Climate alarmists might just be captive to basic emotions

Paul Biegler has some words of wisdom in The Age, but unfortunately he mixed up a few vital terms up in his  pop-psychosocial-analysis.
Once again, the projection of the alarmist’s own inner headspace is rampant. Those without the ability to reason keep “finding” that inability in those who can. (It makes sense,  a brain needs to use logic to recognize logic)*. Not surprisingly, surveys also show that skeptics are more literate and numerate than believers.
Those who adopt fashionable ideas to impress their friends assume their opponents behave in the same unscientific way.  I have to sympathise with them. How else can they explain the mismatch between their chosen prophets and their busted prophecies?

The corrected version of  this article in The Age. I’ve taken some savage edits of the article (colored like this) and corrected the terms.

“Climate sceptics alarmists might just be captive to basic emotions”

Instant gratification is a powerful, but flawed, human motivator.

Searching for that perfect Christmas gift for your climate alarmist friend? You could do worse than slinging them a book like Emotional Intelligence, Plimer’s, Carter’s or Bookers. Why? Research is mounting that your friend is the victim of a brain glitch. More particularly, he has been derailed by an emotional response and has capitulated to the pleasure of the here and now. He wants to fit in with his peers, to be fashionable, and to look “smart”. How better than to parade his moral superiority by adopting the notion that man-made global warming is real, and he is a saint because he recycles The Age to save the planet? How better to look smart than to pour scorn on “skeptics”?

The bad news is, all fashions change, and cheap tricks will  come back to bite him. Because he did no research before he derided “deniers” he didn’t realize what an idiot he would look like when the deniers turned out to be professors, nobel prize winners, engineers, number crunchers, and other savvy people who’ve been on the Earth for decades. It’s time to warn him there will be no fashionista points soon in looking like the dupe who swallowed bizarre lines about coal miners causing cyclones. I mean, really?

Climate scepticism alarmism is a strong candidate example of temporal discounting — people taking the easy road to get instant gratification now, and avoiding the cost.  Hundreds of scientific papers and notable scientists point to reams of evidence that natural cycles are more likely to be warming the planet. Yet, doing the research and speaking of your skepticism will cost you real pleasure now. For starters, research takes time, it’s hard work to actually form your own opinion rather than just be a parrot. Then if you admit your skepticism publicly, people will look at you in disdain. Indeed you’ll lose friends. There’s no reward in being exiled.

Your friend will protest that taking action to save the climate is the painful thing, but let’s get real, so far that kind of  “pain” amounts to picnic-type protests where you might meet hot girls; you’re not dishing out many dollars to save the world, nor are you cutting the miles per gallon and not going on the weekend jaunt to Beechworth, Bali  or Bermuda or where-ever. When it comes down to it, you’re not voluntarily paying a lot more money, you’re asking everyone else to share the cost. And since you believe all the Green fairy forecasts that solar will be cheap as coal by 2020, you’re not really expecting it to cost a lot anyway eh? You’re buying the “Mr Superior” Badge dirt cheap. Indeed you may have called it a no-brainer to believe the foreign committee forecasts of doom, and in a sense, you were right. Being gullible takes no-brain.

“A large body of evidence shows that the emotional reward of status enhancement fuels prestige-car purchases. Yet most of us either wilfully deny this, or simply lack introspective access to our true motivations. Instead we convince ourselves that it was the eight air bags or the stability control that clinched it.”
Too true! This is just the same with climate alarmism – it’s the Lamborghini of social mores; the Levi’s of cafe-latte conversation, the Gucci of inner-city-gatherings. But alarmism is more accessible than a Lamborghini — it’s “free”. It’s the poor man’s intellectual equalizer.

In the climate realm, fabrication is rife. Enthralled by their emotional biases, sceptics alarmists mouth desperate appeals to the corruptibility of scientists authority, and blindly ignore the fallibility of climate prediction models.

To err is human and we should forgive many their inability to constrain the draw of the emotions. But this failure to get independent checks and audits and to think for themselves is inexcusably egregious in our politicians, our academics and our journalists.

The creeping sloth of fashion-think and name-calling in place of polite reason and debate must be stopped before we sell our children’s quality of life to Goldman Sachs, throw away efficient energy, and swap medical research and real jobs for pointless circles of bureaucrats.

“Paul Biegler is Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellow in bioethics at Monash University.”

We skeptics hope and pray that one day Monash University will stop awarding PhD’s to people before they teach them how to reason. We also pray that a government will show enough wisdom to axe programs like the ARC one here that funds people to write psycho-babble posing as serious comment.
We won’t find out if the third rock from the sun will warm by reading books on “Emotional Intelligence”.
Read the original: The Age.
9.4 out of 10 based on 97 ratings

297 comments to Climate alarmists might just be captive to basic emotions

  • #
    Dave N

    The last sentence:

    “We won’t find out if the third rock from the sun will warm by reading books on “Emotional Intelligence”.”

    Says it all.

    It’s just another ad-hom ploy to try (ironically) to discredit “non-believers”, rather than addressing the science (or lack thereof)

    20

    • #
      tableracer

      >This is about an earlier, futile protest. It is not strictly a reply to the blog but I believe it needs to be said; see what you think. It certainly fits with the article on “believers” simply taking up the fashionable cause of the day (warming) and then being dumb or illiterate or gullible enough to support it.

      >During 1991-94 in Western Australia I was involved with others, in a campaign to stop or alter the “Introduction”
      (read “Imposition”) of the Bike Helmet Law, (for Adults)

      >Endless parades of well-meaning, ill-reasoned folk told us we were mad to go against this regulation. “If the Government says you must wear Helmets, there must be good reason for that.” THEY did not have bikes, of course.

      >WE REASONED that a person who could legally drink or be sent off to war by his/her country was old enough to decide for themselves to wear a helmet on a day-by-day basis;
      as you might decide to wear shoes, or sandals instead.

      >And we found the National Statistics showed bicycle riders to be the LEAST likely to be injured on the roads.

      >Even Pedestrians were SIX times more likely to die by head injury than you, on your bike; car drivers 22 times more.

      >Like all of us who read these Blogs today, we knew we had the case sewn-up and submitted our story to a Bi-Partisan Committee, established to deal with the Citizen’s uproar.

      >We soon discovered this was a mere sop to the outraged people who beat a trail to the Committees’ door with reams
      of material supporting The Case Against. We even had a Petition with over 20’000 signatures on it.

      >Our Case was then manipulated and mangled beyond belief by
      this Committee which blatantly misrepresented ALL the Statistical Information provided by ALL applicants, finally recommending the Rule become Law “Because it was a Committee on Road Safety, and could not recommend anything which May actually Reduce, Road Safety”.

      >We then got access to a handy Document under F.O.I. laws
      which showed us that our Federal Government was PAYING the States (Pro-rata by population) about $110-Million Plus,
      conditional on them “Introducing” Helmet and other Laws.

      >This was nearly 20 years ago. As I often say now, “We,
      the SENSIBLE PROTESTORS, had attempted to stand between a few hundred politicians and a very large bucket of money”.!
      “They”, cared not a whit, what we “discovered”.! (note well)

      >NOW THE STORY REALLY STARTS:

      >While YOU and I and EVERY blogger here discover and publicise new facts and figures WHICH DISCREDIT CLIMATE CHANGE; …and find new horror-stories on the fast- establishing New Order which is PROMOTING CLIMATE CHANGE
      in order to “tax our asses”.. We are SIDELINED.

      >WE ARE NOT A PART of the Battle, we are in the Wilderness.
      We are doing our own thing, far from the heat of the Action.
      We may as well be on Mars. We are accomplishing NOTHING.

      >These CARBON TAXERS could stop us, but they LET US go on RUNNING AROUND IN OUR OWN LITTLE CIRCLES.. where we are
      NO THREAT TO THEM AT ALL..! THEY WILL DO WHAT THEY LIKE.!

      >One almost thinks, if a Page like this was not already in existence, these evil manipulators would set one up just to give us something to work on, to keep us out of their way..!

      >WHAT WILL WE DO with this information we have gathered…?
      The Media do not care, they report both sides and look for a stoush; they do not care as You AND I do.

      >We need a PLAN OF ACTION which involves A LOT MORE than merely collating and disseminating information; we need Organisation and we need People who will take action.

      >I am past this now, and no help as an activist but this is
      URGENT, this battle needs to be taken to the implacable
      powers which plan “our destiny” in such a cruel fashion.

      Please take notice.. Talk is interesting and encouraging
      but it keeps us busy while the opposition works steadily.
      It’s time to do something… Peter.

      20

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi TR

        Exactly.

        The point is only something Catastrophic will move this AGW monster off the rails and into a siding where it can be given proper scrutiny.

        A Royal Commission is the only way I can think of to expose the corruption and money changing that has gone on in the name of “saving” the planet.

        10

      • #

        The problem is we elect people to be our parents [sovereigns] who then make rules and grant the obedient children privileges [licences] – and take away the pocket money of those who are ‘naughty’.

        It needs to be got into peoples heads that if their is no victim or no harm is done, their is no law.

        We shouldn’t be begging the elected trustees to change the rules, we should be telling them.

        Under the present Statutes the whole of Australia is deemed to be covered by sea [Admiralty Law – see the Interpretations Act]. Statute Law only grants privileges, not rights.

        A good start towards fixing our problems would be the resurrection of Anglo Saxon Common Law.

        In my opinion ‘politicians’ are operating outside the scope of their authority and are therefore in breach of trust.

        10

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Hi Kevin M

          Many would share your point of view.

          “In my opinion ‘politicians’ are operating outside the scope of their authority and are therefore in breach of trust”

          We need to move on and DO something or things won’t change.

          The Convoy was a good start but we need to be very ambitious here.

          We are being Royally Ripped Off.

          A royal commission into the operation of the Constitutions: is compliance with the big C being given due diligence?

          10

          • #

            Our Constitution is an Act of the British Parliament –

            Google: Basic Fraud

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion

            The Colonial Conference of 1907 Issues of colonial self-government spilled into foreign affairs with the Boer War (1899–1902). The self-governing colonies contributed significantly to British efforts to stem the insurrection, but assured that they set the conditions for participation in these wars. Colonial governments repeatedly acted to assure that they determined the extent of their peoples’ participation in imperial wars in the military build-up to the First World War.

            The assertiveness of the self-governing colonies was recognised in the Colonial Conference of 1907, which implicitly introduced the idea of the Dominion as a self-governing colony by referring to Canada and Australia as Dominions. It also retired the name “Colonial Conference” and mandated that meetings take place regularly to consult Dominions in the running the foreign affairs of the empire.

            The Colony of New Zealand, which chose not to take part in Australian federation, quickly became the Dominion of New Zealand on 26 September 1907; Newfoundland became a Dominion on the same day. The newly-created Union of South Africa would also be referred to as a Dominion in 1910.

            10

          • #
        • #

          Statute Law [Admiralty Law] is Commercial or Company Law, which is why parliamentarians are called politicians because they make company policy and employ policy enforcers called police.

          The Commonwealth of Australia is a registered corporation and is traded on the US Securities Commission.

          http://news.rosettamoon.com/?p=35

          Mr Solomon (“Sol”) Trujillo on January 28, 2008 at 11:11 pm said:
          Hmmm, I looked into this a bit deeper and asked our accounts department and found the following:

          The Commonwealth of Australia as sighted above is the statutory body of Australia operating in the USA as an Embassy, not Australia the sovereign country.

          The two SC 13G/A forms relate to the changes in the Commonwealths ownership of Telstra, for 2006-02-13 the Commonwealth declared that it owned 51.8% or 6,446,207,123 of the Telstra shares and in 2007-02-14 it owned 17.8% or 2,220,736,177.

          Hope that clears thing up.

          On the other hand though I wonder if the Queen – who owns Australia and whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting – yet, has sold any shares?

          Cheers,
          Mr Solomon (“Sol”) Trujillo,
          Chief Executive Officer
          Telstra Corporation

          10

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        You’re on the money Tableracer.

        A Plan of Action is what’s needed. That’s what the warmists have. And they’ve been working towards it for more than thirty years. They’re managed to put all their lobby groups onto most government committees and boards, into most government departments and agencies, and into the media and the education system. They get taxpayer support so that you get to support them as a taxpayer even though you might not agree to their aims or objectives. The list is here:

        http://www.environment.gov.au/about/tax/reo/index.html

        One thousand one hundred and fifty six (1,156) of the little suckers (+ or – a few).

        In addition, they infect all political parties and even have one of their own.

        So, what’s a comprehensive plan of action need to look like?

        It needs at least five streams.

        1. Political action – through existing parties and via the creation of one of our own.

        2. Funding – to enable candidates to be found, trained and nominated and to run campaigns; to better access media; to access existing political parties.

        3. Education – to build on the doubt in the mind of the Australian voter who has already detected that the “greenies” tell lies and are hypocritical bullshit artists feathering their own nests.

        4. Subversion – to undermine the any integrity that the green lobby has left. This needs to include identification of financial impropriety and fraud within their organisations along with the misuse of public monies and the “outing” of the hypocrites and fools like Flim Flam.

        5. Infiltration of the education, media, academic and research communities to influence the activities and culture that currently is virtually wholly controlled by the green left.

        Where is the Hercules to clean out the stables and slay the nine headed green hydra?

        10

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          I ilke it Skeptical Sam.

          The most coherent view of the Climate Science Scam is nearly at hand.

          A number of people have got it and can safely start to make it public with the assurance that it can’t be criticised in any meaningful way.

          10

        • #
          tableracer

          Hello to Sam, Kevin and Keith,

          Any suggestions are good to start a fightback. I have reservations on Royal Commissions; it’s well known these never happen unless the Government already knows the outcome and can use it against the Opposition.

          That’s a long list of suckers on the taxpayer’s teat Sam; most of us have no problem with environmental efforts but the sheer number is daunting. Add that to the total ineptitude of the proper Authorities we now have and the situation is out of control.

          What’s worrying me is that I’ve found a lot of these
          people, plus our local Councils here are getting funding from the United Nations and this is all
          conditional on the groups toeing the UN line.. Which
          is hard-line warmist and in the long term,
          global-taxist on things like food and electricity.

          In Victoria NOW, so-called “Smart” electric meters
          are being installed; these will feed-back to the source
          any information required. And the newer electrical
          appliances will do this also..! And, the Smart Meters can be read from anywhere in the world, on the Net.

          The U.N. and many other groups have worked towards today’s position since shortly after the Yalta
          Conference and the establishment of the League of
          Nations. They have had 54 years to plan it all.

          And finally.. Do not think this is pie-in-the-sky..
          On Norfolk Island NOW, on Australian Territory, a
          Taxation Regime IS IN OPERATION since Nov.2010
          putting a “Carbon Price” on Electricity and Fuel,
          on Food (Yes, you pay higher for fatty foods!) and
          other necessities I don’t recall. Google this please.

          This shows why Gillard’s Government appears unconcerned
          by any obligation to the Aussie Taxpayer. They are
          following their Masters at the United Nations Policy-
          Making Institutes, not us. Look up U.N. Agenda 21.

          I believe Gillard is now P.M. because Rudd was needed
          in higher places.. e.g., The U.N. Committees.

          Please stay on the case Guys, we need brains. T/R Peter

          10

          • #

            Is Norfolk island Australian territory?

            Acts Interpretation Act 1901

            17 Constitutional and official definitions [see Note 2]

            In any Act, unless the contrary intention appears:
            (a) Australia or the Commonwealth means the Commonwealth of
            Australia and, when used in a geographical sense, includes the
            Territory of Christmas Island and the Territory of Cocos
            (Keeling) Islands, but does not include any other external
            Territory;

            10

          • #

            I remember a youngster once setting me back on my heels with the retort, “You’re not the boss of me.”

            We have to put fear aside and tell those who act as our parents that we do not consent.

            Politicians need us more than we need them. Withdraw your support and their power is gone.

            This site has good info –

            http://thecrowhouse.com/deanclifford.html

            10

          • #

            Just watching the start of Cricket and they played this Johnny Cash song.I thought that the words were apt for a place here.

            JOHNNY CASH

            “I Won’t Back Down”

            [Verse 1]
            Well I won’t back down, no I won’t back down
            You can stand me up at the gates of hell
            But I won’t back down

            [Verse 2]
            Gonna stand my ground, won’t be turned around
            And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
            Gonna stand my ground and I won’t back down

            [Chorus]
            Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out
            Hey I will stand my ground and I won’t back down

            [Verse 3]
            Well I know what’s right, I got just one life
            In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
            But I stand my ground and I won’t back down

            [Chorus]
            Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out
            Hey I will stand my ground and I won’t back down
            No I won’t back down.

            10

          • #
            tableracer

            I understood that Norfolk is an Australian Territory buy it may well be a Protectorate or similar. Main thing is, it’s run by Australia as a going concern. AND IT HAS A FULL-ON CARBON TAX.

            As a newbie blogger; I was very surprised to find
            that I have a lot of Emails in my Inbox from people like “Ross James” who is obviously a plant by people
            in high Warmist places.

            You only have to read the posts… People who use
            the phrase “et al” are part of the statistical
            bureaucracy… So I look for his posts on the site
            and Lo.. there are none. He is sending Me his drivel in some ridiculous attempt to “Fix” me.!

            People…You cannot stop oddballs like “Ross James”
            from posting, but do not waste your time on him,
            he is a lost cause and a cheap distraction.!

            DO NOT ANSWER HIS POSTS.. Same to any other repetitious Warmists and Alarmists, do not answer them. They are wasting your time.

            Try to be Productive. Talk to like-minded posters
            about getting some action moving.

            The Co2 argument is ridiculous anyway. I work it out that the amount of Co2 in the air normally is equal to a 25mm width Strip, on the end of ONE A4 sheet, which is ONE, of 2597 sheets(5 REAMS+), representing our atmosphere. WoaH..! it’s increased by .003% last week.! This is All Normal. Don’t answer Ross James.

            10

  • #
    Charles Bourbaki

    It must have been difficult working with such asinine drivel but your amendments do make more sense. However, it might have been better to totally ignore it in the first place and let it find its rightful home in the dustbin of stupidity.

    10

  • #
    • #
      Streetcred

      Clearly the scribes have not adequately informed themselves … this piece might have some errors but it makes good reading:

      http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/17772

      10

    • #
      MaxL

      Paul79, thanks for that link.

      Those who deny climate change have their own motivations and their own agendas. Usually they present themselves loudly and in very personal terms. We have seen them and some of their arguments before in the intelligent design, stem cell and tobacco debates and much before that, when Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection and even earlier, when the Catholic Church confronted Copernicus and his followers. The approach of these critics of science is one of conservatism, dogma and self-righteousness, supported by philosophical, ideological or political beliefs and, quite often, commercial interests.

      Trevor Danos is a lawyer who is studying the history and philosophy of science.

      This passage at first inflamed me by the arrogance shown in categorizing people like me as anti-science. I object to being lumped in with pro-intelligent design, anti-stem cell, pro-tobacco, anti-natural selection and pro-Catholic (in the sense of being against Copernicus).

      Firstly, I declare unapologetically that I am an atheist, my trust and faith is in science, so that eliminates at least three of his assertions. I would also add, that I despair the labelling of natural selection as a theory yet I am told that the CO2 modelling of ‘climate science’ is now so assured that it has progressed beyond ‘just a theory’.

      Secondly, the phrase “Those who deny climate change…” is indicative of their ignorance of the opinions of those who disagree with their beliefs. More correctly it should be ‘Those who question the IPCC’s evidence’. I’d doubt that anyone, from either side, believe that the climate didn’t change in the past, and isn’t expected to change in the future.

      What I eventually realised is that Trevor Danos’ piece says more about Trevor Danos’ level of thinking than it does about those he attempts to condemn. For him it appears to be that its either his interpretation of science or it’s anti-science.

      I only hope that in his studies on the history and philosophy of science, that he will eventually understand what science is. Hopefully he will reflect on certain phrases in which he places such extraordinary faith, eg., “The science is settled”, “The scientific consensus is …”, and “The debate is over”. These phrases remind me of an discussion I had with a religious person, their statement to me (which instantly ended the discussion) was, “Don’t you dare criticize my religion”. I can imagine Trevor saying, “Don’t you dare criticize my science”. In fact he says as much with “The approach of these critics of science…”.

      Trevor, I will criticize your science because that’s what science is all about.

      10

      • #
        MikeO

        I doubt Paul Biegler knows what science is or why skepticism is an essential part of it. Instead they seek to cast it as a rigid belief rather than a mode of thinking.

        10

      • #
        Hugh

        MaxL, as a fiercely traditional Catholic, I agree with the brunt of your post. It is reasonable, and reason is our only hope!

        10

      • #
        tableracer

        Excellent Post Max L;
        I have a friend who recently told me, fiercely, …
        “Do not challenge my BELIEFS on Climate Change”!
        ..Out of the mouths of babes…

        10

  • #
    Speedy

    They just keep on finding a new bottom to the barrel, don’t they?

    10

  • #
    AbysmalSpectator

    It is a travesty that the original author was awarded a Ph.D. at some stage in his life.

    Thanks for reminding me why I left academia. The Dunning-Kruger effect is rampant.

    10

  • #
    Llew Jones

    It is instructive to note that Paul Biegler is a bioethicist. That positions him somewhere between a minister of religion and a psychologist which is not a particularly credible vantage point from which to evaluate the diversity of opinion regarding the causes of climate change that exists among well credentialed climate scientists and other scientists involved in accessing such things as sea level changes.

    Trevor Danos (in a SMH critique of those who oppose the standard IPCC line) is a lawyer who is trying to learn a bit about the history of science. Like Biegler he is a lazy researcher who apparently knows nothing of the work of those legitimate climatologists and other relevant scientists that reject the IPCC alarmist climate change scenario, in various degrees and some of its basic presuppositions. These are not primarily skeptics but genuine scientists some of whom are involved directly in the measurement and analysis of some of the vital parameters.

    Both in their respective articles give the impression that they are little more than cheer leaders for what has been called , though less accurately as more research and measurement of important data is recorded and analysed, the consensus position.

    We have yet to find propagandists on the Biegler, Danos team who are able to or willing to do what informed skeptics do, namely examine the claims pro and con for human induced global warming and natural climate variability. And then make a judgement on that evidence.

    That it seems to me is where the science should lead those who are aware of its ongoing findings. Biegler, Danos and many of their fellow climate science illiterates are not even in the main game.

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      … Paul Biegler is a bioethicist. That positions him somewhere between a minister of religion and a psychologist which is not a particularly credible vantage point from which to evaluate the diversity of opinion regarding the causes of climate change …

      I think that would make him eminently qualified.

      On the the one hand we have Intelligent Design, that created a world that was totally pristine with “just the right amount of carbon dioxide”. On the other hand there are all these people who are delusional enough to actually believe that their actions can somehow be divorced from the deterioration of the world from its original divine state.

      10

      • #
        Llew Jones

        Precisely RW but that was before you know who got young Eve to stuff the balance of things up. Carbon dioxide included no doubt.

