green? In an increasingly socialist country with the government spending much more than it taxes, there is always support for more taxes on the presumption that only one half of society will have to pay them. The other half.
00
Yep
I’m inured to it now. Homo sapiens is not a rational species; in fact, it is fundamentally insane
20
given ALP is polling 54% 2pp at the moment then it can’t be so.
01
alp…..
AUSTRALIAN LIARS PARTY !!
11
Is Tony switching sides?
02
Pooh met Piglet in the hundred acres wood. He was contemplating a piece of shit.
– What is this, Piglet?
– A big and beautiful orange.
– And why does it look like this?
– This is the third time I’m eating it.
¨
Now replace Piglet with IPCC and orange with report.
[Barely passed for publication. – Mod]
[Just playing juvenile games, across several threads, -Fly]
00
Having difficulty in passing ? Try with prunes.
00
Strangely enough , The Guardian ran an article “global warming denial and its relationship with English speaking people, which provided the following table :-
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/7/23/1406105005922/d9e65801-eef1-4bdd-a148-8ef65bc57271-460×282.png
I pointed out that it was strange that there was an inverse proportional relationship to scepticism and amount each Country pays out to “solve” the problem,EG, China has a 98% consensus on AGW but does sweet FA about it , Britain America and parts of Europe have a very much lower consensus but spend billions “solving” the problem.
As ever , my comments were moderated off the page.
PS , hence the new name !
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Why you heretic you. The new name could perhaps do with some explanation though.
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The continuing story of one man and his noble quests. LOL Look out Windmills , i,m coming for ya!
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Perhaps Chinese only saying what they think their watching Govt. expects them to.
It’s much easier to spot the heretics in an open society.
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Do we even know what China’s “environmental scientists” are telling them. The people say they don’t know what they are talking about, but that disaster is imminent. Maybe the official line is that everything is a-ok?
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[…] By leaping on every Leftist politically inspired bandwagon, experts have devalued themselves so much that half the world ignores anything they have to say. […]
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Although people with science degrees are involved, the coming climate crisis cult has nothing to do with science.
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Computer game predictions of the future are not science — they are climate astrology.
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The cult is the result of a lot of government money going to people with science degrees who only have to play computer games and regularly make scary predictions of a climate catastrophe so far in the future they will be dead and gone before it happens.
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There are a lot of young men who love computer games and would LOVE to be able to spend a huge number of years in school, get a PhD, and then play the most complex computer games they could ever imagine … and get paid well for playing!
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In fact, after reading that last sentence, I’m jealous.
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Based on the most accurate data available, there has been no global greenhouse warming since at least 1940 — the only warming measured in that 74-year period was local warming in the northern half of the northern hemisphere for the past several decades.
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It would be very misleading to describe the warming since 1940 as global, which most people would assume means “most of the globe”.
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All the climate models grossly overestimate warming and none predicted no warming since 1998.
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In spite of the inaccurate predictions (as if humans could accurately predict the future), the climate astrologers refuse to debate by the use of ridicule, character attacks, and claims “the science is settled” ( as if science is EVER settled ! )
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IF THE SCIENCE WAS REALLY SETTLED, TAXPAYERS SHOULD STOP PAYING CLIMATE ASTROLOGERS TO PLAY COMPUTER GAMES, AND MAKE THEM FIND REAL JOBS !
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