        10

        • #
          MikeO

          But did she fart or breath out CO2?

          10

          • #
            tableracer

            Hey MikeO.. What are the Alarmists planning to do about us all constantly breathing out co2, and the fizzy-drink industry, and…
            Oh, I forgot.
            They are going to find a way to kill most of us off.
            This is Sustainable Development. (See U.N.Agenda 21)

            10

      • #
        elsie

        That’s what I keep thinking. i.e. in some ways there is in all this conservation, Greenie, AGW alarmism, etc, that a thread of literal Bible interpretation of how the world should be is included. It explains how the term ‘sustainability’ is used to say nothing must be changed in any way, shape or form.

        10

    • #
      brc

      Just what does a bio-ethicist do in a productive society?

      It’s a very scientific sounding name.

      I would be entirely unsurprised to find out that it involves the study of no hard science, but rather to pontificate about the future of man to do with medical advances.

      In other cultures this position would be classified as a sub-task under ‘soothsayer’ or ‘witchdoctor’ or ‘sharman’. I thought about using the term ‘philosopher’, but actually coming up with meaningful philosophy requires much more logic and reason than has been displayed with this article. Predicting the future is the work of entertainment, not the work of reason.

      If Mr Biegler happens to drop by, please enlighten us on what daily duties a bioethicist performs.

      10

  • #

    Someone mentioned a week or so back that those of us here who argue against CAGW need to visit other sites and get ‘on their backs’ in much the same manner as ‘some’ of them come here.

    I started out doing this before I started out with the Blog where I am now the Editor.

    I would continually get ‘flamed’ for my comments, but that didn’t matter to me, because I ‘knew’ my subject that I think I have some expertise in, but in effect, they just laughed at me.

    I wasn’t disheartened, but I stopped doing it, mainly because I was so flat out with my own ‘forum’ where I could write at length on my subject.

    Recently, I saw a link to an article at dear old ‘Crikey’, and I sort of wondered what sort of reception I would get.

    The article was about ‘the wonders’ of Wind Power, and how it was ‘the way of the future’.

    After more rigmarole than it was worth, I persevered and actually registered there, Posted my ‘longish’ comment, waited for it to go through Moderation, although three further comments were posted before mine appeared.

    I explained the usual ‘stuff’ I do, explaining how Wind is all but useless. I used Maths, the standard Industry equations for calculating power, explaining the difference between theoretical power and the actual power delivered, how variable they were, how they could not be used to supply a Base Load requirement, you know, the real truth of the matter.

    Within half an hour of my comment appearing, there were two comments from the one person, obviously a regular there. He proceeded to ‘flame’ me, using the (expected by me) usual epithet of ‘Denier’, (and gee here’s me thinking that denier had something to do with stockings!!!) and then telling me I was plucking figures from thin air, making it all up, and that I had positively no idea what I was talking about.

    I loved it, even though I wasn’t going to bite at all, but what he wrote was the biggest crock of bovine waste I have ever seen.

    I went back to the site a day later and there were about four or five further comments, all congratulating the guy on getting rid of that Denier.

    It was just wonderful. I laughed for days.

    Now, the point is this, and I’m sorry for going on at length like I usually do.

    At sites like those, (and I expect it) just who do you think people are more willing to believe.

    You can tell them the ‘real’ truth of the matter, and they just don’t want to believe it.

    It has something to do with the scale involved, and no one understands that, but, in their hearts, they WANT to believe all of this crap is going to work.

    That scale thing works in my favour really, because I have absolutely no need to even try and make the figures ‘fit’ to suit my argument, so that’s why I quote figures that are in fact quite conservative in their nature, because even that makes it all look totally ridiculous.

    These people actually will not believe, because they don’t want to believe. They want someone to tell them that WE are the ones who are wrong, and because of that, we then obviously just ‘make stuff up’.

    In a way, I’m actually sorry I went through all that rigmarole to register and then comment, because now I’m on their mailing list. They warn you that you only have 90 days to ‘get in quick’, contribute money to their site, and get on their ‘exclusive’ mailing list.

    I waited for the 90 days to expire, and lo and behold, the info just keeps coming in from them, all the while asking for money.

    What this does for me is to confirm that people would prefer to think I’m the one who’s full of ‘it’, (well it rhymes with that anyway) and the ‘flamers’ are the ones who are telling the truth.

    It’s lessons learned in all of this I’m afraid, and that makes me glad that Joanne has a site that allows commenters like me to be able to actually ‘tell the truth’ on matters that in fact 99% of people have no idea about.

    I go on at length I know, but this is something that needs careful explanation, and those who do come here are in fact the ones who ARE willing to be told the truth, not because it confirms their beliefs, but it shows them, if you will, ‘the side effects’ of what is being called for.

    Tony.

    10

    • #
      warcroft

      I barely post anything here, but Im here every day reading Joannes articles. I skim through pretty much all the responses (because by the time I get here theres about 100 of them) but I stop to read every single one of yours.
      So thank you for the sane, rational information you provide.

      10

      • #
        warcroft

        And read what I posted at #31. Same sh!t, different site.
        Im sure the commenters here experience the same sort of thing everywhere.

        10

      • #
        Jazza

        Ditto
        I always read Tony from Ox.
        BTW, what is the site you edit Tony?

        I’ll link as I am an avid reader of conservative blogs and your sense on actual power generation has helped me to try also to spread a sane word here and there.

        Happy Christmas to all and to Jo and David, thanks for the site and all the work you do getting true facts out there for us

        10

        • #

          Jazza,

          See how my screen name is red while most others are just black.

          Clicking on that red screen name takes you to the Home Site.

          I started contributing at the site in March of 2008, and after a month or so, the site owner gave me my own Login, so I wouldn’t have to email him each of my Posts so he could then Post them.

          Then, around Christmas of 2009, he asked if I would assist with the Editing for the Posts we are allowed to take from other sites.

          The advantage of this is that he can do some Posts during his day, in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, (yes, the home of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Facility) and then while he sleeps, during our day, I get access to the early Posts from those other sites, and my job is to Post around 4 or 5 of them for each day, and schedule them for early AM the following morning Pennsylvania time (US Eastern)

          Because of that, and it may seem a little pretentious, he added the word ‘International’ to the site’s title.

          If Joanne doesn’t mind, rather than go the site and then go looking for my Posts, this following link takes you to my Bio at that site.

          TonyfromOz Bio

          At the bottom of that Bio is the permanent link to all my own Posts in my name.

          That link takes you to the most recent Posts. There are 24 Posts to a page, and you can scroll back through the Posts with the ‘button’ at the bottom of each page that says ‘Older Posts’.

          There are around 40 pages, so that’s around 900+ Posts in all.

          Tony.

          PS. I hope all readers have a Peaceful time at Christmas. Make very sure you place yourself in a position where you can see the faces of your children, and for us older guys, your grandchildren, because the looks on their faces is what Christmas is really all about ….. Family.

          10

    • #
      brc

      I’ve pretty much given up on posting at other sites. Even mildly neutral ones are just full of idiots posting the same old memes ‘96% of scientists agree…’ ‘2010 was the hottest year eva…’ ‘the weight of scientific evidence shows…’ and my perennial favourite ‘the null hypothesis is now that AGW isn’t real’, or variations to that effect like ‘you haven’t come up with an idea, so mine must be right’.

      But mostly it’s just in the form of attacks like ‘you’re not a climate scientist, what would you know’.

      If people aren’t even willing to listen to what you have to say and are just singing from the ‘attack a denier’ songsheet, then it’s not worth the time of day.

      10

      • #
        elsie

        Just once I would like to have an analysis of the 96% of scientists who agree with CC or AGW. Are they from ALL of science which includes so many disciplines…medicine, astronomy, physics, chemistry, engineering, etc ? Of course not. The last time I heard there were 5 million or more scientists in the world. If the 96% are in climatology then it has been pointed out that many are not even graduates in science and the whole statement is as phoney as a $1 watch.
        Which comes to the point about being a climate scientist. It is probably more correct to say that 96% of ‘believers’ are not scientists. e.g. Al Gore, Flannery, The president of the IPCC, politicians, journalists, a myriad of NGOs like WWF, Greenpeace, individual moneyed people and so on. Yet it is they who have the ears of politicians and media…not the scientists.
        Trouble is, I think most reputable scientists who are very busy working in their areas (like astronomy) they have no time to battle this misuse of science or form an alliance against it. I’m still hoping that some good men of science are out there willing to go in to bat for science.

        10

    • #
      MikeO

      Tony I also read your comments when I see them and have just put your site into my worthwhile sites. Your experience at Crikey is interesting. I also joined there and argued how much the temperature might change due to the carbon tax was important. I said it was because what do I say to those who challege me on the issue. I played the believer who needed help! Some actually admitted very little temperature change others said it was a non question. They were very much that their faith was strong and not concerned with conversion of the heretic. I did much the same with the Greens. I asked for references to support the idea that fossil fuels can be replaced with out using nuclear. Again I said I was having difficulty arguing the case that it was possible through lack of resource. I expected a flood of bullshit references but they seemed surprised someone would ask! I forget what it was but I think the first was useless and I wrote back and said so (politely). This resulted in a reference into a large IPCC document I did not get to the point of saying I had read that too but still not see an answer. Perhaps you could try to approach as one of the fold and needing explanation. You could even say this Tony from Oz guy says x and has verifiable studies that back it up and you don’t know what to do!

      10

  • #
    pat

    isn’t it extraordinary that post-Durban, the ad hom attacks have never let up, even for a little introspection about why no-one at Durban showed any need for urgency:

    22 Dec: PlanetSave: Zachary Shahan: Was Climategate Cyber-Terrorism?
    It was obvious to me the second I heard about “climategate” that it was a crime (on the part of the hacker). But it hadn’t crossed my mind that it could be “cyber-terrorism” — now, it seems painfully obvious that it very well could be. Don Shelby of the Minnesota Post delved into this idea this week. It’s really a great piece and I recommend checking the whole thing out. If you’re not yet ready to click over, though, here’s the intro (well, intro and a little more):…
    http://planetsave.com/2011/12/22/was-climategate-cyber-terrorism/

    20 Dec: Minnesota Post: Don Shelby: Probe into climate scientists’ stolen emails gets serious
    Agents in Great Britain have executed search warrants and seized equipment from anti-science bloggers who helped spread the stolen emails. The U.S. Department of Justice has sent letters to internet service providers and websites in the United States also involved in spreading the stolen emails. They are all being asked to maintain all evidence of any emails received from a shadowy source known as “FOIA.” “FOIA” was the chief distributor of the stolen emails. Norwich has called in the big dogs…
    In the original reporting, Mann was often quoted, misquoted and taken out of context. Though the investigations have found he did nothing wrong, climategate has nevertheless hurt him.
    Mann told me that the people who can’t abide the idea of global warming being true “have no legitimate scientific leg to stand on. So, they have turned to criminal acts in an attempt to distract the public and policymakers.” Dr. Mann is convinced that the criminal act shows the work of “industry-funded front groups and the individuals who do their bidding.”…
    Cyber-terrorism?
    The question is whether this can be characterized as a simple cybercrime — or are there elements of cyber-terrorism involved?…
    So I turned to one of the most respected cyber-terrorism experts in the country, Bruce Schneier. Schneier has been called to testify before Congress. He is the author of eight books on the subjects of cryptography, warfare, crime and terrorism committed by cyber-criminals.
    Schneier told me: “What I’ve been thinking about is whether the hack was intended to intimidate, threaten or bully. Then the crime becomes an effort to stop people from doing legitimate research. So, it is not just a data theft, but has a goal of creating a chilling effect, a threat, an intimidation.”
    Schneier understands the cyber world, but also the law of unintended consequences. “We are moving into a world in which everything we do is persistent,” said Schneier. By persistent, Schneier means it just doesn’t go away. “A phone conversation is actually archaic,” he said. “Today the conversation is by email or social media and those conversations are persistent.”…
    Dr. Mann has long believed that intimidation was one goal of the cyber criminals. “They want to intimidate, stymie, harass scientists who are out in front on the risks of climate change, and they want to serve notice to other scientists of what will be in store for them if they speak out.”…
    Not only are our communications on the internet persistent, but so is memory. Dr. John Abraham, thermal scientist at the University of St. Thomas, told me: “Those crimes were used to fabricate lies about world-class scientists — lies that are still being repeated today.”
    Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is still getting its shoes on.”
    I’m hoping the shoes Scotland Yard and the FBI are lacing up are track shoes.
    http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/12/20/33938/probe_into_climate_scientists_stolen_emails_gets_serious

    Monckton might be amused to find Abraham being asked to comment here!

    10

  • #
    pat

    you would have to ask how does this local guy get these interviews – Mann, Abraham, Schneier – for such a ridiculous article:

    Minnesota Post: About us
    MinnPost is a nonprofit, nonpartisan enterprise whose mission is to provide high-quality journalism for news-intense people who care about Minnesota…
    Board of Directors…
    Advisory Council…ETC
    http://www.minnpost.com/about/

    Wikipedia: Don Shelby
    Donald Gilbert “Don” Shelby (born May 27, 1947 in Muncie, Indiana)[1] is a former American news anchor on WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is regarded as an experienced investigative journalist, as his work has earned two Peabody awards and an Emmy Award…
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Shelby

    10

    • #
      Robert

      As I (unfortunately IMO) happen to be living in Minnesota at the moment it’s really no surprise. Our news media (and therefore our “journalists”) here are decidedly liberal as is much of the state. We have many who relocate here for the “entitlements” they will receive, especially for those who are new to the country.

      The variety of cultures we have here is amazing, but it does come with a downside. Not long ago (I think it was last spring, these days I tend to remember events by which semester of classes I was in at the time) there was a convention of Geologists here if I recall correctly, the big speaker for which was none other than Michael Mann. That should tell you something right there.

      They get these interviews because those being interviewed know they will not be asked any difficult questions and will be given the red carpet treatment by a “journalist” who is nothing more than a mouthpiece for them to reach a larger audience.

      Although I will say this for Minnesota we have this group: Minnesotans for Global Warming

      Seems there is something about living where winter is often cold and harsh, and where snow causes your normal 1 or so hour commute to turn into a 2-4 hour adventure where your average speed is in the single digits that makes the more rational people realize that warming isn’t a bad thing at all…

      10

  • #
    Rex Radix

    I read the original and my only thought was “what a load of vacuous snivelling bunkum” …

    10

  • #
    crosspatch

    The thing I have noticed is that the most ardent supporters of this “climate change” nonsense seem to have the same fundamental personality traits. There appears to be both a sort of narcissism involved combined with a profound sense of self-loathing that they seem to project on the entire human race. They seem to me to have these fundamental aspects of “my culture is bad, my race is bad, my country is bad, humans are bad, my economic system is bad” etc. They also seem to believe that all bad things that happen are their fault and that they are completely correctable. So the notion that climate was perfectly stable until 1975 and suddenly humans screwed up the whole planet validates that view. Now those are the people that the “The Cause” relies on for support. The ones driving the issue have a completely different take and that is one of using those mentioned above in order to get their agenda passed and that agenda is one of managing the world though “environmentalism”. They come up with something they don’t like, find a way that the something harms “the environment” and then use that to rally those they are using to their side.

    For example, we know with 100% certainty that a 2 degree rise will not cause a catastrophic climate disaster. We know this because for about 4 or 5 thousand years during this interglacial period, temperatures were about 2 degrees higher than they are now and not only did we not have a catastrophe but beer was invented.

    We also know with 100% certainty that a 5 degree rise will not cause a catastrophe because the previous interglacial was 5 degrees warmer than now. Not only was it not a catastrophe but modern humans began to spread out of Africa (without beer).

    We also know with 100% certainty that climate has both warmed and cooled in the past with amazing speed. In fact, it has moved with such speed, quite naturally, that if it were to happen today, by the time we noticed that this was a fundamental change and not simply a brief cold spell, it would likely be too late to do anything about it. Most of the change in and out of both the Younger Dryas and the 8.2ky event happened within a decade.

    A change of a couple of degrees over a century is nothing compared to what nature deals fairly often. A change of 2 degrees is less than the difference from moving from St. Louis to Memphis.

    This really doesn’t have anything at all to do with climate change. On one hand it is about using the issue of climate change in order to validate the enacting of global regulations that redistribute wealth and manage economic activity. On the other hand it is about rallying support for those regulations from those who sincerely in their hearts believe it would be damaging and are being used by those mentioned above in order to get those regulations passed. Milton Friedman called this dynamic an “unholy alliance between the do-gooders and the special interests”. The do-gooders are used by the special interests to enact things that make the special interests rich or gain them power.

    If you want to stop a “warmanista’s” argument, simply show them the instrument record and ask them to explain:

    1. Why did temperature rise by virtually exactly the same amount and at virtually the same rate from 1910 to 1940 as it did from 1975 to 2005 but the first rise is natural and the second rise is human caused?

    2. Why do the climate models that predict all this warming completely fail to duplicate the changes in climate over the entire record from 1850 to 2011 except for one brief 30 year period?

    3. Why have the climate models and the observed temperatures been diverging at an increasing rate since 2000 to the point where today’s observed temperatures are completely outside the low range of the model’s error range?

    Wouldn’t that tend to point out that maybe both rises in temperatures during the 20th century were possibly natural and likely a reflection of recover from the Little Ice Age? Wouldn’t that tend to point out that the climate models cited in IPCC AR4 have exactly zero skill in predicting temperatures? Wouldn’t that tend to point out that the IPCC doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about?

    And why to these people believe that we can simply legislate a change in global temperature?

    10

    • #
      Otter

      I Like my beer…

      10

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Yes, but if it gets 5 degrees hotter … OMG there won’t be any beer … we know this from previous experience.

        10

        • #
          Another Ian

          Good!

          Then I won’t have to use a 120w PAR 38 to replace the 100w incandescent that I used to use for a winter home-brew heater so I save more energy. +5 degrees and I might actually same some power!

          10

  • #
    Otter

    The really sad part is, when we have finally won the day- and we will, even if it takes 30 more years- they won’t have learned a damn thing. They’ll find some way to rationalize it to the end that We are still the ones in the wrong.

    TonyFromOz~ on the site where I post my writing and art, I once got this inanity:

    ‘Why is it that AGW deniers always accuse those who accept the fact of global warming as falling prey to the ‘appeal to authority’ fallacy, and yet, nearly every argument they put forth against global warming, is little more than a list of scientists (almost exclusively in irrelevant fields), and academics, who are skeptical of global warming?’

    Without getting into the beliefs of the person who asked it, I will only say that this person and his ilk, believe themselves better than most of the human race.
    I spent 10 pages destroying that idiotic argument. (here, if anyone wants to see my pathetic writing 😛 http://kajm.deviantart.com/gallery/33411900#/d32c06a )
    And the end result? He and his think *I* am ignorant, call me a ‘Creationist,’ whatever. (Whereas I have a degree in Geology and have been learning about climate change for 20-Plus years).

    God Help Us if such people ever end up ruling the world.

    10

    • #
      Gnome

      About 500 years ago a fellow named Martin Luther nailed 95 good reasons why the pope is a crook on the doors of a church. About a hundred years (or so) ago they were still burning anyone who doubted their dogma. (They still would if they thought they could get away with it.)

      Thirty years or three hundred years from now you won’t convince a fanatic with authority.

      10

    • #
      incoherent rambler

      They already rule the world.

      10

  • #
    John Brookes

    There are people on both sides of global warming because of psychology alone. You’ve got your share, and the rabid greens have theirs.

    It doesn’t help us decide what the truth about climate change is though.

    My money, as you know, is on that huge group of conspiratorial scientists slaving away to increase their grant money so that they can build luxurious mansions just above a sea level that they know will never rise 😉

    10

    • #

      It doesn’t take a conspirary to be greedy, selfish, stupid, conceited, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, malicious, feckless, megalomanic, psychopathic, …

      People can be like that; by themselves. No conspiracy required. Even if a bunch of people are mis-behaving in a similar way.

      There is a conspiracy when people work together, coordinating mis-behaviour to try to get a result that’s mutually satisfying; except for the victim(s).

      10

    • #
      Eddy Aruda

      My money, as you know, is on that huge group of conspiratorial scientists slaving away to increase their grant money so that they can build luxurious mansions just above a sea level that they know will never rise

      Wow! They are going to buy oceanfront property just like their high priest Al Gore? So, they scare the hell out of everybody, wait for the price of oceanfront property to drop, buy it, sell it for a profit and put some of the funds aside for a good lawyer?! You’ve got to give these criminals credit because they are consistent!

      10

    • #
      brc

      Such a shame you won’t post on the collapse of the EU market.

      Science is a pretty cut-throat industry. Many more people wanting to practice science on someone else’s dime than there is dimes to go around.

      If you’re asking whether some people will fudge their results a little in order to gain more grants, well, the answer should be obvious to anyone who has studied human behaviour for more than 10 minutes.

      We know the fudging has taken place, there is plenty of hard evidence of that.

      We know the method, all we need to know is the motive?

      Let’s look at the case of one Dr Mann. He went from obscure Phd student to front page news and rocketed to the top of his career. It’s like going from soap star to a-list actor, or from local batsman to opening for Australia, or from pub covers band to playing at Wembley stadium. Out of the universe of scientists who are also self-confessed activists, you think they’re all going to ignore that temptation because their statistical methods are a little fudged? Really?

      A conspiracy points towards a central group controlling the whole thing, Dr Evil style. No such need. Just as markets can organise human behaviour out of a disorded group, incentives like status, funding and gravitas are more than enough incentive to fudge the numbers a bit. The activists wanted a result and clearly there was rewards for anyone who could come up with it. No conspiracy needed, motive, opportunity and reward. All there for the taking.

      What is probably a tick in the general population of scientists is that so many had reservations for so long, as witnessed in the first IPCC report and conclusions from same. Most were undoubtedly honest people not willing to bend the truth. But then you get a couple of people who come up with the right numbers, they rush to the front of the queue – the others think, well, I wouldn’t mind some of that gravy, plus they have safety in numbers because people like Mann have told the world and got away with it. Pretty soon you’re nuts if you don’t get on board. Not long after that, ‘the team’ have formed ‘the cause’ and they’re going to fight to the death to make sure the gravy train doesn’t get derailed. This is both because they want to protect their prestige, funding and reputations, but also because they are fervent believers.

      So you see, while your ‘you actually want me to believe this is a worldwide conspiracy’ is actually a simpler explanation than an increase in 50ppm of co2 in the atmosphere – some of which is caused by industrial production – is responsible for changing the temperature of the world by about 1/2 degree in the last 30 years or so.

      10

      • #
        MikeO

        God invented climatologists in order
        to make economists look better
        probably that is why astrology looks so good.

        Our economic woes are because the science is illusory just like climatology.

        10

  • #
    Govt whore

    Well Jo could be right for once. It is just about gratification. The urge to drop sceptics anywhere anytime is just compelling. Head butt them if they argue back. Face it we’d put the boot into sceptics even they weren’t lying antediluvian knuckle draggers. They’re old and craggy. Smelly. Rude and rightist. And wrong.

    The urge if you’re into a bookshop to rip pages out of Plimers or Carters science fictions is just too high. It feels great to put a bloody big drill bit through their books. Then burn them. Surely not even Jo is going to parade this nonsense as something serious. Have some decency.

    Nothing better than heckling at sceptic gatherings and getting chucked out. We’re not just emotional – we’re livid. We just hate your entire style.

    But hey it’s Xmas. We should be charitable. So believe what you like to 2012. And remember we’re in charge you’re not. So get back to the end of the line.

    10

    • #
      KeithH

      Congratulations Govt whore.

      That’s probably the best and most concise summary of the main arguments used by believers in the “settled science” and “overwhelming consensus” of the unproven, unvalidated, unfalsifiable hypothesis of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming! Who could argue with such an obviously well-researched intelligent contribution. Obviously the work of of an ethical and moral scientific genius!

      10

    • #
      Otter

      And don’t forget, according to your god algor, you only have 12 months left to live, so live it up! Have some global-warming-induced Egyptian beer.

      10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      They’re old and craggy. Smelly. Rude and rightist. And wrong.

      Yup, it’s called experience – been there, done that, made the mistakes, learnt what works and what don’t, fell down, got up, and made a pile of money each time we could figure out what the group-think was doing wrong.

      And you think you are in charge? Nope, ain’t so. Here is a secret. We just let you think you are in charge – we just let you think we are somewhere down the back of the line where you can’t see us. But the real reason you can’t see us is because we have figured out where you are going, and we are now way ahead of you, and we will continue to “encourage” you to make the “right” decisions because you are “in charge”, right?

      And while you are busy being “in charge”, we will be having a good time.

      10

    • #
      Winston

      Now if you just substitute the word “Jew” in the Leftoid nitwit’s post above, in place of the word “skeptic”. You wouldn’t have to wonder any longer at what sort of mentality led to those brownshirts trawling the back alleys of every German city in the 1930s, looking for some old Jewish men and women to gang up on, kicking their poor defenceless bodies to a pulp and stomping on them in “brave defence” of the principles of the Fatherland! Even with the book burning no less. Such delusion and stupidity, and it probably thinks it’s a humanitarian!

      10

    • #
      Winston

      Btw, “Govt Whore”- you wouldn’t be Richard Glover by any chance?

      10

    • #
      John Brookes

      That is pretty funny Govt Whore. You mean to say that you actively dislike people who are committed to muddying the science of global warming? People who don’t care about the science, but just want to ensure that there is no action to reduce CO2 emissions. People who are happy to pour scorn on scientists, and imply criminal conspiracy. People whose ideology trumps reality. People who’ll spout arguments they know aren’t true, because it supports their ideology. People who take advantage of the gullibility of others.

      What is not to like about people like that?

      10

      • #
        Winston

        You mean to say that you actively dislike people who are committed to muddying the science of global warming? People who don’t care about the science, but just want to ensure that there is no action to reduce CO2 emissions. People who are happy to pour scorn on scientists, and imply criminal conspiracy. People whose ideology trumps reality. People who’ll spout arguments they know aren’t true, because it supports their ideology. People who take advantage of the gullibility of others.

        That’s funny, John.

        I could articulate exactly the same arguments about the motivations and actions of yourself and your ilk, yet I don’t dislike any of you at all. Even in spite of my belief that the false prophesies you propound are likely to result indirectly in killing a significant number of people, which is not an insignificant “crime” in my eyes, even if not intended. Says a lot about the comparative psychology of those on the alarmist side of this argument, who are so threatened by anyone who may not be convinced by arguments which are so full of holes, use leaps of logic, are based on unfounded assumptions, and often mixing up of cause and effect for good measure, just to name a few of the pseudoscientific ‘sins’ perpetrated in the name of the Gaia cult. Their desire to kill, maim or otherwise physically harm those who hold a different opinion is neither warranted, nor is it particularly edifying for the validity of your argument. The above troll’s comment was ignorant in the extreme, and betrayed a lack of insight, intelligence or respect for the principles of science that they apparently are defending with such moronic commentary.

        10

      • #

        John, that’s one of the most revealing comments you’ve ever made. Thank you. Mystery solved!

        Now we know why none of the logical and referenced evidence we post here has any effect on you — you know that if you can’t rebut what we say, it must be a lie anyhow. Thus, it needs no rebuttal. Graphs, history, photographs that show you are wrong flow like water off a ducks back…

        There’s more. It must feel special to have psychic powers which allow you to scan brains and do psychological assessments through their comments so you *know* that all skeptical people are Ideologues (TM), and therefore and thus, ipso defacto, the world will warm by 3.3 degrees due to a doubling of CO2?!

        Wow. Wow Wow! John, that gives you fabulous strength in the face of discordant evidence and reason. You are the ideal trooper for the faith! The perfect servant to the ideology.:-) Your masters must be pleased. There is no evidence or argument anyone could make that would dent your devotion.

        You are the human robot. Congratulations.

        10

        • #
          John Brookes

          I’d be swayed by evidence Jo. Right now its still pointing to warming. If it changes (and 10 year trends don’t count), you’ll see me change.

          10

      • #
        crosspatch

        Global Warming isn’t a science and it isn’t really based on observable data. It is a hypothesis that has been latched onto by different people for different reasons but the overall reason that is common to them all is whatever their reason, AGW serves their agenda.

        For example, you have the global socialists who want to redistribute wealth to make the rich countries poorer and the poor countries richer. Nevermind for the moment that such policies tend to generate equality in poverty. In order to increase economic output by a unit of GDP, there must be a commensurate increase in energy consumption. It takes work to produce output. If I wish to double my production of beer, my electric bill will rise by some amount. BTU=$$$. Currently most energy is produced through the consumption of carbon fuels. These carbon fuels produce CO2. If I can constrain the amount of CO2 produced, I can constrain economic growth. If I place constraints on CO2 emissions in certain places (“developed” countries) and have no such constraints in other places (“developing” countries) and I wish to build a steel mill or lead smelter, where do you think I am going to put it? Increasing environmental regulations in the “developed” world make it nearly impossible to build factories there. California has more cars than any other state in the US and not a single one of them is built there. General Motors is now well into a program where they are building assembly plants in China and importing the cars to the US. This is because building the cars in the US is more expensive than shipping them from China due mostly to environmental and other regulations.

        Now, a thinking person would say “well, easy, we can simply replace all the coal power plants with modern nuclear plants that are much safer than the old ones and continue growing our economy without worrying about CO2 emissions”. But no, that’s right out, too. Sorry, no coal, no nuclear. So our only option are solar panels that must be replaced after every hail storm and windmills that can’t stand up to a gale with a full coating of ice. In other words, we must use very inefficient, very fragile, very expensive means of generating very small amounts of power.

        It isn’t really about the environment. If CO2 were all THAT scary to them, they would be demanding that we deploy large scale nuclear replacement of fossil power generation now with the technology we already have at hand and that would cut CO2 now while giving us another 40 years or so to refine the development of renewables. But it isn’t *really* about CO2 at all. It is about *using* CO2 to create a reason for global redistribution of wealth and generating cash to be paid from the richer countries to the smaller ones.

        There are other agendas involved, too, such as the pacifists since the Rio Declaration also basically outlaws war. It suits their agenda, too. Nevermind for the moment that peace has never solved any major issue in all of human history because the dictators and autocrats that tend to start wars don’t generally listen to reason. (latest example being Iraq where had Saddam Hussein simply allowed the unfettered UN weapons inspections, he would still be running the country today and his sons would still be raping the local chicks and torturing the soccer team just like old times).

        The point is that in both of these cases it isn’t really about CO2 so much as it is using CO2 as a lever to furthering a different agenda. We could get rid of over 50% of America’s CO2 in a very short period of time. But it really isn’t about CO2. It is in some cases about a group of politically connected businessmen who realize that the fear of CO2 can create huge business opportunities in markets such as windmills, solar panels, etc. And so CO2 hysteria becomes useful for them, too.

        To see the absolute idiocy in all of this one needs to look only at electric cars. In the US, transportation accounts for about 30% of our energy consumption. A good bit of that is fuel consumption for automobiles. These people would want to move a major portion of that energy consumption to the electric grid. That only exchanges one sort of fossil fuel energy for a less efficient one. There are no “catalytic converters” on the stacks of a coal power plant. But more importantly, at the same time our government is subsidizing the manufacturing of electric cars and subsidizing the purchase of them, they are removing, through environmental regulations, some 10% of our generating capacity by forcing coal plants to close. So we are expected to nearly double our demands on the grid while chopping generation by 10%! It is absolutely insane. Additionally, subsidizing the building and purchase of very expensive electric vehicles means that the poorest of the poor and elderly (many states have sales taxes that everyone pays regardless of level of income) are subsidizing the production of things that only the very rich can afford. It is a very regressive tax. These policies place a disproportionate burden on the poor to provide a cash flow to the rich. Their electric bill will rise. They already have cut electricity use to the bone in most cases because the bills have increased due to these regulations.

        This isn’t about CO2 or about “global warming” at all. The graphs produced by the IPCC have now been completely discredited and have been shown to be nothing more than cartoons. The models used for climate forecasts are also now discredited as observations show their CO2 sensitivity was far too high (and the models for AR5 are looking like they are going to be even MORE sensitive to CO2 giving an even more dire prognosis that will diverge even farther from observations).

        Now the problem is that when someone attempts to point out that the observations show that the late 20th century warming was well within natural variation:

        http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-19.png?w=640&h=427

        (note the early 20th century period of “natural” variation is virtually identical to the late 20th century “anthropogenic” warming)

        they must be suppressed, devalued, ridiculed, etc. In fact, if you look at the response to “skeptics” who point out these issues, you get exactly the same response that a narcissist gives to anyone who criticizes them. Look at Jones’ and Mann’s responses to criticism in the emails … devalue the critic, they are too stupid, I can’t be bothered to respond, etc. These are TYPICAL narcissistic responses to criticism or the pointing out of inconsistency or noticing of flaws in logic. The narcissist first attacks the source of the criticism. The second thing is that these conferences seem to be huge festivals of “narcissistic mirroring” where they all get together to bask in each others’ glow and heap praise upon one another.

        Look at the treatment of the skeptic and you will see the response of the narcissist to criticism.

        10

        • #
          crosspatch

          You will also find that narcissists tend to gravitate to certain occupations. The AGW hypothesis provides a mechanism by which all of these occupations can come together in one community which are an assembly of people that are over-represented by narcissists when compared to the general population. Scientists, politicians, “movement” leaders, and business tycoons, for example. And they have their source of narcissistic supply the millions of people who fawn over their “brilliance”.

          You can also see their behaviors in evidence at the UN meetings in the documents they draw up. A narcissist who is representing a country or an issue will project their own internal narcissism. You will see their envy for other countries manifested in their agreements. For example, a narcissist in the workplace who gets passed over for promotion might accuse the person who got the promotion of being a “brown noser”. It is never their fault, it is the fault of the other person or the boss or the company or fate or luck but it is never THEIR fault. Same with these agreements. You have an under-developed country. They are envious of Europe and the US. It is not their own fault that their country is underdeveloped due to cultural corruption, lack of private property rights, lack of an adequate legal system. No, it is the fault of the developed countries and they must be punished and some of their money must be taken away from them and given to us because we deserve it and they don’t. They never stop to look at WHY they are underdeveloped and undertake any real mechanism for correcting that, they simply want to lash out at anyone who has more than they do.

          Jones and Mann and Hansen are getting a lot of “narcissistic supply” or “narcissistic energy” every time their name is mentioned as “experts”, when they appear on television, when they are cited by the UNFCCC, when their recommendations are adopted and promulgated globally. I have to wonder how that might make them feel. Their reactions to criticism seem rather typical of the narcissist. When you get scientists and politicians and tycoons all together, you have a population that is over-represented by narcissists. Narcissists are quite clever in hiding their flaws. We see evidence of finding clever ways of hiding flaws and presenting a desired picture to the world in the climategate emails. I see a lot of narcissistic behaviors in the things that are said, the way things are done, and the treatment of anyone who criticizes them. How should skeptics be treated? I have heard all sorts of terrible things proposed. This is exactly the sort of devaluation that is typical of the narcissist. Journalism also tends to have a higher than average representation of narcissism. Now one thing about narcissists is that in the presence of other narcissists, they engage in a sort of behavior called narcissistic mirroring where they will heap praise on each other. The journalist will write a fawning article about the scientist, the journalist will be praised by the scientist. They will also stick up for each other. When someone “attacks” (narcissists experience this as a very personal attack) them with criticism, they lash out. They must destroy the critic. They contact the critic’s academic institution, attempt to have their doctorate revoked, threaten the journal that publishes the information, admonish the individuals in public statements, devalue the source of criticism to anyone that will listen. You don’t argue the message or the point, you utterly destroy or attempt to destroy the source of criticism.

          We clearly see that pattern of behavior with the AGW core cadre, the UN delegates (how was Lord Monckton treated at Durban when he asked some inconvenient questions? He was treated with contempt and devaluation … not worth taking the time to answer because the person being asked was too important to be bothered … a very typical response by the narcissist), the scientists, the journalists.

          10

          • #
            crosspatch

            Another narcissistic behavior you see with regard to the press is “special access”. Jones et al. seem to only give close access to “certain” journalists. That provides narcissistic energy or supply to the journalists selected for this special access and the journalist provides narcissistic supply to the scientists with the fawning articles. Notice the immediate devaluation of any other journalist who provides even the slightest room for skepticism in their piece. The response is over the top to any perceived criticism of their position or their work.

            10

        • #
          crosspatch

          Here is one example. Though the example here is a family unit, the same things will apply within any unit of people in which the narcissist is a leader:

          (Note: comments in square brackets are mine. The text is from Dr. Sam Vaknin, The author of Malignant Self Love –
          Narcissism Revisited (who is himself a diagnosed narcissist).

          Take, for example, the narcissist’s family. Narcissists often instruct, order, or threaten their children into hiding the truth of abuse, malfunction, maladaptation, fear, pervasive sadness, violence, mutual hatred and mutual repulsion which are the hallmarks of the narcissistic family.

          “Not to wash the family’s dirty linen in public” is a common exhortation. The whole family conforms to the fantastic, grandiose, perfect and superior narrative invented by the narcissist. The family becomes an extension of the False Self. This is an important function of these Sources of Secondary Narcissistic Supply.

          [so if someone internally discovers a problem with the conclusions they have reached or the way they have presented something, it must be kept within the group and not revealed]

          Criticising, disagreeing, or exposing these fiction and lies, penetrating the family’s facade, are considered to be mortal sins. The sinner is immediately subjected to severe and constant emotional harassment, guilt and blame, and to abuse, including physical abuse. This state of things is especially typical of families with sexual abuse.

          [anyone openly criticizing the narcissist is ostracized or harassed until they come back into line]

          Behaviour modification techniques are liberally used by the narcissist to ensure that the skeletons do stay in the family cupboards. An unexpected by-product of this atmosphere of concealment and falsity is mutiny. The narcissist’s spouse or his adolescent children are likely to exploit the narcissist’s vulnerabilities – his proneness to secrecy, self-delusion, and aversion to the truth – to rebel against him. The first thing to crumble in the narcissist’s family is this shared psychosis – the mass denial and the secretiveness so diligently cultivated by him.

          [e.g. the release of the climategate emails]

          Note – Narcissistic Rage
          Narcissists can be imperturbable, resilient to stress, and sangfroid.

          Narcissistic rage is not a reaction to stress – it is a reaction to a perceived slight, insult, criticism, or disagreement.

          Narcissistic rage is a reaction to narcissistic injury.

          Rage has two forms, though:

          I. Explosive – The narcissist erupts, attacks everyone in his immediate vicinity, causes damage to objects or people, and is verbally and psychologically abusive.

          II. Pernicious or Passive-Aggressive (P/A) – the narcissist sulks, gives the silent treatment, and is plotting how to punish the transgressor and put her in her proper place. These narcissists are vindictive and often become stalkers. They harass and haunt the objects of their frustration. They sabotage and damage the work and possessions of people whom they regard to be the sources of their mounting frustration.

          [we see the second type of behavior a lot from Jones and Mann. How did they react to the publication of a “threatening” article in a New Zealand journal or toward the careers of anyone who does something they perceive as a threat?]

          So everything we are seeing up to and including the release of the climategate emails and the responses of the people involved are fairly typical responses to people in a relationship (professional or personal) with narcissists.

          10

        • #
          Tableracer

          Crosspatch..You are on the money..! Even your/our colleagues will take a long time to understand this.

          So how can it be slowed or stopped or countered…
          this is what we really need to be addressing.

          Endless forums are not helpful apart from bringing
          in new people. That is good.

          Let’s have some ideas for action please.

          10

      • #
        u.k.(us)

        Ad hominem,innuendo,appeal to authority, fabricator and user.
        All in 6 lines of type.
        So, who’s the whore ?

        10

      • #
        crosspatch

        John,

        I don’t think I have ever run across anyone who are “committed to muddying the science of global warming”. If anything the people I run across on the skeptical side are attempting to clarify it. I see people such as Jones, Mann, and Hansen who are attempting to “muddy” things by creating an illusion of things that the observational data do not show.

        I also don’t believe anyone is out to “ensure hat there is no action to reduce CO2 emissions” but rather are out to ensure that there is actually reason to use those billions of dollars, particularly in a time of economic hardship, in a wise way.

        People SHOULD be happy to pour scorn on scientists where that scorn is deserved. So far we have absolutely no observational evidence that backs up their hypothesis and decades of observational data that invalidates it. If they are responsible for wasting of these billions for no good reason, they deserve much more than mere “scorn”.

        I believe it is that AGW “believers” who “who’ll spout arguments they know aren’t true, because it supports their ideology.” For example, there is not one single fraction of a degree of climate warming or sea level rise that can be attributed to CO2. Not even a little bit. It is also the people such as these scientists and world leaders who are relying on the gullibility of the general public by abusing their position of trust. Nothing is more despicable than someone who uses a position of trust to manipulate and deceive people.

        10

    • #
      Eddy Aruda

      Wow! Violence, hatred and not an intelligent thought expressed in your entire diatribe! You demonstrate the maturity of an ungrateful stepchild. Punks like you talk a good game but when cornered like a rat you cry like a little girl!

      Must be nice to hide behind the anonymity of a screen name, right? Typical CAGW coward! Threats, intimidation and violence but God forbid you should accept a debate from the skeptics. Oh, that’s right! In every debate I am aware of the CAGW team got its ass kicked right through the non existent hotspot and right off this planet.

      You should continue with your current strategy as it brings the undecided to the skeptic’s side. Besides, you have failed to cite any empirical evidence or make an intelligent argument. Then, again, you can’t! So, just continue to blindly believe and fearlessly follow and don’t worry, once this scam is finally destroyed the wing nuts will have another “cause” for you to celebrate!

      I would advise you to “get a life” but, then again, a man has got to know his limitations!

      10

    • #
      MadJak

      Finally, some honesty about the motivations and inspirations from some of the AGW camp.

      “Those who burn Books will one day burn people”

      Now any time anyone tries to claim out the alarmists are the noble warriors of science or that they aren’t a bunch of Nazi nutcases, I will refer them to the Governments lackeys response right here.

      Man it must be tough when they can’t even start to make any valid points and go straight into a revealing rant about their inspiration.

      Excellent stuff.

      10

    • #
      Gnome

      Um- errr- folx- I think the whore is kidding.

      10

      • #

        I, er, don’t think he is kidding, if it’s who I suspect it is.

        What it does show is that something so ‘seemingly’ simple as selecting a screen name can offer so much ‘insight’ into the thinking behind rant’s like this.

        Tony.

        10

        • #
          MadJak

          Tony:

          that something so ‘seemingly’ simple as selecting a screen name can offer so much ‘insight’ into the thinking behind rant’s like this.

          and who funds it probably, namely us. Damn that sux.

          10

    • #
      brc

      Why do so many of you come across as book burners?

      Why is violence your preferred means of engagement?

      Really, read back your post and see if it reflects a calm, rational and organised mind, or a rage-infested groupthinking one. Your post reads like the rantings of a union thug, which I’m guessing isn’t too far from the truth.

      I wouldn’t be too excited about being in charge in 2012. You’ll be lucky if that’s still the case in 2013. And once a belief is discredited, there isn’t any coming back. Read up on what happened to the Eugenics movement for a bit of instruction here. That is, if you can restrain yourself from throwing the book on the fire.

      10

    • #
      Frank Johnstone

      “Govt whore”, The revolution IS coming.

      People have had a Gutfull of this global warming FRAUD and LIES !

      You can only push people so far before they bite back…. HARD !!

      10

  • #
    KeithH

    The following article rates right up there in ill-informed elitist stupidity and misleading drivel to that of Paul Biegler. I posted it some months ago but felt it worth a re-post on this thread for those who may have missed it then.

    Our Hobart “Sunday Tasmanian” had a 4-page article titled “Climate Change” with a particularly odious, patronising diatribe from some wet behind the ears young know-it-all named Corey Watt, described as a regional project manager with “The Climate Institute” (www.climateinstitute.org.au).

    Some gems from this fountain of wisdom:

    “Despite growing evidence in support of Climate Change – in recent weather events and scientific research -a significant number of people still don’t accept it as a real threat.
    Religion and fear drive sceptics who generally disputed the existence of Climate Change because it conflicted with their identity, ideology or interests.
    Some viewed Climate Change as a cause for greenies and environmentalists. Others don’t believe the science supporting Climate Change and are distrusting of scientists.
    People who worked in…..logging and mining were likely to be among those most resistant to Climate Chang, because of potential threats to their livelihood.
    He said “concerted campaigns to sow the seeds of doubt by powerful bodies, including the mining industry, had also had an impact.
    Then there are a few people, not many I think, who have ideological reasons to refute Climate Change.
    Debate about Climate Change was akin to yester-years debate about whether the earth was flat or round.
    It’s not to say people are stupid or foolhardy. Everybody has their own interests and will come at this in their own time.
    The problem is we just don’t have a lot of time. For each year we let go by without acting, the options to avoid suffering become less and less.” end quote.

    In the same general article each of our political party leaders and several supposedly “leading” Tasmanians were asked what I regard as one of the most mindless questions of the century. ‘Do you believe in Climate change’? Without exception, and in some cases almost with hand on heart, they replied ‘Yes’! Doublespeak is alive and well in Tassie.

    We are being led by scientific illiterates satisfied with mouthing the computer modelled UNIPCC alarmism, apparently incapable of individual independent thought. It’s no wonder Tasmania is currently a basket-case! The unholy Labor/Green accord has been an absolute disaster!

    10

  • #
    Mydogsgotnonose

    IPCC science cannot be trusted.

    1. High CO2 climate sensitivity [positive feedback by atmospheric processes] was the logical outcome of data showing CO2 rose with T at the end of ice ages but when in 1997 it was found that CO2 rose after T, insiders had to switch to calibrating the models against modern warming. This is why we had the fraudulent hockey stick and the one-way manipulation of past temperatures, particularly at NOAA.

    Few realise it but there was also a search for the missing ice age amplification – in 2005 Hansen claimed it is the difference between the albedo of wet and dry ice, an explanation lacking in credibility.

    In 2007 it was shown that end of the last ice age, warming of the Southern ocean deeps started 2000 years before any significant CO2 rise; regional warming over much of the Southern hemisphere. The same process, reduction of cloud albedo by biofeedback, explains recent Arctic warming now reversing. CO2-AGW/GW is not needed to explain palaeo and present climate but could exist at a much smaller level than claimed.

    2. Aarhenius was wrong: there is no ‘back radiation’. Any process engineer knows this. ‘Climate science’ is unique in teaching it and imagining it exists.

    3. Cooling by polluted clouds supposed to hide (2) is only true for thin clouds: as they get thicker it switches to heating, another GW/AGW. Sagan got this physics wrong.

    4. The claim of 33K present total GHG warming is an elementary mistake because it includes lapse rate warming of the lower atmosphere. It’s really ~10K, easily proved.

    What the IPCC claims has since 1997 been the opposite of science. CO2 climate sensitivity is exaggerated by a factor of at least 6.7 and when you correct the IR science, which is appallingly simplistic, CO2 probably slightly cools the atmosphere now there is IR band saturation near the Earth’s surface.

    No IPCC climate model can predict climate. It’s time this new Lysenkoism was consigned to the dustbin of Marxist history.

    10

  • #
    Eddy Aruda

    Man’s search for meaning is, in my humble opinion, quite amusing. Now, in the “post christian” era we see the vacuum being filled with the worship of nature. These green neopagans believe, as is taught by Lovelock, that Earth is a living, breathing organism. Actually, it is a ball of rock with a molten core. The “skin” of the earth is akin to the skin of an apple. It is thin and nothing lives below it. All life as we know it is contained within a tight band sandwiched between the soil beneath our feet, the ocean which surround us and the sky above our heads. Over 99% of everything that ever existed on this planet is extinct. “Sustainability” is unachievable. Eventually, the center of the planet will cool and the electromagnetic field will disappear and radiation from the sun will destroy just about all the life that is left on this blue marble. Any life remaining will be destroyed when old Sol becomes a red giant and consumes the Earth. Eventually, everything will pass away.

    The profile of a warmest is simple: someone who has no honor, suffers from herd mentality and believes that the end justifies the means. They have a religion which gives them hope. Hey, doesn’t everybody want to be a hero and save the planet? True, sacrifices will have to be made. We will have to reduce the world population to about a billion people. The faithful elect will board the green Ark, probably made of recycled gopherwood, while the rest of us are destroyed by the wrath of Gaia for our sins against the planet. Yes, we will burn in a hell on Earth caused by man’s addition of a tiny fraction to a trace gas which is so minute that it is measured in parts per million.

    I want to apologize for the “dumbing down” of America which began in the 1960s and has been all but completed. Unfortunately, America has “led the world” down this path and now we witness the acceptance by so many who, if the wizard would only give them a brain, could see the CAGW scam for what it really is: an attempt by the dark green lord to bring us all and in the darkness bind us.

    But be of good cheer for the end is near! Well, at least for the CAGW scam it is!

    Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone!

    10

    • #
      Cyril of Gladstone

      Eddie, A good article on the corruption of America that has occurred since the 1960s. I would suggest the same type of thing has been happening here in Australia.

      10

    • #

      The majority of people can be led along like sheep while ever the unconscionable control the media, education, banking and political systems –

      The system is propped up by all of us. We have to redetermine the right path.

      THE PSYCHOPATH – The Mask of Sanity

      Special Research Project of the Quantum Future School

      Imagine – if you can – not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

      And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

      Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

      You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

      In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

      You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.

      How will you live your life?

      What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?

      The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people – whether they have a conscience or not – favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. […]

      Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

      If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people’s hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction.

      Crazy and frightening – and real, in about 4 percent of the population….

      http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psycopath.htm

      10

      • #
        crosspatch

        I don’t think it looks psychopathic, I think it looks like there are several dozen narcissists in many different areas. The behaviors we see are typical of the responses of narcissists. Politicians tend to be narcissists, high level bureaucrats do too. Top scientists in various fields of study tend to be more narcissistic than the general population. Narcissists tend to respond in certain ways to criticism. That several would respond in the same manner to what they perceive to be a threat would not indicate any “conspiracy”. If a fire starts in a theater, you don’t need a conspiring among the people to evacuate, they just do. Many of these behaviors are typical of such people and not the result of some concerted action, though we do see in the emails certain coordination of some things among some of them (getting the BBC message “correct” and maybe the NYT as well, for example).

        People such as this will naturally be very careful to manage the outside appearance of what they are doing. They will experience any criticism of it as a personal attack on them and will respond ruthlessly. They will have little empathy for the feelings or positions of the others involved (print a paper that calls Mann’s or Jones’s positions into question and your career may be placed at risk). It is careful for them to control information flow (gatekeeping via peer review). It is clear that they exercise considerable control over the people within their group they see as being subordinate to them (people being berated for saying things in the press or talking to people that shouldn’t be communicated with, for example). It must be horrible to work under these people.

        10

      • #
        John Brookes

        Kevin Moore, that is really scary about psychopaths. I’d have trouble being a psychopath, because I don’t want my choices to make others unhappy. I think most people are like that – they value the happiness of others pretty highly. Probably related to one of Jesus’ commandments – love they neighbour as thyself. For the vast majority of people, this is an optimal strategy – you create the world that you want to live in, and everyone is happier.

        Say I have the power to fail a student, just because they give me the shits. I don’t exercise this power, because I don’t want to live in a world where people behave like that. I value fairness, so they only get a “fail” if they fail.

        I’m not a Christian, but Jesus was pretty spot on in a lot of what he said. Unfortunately some of his modern day followers are nut cases with limited understanding of anything. I’m reminded of a rant by a US TV comedian, which went something like this, “…the Bible. You know the Bible? Its that book you wave while you scream abuse at gays…”.

        Crosspatch, I don’t fully get the narcissist thing. I’m sure some scientists are full of themselves, and will never admit to being wrong. Again unsourced, there is a famous quote (poorly remembered) about such people. “Change doesn’t happen by the old guard changing their minds, it happens by their dying”.

        10

    • #
      Llew Jones

      Missed your post #17 Eddy. Had I read it I probably would not have got so worked up about my perception that CAGW skeptics probably don’t realise that global warming alarmism is but a subset of the doctrines of what you term neo-paganism.

      A bit of subsequent googling indicated that contemporary pantheists, naturally enough, feel right at home with ecology and also are thrilled with Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. Both of which of course are ideas as ancient and as practically useless as pantheism itself.

      10

  • #
    graphicconception

    This has been the most thought-provoking AGW thread I have ever seen.

    Firstly, I picked up on: “Emotional Intelligence”. OK, I admit it, my Emotional Intelligence Quotient is low, however, my conventional Intelligence Quotient is high (according to Mensa). So when I read the IPCC Executive Summary, I fixate on the “ifs”, “coulds” and “mights” and ignore any consequent implications regarding the sweet cuddly polar bears. I suspect those with a high EIQ will focus on the latter and ignore the former. For them the way it is said is all.

    Speculating, high EIQ people will revel in being part of an organisation or team with all that implies about fitting in, groupthink, conforming etc. They won’t need to think a whole problem through by themselves because the rest of the team can help and they trust each other. I think there is good agreement between this group and warmists.

    Conversely, non-high EIQ people will be better working alone, not be interested in conforming, will not be distracted from their principles, will try and work things out for themselves. On big subjects they will struggle because they will not know all the facts and will have no one to ask. A high conventional IQ will help, though. I feel sceptics correlate with this group and I believe that this is why we are not organised in the way the warmists are.

    Then AbysmalSpectator mentioned the Dunning–Kruger effect which, according to Wikipedia, “… is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.”

    Suggestion: Unskilled = The Team and Skilled = Other climate scientists?

    According to Wikipedia: Dunning and Kruger quote Charles Darwin (“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”) and Bertrand Russell (“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision”) as authors who have recognised the phenomenon.

    Note “imagination”. Warmists lack a certain amount of imagination. This is why it MUST be manmade CO2 “… because we can’t think of anything else.”

    From Gnome: About 500 years ago a fellow named Martin Luther nailed 95 good reasons [Theses] why the pope is a crook on the doors of a church [in 1517]. The title was: “Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”.

    Note: “Indulgences”. Carbon Tax anyone? Commiting a sin is OK if you pay the authority of the day (Government, The Church, UN?).

    From Wikipedia: Hillerbrand (2007) writes [of Luther’s points] that there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of Saint Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?”

    I am sure we can all think of some warmist examples of the rich making money out of the poor (eg make a speech for a 6-figure sum or agree to host some bird shredders for 3000 GBP per day.)

    From crosspatch: Milton Friedman called this dynamic an “unholy alliance between the do-gooders and the special interests”. The do-gooders are used by the special interests to enact things that make the special interests rich or gain them power.

    Politicians, Greanpeace, WWF etc. In days gone by The Catholic Church would have slotted in there, too.

    I think it is truly fascinating how much human nature there is in all this and how long ago it was all recognised. How many times will we fall for the same story?

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I agree, and have long held similar views.

      But may I suggest we avoid the concept of dipolar* intelligence? There are certainly major differences between emotive cognition and clinical (conventional) cognition, but Intelligence is multi-faceted at both ends of that spectrum.

      * I use the term dipolar (having two ends, of equal magnitude) rather than the “more correct”, bipolar (characterized by opposite extremes, such as two conflicting political philosophies) since the latter word now also carries the stigma of emotional instability.

      10

    • #
      graphicconception

      Sorry, I was not trying to imply that one characteristic excluded any other. Humans are multi-faceted and all characteristics have their own, independent, level control. IMHO.

      10

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    The original article is, of course, Patronising.

    It is not unexpected or out of the ordinary and perpetuates the AGW myth.

    So, despite the very real, core science, the AGW Pseudo Science is still coming up trumps as a political weapon for vote gathering and dissemination of do-gooderism.

    The only way to derail this monstrosity of human delusion is to have a Catastrophic event that creates anew undeniable plank in reality.

    WE desperately need a Royal Commission.

    There has been deliberate misinformation, large money transfers and jobs for the boys.

    Corruption must be isolated and removed from our Governments.

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Whatever the psychological situation — Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all!

    10

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    I would volunteer to sit on such a Commission because I am demonstrably unbiased, erudite, a bastion of logical thinking, and have no knowledge of anything in particular.

    I have also had the supreme fortune to have never achieved anything of merit, nor worked with or for anybody of importance.

    I therefore have no reputation to loose, should I accidentally stumble upon this corruption thing of which you speak.

    10

  • #
    incoherent rambler

    The most common argument in favour of AGW, that I have encountered, goes like;

    “How could all the newspapers, TV, Radio, most of the net and all those scientists be wrong? I know nothing of science, I am a and I just have to accept the view of the majority. Face it, no one could organize a conspiracy of such a massive scale.”

    I still have not found an effective answer to this.

    10

    • #
      crosspatch

      There is no money in being a skeptic. All the money is made on the AGW side. If you champion AGW you get to go to Cancun and Copenhagen and Durban and Tahiti. You get billions of dollars in grants and government loans. There are thousands of NGOs globally with large payrolls, there are entire government departments staffing up. There are no “skeptic departments”. If there really is no significant climate change associated with CO2, it would cause a huge loss of prestige and income to a large number of very powerful people. They HAVE to keep up the facade at this point as they are so heavily invested in it. If it turns out to be a fraud, they will have people with pitchforks and torches on the grounds of the capital and even the journalists who write on the subject now will have their credibility ruined forever.

      THAT is why you see such a massive scale of support. And the ironic thing is, the closer it gets to falling apart, the louder that support will be and the more massive the scale will become in order to keep the people in “the fold”.

      The pathology of it all is actually pretty typical.

      10

    • #
      Eddy Aruda

      Face it, no one could organize a conspiracy of such a massive scale.

      Nazi Germany is a perfect example of a conspiracy on a massive scale. The Germans felt cheated by the Treaty of Versailles and were looking for someone to restore their dignity. Adolf Hitler told them exactly what they wanted to hear and the people goose stepped along hook, line and sinker. The wars of aggression Germany waged against its neighbors were seen by the Nazis as both just and good. They murdered millions while the world stood by. After the UKs policy of appeasement failed World War II followed and millions more died.

      If a civilized 20th century european country’s citizens can stand by and watch innocent men, women and children being murdered by the millions simply because they are Jews, does anybody doubt what the greens would do if they could gain the ascendancy and were masters of the world? They would sacrifice 5 billion of us to “save the planet.” The remainder would eat granola, live in a cave and die at 35. But thats okay, human sacrifice is a Gaian sacrament!

      10

      • #
        crosspatch

        It doesn’t need to be an active “conspiracy”. Say you have 10 people who have a vested interest in a certain conclusion. They might take actions to discredit any “skeptics” and be supportive of each others’ actions. Or they might involve themselves in “gaslighting” which is the practice of sowing doubt in your own perceptions or in some sources of data you use to make decisions. One recent example would be Ben Santer’s and John Abraham’s to sow doubt about the UAH data. That would be an example of “gaslighting”. The message is “don’t pay attention to that data set” which does not show the trend that the IPCC would want us to see. Spencer and Christy managed to spot this attempt at “gaslighting” and set the record straight:

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/21/ben-santers-damage-control-on-uah-global-temperature-data/

        The point is that a group of individuals with the same things at risk may engage in the same sorts of behaviors to “defend” themselves without any active “conspiracy” among them. In the case of IPCC AR4, there does seem to be some active manipulation of the message to show a specific result. In this case things were being “managed” by Jones (ultimately by Hulme, it seems).

        And there is a coordination of many of these efforts via a single PR agency that acts as the coordinator of the message and the funding for nearly all of the NGOs, the philanthropical foundations, the press, and even Real Climate which was set up by Fenton Communications (who, by the way, are now operating in Australia with offices in Sydney and Melbourne)

        To read more about Fenton’s background, you should read this which was written before AGW was such a huge issue:

        http://junksciencecom.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/fear_profiteers.pdf

        Fenton and their associated clients are raking in the case from this issue.

        To learn more about “gaslighting”, have a look at this, particularly at near the 5 minute mark.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hllgfPCooYE&feature=related

        The best antidote to all of this is exposure. The more you are aware of common manipulation techniques, the more you are immune to them. These are not any kind of super secret techniques of any sort of huge conspiracy. These are techniques used by ordinary individuals, moreso by people who are higher on the narcissism scale, to manipulate other people. A group of people with a higher population than average of people with narcissistic behaviors would be expected to exhibit these behaviors more often than other people. That several of them might respond in the same way to criticism does not mean they are acting conspiratorially, it means that people of that sort of personality type generally tend to respond in that sort of way to criticism. “Gaslighting” is one way they think is clever and helps them manipulate people to their way of thinking.

        10

      • #
        crosspatch

        The Hockey Stick graph is a perfect example of “gasslighting”. We KNOW that there have been major natural variations in climate. The whole point of the “hockey stick” is to create a false impression that climate was actually stable and that any impact of the MWP and the LIA were, in fact, extremely local and “don’t count” in a global scale. The message is “do not believe data that say otherwise” despite a growing pile of global evidence that DOES say otherwise. And apparently this has also been done with the CO2 record:

        http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/co2-past-and-problems/

        You are being fed information that is presented in such a way as to make you question other sources of information, to confuse you. What then happens is that a lot of people in positions of trust line up on one side (because they have a lot at stake) and lend the weight of that public trust to one side of the issue. Just because a powerful person says something doesn’t mean it is true. One example of “gaslighting” in popular culture is the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

        10

        • #
          Eddy Aruda

          Crosspatch,

          Thank you for posting your comments on this thread. When I saw the number of comments I admit that I sighed. However, once I started reading I couldn’t stop until I read them all at least twice. Absolutely riveting!

          Merry Christmas!

          10

    • #
      KeithH

      Incoherent rambler: Think bandwagon rather than conspiracy. Can I recommend that you spend some time accessing the information and numerous informative links at
      http://green-agenda.com/

      Get all the facts and then make up your own mind!

      Merry Christmas and happy New year to all.

      And Kinky Keith = it’s ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!

      10

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Keith H

        No, that wasn’t the PC version of Ho Ho Ho

        I think I was laughing at RW’s list of qualifications for the royle commish.

        Now for Christmas

        Ho Ho Ho!

        10

  • #
    incoherent rambler

    The web editor!

    he most common argument in favour of AGW, that I have encountered, goes like;

    “How could all the newspapers, TV, Radio, most of the net and all those scientists be wrong? I know nothing of science, I am a –insert profession here– and I just have to accept the view of the majority. Face it, no one could organize a conspiracy of such a massive scale.”

    I still have not found an effective answer to this.

    10

    • #
      Allen Ford

      Charles Mackay wrote about this phenomenon in 1841 in Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. AGW is simply an extreme example of group think and clearly affects those who should really know better, including scientists, politicians and journalists.

      You can download a copy of Mackay’s book from the Project Gutenberg site http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=715236 .

      It would make a great Xmas read!

      10

    • #
      Gnome

      I think the most common argument in favour of AGW goes:

      IF global warming

      THEN catastrophe

      THEREFORE global warming.

      A typical expression of this might be along the lines “2 degrees of warming would destroy the Greatbarrierreef. We need to do reduce CO2 emissions to avoid this.”

      10

    • #

      “How could all the newspapers, TV, Radio, most of the net and all those scientists be wrong? I know nothing of science, I am a –insert profession here– and I just have to accept the view of the majority. Face it, no one could organize a conspiracy of such a massive scale.”

      If you cannot judge the science of climate change, how can you judge those who claim to be climate scientists? Aren’t you simply accepting them at their word? Why then should I consider your opinion on the matter to have any value?

      10

  • #
    anna jones

    I am hugely grateful as many more must be to Joanne for her endless effort.
    But reading the abovementioned article in The Age leaves me with an often experienced sense of despair. Overlooking small adjustments to the AGW debate due to what one may term the “Blind Alley Effect” nothing changes. How many years has it been now?
    I was aware of the global warming story a long time ago. In the process of buying a new place to live in 1993 I was careful to be well above the high tide mark. Of course I shouldn’t have worried. I basically had no real opinion on “Climate Change” at that time but it latterly didn’t take long to develop one, as even back then there was plenty of scientific reading material.
    It’s not that people so determinedly follow “religions”. It’s the stubborn hatred for other views that develops. The warmists will never be swayed. Unless you believe in the practice of annihilating your enemy as does the American military, one should at least take comfort in knowing that the money will eventually run out. Or that children eventually get bored with their toys.

    10

    • #

      ‘Money’ is only electrons in a computer and will never run out while the unconscionable control its issue.

      Banks do not produce anything of value.

      They are simply parasites feeding off the proceeds of our productivity.

      It is only when enough people grow tired of being slaves to this insane system that things will change.

      Then the banks luck might run out.

      10

  • #

    It starts in the very first paragraph with “Research is mounting that your friend etc…” and “…he has been derailed by an emotional response…”.

    No surprise that Biegler expresses the utterly commonplace with mock-analytical verbiage. That’s to be expected of a “postdoctoral fellow in bioethics at Monash University”. A sorry but familiar effect of junk education.

    If only Biegler was happy with the patronising, leaden jargon of his particular pretend-science. But, like so many writers for the Fairfax press, he seems convinced of an ability to write not just with moral and intellectual authority but with verve. The result is that prissy tone, the tortured figures of speech, and the overwrought language so typical of the Age.

    Perhaps I’m just one of the skeptic slobs who, in childhood, gobbled the first marshmallow. Yet I believe the time has come to hang a copy of the OED and Gower’s Plain Words over the door of every Fairfax editor’s office. And a sign should read: “First do no harm…to the English language!”

    10

  • #
    pat

    want to wish jo and family, including all the “family” posting here a merry xmas & a happy, healthy & prosperous new year.
    thank u jo for your courage.

    10

  • #
    Allen Ford

    I hereby declare that Paul is the uncontested winner of the inaugural Lead Balloon Trophy for Thought Bubbler of The Year. Previously, it was a toss up between Flim Flannery and Sarah Hyphen-Ventilator™, Flim for his prediction of malarial mayhem due to AGW, just when it was announced that research suggests that “warmer temperatures seem to slow transmission of malaria-causing parasites, by reducing their infectiousness”, and Sarah for her insensitive remarks on the recent loss of life of asylum seekers headed for Oz. “Sh*t happens!”, she said, or words to that effect.

    However, for sheer effrontery, Paul’s opus would have to be the most sustained piece of thought bubblery in recent memory.

    Well done, Paul!

    10

  • #
    AndyG55

    Too many people have swallowed the IPCC line of massive positive feedbacks on CO2 warming effect.
    Now, given that the Earth and its atmosphere have been around a long time, it seems MUCH more likely that the atmosphere is is going to balance itself with negative feedbacks, to the point that increased CO2 will have very little effect on the global temperature. (As has become apparent in the last 12-15 years)

    Once you discount the purely hypothetical idea of positive feedbacks, (the very basis of the CAGW religion), then returning CO2 to the atmosphere from its long buried state has ONLY beneficial effects on the atmosphere and on life in general. Plant life thrives on the extra CO2. Plant life will reward us with increased food supplies, (if not used for moronic things like biofuels).

    NATURE THANKS US for releasing this CO2 that was once in abundance, but has been lacking for so long. !!!

    10

  • #
    Otter

    Just realized you and yours are well into Christmas Eve day, JO, so here’s to all of you in Australia! Merry Christmas!

    10

  • #
    roh234

    Next stop room 101 in ClimatSoc. Honestly, instead of debating the science they debate the (lack of) consensus and that consensus science makes fact.

    10

  • #
    warcroft

    Im going to copy/paste a comment thread from another site. The article was about how school science education has drastically fallen in recent years.
    Students just arent studying science these days.
    From here: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/12/australian-students-studying-much-less-science/

    warcroft
    December 21, 2011 at 6:33 AM

    Two things. . .
    One is a large increase in strong religious belief immigrants with a reluctance towards science education.
    Two, I guess this goes a long way to explaining the acceptance of the whole climate change scam.

    warcroft
    December 21, 2011 at 6:34 AM

    Oh, and now Ill put my flame suit on.

    Morf
    December 21, 2011 at 8:15 AM

    i will agree with you war. I’m an Elec Engineer that has a keen interest in “climate change” and although i agree that climate change is occurring, the reasons for which are being stated are completely ridiculous because the data streams they are using for their modelling are either too short (in the range of 100-200 years) or too focused on singular event horizons (carbon levels in atmosphere)
    Considering they have estimated ice-age periods to occur between 10,000 and 40,000 years apart, using 100 or even 200 years of data is not enough to effectively predict anything as volatile as the weather patterns on earth. Not to mention the effect the earth’s electro-magnetic field has on this system. (you may not know this but it is heading towards a pole change…..

    johnd
    December 21, 2011 at 8:25 AM

    And you are one of the reasons we have this problem. You, an electrical engineer with no formal training in climate science, saying that all climate scientists are wrong about causation and you, an electrical engineer, are right. Your view devalues peoples qualifications and research. This, in turn, drives some people away from studying science. They see you and your ilk basically saying “you might be qualified, but I know better”.

    It’s as though we are developing a culture of people who are actually proud of their ignorance, and can’t help but wave it around like a flag.

    Your views devalue the hard work and research that climate scientists do.
    Next thing you know we’ll have politicians saying that climate scientists don’t know what they are talking about.
    Oh….

    Mike
    December 21, 2011 at 8:31 AM

    +1 johnd

    I don’t think I’ve ever read anything on here as acutely embarrassing as Morf’s justification for this excursion off-topic.

    warcroft
    December 21, 2011 at 10:37 AM

    JohnD. . .
    The term ‘climate scientist’ never existed until Al Gore started using the catch phrase “are you a climate scientist?” Climate scientists didnt exist until the climate change scare kicked into gear.
    You dont need to be a climate scientist to know and understand the weather.

    “My tyres are flat.”
    “Are you a mechanic?”
    “No.”
    “Then you dont know what youre talking about.”

    You dont need to be a climate scientist. You just need to understand science.

    warcroft
    December 21, 2011 at 10:53 AM

    The only ‘real’ climate scientists are the ones who work directly for the IPCC or related.
    The catch phrase of “are you a climate scientist?” is just a way to shoot down and discredit anyone with a differing opinion.

    I dont need to be an aeronautical engineer to know a brick does not fly, even if there were a hundred models to say otherwise.

    johnd
    December 21, 2011 at 10:56 AM

    Not even going to enter into this argument. The fact that you would say something so ridiculous means nothing anyone says will have any impact on you.

    warcroft
    December 21, 2011 at 11:33 AM

    You did it again. Claiming someone’s differing opinion as being ridiculous is a way for you to discredit an opposing argument.

    johnd
    December 21, 2011 at 2:30 PM

    I hear a small voice from a figure in the middle distance jumping up and down shouting “Look at me! I’m ignorant and proud of it!”

    warcroft
    December 21, 2011 at 4:42 PM

    Wow, claiming someones opinion as ridiculous and then calling them ignorant. Thats very open minded and scientific of you.
    Youre a true to the bone warmist.

    10

    • #
      Otter

      ‘johnd
      December 21, 2011 at 2:30 PM

      I hear a small voice from a figure in the middle distance jumping up and down shouting “Look at me! I’m ignorant and proud of it!”’

      Hellck, Warcroft, you can present half a dozen peer-reviewed papers proving your point to these slime people, and they will Still shriek ‘ignorance!’
      Meantime, most of them couldn’t even name most of the scientists they have faith in.

      10

    • #
      Paul79

      “You dont need to be a climate scientist…”

      Any physicist who examines what is being fed into the models will soon question the validity of the input. One such is the so-called climate sensitivity to doubling CO2 in the atmosphere, an unmeasured value, as shown by the model scenarios to be too high. They dismissed solar effects as too small, yet if this was added to the theoretical CO2 effect to-date, the result would be closed to that observed, allowing for the statistical errors of ‘global temperature.’

      Someone with geological training understands the cyclical changes of climate, coupled with solar-planetary interactions.

      Not all of these professionals will agree, but then they may depend on grants and salaries to survive.

      10

      • #
        John Brookes

        Paul79, I think you’ll find that the climate sensitivity is not fed into the computer model, but is a result of the computer simulation. There are a range of possible climate sensitivities, but the consensus is somewhere between 1.8 and 4.5 degrees C. If I was betting, I’d go for around 2.2 degrees, and hope that I’d erred on the high side.

        Solar effects are included in models. Well, the total radiant energy of the sun is. Other seemingly irrelevant factors are left out. Maybe the effect of the sun on cosmic rays will have to be included – but it still seems likely this effect will be somewhere between non-existent and very weak.

        If someone were to come up with genuinely compelling reasons why climate sensitivity was (say) 0.4 degrees, they would face a battle – but they would win in the end. The end of this century should give conclusive results of the uncontrolled experiment we are running. Too bad I’ll be dead long before then.

        10

  • #
    ausiedan

    Jo,
    I understand that, in another context, Stalin described “true believers” as “useful fools”.
    That seems to fit nicely.
    Seasons Greetings and a Rational New Year.

    10

  • #

    […] Climate alarmists might just be captive to basic emotions […]

    10

    • #

      A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you Joanne, and the rest of those lurkers here like me, and your guest commenters, throughout the year…great entertainment and may we win the lunatic tax debate soon to be imposed before it breaks us…

      10

  • #
    Joe's World

    Merry Christmas Jo!

    How much more global warming will you produce making that fine meal for Christmas?

    My place is so lit up, you may even see it from space. 🙂

    10

  • #
    pat

    24 Dec: MoneyControl: Reuters: China CATA to sue EU on airline carbon rule – media
    “We deeply regretted that the United States lost the lawsuit. China will continue to steadfastly pursue a lawsuit,” Chai Haibo, deputy secretary of China Air Transport Association, was quoted by the Economic Observer for its Monday edition as saying.
    China Daily on Friday also quoted Chai as saying that China’s four major state-run airlines have reached an agreement with CATA to jointly sue the EU in Germany at the end of this month.
    “We know that the prospect of victory is dim, but we want to show our firm opposition by launching a lawsuit,” Chai was quoted by China Daily as saying…
    The case before the Wednesday ruling by the EU’s highest court has triggered hostile reaction from airlines around the world, as well as blocking legistration in the U.S. Congress and a threat from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…
    http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/china-cata-to-sue-euairline-carbon-rule-media_639096.html

    10

  • #
    pat

    reuters gets a quote from WWF on this!

    23 Dec: Reuters: Barbara Lewis: Q+A-UPDATE 1-What next in the EU versus airlines dispute?
    In the latest of a flurry of statements from airlines and their associations, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) called on the EU to abandon its plans.
    “This dispute needs to be resolved through constructive political dialogue, rather than embarking on a bruising trade war,” the AAPA said on Friday. “We urge the EU to scrap plans to include foreign airlines within the EU ETS.”…
    Many in Europe dismissed the threats of retaliation as rhetoric.
    “No one wants to see a trade war. No one wants to pay huge fines. There is a lot of sabre-rattling,” Jean Leston, senior transport policy adviser at WWF, said…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/23/eu-airlines-idUSL6E7NN1VF20111223

    10

  • #
    Sceptical Sam

    Believers, prophets and prophecies.

    Given that we are in the middle of the Christmas celebrations perhaps we should look a lot closer at the second batch of leaked ClimateGate emails. There’s a good story here on Christian religious belief as a driving force for belief in catastrophic global warming.

    For example: email number 4394 has Sir John Theodore Houghton, previously CEO of the UK Met Office and an IPCC co-chair, elaborating on the responsibility his God has given him when he pleads:
    “But we dont (sic) take seriously enough our God-given responsibility to care for the Earth and our fellow humans, especially the poor and disadvantaged.

    Luke tells the same story and stresses the importance of seeking the kingdom of God above all else. Two contrasting parables in the same chapter (12) – of the rich fool, whose goal was to increase his wealth, and the faithful steward, who carefully managed his master’s household in his absence should challenge us in the affluent West. Jesus concluded, ‘From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, more will be asked….

    500 million people are expected to watch The Day After Tomorrow. We must pray that they pick up that message.”

    http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/4394.txt

    Houghton, as most people here would know, is currently the chairman of the John Ray Initiative, an organization “connecting environment, science and Christianity”, where he has compared the stewardship of the Earth no less, to the stewardship of the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve. He is a founder member of the International Society for Science and Religion.

    And Mike Hulme at the University of East Anglia, in email number 0999, makes his religious position very clear:

    “My work is as Director of the national centre for climate change research, a job which requires me to translate my Christian belief about stewardship of God’s planet into research and action.”

    http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=949

    His personal views, as expressed by him are:

    “I’m a believer

    Mike Hulme, professor of climate change, University of East Anglia

    There are many reasons – lines of evidence, if you will – all of which weave together to point me in a certain direction (much as a scientist or a jury might do before reaching a considered judgement), which we call a belief.

    [I believe] because there is non-trivial historical evidence that a person called Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead 2,000 years ago, and it just so happens that He predicted that He would . . . I believe because of the testimony of billions of believers, just a few of whom are known to me and in whom I trust (and hence trust their testimony).

    I believe because of my ineradicable sense that certain things I see and hear about in the world warrant the non-arbitrary categories of “good” or “evil”. I believe because I have not discovered a better explanation of beauty, truth and love than that they emerge in a world created – willed into being – by a God who personifies beauty, truth and love.”

    http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2011/04/god-believe-faith-world-belief

    http://mikehulme.org/

    And in email number 3653 he (Hulme) refers to another Christian who is also a climate scientist.

    “Might I suggest you try asking Dr Jonathan Gregory at the Hadley Centre?

    Email:

    He is a Christian and would talk authoritatively about the state of climate science from the sort of standpoint you are wanting.”

    http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=3603

    Jonathan Gregory joined the climate change group at the Met Office Hadley Centre soon after the Centre opened in 1990, following a PhD in particle physics and a year working at the Climatic Research Unit in Norwich. In 2003 he became a Met Office Fellow in climate change. Since 2003 he has also worked at the University of Reading, where he is a principal research scientist in the Walker Institute for Climate System Research and the climate programme of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, and has been a professor since 2006. He was joint coordinating lead author of the sea level chapter of the Third Assessment Report of Working Group I of the IPCC, and a lead author of the ocean observations and projections chapters of AR4.

    Now, the question is: to what extend does this paternalistic view – nay faith – translate into a “belief” in the global warming dogma? So called “scientists” who believe in a Catholic Church invention of the Trinity (Council of Nicea, 325 AD – a council of men) need to be challenged on their similar acceptance of other postulates and the extent to which they are a more than gullible tool for an unholy alliance of far more sophisticated and manipulative forces. This is especially so since an earlier belief was that Christ was a created and changeable being, who, while superior to humans, was not of the same order as the one God. This view was finally condemned by the Roman Church at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD; another council of men.

    The dictat of Nicea and its ratification at Constantinople constitutes a consensus belief – enforced through the application of the full power of the Catholic Church; a belief which – as declared Christians – is presumably accepted by the likes of Hulme, Gregory and Houghton.

    Any guesses on who or what constitutes part of the far more sophisticated and manipulative force – the unholy alliance? A “modest amount of work” is all that’s required to find the answer. And there’s an email that goes with it.

    10

    • #
      Otter

      Yeah. Being a Christian myself, and I don’t see it. I DO believe, that they will gladly latch onto anything they believe will support their POV to the rest of the world, but right there, one can see that with 1.5 billion Christians, you’d have 1.5 billion POVs on climate change- and a LOT of them would be on our side.

      10

    • #
      Llew Jones

      Here is an interesting piece from an African Christian on the so called cultural mandate (we can probably blame the biblical injunction for man to have dominion (stewardship) over the earth and subdue it for such things as the Industrial Revolution and the use of the Earth’s fossil fuels and mineral resources).

      Can’t locate the fuller article but the excerpt below gives a bit different perspective from one of those whose fellow countrymen lack what we in the West take for granted. Different, that is, from the perspective of the “Christian” scientists you mention who essentially dump a biblical position and embrace the tenets of Pantheism and Animism. Which of course are the philosophical foundations of contemporary environmentalism:

      http://www.conradmbewe.com/2011/02/evangelising-and-subduing-earth.html

      Saturday, February 12, 2011

      Evangelising and Subduing the Earth

      “And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:28).

      This is the theme of issue 21 (January-April 2011) of our latest Reformation Zambia magazine. Reformation Zambia is our local Christian magazine as Reformed Baptists in Zambia and is tailor-made for “serious” readers………..

      Choolwe Mwetwa shows us the challenges we must overcome in order for us to undertake the cultural made in Africa today. He observes, “The West and their disciples (such as Japan) have largely used science to subdue nature. The depths of the earth and sea have been foraged for value addition to life. The lower heavens are being probed constantly, with the moon as guinea pig. On earth, engineering, architectural, and medical milestones are being reached—all in a bid to maximise human comfort, pride, and pleasure. In addition to this, the developed world, largely inspired by capitalistic principles and rewarded by a Bible-based work-ethic has laboured to create the money needed to bring about this progress.
      “Africa, although possessing great potential, continues to lag behind. The one thing she seems to have understood clearly is God’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’ Fruitful we surely have been. There is no shortage of pregnant women checking in at hospitals to keep our midwives employed and to build our communities and our capacity to be socialists. We are not doing badly in filling the earth.
      “The problem is that this is where we seem to have stopped listening. Even though God further said, ‘and subdue it [the earth] and have dominion over [it]…’ we have been indifferent to this aspect of the command. Needless to say, the price paid for this lapse is colossal. Never can any people get away with not meticulously heeding divine counsel. The numerous problems facing our continent are a direct consequence of this omission. But why, if I may ask, have Africans not excelled in the important duty of subduing the earth? May I suggest four culture-related reasons?” The rest of the article is an exposition of these four reasons.

      10

      • #

        “laboured to create the money needed to bring about this progress.”

        That is probably an unconscious admission of how the banking system works. It is the borrowers signature below a promise to pay that allows the so called money to be created [out of thin air].

        10

  • #
    Kevin Moore

    “So called “scientists” who believe in a Catholic Church invention of the Trinity (Council of Nicea, 325 AD – a council of men) need to be challenged on their similar acceptance of other postulates and the extent to which they are a more than gullible tool for an unholy alliance of far more sophisticated and manipulative forces.”

    We all need our beliefs to be challenged variously –

    Nimrod’s Connection to Christmas

    Nimrod has everything to do with Christmas.
    The most obvious thing is the date.
    As the first sun-god of Babylon, Nimrod ‘s
    birthday was December 25th.

    “Nimrod’s ambitions knew no bounds.
    He deified himself into god, born at the
    winter solstice or the Nativity of the Sun,
    through the great virgin mother.”
    — The Two Babylons
    Expanded Edition – 2003

    “The teachings of Nimrod accordingly spread
    all over the face of the earth. The principles
    of Sun-worship and its dates remained unaltered
    as it was based upon the different phases of
    the Sun….”
    — The Two Babylons
    Expanded Edition – 2003

    25th December was celebrated in ancient days
    as the birthday of the unconquerable SUN gods,
    variously know as Tammuz, Mithra, Saturn,
    Adonis and BAAL, etc..

    10

    • #

      Just playing around with the English gematria which goes in increments of six and came up with the following – which is likely to get me excommunicated.

      A Christmas = 666

      Santa Claus = 666

      Image of Satan = 666

      Catholic idol = 666

      A strange God = 666

      Also, it might be of interest that New York[s] gematria, home of the United Nations = 666.

      10

      • #
        memoryvault

        It’s a pity the “number of the beast” in Revelation in the oldest Greek, Latin and Copic texts was 616.

        10

        • #

          Irenaeus on 666 and 616

          “…I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle number in the name, deducting the amount of fifty from it, so that instead of six decads they will have it that there is but one {i.e., 616}. [I am inclined to think that this occurred through the fault of the copyists….”

          10

          • #
            memoryvault

            Yeah, but the trouble is, the texts with 616 are OLDER than those with 666.

            MUCH older.

            However, the texts with 666 were discovered BEFORE those with 616. Which tends to suggest if there was any “mistranslation” it was from 616 (older) to 666 (newer), not the other way around.

            Add to that the fact that 616 is basically a pretty “ordinary” number, and 666 is a “magic” number (triangle number plus other things), and it’s pretty easy to understand why 666 became the preferred translation.

            Doesn’t make it right though.

            10

          • #
            memoryvault

            Did I mention that the true sabbath is on Thursday?

            I love getting into that one with the JOHO’s who knock on my door.

            10

  • #
    Paul S

    Re the idea that there is/has been some sort of conspiracy at work behind the AGW meme. What has taken place is not so much a planned deception by a cabal of secretive elites – at least not in the first instance. Like all socioeconomic upheavals in history, there has been a confluence of interests which are served by a particular idea. That it has made strange bedfellows (international bankers, NGO’s, the UN and scientists)should come as no surprise. British imperialism, fascism and communism all found broad cultural and intellectual support. The conspiracy begins when those involved know that they have been at best careless with the facts, yet persist with their dishonesty. In the end, all ideologies collapse under the weight of their internal contradictions. AGW is an ideology, as it requires faith – the belief in things unseen, and the acceptance of the authority of a self-appointed hierarchy with superior knowledge.

    10

  • #
    Rod

    AGW climate science and psychiatry have much in common. They are both based on belief and faith and are both unfalsifiable. Proponents of either will always be able to cherry pick studies or engage in data mining to find something that could appear to support their claims. Given the state of education over the past 20 years, and the type of people these “disciplines” attract, it’s not surprising that many of these people actually believe ( think is true ) what they say. These people are products of their neighbourhood, society and their education. A great many of these people are also believers in the religious sense. Even agnostic and atheist psychiatrists in Australia pander to Roman Catholicism.

    It’s not surprising then that AGW sceptics are likely to be psychiatrized. The function of psychiatry in Australia is to maintain the behaviour of the herd and to cull deviance from normality.

    10

  • #
    Dave

    These are the same people who like stuck clocks wouldn’t stop attributing the boat people explosion to “push factors” and insisted expedited onshore processing was the only humane option. Then after 2 incidents where over 200 people have died* they change the chant to something about “Abbott refusing to negotiate” to have the original Howard policy put in place which they fought so fervently against.

    * And the rest, we can’t know how many

    10

  • #
    Sceptical Sam

    Re #37 and discussion.

    If you haven’t seen it, maybe you should.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_zytOaQxYg

    10

  • #
  • #

    The Lunatics are Running the Assylum.

    “…The truth is that there are no precise clinical criteria for determining mental illness as a true illness or disease. Definitions differ among authorities in the field, depending upon the individual psychiatrist’s personal orientation. To mental health professionals of a political stripe, patriotism is considered a form of mental illness that should be treated by psychiatric intervention.

    The same is true of religion. A deep religious faith is regarded as a form of psychoneurosis if not psychosis, by the majority of psychiatrists practicing today.

    Aside from a handful of Catholic and even fewer devout Protestant practitioners, there is virtually universal agreement in the profession that religion has an adverse effect on mental health.

    This implacable hostility to spirituality has prompted many attacks on the personality of Jesus Christ, whom leading psychopathologists have pronounced insane. Typical of these “diagnoses” is the statement of an American psychiatrist that, “Everything that we know about him [Christ] conforms so perfectly to the clinical picture of paranoia that it is hardly conceivable that people can even question the diagnosis.” 11

    With the exception of an early work by Dr. Albert Schweitzer, The Psychiatric Study of Jesus, published in 1913, I know of no major work by a psychiatrist which seeks to challenge or to repudiate this view.

    It should occasion no surprise that psychiatrists would thus undertake to diagnose the mental condition of a man who lived almost 2,000 years ago and about whom no clinical details exist. For, while claiming that mental illness is a disease (which can be determined only by personal examination and/or laboratory tests), psychiatrists do not hesitate to declare persons psychotic whom they have never seen.

    When Senator Barry Goldwater became a candidate for President of the United States, no fewer than 1,189 members of the American Psychiatric Association (who were opposed to his political views) declared him to be “psychologically unfit to serve as President”. Many of them asserted that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and that he was “a potentially dangerous man….

    Dr Thomas S. Szazs, a prominent American psychiatrist and outspoken critic of his own discipline as it is presently practised, once described the mental health movement as essentially Communist ideology in medicine….”

    http://www.freezone.org/timetrack/data/Hidden_Story/chapter5.htm

    10

    • #
      John Brookes

      Kevin, I’m sure you are right, and mental illness is poorly defined. But when faced with an actual case of mental illness, it stands out like a topless model in a mosque.

      10

      • #

        John Brookes

        It is insane that the proven false doctrines of the minority who make up the Church of Climatology have given themselves the right to pass laws and punish with restrictions and taxes the majority who want no part of the crazy Gaia doctrine.

        Is it sane of the UN, to advocate that the Gaia worshipping witches in the Church of Climatology should be the priestesses of a One World Religion?

        If you believe your insane Gaia doctrine, go ahead, but show respect and do no harm to those who don’t.

        10

  • #

    Note to author:
    The “climate prediction models” don’t predict. They project. Projections are non-falsifiable, thus lying outside science. Predictions are falsifiable thus lying inside science.

    10

    • #
      memoryvault

      Actually, within the correct English meaning of the word as used in an article about science, a “projection” would be a forward calculation of future conditions based on current known data and trends.

      A “prediction” however, can be simply prophecy, often based on little more than the predictor’s beliefs.

      “Based on current trends, it appears the earth’s population will stabilise at around nine billion”, is a science-based projection.

      “A doubling of atmospheric CO2 will cause global temperatures to rise by eight degrees”, is little more than a statement of prophetic faith from the Bible of the Church of Climatology.

      Since pretty-much all CAGW “science” is dogma-driven prophecy, I think it is quite accurate for the author to write “climate prediction models”.

      Since both a projection and a prediction apply to a future event, neither can be said to be “falsifiable” as that term applies to scientific hypotheses.

      10

      • #

        I’m just waiting for the moment when someone, er, translates, and then mentions that one of Nostradamus’ Quatrains mentions Climate Change/Global Warming.

        Doesn’t it always make you smile about Nostradamus. All his, er, predictions are deciphered ‘after the fact’.

        Sorta bears a close similarity to Climate Change

        Tony.

        10

    • #
      John Brookes

      Thank you for that Terry. Up until now I believed in CAGW, but now that you’ve cleared up the difference between prediction and projection, I can at last see what lying bastards they are.

      10

      • #
        Dave

        Thank you for that JB. Up until now I believed that CAGW was a scam, but now you’ve confirmed your agreeance between the difference between projection and prediction, I can at last see why the CAGW lying bastards are wrong, they know it’s a scam!

        Merry Xmas & Happy New Year everyone!

        10

  • #
    Llew Jones

    Just back from my daily jog. During it I was pondering on what seems to be a no brainer viz. evolutionary theory provides a scientific basis of sorts for pantheism or its contemporary equivalent, ecology. If that is so then we skeptics are up against a much bigger foe than maybe we imagined. The warmists if they were a little brighter could have accused us of scientific illiteracy on that basis.

    10

    • #
      John Brookes

      I don’t get it Llew, does that mean you don’t think evolution is a good description of how life on earth got to where it is?

      10

      • #

        All species reproduce according to their kind but with mankind their occurred an aberation whereby some walk like a man and talk like a man, but have the brains of a monkey.

        10

      • #
        Llew Jones

        JB.

        There are other unnamed distractions when one is jogging but it seemed to me at the time that one’s world view, if one is going to be consistent, would form some part of one’s basis for rejecting climate change alarmism.

        We may reject that attitude purely on the grounds that given all we know, about the science of the Earth’s climate and climate change, that knowledge does not allow us to accept CAGW. That is my position and I guess that of most skeptics here.

        However there has over the post Darwin period been an increasing embrace by biology of the inter-connectedness of all life forms and the claim that that relationship leads to their vital mutual dependency. That is the message of ecology which is essentially the revival of an old paradigm, pantheism. At present the focus of ecology is mainly on the animate species but as you may be aware it is moving in the direction of full blown pantheism where the inanimate is also sacred. Water, soils and rocks. In that shift where for example do fossil fuel deposits fit? Or minerals deposits?

        (One can only wonder where a modern pantheist/ecologist would sit with modern medicine’s attitude to say bacteria. I mean they are also a part of the natural life system).

        There can be little doubt that post the Reformation, with its emphasis on the centrality of the bible that the ensuing European (The West) cultural matrix, in which the Industrial Revolution began and developed, was Judeo/Christian in nature and the objections of pantheism or today’s Ecology would have been laughed out of the equation with regard to exploiting nature’s resources for the benefit of humans.

        The theory of evolution and Pantheism/Ecology? I guess what I’m asking is, how does a CAGW skeptic, who I’m assuming is happy with humans continuing the use of and exploiting natural resources and accepts the theory of evolution dodge the ecology “bullet”. And remain consistent. That is, what is their rationale apart from some sort of secular anthropocentric “cultural mandate”?

        10

        • #
          John Brookes

          Fair enough Llew. Human history seems to be about becoming more inclusive. In the last few hundred years the poor, woman and blacks have achieved “full human status” (at least in western societies). Now it seems that maybe whales and dolphins are also “human”.

          Are we the rulers of the world, or just another species sharing the Earth?

          10

          • #
            Eddy Aruda

            Are we the rulers of the world, or just another species sharing the Earth?

            We are the rulers of the Earth by virtue of the fact that we hit the Darwinian super lotto! That’s right, John, we are at the top of the food chain!

            I am all for sharing the Earth, with the possible exception of climate scientists, with all the slimy critters including you, John.

            John, do you and other warmists suffer from a genetic mutation which has eviscerated your instinct for survival? News flash! Although the environment is important people come first! Got that, John?

            10

        • #
          memoryvault

          It’s really quite simple Lew.

          There’s a thing called the food chain.

          And right now, for the time being, we’re at the top of it.

          10

          • #
            Llew Jones

            A shorter and flasher name for that MV and Eddy is anthropocentrism …of the secular variety of course.

            (flasher not as in in indecent exposure but rather using the comparative, more flash).

            10

        • #

          Eddy Aruda
          December 27, 2011 at 5:23 pm · Edit

          Although the environment is important people come first! Got that, John?

          Those who believe that other critters are equally as important as humans are the ultimate traitors.
          If you can sell out your species, you can sell out anybody.

          hey Eddy, how the ‘ell are ya?

          10

  • #
    BULLDOG44

    I read the article when it first came out and my first thought was – “what a condescending wanker” after some sober reflection I have to report that my current thoughts are – “what an insufferable, condescending wanker”.

    However I will continue to reflect, and possibly after a less sober New Year’s Eve my thoughts will need further amendment!

    10

  • #
    cynthia allingham

    It is very likely that people on both sides have been influenced by ‘fashion’ rather than evidence. And how do we determine which side is the most fashionable anyway?

    10

    • #
      John Brookes

      There’s no doubt, CAGW is far more trendy!

      10

      • #
        memoryvault

        Culottes were considered trendy, in their day.

        Which just goes to show how ridiculous and irrelevant being “fashionable” can be.

        10

      • #
        pattoh

        Nail on Head:- How long before wind turbines end up on the tip with the leg warmers, footbaths, ab-kings & “alert not alarmed” frig magnets?

        10

        • #
          memoryvault

          From time to time I entertain a thought about wind turbines.

          In a thousand year’s time, what will the archeologists of the day make of our wind farm sites?

          The turbines, towers and blades will, of course, be long gone, but there will still be row upon row of the crumbled remains of their massive concrete foundations.

          All buried in the ground in what will probably be, by then, an inexplicable alignment.

          And it will be pretty-much a world-wide phenomenon.

          Will those future archeologists assign a religious significance to them?
          Just as we do today with such unexplained things as pyramids, the Nazca Lines and the “heads” on Easter Island?

          .
          And if they did, would they be wrong?

          10

          • #
            Mydogsgotnonose

            It will be viewed as similar to the Easter Island Statue Cult, a symbol of Marxist dominance of the West, a bit like the Norman Castles after the invasion of England.

            10

          • #
            John Brookes

            They’ll have no trouble knowing what wind turbines were, but coal fired power stations might cause them some confusion.

            Some time in the next 50 years, we’ll finally nail nuclear fusion, and then the energy problem will be over.

            10

          • #

            Some time in the next 50 years, we’ll finally nail nuclear fusion, and then the energy problem will be over.

            Says John without realising that that is THE worst nightmare of a greenie/environmentalist.

            Having limitless cheap sources of power means the fast expansion of human civilisation.
            That means more people, occupying and using more space and using more of the natural resources we use now and maybe some new ones.
            Inevitably, this will lead to a squeezing out of other species.

            Disputes between peoples will inevitably increase in number and severity.

            I used the word “will” instead of “may” because if you speed up the rate of our development, everything that we do will ipso fact also speed up.

            So no John, if you are a true greenie, you cannot possibly want nuclear fusion ( or windmills/solar that provide cheap limitless base load power.

            In fact, it surprises me that the Lovers of Gaia are trying to stop pestilent humans from destroying themselves by raising temperatures by a few degrees.
            Gaia will inevitably repair herself, minus humans. (she always..ALWAYS.. does.)

            10

  • #
    Frank Johnstone

    HAVE A LOOK AT THE LATEST BS GLOBAL WARMING WEBSITE !!!

    http://hardenup.org/about-green-cross-australia.aspx

    Guess what ?

    IT WAS FOUNDED BY NONE OTHER THAN THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST “Mikhail Gorbachev” !

    “Green Cross Australia is the
    Australian affiliate of Green Cross International
    founded by President Mikhail Gorbachev

    http://www.greencrossaustralia.org/about-green-cross/our-connectivity.aspx

    The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev…………

    http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/kohlmayer051107.htm

    10

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Hi Frank J

      Thanks for a unique post.

      The Gorbachev connection is so truly representative of this whole Man Made Global Warming farce.

      Yes: people are really so gullible that they would give their time and energy to fund somebody else’s trip to Geneva to “manage” the effort to save the world.

      More Green cannon fodder.

      10

  • #
    Frank Johnstone

    $1.1 million fine for the kids’ backyard cubby put up without council approval !!!

    ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS AGENDA21 AT WORK THROUGH LOCAL AUSTRALIAN COUNCILS !!

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/million-fine-for-the-kids-backyard-cubby-put-up-without-council-approval/story-e6freuzi-1226230821966

    10

  • #
    memoryvault

    Lew Jones @ 46.1.2.2.1

    Apologies for replying down here, but the “reply” function has run out on the original thread.

    A shorter and flasher name for that MV and Eddy is anthropocentrism …of the secular variety of course.

    This has nothing to do with regarding myself or other humans as the “central and most significant entities in the universe, or the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective” as Wikipedia puts it.

    It is a simple statement of fact.

    We ARE the dominant species at the moment in a food chain that extends from us all the way down to krill and the phytoplankton they feed upon.

    This could change tomorrow, and almost certainly will at some point.

    Go read “The Day of the Triffids” for a simple example.

    10

    • #
      Llew Jones

      MV

      That is OK and acceptable if we were likely to be living in a continuing Judeo/Christian culture. That is you would be unlikely to face any stricture for accepting without question that humans are at the top of the food chain. What we are up against is a growing pantheistic culture which is embraced increasingly in the biological sciences and amongst many if not most of the CAGW climate science community. As an example Will Steffen’s expertise is the anthropocene, which is defined as humanity’s (deleterious of course) effect on the Earth’s ecological system(s) since the Industrial Revolution.

      Ecology, which is essentially a modern version of pantheism, claims that every animate species, including humans, must be in an intricate and finely balanced relationship of mutual dependence if the planet and humans are to survive into the future. Now that is the doctrine that is likely, if not opposed effectively, to work to get man off the top of the food chain and into his “balanced place” in Earth’s ecology.

      You say “we got to the top of the chain by luck and we possibly will get knocked off in the future”.

      It seems to me that ecological dogma, rather than eliciting a shrug of the shoulders, needs to be countered with some dogma destroying evidence.

      Here are some lines:

      1. The pantheistic or ecological view of Earth in all its history, like any other history of Earth, shows “nature” has always been stacked against comfortable human habitation. You name it Earth’s got the lot: natural catastrophes, diseases, bacteria, viruses etc. If one were religious one would probably coin the term a “fallen world”. Whatever not a chance of ever it being or ever becoming a Garden of Eden.

      2. Given all of 1 why is it the Earth is getting a more and more comfortable place for more and more humans to live much longer lives than say just 250 years ago (say from the IR).? Then got a bit better for more humans say 100 years ago? Got dramatically better for even more humans 50 years ago? Got even better for many more humans in the last decade?

      3. Was it because evolution, having by chance placed us at the top of the food chain and then got involved in a mystical sort of way to bring all these great improvements into our lives? (I’m more for a “deistic” or non immanent variety of evolution).

      The answer to the pantheistic/ecological promise of a “restored”/sustainable” Earth, if we only follow its “instruction manual” or holy peer reviewed papers, is to point out that it is man by his ingenuity and science, even in pre IR times, that has made this place and will continue to make Earth a place where humans enjoy an increasing standard of healthy and prosperous living that has been and is being brought about by those human intellectual and technological advances that are inimical to the ecological blueprint.

      That seems to me to be pretty close to being about the only reasonable response to the dreams of fools who have not or cannot read the history of human endeavour. If that is anthropocentrism, too bad.

      10

      • #
        John Brookes

        Don’t worry Llew, I don’t want to sacrifice the modern world to “ecology”. Its only because I like the modern world that I’m concerned about global warming. Don’t want to risk this very pleasant existence, do we?

        10

        • #

          It is the humans who own the “City of London” and the Bank of England that are at the top of the food chain.

          Their motive is to control the worlds resources and people for profit and they will kill off anything in the way of knowledge which will affect their hold on power.

          10

  • #
    memoryvault

    John Brookes @ 48.1.2.1.2

    They’ll have no trouble knowing what wind turbines were, but coal fired power stations might cause them some confusion.

    Thank you John, for so eloquently displaying and demonstrating cultist ignorance in just one sentence.

    In a thousand year’s time, all that will be left of a current-day coal-fired powered station will be the remains of the ground-level concrete foundations. Everything above-ground and exposed to the elements, will be long gone. Reinforced concrete has its own built-in self-destruct mechanism.

    As such, power station ruins will be indistinguishable from the ruins of an apartment building or an office block, or any other modern day concrete structure. All will be identifiable as parts of cities or towns in much the same way as past ruins are identified today – by their location and layout.

    Conversely, wind farms will be represented by the ruins of unfathomable massive blocks of buried concrete, out in the middle of nowhere (even off the coast in the ocean), all aligned to each other.

    Our future archeologists a thousand years hence would have to be stupid enough to believe that a society with the technology to put a man on the moon, could actually believe that it could power itself with windmills, to make sense of those rows of concrete blocks as wind farms.

    I can’t see that happening.

    10

    • #

      Our future archeologists a thousand years hence would have to be stupid enough to believe that a society with the technology to put a man on the moon, could actually believe that it could power itself with windmills, to make sense of those rows of concrete blocks as wind farms.

      I can’t see that happening.

      OR

      Someone will come across a museum copy of Joanne Novas Sceptics Handbook. They will then realise WE WERE stupid enough to build those windmills.

      10

  • #
    Juliar

    Alarmists are generally socialists. It is an ideology where you think with your emotions and not your brain.

    10

    • #
      John Brookes

      Everyone is a socialist, Jules. Some people suffer from Ayn Rand syndrome and imagine that they think with their brain and not their emotions. But all the best thinking is done by using both brains and emotions.

      There was a case I read about once where a guy had brain damage which basically rendered him emotionless. Apparently he would have real trouble making decisions. Lots and lots of rational thinking, and then he’d make a bad decision. I think it was in a good book called “A Mind of Its Own” by Cordelia Fine.

      10

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        John,

        Many people make bad decisions. On the other hand, many people make good decisions. I suspect we all do some of both. I know I’ve made some bad ones.

        All of that is normal. But you run into trouble when you try to draw general conclusions about everyone from a case where there’s been brain damage and something isn’t working right.

        Emotions make bad decisions, John. I can cite cases where decisions not based on cool cold blooded rejection of the emotional aspect have been fatal. The world of aviation is full of such examples, just to start with.

        10

        • #
          tableracer

          Please take a look at Page 1.1 just posted by me.
          It is important for all of us interested int these pages and these topics.

          10

      • #
        Juliar

        No, not everyone is a socialist. Of course some things need to be dealt with emotions because they are emotional issues but in general using your brain and logic is better. Socialists are emotional thinkers and don’t understand what is right and for the greater good of society. The media and alarmists in general use a very socialist approach by trying to play off peoples guilt and also to play on peoples fear of ‘oblivion’ if we don’t ‘stop climate change’. The recent CO2 tax advertisement with Cate Blanchett is a perfect example of this.

        10

  • #
    Ross James

    The year is 2100. It is a pleasant 35 Celsius outside. The sea breezes made sure of that. The heat waves of the last weeks records of around 40 Celsius have dissipated for the time being. Water restrictions remain for the entire Eastern Coast. Over the last three decades there was an abrupt rise in sea levels. This was due to the massive melting out of the Western area of Antarctica exposing land based glaciers to the warmer seas for the first in 100,000 years plus. Many coastal developments are being abandoned with plummeting real estate prices.

    The worlds climate has been changed and it is estimated that a few more degrees of shift are yet to work there way through the calculated forcing of CO2 and the effect on climate. The ppm concentration of atmospherics looks like reaching a staggering 800ppm by 2150. The climate models on super computers have not taken into account many tipping points that hit the Arctic when it first became ice free at certain periods of the months since 2035 with those seasons of being completely ice free increasing more and more into the Winter months. It was discovered that huge vents of Methane gas (100s of them upto a 1 kilometre in size) began to bubble up in the Siberian sea. These events were first noticed in November 2011 with a subsequent Russian Government cover up.

    The emotionally charged skeptic attacks on the AGW science in the early part of century gave way to a hardened global movement core of neo-conservatives and free market obsessives. This then reflects the true core of this movement. It has nothing to do with the science but rather a construct of a political ideology. The shift away from oppositional politics began to take root from 2020 resulting in war time coalitions of many national governments in tackling Climate Change. It was as if as we had a World War going on. The optimism of man’s effort in working with each other at this time with what is now known as “The Great Warming” has seen a dissolution of many divergent political movements. This ranges from the left: Communist to Socialist to the right: Conservative to Hyper Free Market.

    It then follows and holds us well to unite and overcome all these things we have caused. The time for fighting each other is now over. We now turn to our own survival instead. It is now no longer profits and the extend of the consumers spending index that determines the true wealth of a nation. We will face this together whether we like it or not and we will help each other as we did in the times of the great floods that hit over the last century. That’s the true wealth of a nation – working together.

    Merry Christmas everyone and a truly Happy and Prosperous New Year.

    10

  • #

    Ross,
    I’m sorry mate, but I really have to take issue with what you said here: (er, where do I start?)

    The CO2 ppm ENVIRONMENT at time of melting the entirety of Antarctica – leaving it ICE FREE.

    Surely, you’re not being serious here? It has to be a ‘leg pull’.

    Antarctic – ICE FREE. In the immortal words of Sgt Swell of the Mounties from 1972 ….. “What the!”

    I cannot believe that you would actually believe that, or even, that anybody would believe that.

    Go to this site and then ask yourself a few questions. Don’t just glance at the site and pass it off. Read very carefully, very carefully. It’s not anything that remotely resembles a site that those from your side of the ‘debate’ would even consider in the tiniest as ‘sceptical’.

    Antarctic Connection

    The average mean temperature is for the Winter: -40 to -94°F (-40 to -70°C) and for Summer: -5 to -31°F (-15 to -35°C) If the temperature never rises above Zero, except at the edges for short periods, that ice will never melt, NEVER.

    For 6 Months of the year, the Sun Does not shine at all, and even when it does in the Summer, that Sunlight is reflected back into Space before reaching the ground.

    At some places, that ice is as thick as almost 5 Kilometres, Kilometres, not millimetres or Centimetres, but Kilometres.

    For the ice to melt in a manner that you believe, the temperature would need to rise by not just the predicted 2 Degrees C, but by tens and tens of degrees and then stay there all year round, Summer and Winter.

    There will be no heating effect from the water below the ice, because it is a Continental land mass.

    The ONLY way that ice will ever melt in the extent you believe is if there is a shift in the Earth’s magnetic fields.

    I am of the firm belief that you just said this to ‘stir up’ readers at this site, and you will think that this may even have worked, because I have ‘taken your bait’, so to speak.

    In fact, all you have succeeded in doing is to make you (not me, but YOU) look positively stupid, not for putting the idea out there, but for telling us that you actually might even be tempted to believe it.

    You say that you will not be buying any place 10 Metres above sea level or less.

    Here’s what I say to that, in answer to you.

    When Antarctica is ICE FREE, I’ll walk naked on the moon. How’s that?

    Remarkable new Science paper!!!! Man, I’d like to see the names of the Scientists who put their names to that one

    This just has to be a joke, right?

    Tony.

    10

    • #
      memoryvault

      Actually Tony, it’s even worse than we first thought.
      Even if his preposterous scenario was possible, he’d still probably be wrong about the consequences.

      Average mean temperature at Antarctica is currently MINUS 50 degrees C.
      That means to get any significant melting in any timeframe shorter than centuries, global mean temperatures would have to rise by about 60 degrees C.
      That would put atmospheric temperatures in the tropical regions close to the boiling point of water.

      Admittedly without doing the math, my guess is at that temperature rates of evaporation and subsequent precipitation over land would be such that ocean levels would actually fall significantly.

      A typical climate cultist.
      Can’t even get his delusions to fit basic scientific principles.

      10

      • #
        Ross James

        No – An Ice less Antarctica is a very long term event and the de-glaciation process begins and cuts in at a tipping point (700 to 800ppm of CO2) – much lower then we all originally thought. This process begins and we can easily see the consequent results on sea levels would be dramatic. And that’s most likely a water world by 2500 and ongoing.

        10

        • #

          And I’ll bet you haven’t even bothered to go to the Antarctic site I linked to, and then use your own brain, rather than implicitly believe what you are told about what you ‘want to hear’.

          When you can prove to me that Ice can melt at temperatures consistently, and always, lower than Zero, then I will carefully read what you link me to as well.

          You say in this comment directly above that Ice Free is a very long term event and yet in your comment above that you mention that you are not going to buy anywhere under 10 metres above current sea level.

          So not only do you believe this Ice Free ‘stuff’, you actually believe you are going to live forever.

          For the life of me, I can’t understand why so called, rational, educated, thinking, people can be persuaded to believe things that go against all they KNOW as absolute truths.

          If it never rises above Zero, then that ice just WILL NOT melt. For it to actually melt, then the ambient where we live will be so hot, that actual human life could not be sustained under any circumstances whatsoever.

          Tony.

          10

          • #
            Ross James

            Carefully examine other papers on Antarctica if even just ONE large continental glacier is exposed and begins to erode by warmer sea exposure. It aren’t just air temps that do it – it seems what drives melting of polar regions is mainly due to warmer seas. It is all believable and verifiable science. I’m not going to any sea side estate any time soon. Even just a 1 meter rise is catastrophic!

            10

    • #
      John Brookes

      And yet the world has been ice free, just 15 million years ago.

      What convincing reason do you have to believe it won’t be again?

      (Antarctica has had ice on it for about 34 million years) CTS

      10

      • #

        So what is your tipping point?

        10

      • #

        Hmm! John,
        just wonderin’.

        15, er, Million years from ice free to Iced up, and then to where we are now.

        How long back to ice free?

        Tony.

        10

        • #
          Ross James

          Tony,

          It does not have to be ice less to greatly affect sea levels. And I would ask to carefully read some of the replies to this.

          The fact remains is that Antarctica at greater levels of CO2 supported even sub tropical plants and only began to refreeze when CO2 dropped towards 600ppm is a rather outstanding historical geological record and discovery. Slow on way down (freeze) and slow on the way up (thaw) . That’s how CO2 and climate change works. Those projections are not at odds, what are at odds is variability and noise we are seeing in very short time frames. It is the progressive faint signal of background chipping away at Climate making it warmer and warmer.

          10

          • #
            Dave

            Ross,

            Can you please supply the source of your information that lead to your statement below confirming that SUBTROPICAL PLANTS EXISTED IN THE ANTARCTICA:

            The fact remains is that Antarctica at greater levels of CO2 supported even sub tropical plants and only began to refreeze when CO2 dropped towards 600ppm is a rather outstanding historical geological record and discovery.

            10

    • #
      Ross James

      How increasing levels of CO2 affect Anarctica’s Climate

      Initial 2009

      http://www.physorg.com/news172072921.html

      Now the following reviewed paper build upons the former paper released.

      The referenced paper September 2011

      1. Geological records going back Millions of Years on a land mass (continent) that has not shifted its location in millions of years.
      2. A correlation between its pre-historic climate and free levels of CO2 in the atmosphere
      3. The actual PPM measured for periods within those pre-historic climate shifts
      4. The threshold within the fossil record that shows mass extinction due to associated links of diminishing levels of PPM concentrations of CO2
      5. The threshold for proliferation of life such as forests, mammals and other pre-history flora and fauna matched to levels of PPM concentrations of CO2.
      6. Evidence found in the geological record of sea levels being more dynamic then what we were aware of.
      7. Evidence that dramatic climate shifts are directly linked to CO2 levels
      8. Tipping points are found within various levels of the PPM of CO2 that see the progressive stages of climate change stages.
      9. Proof that when amounts of free CO2 increase there is NO self correction. i.e. Ever increasing global temperatures transpire.
      10. Are ice-less global states possible (North and South Poles) within the context of certifiable levels of CO2 PPM?

      ABSTRACT

      Earth’s modern climate, characterized by polar ice sheets and large equator-to-pole temperature gradients, is rooted in environmental changes that promoted Antarctic glaciation ~33.7 million years ago. Onset of Antarctic glaciation reflects a critical tipping point for Earth’s climate and provides a framework for investigating the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during major climatic change. Previously published records of alkenone-based CO2 from high- and low-latitude ocean localities suggested that CO2 increased during glaciation, in contradiction to theory. Here, we further investigate alkenone records and demonstrate that Antarctic and subantarctic data overestimate atmospheric CO2 levels, biasing long-term trends. Our results show that CO2 declined before and during Antarctic glaciation and support a substantial CO2 decrease as the primary agent forcing Antarctic glaciation, consistent with model-derived CO2 thresholds.

      This new finding overturns a former paper that misread and miscalculated the historical geological record.

      Received for publication 7 February 2011.
      Accepted for publication 13 October 2011.

      The Pagani et al (2011) reconstruction suggests that a significant and rapid episode of CO2 drawdown occurred just before and during the cooling that led to the onset of Antarctic glaciation, and the drawdown took CO2 levels to 600-700ppm – below the modelled threshold value for the initiation of Antarctic glaciation. The converse of this is that, in an ice-free world, atmospheric CO2 levels much above 600-700ppm would not favour temperatures low enough for the development of glaciers in that continent.

      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6060/1261

      10

      • #

        “The converse of this is that, in an ice-free world, atmospheric CO2 levels much above 600-700ppm would not favour temperatures low enough for the development of glaciers in that continent.”

        “….The long, narrow Erebus ice stream drains from the western slope of Mount Erebus, an active volcano rising 3,794 m (12,448 ft) in elevation. The mountain constantly replenishes the glacial ice stream, as annual snow fall exceeds annual snow melt. The Erebus Ice Tongue is a dynamic structure subject to a host of internal and external stresses which affect its shape, size, and durability….”

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erebus_Ice_Tongue

        10

      • #

        Ross,
        you speak in millions of years and then …..

        Hey, wait a minute, I’ve got it.

        I finally figured out why they have introduce this huge CO2 Tax.

        They need the money for the old age pension for all those years into the future.

        What a clever bunch.

        Tony.

        PS Oh Oh! I think I may have just given them an idea.

        10

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Hi Tony

          You have touched on an interesting point of Government which I became aware of in the late 80s.

          None of the pension or superannuation liabilities of either State or Federal Governments have any money put aside to cover those liabilities.

          This is just another example of the short term thinking of the “Political Machine” and something which should make us all a little bit afraid.

          Government doesn’t plan for the future of the State or nation.

          Politicians only plan for their own futures.

          10

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Ross

        As I said before, an education is a wonderful thing.

        You say: ” 9. Proof that when amounts of free CO2 increase there is NO self correction.”

        It is obvious that you have never studied chemistry.

        One of the basic ingredients of Photosynthesis is in short supply and is slowing the reaction.

        The addition of More of this compound would allow the reaction to continue and wipe out your point 9.

        What you have to understand is that things are not always the way they are painted.

        Greeenies are not necessarily “at home” in the bush or in natural environments.

        I have spent more time enjoying the bush than any 100 Greenies but I have also taken the time to educate myself.

        I don’t understand what you are doing here.

        Fairey stories are not and education and do not have any standing among scientists, only politicians.

        10

  • #
    memoryvault

    Ross James driveling @ various

    “Our study is the first to provide a direct link between the establishment of an ice sheet on Antarctica and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and therefore confirms the relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and global climate.”

    What a pity the “scientists” responsible for this crap apparently failed high school physics.

    Now pay attention Ross, for I am going to tell you a little tale, and if you so wish, you can send it on to the idiots responsible for the above remark.

    A TALE OF TWO TINNIES

    Ross, I’d like you take two tinnies of your favourite ale – any brand. If you don’t drink beer, then Coke or Pepsi or whatever you fancy in carbonated drinks will do just fine.

    Place one can in your freezer, and the other on the dashboard of your car in full sun. Wait until the can in the freezer is almost but not quite at freezing point. Now take the can out of the freezer and crack it. What happens?

    Very little, actually. In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking the beer was flat.

    Now crack the one that’s been out in the sun. What happens?

    Beer and bubbles and froth everywhere, that’s what.

    Why the difference?

    Well Ross, the reason is simple. The amount of gas (any gas) that can be dissolved in a liquid (any liquid), is (amongst other things) inversely proportional to the temperature of the liquid.

    Or put more simply, for “climate scientists” and the dunderheads who swallow crap like this paper:
    warmer liquid = less dissolved gas,
    colder liquid = more dissolved gas.

    This isn’t just a theory, Ross, it’s a LAW – Henry’s law – feel free to look it up.

    So, as the world warms for whatever reason (as it has been doing since the LIA), and the oceans warm, they release CO2, and voila! atmospheric levels of CO2 go up.

    Conversely, as the world cools and the oceans cool – as happened in the period of your “study”, they absorb more dissolved CO2, and atmospheric CO2 levels go down.

    Now the REALLY interesting thing Ross, is that with pure water this process – outgassing as the water warms, and absorption as the water cools, happens at exactly the same rate.

    However, in the oceans it’s different. As the water cools the CO2 is absorbed at pretty much the same rate as in pure water.

    But then the dissolved CO2 briefly forms carbonic acid, which is then snaffled up in all sorts of chemical and biological processes, and eventually ends up as seaweed, or krill, or shrimp, or mollusc shells, or coral skeletons.

    And these things take time to break down and give up their chemically-bound CO2.

    And that’s why, as things eventually warm up again (as they always do – it’s cyclical), there is a lag of 200 to a thousand years before CO2 levels start to rise again. Which is exactly what we see in the geological record.

    So, the Antarctic ice sheet was formed as temperatures went down and Lo! CO2 levels went down too. And (after many cycles of much the same thing) temperatures rose after the LIA, and Lo!, CO2 levels are now on the rise again too.

    Who’d a thunk?

    Certainly not the idiots responsible for this drivel.

    Cause and effect Ross, cause and effect.
    Don’t get the two confused.

    10

    • #
      John Brookes

      Give yourself a pat on the back, MV. I’m sure you are right, and those dumb climate scientists never thought of CO2 going in and out of the oceans. The cool think is that none of their reviewers ever thought of it either, because they are also not as smart as you MV. Better get your suit ready for Stockholm (they gave fat Al one, why not you?).

      Why, I’ll even bet that those silly computer models don’t take into account the transfer of CO2 to and from the oceans. Especially not with that 200 – 1000 year delay (I’m sure the lack of a reference was just an oversight).

      But all this is entirely academic, because we know that the biggest delusion climate scientists have is their continued focus on CO2 – when we all know that CO2 is totally unimportant in the climate system (except that it is plant food!).

      So there is no need to look further into that silly paper, because most of the posters on WUWT are far smarter and understand beer science perfectly.

      10

      • #
        Winston

        The only Stockholm that MV needs to be ready for is “Stockholm Syndrome”, having been held hostage like the rest of us by Climatology cultists for so long, he may be in danger of beginning to empathize with his captors and fall victim to sharing their delusion.

        But, then I read Ross James’ post above, and I realize that MV cannot possibly ever be deluded enough to be persuaded by his “theory” that there is somehow an exponential, rather than logarithmic, effect of CO2 increase, as a rise from 390 to 600 ppm clearly has been “proven”, according to him, to be capable of the temp rise necessary to melt a significant portion of the Antarctic! And of course observations show that the Antarctic is melting as we speak….Oh, hang on, it’s actually increased significantly above average currently. Oh, well, why let observations get in the way of a good fantasy story.

        10

      • #
        memoryvault

        Give yourself a pat on the back, MV. I’m sure you are right, and those dumb climate scientists never thought of CO2 going in and out of the oceans.

        Obviously – read the paper. RJ’s link goes to an article with a link to the actual paper.

        The cool think is that none of their reviewers ever thought of it either, because they are also not as smart as you MV.

        Obviously. See above.

        Better get your suit ready for Stockholm (they gave fat Al one, why not you?).

        No, in the corrupt world of “climate science”, official gongs only go to liars who support the “consensus” view and corporate profits.

        I’ll settle for having written a best-selling book on the subject, over twenty years ago, which is still selling today. Let’s see how the efforts of Al Goracle and Flim-Flammery are fairing in twenty years.

        Why, I’ll even bet that those silly computer models don’t take into account the transfer of CO2 to and from the oceans.

        Obviously – at least not correctly. That is, in any way reflecting the “real world” situation.

        Especially not with that 200 – 1000 year delay (I’m sure the lack of a reference was just an oversight).

        Reference: See the Al Gore “Documentary – An Inconvenient Truth” – the bit where he gets on a cherry-picker (how appropriate), to point out on a huge graph the “correlation” between CO2 levels and temperature.

        Note how CO2 levels LAG temperature.

        Hey – don’t blame me – this is straight from the Goracle – it must be true – he got an Oscar for it.

        But all this is entirely academic, because we know that the biggest delusion climate scientists have is their continued focus on CO2 – when we all know that CO2 is totally unimportant in the climate system (except that it is plant food!).

        Yes, correct. 0.04% of the atmosphere. A minor trace gas. And your point is . . .

        So there is no need to look further into that silly paper . . . ,

        Unfortunately I did. How does one sue for time wasted from their life.

        because most of the posters on WUWT are far smarter and understand beer science perfectly.

        What’s a WUWT?
        And what on earth does it have to do with an idiot posting idiot comments here on Jo Nova?

        10

        • #
          Ross James

          WUWT:=”Watts Up with That”. This is a skeptical web site. All “types” grace this site.

          Some thoughts on the beer system analogy:

          You have created a closed CO2system.

          1. Correct: Colder Sea absorb CO2 – Warmer seas release CO2
          2. CO2 build up ONLY LAGS as constant if the constant remains so by the increasing GHG and its radiative impact on earth’s energy conservation particularly at night. In this case we are adding more whilst the LAG (over 200 to 800 years) is not a constant natural release. e.g. 395ppm is not the constant concentration for the balance of this century. It may increase exponentially over this time. Cite: Dramatic Russian discovery of hundreds of 1klm methane columns found in warmer Siberian Seas. (Nov 2011).
          3. Abrupt tipping points are part of the chaos of Climate Change. (Recalculate as these harbinger pivotal events happen). Models are CONSERVATIVE but are getting more accurate. The direction of those models support the multiple lines of evidence that AGW is very valid. The models all support a CONSERVATIVE 2 degrees by the end of 2100.
          4. Recently two skeptical scientists (Dec 2011): Spencer and Christy (low sensitivity climate scientists) now support .5 degrees over the next century as additional. Dr Roy Spencer will fall into line with standard AGW sensitivity if this .5 degrees+ is passed over the next 5 years! This will have dramatic effects on skeptical web sites re-evaluating the science.
          5. The present Consensus by ALL scientists (unanimous) actively involved in all such fields confirm: The earth’s climate is WARMING.
          6. It does not take a whole ice melt to raise sea levels. Only minor partial glacier melting is required from the continental land masses (Greenland or the Antarctica) fronting to warmer seas. This supports sea level rises of between 1 to 1.5 meters by 2150.

          10

          • #

            “Models are CONSERVATIVE but are getting more accurate. The direction of those models support the multiple lines of evidence that AGW is very valid. The models all support a CONSERVATIVE 2 degrees by the end of 2100.”

            How would one know if the models are accurate if the event is predicted to occur in 2100?

            “This supports sea level rises of between 1 to 1.5 meters by 2150.”

            The alarmists stories may gain some credibility if they stuck to one story.But the debate is now over because the –

            “U.N. Warning of 10 Year Tipping Point Began in 1989″

            http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=37ae6e96-802a-23ad-4c8a-edf6d8150789

            10

          • #
            Ross James

            Kevin,

            The article refers a commentary by a UN official from a journalist in a newspaper in 1998 NOT 1989. This has nothing to do with models nor does this show any evidence of latest trends in global climate. It also does not reflect a better understanding of global warming we have now. Many things get stated and many things also get twisted by newspapers. This applies to both sides. Non are more credible then the other. I defer to peer reviewed literature or specific science and data findings addressing the trends. Many lines of evidence are the best approach.

            10

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            I defer to peer reviewed literature or specific science and data findings addressing the trends. Many lines of evidence are the best approach.

            Good Ross! So how come you can simply dismiss the pile of evidence that says everything that’s happening is quite normal and isn’t driven by CO2. Have you read The Skeptic’s Handbook? It’s available for download on this site.

            Look at the motivation behind all this research. You can’t get fame and more money by telling your benefactor he’s wasting his money because there is no problem. If you do that you’re out of a job. When someone is paid to find a specific problem then he’s got to come up with evidence that says there’s a problem. Peer review means nothing because they’re simply patting each other on the back.

            You have come here spouting off the opinions of others. But you can’t manage to say you’re convinced of anything because your own research and analysis leads to your conclusion. You haven’t shown me an independent thinker who can arrive at accurate conclusions on his own. You’re just another in a long line of people who have come here with the party line drivel only to find out that we don’t buy it.

            About credibility: we don’t push any position or make any claim that anything is happening. We simply ask for sound empirical evidence for climate change from those who say it’s happening. So far no one has presented the slightest evidence that CO2 is in any way connected with or responsible for any climate or weather phenomenon, past, present or future. We do not deny that CO2 has the potential to warm the planet slightly. But the small increase in temperature is down in the noise when compared with daily and seasonal variations. I don’t believe anyone will ever notice any change that may be caused by CO2. And CO2 cannot possibly be a significant driver of climate in the first place. I don’t think we have any credibility problem. It is you who make claims you can’t support who have that issue to deal with.

            10

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Ross

            The continued reference to CO2 and its capacity to lead us all to incineration is an amazing scientific farce.

            Just why do you think there is an ongoing failure to deal with the CO2 reality when the continued announcements by Climate Scientists refer only to CO2.

            There is constant failure to differentiate between Made Made CO2 and Natural Origin CO2.

            Could the practice of dumping ALL CO2 into the one basket have something to do with proportions?

            Would it be detrimental to the “cause” for it to be known that human origin CO2 is only 3 or 4 % of total atmospheric CO2.

            Or is that people just don’t understand or care about the science.

            Is it only about the GRANTS?

            10

          • #
            Ross James

            Keith,

            We all should endeavour to stay within facts as we know them to be true by empirical data.

            1. We as human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle.

            2. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era.

            3. Mankind has created an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet because when we increase above and beyond in 100ppm increments (Base free load 285ppm), this remains and we increase earth’s energy conservation at night.

            4. Fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle (absorbed), the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange DOES NOT absorb all the additional CO2.

            5. The earth conservation of energy daily increases the impact we have on climate as ppm goes above and beyond the 285ppm pre-industrial.

            6. There is no hard evidence of a saturation point – neither is there is any evidence of a run away Greenhouse effect. We do not require a runaway effect of Greenhouse gas to cause some sort of huge dislocation for millions of our population.

            7. Some of the latest trends and indicators since 2009 are truly frightening.

            All this is taken into account – the carbon cycle. Too much of anything in our environment overloads it regardless of its QUANTITY. There are many background naturally occurring elements and gases that should stay background at a certain ppm level. CO2 is just one of them but it causes dramatic shifts in earth’s ability to energy dissipate at night. It is still accumulating despite a “quiet” sun.

            The failure to act is human nature with an the inability to sacrifice their present state for future generational good.

            You can see clearly there two sides to this argument. “Old man time will tell even “dead” men the truth”.

            10

          • #
            Ross James

            Roy,

            As a guest on this web site I need to be careful so as not present myself as trolling.

            The pile of evidence often referred to is found at OSS Foundation. This is a CITIZEN activist web site that compiles ALL genuine science peer reviewed papers for the general public viewing. It is a pro-AGW web site but skeptic peer reviewed papers can also be found here.

            I have read hundreds of science peer papers from all sides but the skeptical climate papers that are peer reviewed remain in short supply. I am not afraid in reading and investigating and doing drill downs to get to bottom of an issue. It is part of my work.

            Citizen activism cuts both ways when it comes to climate change. It is obvious where I stand on this issue.

            10

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Hopeless!

            10

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Ross
            “Citizen activism” unfortunately never seems to be preceded by an education.

            Is it just too hard for the “citizens”?

            10

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Ross

            Just started to read your response above.

            Man, you don’t have a clue.

            10

  • #
    Dave

    Hi Ross,

    Amazing information you have here! Your qualifications please?

    Have you checked out all the tags of ABC, Mawson, Cartela, Antartica etc:

    You have a vast amount of coincidences regarding the Antartica in you posts – involving its past and future!

    Aren’t you already being paid enough by the Government though your companies?

    P.S. You use a good alias in your presentations – enough to elicit this reply!

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Ross James,

    Let me slightly change an old saying about fools and money and just say of you — a fool and his theory are never parted.

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    PS:

    Ross James, that means I think you’re not worth the time that’s been spent refuting you.

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I guess one platitude deserves another. But you’ve still not even begun to justify all the time spent on you.

    10

  • #

    In reply to Ross James convoluted comment (56.1.2.1.5)

    1. We as human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle.

    What natural balance? The one your greenie friends conned you about?

    The carbon cycle still runs fine,as evident that the cycle is still there.

    2. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era.

    Big deal!

    It is still among the lowest levels of the past 500 million years.

    3. Mankind has created an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet because when we increase above and beyond in 100ppm increments (Base free load 285ppm), this remains and we increase earth’s energy conservation at night.

    Huh?

    The Hadley Data shows that the past three warming trends are nearly identical with each other.Not only that.The LIA officially ended around 200 years ago.And the entire warming trend from the start to now is about 340 years long.From the coldest spot in the late 1670’s to 2010.A warming that is just about done for.Since the last few main warming cycles in the Interglacial have lasted about that long.

    The centuries long cooling cycle is nearly upon us.

    Chart from 1850.Showing three separate short warming trends as being almost identical:

    LINK

    Chart that shows the temperature changes never exceed ONE sigma from the long term trendline:

    LINK

    There has been no evidence of the much lied about warming acceleration going on.It is the usual 30 year warming cycle we have been getting since the mid 1850’s.

    4. Fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle (absorbed), the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange DOES NOT absorb all the additional CO2.

    Huh?

    It takes less than 8 years for a yearly level of mankind’s emissions to be absorbed.This according to the IPCC themselves.But what difference does that make anyway.

    The warming effect is so small.That it would take a doubling from now to gain about 1.5 C.The subsequent doubling may add another.7C and so on.It is a diminishing effect of CO2 forcing.

    Chart showing the logarithmic trend of CO2 warming effect.

    LINK

    This Chart shows many peer reviewed science papers.Attesting to short residence times for CO2 in the atmosphere:

    LINK

    5. The earth conservation of energy daily increases the impact we have on climate as ppm goes above and beyond the 285ppm pre-industrial.

    Huh?

    6. There is no hard evidence of a saturation point – neither is there is any evidence of a run away Greenhouse effect. We do not require a runaway effect of Greenhouse gas to cause some sort of huge dislocation for millions of our population.

    This is called babbling.You are so clueless about the weather.The climate and History.

    There has been “disclocation” and death for millions of people.MANY times over the centuries by large weather events.You are so ignorant.

    7. Some of the latest trends and indicators since 2009 are truly frightening.

    Does a food pellet fall out of your computer?

    Two years and you are shaking in fear.

    I am too.After reading the increasing evidence of unethical and criminal behavior.On the part of the AGW believing small group of scientists.Who has been exposed by the leaking of Climategate e-mails.They are also the same bunch of scientists.Who are the supporters of the now dead and buried AGW hypothesis.

    WE now have Four years of evidence of a dead AGW hypothesis.Evidence on the few testable claims of a significant positive feedback.Based on the dead hypothesis.That has failed utterly.

    Warmists have NOTHING to show for.It has degenerated into a small warmist cult.Spewing out the bullcrap.

    All this is taken into account – the carbon cycle. Too much of anything in our environment overloads it regardless of its QUANTITY. There are many background naturally occurring elements and gases that should stay background at a certain ppm level. CO2 is just one of them but it causes dramatic shifts in earth’s ability to energy dissipate at night. It is still accumulating despite a “quiet” sun.

    Zzzzz…..

    You talk like some guy in a trance.Babbling unrelated pseudoscience.

    You are making the same mistake most people make.Completely focus on the short term climate.When the dominant climate cycle is one of cooling.

    Yes it has been cooling for about 4,000 years now.We are already in Climate Autumn and heading right into the next glacial (Climate winter) part of the cycle.

    The failure to act is human nature with an the inability to sacrifice their present state for future generational good.

    No it is your inability to make a rational case.That is why we shake our heads after reading your directionless drivel.The AGW hypothesis has failed.You need to catch up on that reality.

    You can see clearly there two sides to this argument. “Old man time will tell even “dead” men the truth”.

    More babble into the void…………

    10

    • #
      Ross James

      Sunsettomy,

      I guess the following graphs are ALL wrong at OSS foundation then?

      NASA/GISS GISTEMP,Recent Mauna Loa CO2 [updates monthly], Global CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Burning, Cement Manufacture, and Gas Flaring: 1752-2006, National Snow & Ice Data Center, Polar Science Center – Arctic Sea Ice Volume Page, Spring Northern Hemisphere Snow Extent, Glacier Ice Mass Loss (summary 2009), National Climate Data Center, Antarctic Ice Extent Increase, Antarctic Ice Mass Loss, Sea Level Rise (SLR), Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Sea Surface Temperature (Global Monsoon Product) [Updates Weekly], Sea Surface Temperature [Updates Daily], ea Surface Height (US Navy) [Updates Daily] and Present Global Fire outbreaks.. NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response.

      The cumulative lines of references and evidence indicate a definite global warming unabated, not global cooling.

      10

      • #
        John Brookes

        Oh come on Ross, join in the spirit! All those “scientists” are just playing the tune their masters demand. Only a brave few like Christy, Spencer & Lindzen are willing to speak out against the self imposed consensus.

        Bloggers (hat tip to Jo, WUWT et al) have replace msm in getting the message of corruption and confusion out there. It is all looking just great. With any luck Gillard and Obama will be gone soon, and tight fisted conservatives will be igniting our economies with tax cuts.

        Its all good!

        10

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        You left out that the wolf is coming. I’m sure you’ll want to amend your list to include that danger.

        10

      • #

        LOL,

        I responded to everything you wrote and with credible sources.

        Your comeback is dead on arrival.You did not address anything I wrote.

        Besides.I did not dispute the CO2 increases.Or that it has been warming since the mid 1800’s.

        What you wrote does not in anyway support the long dead AGW hypothesis.

        10

        • #
          Ross James

          Sunsettommy,

          Your telling me you cannot do a simple Google Search to see DIRECT LIVE links to science based and defence department of the Navy USA and find the graphing links.

          Finally Sunsettommy, I do not respond to character assault like:

          Trance, Babble, Cultist, bullcrap. All not proven. You see that’s all see from your side:

          Denigrating the character and calling the whole sensible science a kind of brain rot is kind of weird I reckon.

          Besides I guess every single arm of the USA Climate departments is corrupt and is not worth looking into.

          10

          • #

            ZZZzzz…

            When will you stop the evasive baloney and actually address my comment at post #61.Your initial reply did nothing of the kind.

            You are so dumb when you make statements like this:

            Besides I guess every single arm of the USA Climate departments is corrupt and is not worth looking into.

            Here is a LINK to my climate forum.It is a SUBFORUM.Where I have the temerity to set up a thread filled with links to USA Climate Departments.The ones you say I do not look into.

            Around 80 links are in there.Some are LIVE links and even those NAVY Department links are there.Three of them at least.

            BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

            You are another typical ignorant warmist.I have the misfortune to run across.

            10

          • #
            Ross James

            Sunsetommy,

            Here is wonderful summary of the so called scientific basis of one of your links from your “fantastic” true science links from your web site:

            MostlyHarmless says

            This fatuous argument is still rattling on, here and elsewhere. The Kiehl & Trenberth diagram doesn’t show any net flow from colder atmosphere to warmer surface, in fact just the opposite. The argument put forward by Claes Johnson and Alan Siddons is indeed a “straw man”. I am no supporter of the “enhanced greenhouse” theory, but I want to see the argument against it proved by logic and science, not unscientific bluster.

            Net radiative energy flow between two bodies is defined as the difference between the radiative fluxes of those two bodies. The presence of the cooler body reduces the energy flow from the hotter. That is fundamental. If the energy flow is reduced, the cooling rate of the hotter body is reduced, and if the that body continues to receive energy from an external source (the sun) its temperature will rise until radiative balance is restored.

            Nothing in this process violates any law of thermodynamics, and it’s defined by the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the equation for which has two terms, one for each body, defining the radiation fluxes. Proponents of this “straw man” conveniently ignore this and display a fundamental lack of understanding of the science.

            Need I say more. I am going to refute these things that are window dressing all the issues up in regards toward the seriousness of Global Warming.

            According to you the globe is cooling – I see clearly in many graphics you have linked to a dynamic system of mixture of cooler air and cooler seas heating up to newer thresholds of mean higher temperatures.

            I’m sorry you cannot see that. But hey – that’s the facts and real science.

            10

  • #
    tableracer

    Hello All:.. I have lately exhorted people to ignore and not answer the barrage of repetitive IPCC text-book rubbish from Ross James, but I feel obliged to post this; not to answer James but to make comment to my sensible colleagues. It’s pretty obvious by Ross James’ outpouring of drivel that:

    (a) He never leaves his keyboard to go and look at our wonderful, amazing country away from the cities, and see our farmlands are productive, and that so-called “drought” conditions are caused by rates-hungry Shires allowing farming in unsuitable areas, well out into rainless districts;

    (b) He has not noticed yet that if any Greenhouse Effect was
    happening, both our days and our nights would be almost the same temperatures, and the sky here would cloud over, as it
    always does in the Tropics. 40km out of Australian Cities
    our skies are so clear at night they continually inspire Poets to wax lyrical, and our “Land of sweeping plains” is
    vast, near-endless, we have far too much city-centric ignorance;

    (c) I believe he must be really quite a good example of the subject of this thread, spending his anxiety-ridden days indoors wringing his wrists in despair at what he perceives as an urgent need to return Humanity to the Dark Ages before
    “Something” happens. (insert your peril-of-choice);

    (d) He is also an admirable example of the indoctrination
    process-by-stealth which persuades grown men and women to
    fall victim to these “Beliefs”, propagated as “Truths” by
    coldly-calculating manipulators behind the scenes; (He may
    go to his grave still shouting “It’s Coming”! As one commentator said lately, “If he can imagine it, he believes it’s a proven fact”).

    (e) As for the “Antarctica is melting Now”! tales, well,
    I say let’s all put in and send James there for a protracted
    fact-finding sojourn of say, nine years to start with. He will benefit, I am sure, from a proper dose of reality.

    Now.. Stop trying to refute him. He is a lost cause.! T/R.

    10

    • #
      memoryvault

      I’m inclined to agree with you Tableracer.

      However, some good came of it all.
      I was not previously aware of SunsetTommy’s excellent forum site.

      What a marvelous collection of graphs, articles, snippets and comments.

      Just the “cartoons” thread alone is worth a visit.
      I spent a couple of hours yesterday laughing my way through all nine pages.

      10

  • #

    Replying to Ross James deflecting comment.From comment #61.3.1.2:

    Thank you for your visit to my forum.

    But in your reply.You have continued to avoid comment #61.Your continued defections reveal a quiet desperation.Because you are finding it difficult to deal with those inconvenient links.

    The first link you have not commented on,is based on Hadley temperature data.The chart was created by Jo herself.

    Her point is an excellent one.She shows that every warming period since the mid 1800’s have a similar trend and duration.This means that despite all the CO2 increases into the atmosphere.During the same time period as the temperature data being cited.There is no indication of any warming acceleration.And that cooling trends keeps coming back for 2-3 decades,in between.

    It is undeniable that the short warming trends have been more significant than the short cooling trends.Since the mid 1800’s.But they stay within the tight and SMALL trendline boundaries.

    The second link you have not commented on,is even more damaging to the warmist position.The lack of any acceleration of a warming trend since the 1880’s.

    I quote in full that pertains to the chart,that I gave you a link to.It is based on CRU temperature data:

    In Figure 2, the GMT was at its peak in the 1880s, 1940s and 2000s, and a single straight line (not a curve) passes through these GMT peaks, indicating no acceleration of GMT peak values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT peaks is labeled as Upper GMT boundary line.

    In Figure 2, a single straight line (not a curve) passes through the GMT valleys, indicating no acceleration of GMT valley values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT valleys is labeled as Lower GMT boundary line.

    Figure 2 also shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel (not diverging), indicating no change in the GMT swing between the two boundary lines with increasing years. The magnitude of this constant vertical swing is about 0.5 deg C for the last 130 years.

    Finally, Figure 2 shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel to the long-term global warming trend line for the whole data from 1880 to 2010, which has a global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade.

    The most important observation in this article is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. It was also found that the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position. As a pendulum with a constant swing does not have a “tipping point”, the claim of a climate tipping point is a science fiction, made by those who unfortunately make their living by scare mongering.

    There is more in the link that discusses the significance of the chart in question.Why can’t you read it James?

    The third link you did not comment on.Shows the NON controversial logarithmic curve.It is generally accepted by skeptics AND warmist scientists.The controversy surrounds the modeled positive feedbacks.That is where the main dispute lies in.

    The fourth link you did not comment on.Shows that many peer reviewed science research.Find evidence of short residence times.The consistency over the range of the years.Indicate that many scientists arrive at similar conclusions.That CO2 have short resident times.

    Why can’t you warmists accept it?

    Next time instead of trying your obvious deflection.Over what MostlyHarmless wrote.On me.A 20 + year veteran in replying to warmists.How about instead admit that I made you look stupid over the LINK to my Meteorological websites and forecasting tools subforum?

    You do not know who I am or what I have been reading on Climate and history,since the mid 1970’s.Thus putting a foot in your mouth is easy for me to spot.After all.I have seen it many times over the years.

    You appear to be a headless chicken.Flailing around with attempts to create diversion.In the desperate attempt to avoid making a direct reply to comment #61.You simply can not defend your comment (56.1.2.1.5). I replied to at comment #61.You know know it and everybody else knows it.

    10

  • #
    Peggy Balfour

    All good science must be sceptical.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9d8TF7DlyU

    The opposite of scepticism is gullibility.

    10

  • #
    Ross James

    Simply made and simply put:

    http://youtu.be/gDM3T0-o3r0

    10

    • #

      A typical and unsurprising Ross James reply.

      You fail to notice.That I have agreed it has been warming for over 150 years.That I agree that atmosphere levels of CO2 have been going up.It is evident that you are not interested in finding any common ground at all.

      It is obvious that you can not discuss my replies.Because you do NOT understand what I am talking out.The links are all based on credible published data.You know this is true.Deep down in yourself you know you can not formulate a credible reply to them.So you avoid it completely.A common tactic of a warming who believes by ideology,And NOT on sound science principles.

      I showed using the official temperature data.That nothing unusual is going on.You know this because you never try to provide an actual counter point to it.It is warming indeed.But nothing usual about it.

      Since you know they are credible.You deflect with side issues or irrelevant off topic stuff.That is a mark of a warmist fanatic.I have over the years been exposed such idiots.In many forums.Who can not carry on a simple discussion of the topic.So I KNOW what you really are.

      Not only that.You do not know what Propaganda is.Because the video is that in spades.I laughed at some of the stupid stuff.The irrational fear of a life giving gas.Essential for Photosynthesis and for breathing too.It is the warmists like you who make it official.On why we can call you idiots.Because it the warmists who call CO2 a….. he he…a lololol a polluting gas.

      bwahahahahaha!!!

      Then it degenerated into the usual ad homonyms over tobacco and oil attacks.Thus leaving the topic of climate science completely.

      Pure abject stupidity is what it is.You guys on that alone are exposed as stupid morons.You fell for cheap ideological environmentalist propaganda.

      From a fawning interview.There he openly exposes himself on why he is a proven warmist pseudoscience follower:

      Some of his stupid statements:

      “The models have done really well on temperature over a long time period so we trust that.”

      “The IPCC says, ‘One to five degrees warming [by 2100]’ for example. That is an expert judgment; it’s subjective, but built on objective modeling and data.”

      No they have not Jimmy.These indicate a visible statement of someone who embraces anti-science.He,like you forgot the Forecasting Skills parameters.Those far into the future modeling scenarios are guesses.Guesses Ross that is completely WORTHLESS! They are not demonstrated to be skillful or even rational.They are not part of the Scientific Method!

      The video you irrationally peddle.Make big use of UNVERIFIED modeling scenarios to year 2100.Then try ramming legislation.Based on these unverified models.To “fight” climate change.People like you are so gullible to fall for them.And makes you a big fool in the process.

      Dr. Schneider apparently believes in them.That means he already wrong.He and many warmists are wrong anyway.Since the first decade of the 10 decade long modeling scenarios as published in the 2001 IPCC report.Have already been shown to be wrong.It had projected a warming of .20C in the first 10 years.The reality is a flat to a slight cooling.

      LINK

      You are thus convincingly exposed as another gullible pathetically ignorant warmist.Who can’t answer my comments.Because you are up to your eyeballs with warmist bullcrap.That you have no idea what I am talking about.So you do what so many idiot warmist lemmings do.Deflect from what I am talking about.

      Your desperate video deflection is evident of that.I was not even talking about DR. Schneider at all.YOU brought him up as part of your pathetic deflection.A video so stupid.That only stupid people like you would like it.

      When are you going to stop making a fool of yourself out in the open?

      10

      • #
        Ross James

        Sunsettommy,

        I am a guest here. You do show alternative analysis. However many of your graphics are re-constituted by Citizen Activist anti-warmists whilst others are indeed cherry picks.

        I cannot post multiple links and graphics here (guest here). The science is very stable on the science. It has not weakened over time as you claim – it has strengthened.

        Essentially it is my claim and what I have come to understand. I am a direct opposite to you – I was once a skeptic. The evidence from multiple sources is what convinced me.

        (Almost everyone here is a guest.Moderators are not) CTS

        10

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Sunsettotomy,

    I take exception to one of your replies to, I think, Ross James when he wrote:
    “2. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era.

    and you replied : “Big deal! It is still among the lowest levels of the past 500 million years.”

    Your reply indicates that you believe this comment to have some truth or that you conceded the point.

    There are many scientific points of issue with this belief. As with so much warmist analysis there is a lot of wishful thinking here.

    Even anecdotal material is useful. In the mid 1800s when my forebears left England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland to come to Australia they were in the grip of food shortages caused by a cold snap where temperatures had DROPPED from their previous levels.

    No doubt “Warmers ” would attribute this “sudden temperature fall” to the Industrialization of Britain and the burning of coal for warmth and cooking.

    Just as they emigrated the temperature began to rise for the same reason it fell originally: NATURE.

    This rise led to the now familiar, mild expression of CO2 into the atmosphere that is said, by warmers, to be caused by us.

    Man made CO2 is sequestered at exactly the same rate as natural origin CO2 (after approx a 2 years star up phase).

    The idea that the presence of man made CO2 has been measured is laughable.

    As I discovered in my confrontation here with a Dutch gentleman, the basis for the estimates of man made CO2 in the atmosphere is that:

    “NATURAL ORIGIN CO2 IS ASSUMED TO BE IN HARMONY WITH NATURE AND THEREFORE CONSTANT.

    BY SUBTRACTION FROM TOTAL CO2, THE REMAINDER MUST BE THE VARIATION IN HUMAN CO2.”

    This is scientific rubbish but is typical of the “science” of Climate Global Warming Change.

    Moving out of the CO2 “quantity” discussion to the CO2 as a Global Temperature Enhancer issue, leads to the other point that Man made CO2 is an irrelevance in the Greenhouse effect.

    Happy New Year

    🙂

    10

    • #
      Ross James

      Even anecdotal material is useful. In the mid 1800s when my forebears left England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland to come to Australia they were in the grip of food shortages caused by a cold snap where temperatures had DROPPED from their previous levels.

      If you check the historic records Keith you will find the gassings from dust borne Volcanic activity – some of the worst in modern recorded historic records coincided with those temperature drops. It was said at that time that the entirety of the Northern Hemisphere were shrouded in volcanic dust cloud for three months. Mass starvations occurred in US, Canada, Europe, Ireland and Great Britain. It was a truly apocalyptic kind of time and highlights how variables in our climate can fluctuate quickly in a chaotic climate system causing CATASTROPHIC events. The same identical perfect storm is developing and we all need to heed the playability of happening.

      10

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Ross

        Nice one.

        So the situation you describe is that we were all going along OK in the mid 1800s until “an act of nature ” destabilised the world and caused natural origin CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE FORM OF A TEMPERATURE DROP.

        As a follow-on, now that the dust has settled, ha ha, we find that nature is returning our climate to its “pre – eruption” state.

        No man made climate change??

        10

  • #
    Peggy Balfour

    In Ross James’link it shows ‘pollution’ billowing out of pipes and chimneys.
    CO2 is a gas that can’t be smelled, tasted or seen. It is an invisable gas.

    Could Mr.James please explain exactly what is being emitted from those pipes and chimneys ?

    10

  • #
    • #
      Ross James

      Hi Kevin,

      Sea level and variable fluctuations [snip ad hom… stick to the science]

      This is the science that should be understood and heeded as trends in true objective data for sea level rises indicate a growing global warming issue:

      http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

      Regards,

      Ross

      *The use of the term right wing think tank does NOT imply I am a Socialist.

      [REPLY – …and the ad hom reasoning does not imply you are Scientist]

      00

    • #
      Ross James

      Professor Ollier is an ant-warmist.

      A full list of Ollier’s publications is provided by the University of Western Australia. Most of his peer-reviewed publications are in the field of geology, but include one article on the subject of climate:

      Yim, W.W.S., Ollier Cliff D. “Managing planet Earth to make future development more sustainable: climate change and Hong Kong,” Quaternary Sciences 29, no. 2 (2009), 190–198.
      Ollier has also published an article in Energy & Environment*.

      “Lysenkoism and Global Warming” (PDF) Energy & Environment 20 no. 1 (2009): pp. 197–209.
      * According to a search of WorldCat, a database of libraries, Energy & Environment is carried in only 25 libraries worldwide. The journal is not included in Journal Citation Reports, which lists the impact factors for the top 6000 peer-reviewed journals.

      It received criticism for publishing a controversial article by Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon. The editor of Energy and Environment, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen has stated that “it’s only we climate skeptics who have to look for little journals and little publishers like mine to even get published.”

      He has also published opinion papers and reviews on the Lavoisier Group Website such as:

      “Tuvalu—-the touchstone of global warming and rising sea level.” Online Opinion, November 26, 2010. Republished by the Lavoisier Group.
      “Review of Nils-Axel Mörner’s The Greatest Lie Ever Told” (PDF). New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter, no. 44, September, 2007, 55–57. Republished by the Lavoisier Group.
      “Glaciers—Science and Nonsense” (PDF). Geoscientist 20, no. 3 (March 2010). Republished by the Lavoisier Group.
      “The Greenland-Antarctica Melting Problem Does Not Exist” (PDF). The Lavoisier Group. Also republished by ICECAP.

      00

  • #
    memoryvault

    Ross James @ 65

    What can one say?

    A film featuring a discredited pusher of discredited “post-modern” “science”, spouting the same old discredited “big-oil, big-tobacco”, “tipping points”, “the science is settled” BS.

    A film decrying the “one-sided nature” of the “debate”, produced by Promomedia, an extremely well-healed offshoot of weepy Bill Mckibben’s 350.org, itself a world-wide multi, multi million dollar funded pro-environmental activist organisation, in turn linked downwards to organisations like Getup here in Australia – a million dollar activist organisation financed (mostly unwillingly) from trade union funds, and linked upwards to Greenpeace and the WWF – again, multi, multi million dollar organisations funded by centralist governments, including and especially the EU.

    But somehow the film “forgot” to mention that all these “environmental” organisations are finance by, and have their own links to, multi-billion dollar corporations including the oil companies, the banks, and the investment brokers like Goldman Sachs.

    (You are aware, of course, that an “advisor” from Goldman Sachs sits on every regional board of Greenpeace, aren’t you, Ross).

    There was little claimed in the film that has not now been thoroughly and convincingly debunked, from the claim that the IPCC represents “science” (when in actual fact examination shows it largely represents the views of the aforementioned Greenpeace and the WWF), through to the use of Hansen’s now totally discredited graph “predictions” of inevitable outcomes with varying levels of increase in CO2.

    Heck, it even stooped to the AlGoracle trick of using the graph of CO2 versus temperature, to imply the geological record shows temperature follows CO2, when the exact reverse is true.

    No doubt if it had been a couple of years earlier it would have featured Mann’s hockey-stick graph, that “disappeared” the MWP and LIA.

    Here is the reality, Ross:

    CAGW “theory” says CO2 up = temperature up.
    REALITY (observed data) says CO2 up = temperature up, and down, and up, and down.

    Therefore CAGW “theory” = epic fail.

    It’s a simple as that. Get used to it.

    00

  • #
    John Brookes

    Here is the reality, Ross:

    CAGW “theory” says CO2 up = temperature up.
    REALITY (observed data) says CO2 up = temperature up, and down, and up, and down.

    Therefore CAGW “theory” = epic fail.

    It’s a simple as that. Get used to it.

    Silly argument mv. Take the seasons.

    There’s a theory (a bit religious really), that summer happens because the sun stays up longer and travels higher in the sky. But this clearly can’t be true, because (if you are Melbourne, for example), you get a really cold December, and then in January, when the days are already getting shorter, and the sun isn’t quite as high in the sky, it gets stinking hot.

    Whats that I hear you say? The height of the sun in the sky and the length of the day aren’t the only things that determine the weather? That there is a lag between peak sunshine and peak warmth? That there are natural variations and a few weeks here or there might not be enough to see the pattern? Look, you are just making excuses, and we are going to have to come up with a new theory to explain the seasons, because yours is a real shocker.

    00

    • #
      memoryvault

      No John, here, let me explain it as a mathematical equation:

      X + Y = Z

      Now, if X = zero, then Y = Z.

      In fact, if X always = 0, then we can discard it, it’s not relevant.

      So, now let’s substitute some values from observation.

      X = CAGW “theory”.
      Y = natural, 25 to 30 year cyclical fluctuations in climate.
      Z = the observed outcome.

      Now, for years, as temperatures rose, you people insisted “Y” was so small as to be insignificant.
      “X” was responsible for most, if not all of “Z”.

      That is, until temperatures started to go down.

      Now it is becomingly increasingly clear to anybody with a couple of spare brain cells, that it is, in fact “X” which is so small as to be insignificant, and “Y” which determines the observed outcome “Z”.

      Even your precious and revered IPCC has had to come out and state that “natural, cyclical variation” will likely “mask” CAGW effect, for “probably the next 25 to 30 years”.

      “25 to 30 years” of course, by the sheerest of coincidences, happens to be the known, observed, natural cycle of climate variation.

      CAGW “theory” (the “X” in the equation) = epic fail.

      As I said to Ross – get over it.

      00

      • #
        memoryvault

        PS – John

        The seasons are the result of the earth being tilted on its axis.
        They used to teach this in school.

        Have they stopped teaching it?

        .
        Or did you just try and make a rather silly strawman argument?

        00

        • #
          John Brookes

          Oh ffs mv. Of course the seasons are because the earth is tilted on its axis. How do you think the sun gets higher in the sky, and the days get longer in summer? Its not by magic, you know.

          00

          • #
            memoryvault

            Well it’s good to know that you know that John.
            Your post a #70 tended to suggest you didn’t have a clue.

            Which concerned me because unless I’m mistaken you are involved in the education of young people, yes?

            Actually, just the very thought of you being involved in the education of young people at all concerns me.

            00

          • #
            memoryvault

            Now,

            you want to have a go at an alternative solution to X + Y = Z?

            00

          • #
            memoryvault

            Oh and before I go:

            The sun doesn’t actually get “higher” in the sky, John.
            It’s an optical effect caused by the tilt of the earth on its axis relative to the sun.
            Just as the sun doesn’t really “travel” from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn and back again.

            I could do up a PowerPoint demo for you and your classes if you like.

            00

          • #
            John Brookes

            The sun doesn’t actually get “higher” in the sky, John.

            Of course it does. Look at the sun, and get the angle it makes with the horizon. In summer at midday this will be higher than in winter at midday. That is, the sun is higher in the sky. The thing which causes the sun to behave like this is the tilt of the earth’s axis.

            You seem to have a problem realising that sometimes the difference between what you actually see and what causes it doesn’t matter.

            Next you’ll be explaining to me that the sun doesn’t really come up every morning, it just appears to because the earth is spinning. Der.

            00

  • #
    Peggy Balfour

    The entire Global warming scam has been devised by a tribe of in-bred, banking families that have intermarried over the past few generations in order to keep the wealth within their tribe.

    They have reached the stage where they can buy and sell politicians, governments and countries at will but one thing that could stop them from entire global control is that any country that has the energy resources (e.g. coal, oil, hydro, nuclear) to be independent and self-sufficient can tell the ‘tribe’ to go jump. e.g. Iraq, Libya, and next on the list is Iran.
    They need Afghanistan in order to build their oil pipeline from the Caspian oil fields to the ports in Southern Pakistan on the Arabian Sea.

    Therefore oil and coal must be made the ‘boogeyman’ producing the CO2 that will ‘destroy the earth’. The possible dangers of nuclear power is impressed on a gullible public. Hydro power is discouraged because ( excuse) “it interferes with the natural flow of rivers”. (See obedient Queensland’s Wild Rivers act).
    The serfs ( public) on the ground floor can argue all they want about whether CO2 / AGW/ climate change is or is not happening, it keeps their minds off what the ‘Tribe’ upstairs is plotting for the entire global neighbourhood.

    Never mind CO2, that’s just a distraction. This is what you should all be studying in depth. This is what is planned for our future.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilqv2qoCgB4

    Short version:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM&feature=rellist&playnext=1&list=PL3464D50FBC99CC96

    We were warned against secret societies by none other than JFK.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KeR3yMZi0g&feature=related

    00

  • #
    Peggy Balfour

    We are all being conned with the AGW/climate change issue when we should be focusing more on the real agenda which uses the environment simply as the means to promote a political agenda.

    The Lima Agreement.
    http://fairdinkumradio.com/?q=node/20

    Agenda 21
    http://www.freedomadvocates.org/option,com_docman/task,doc_details/Itemid,20/gid,127/

    Unbeknowns to most, the U.N.’s Agenda 21 has been slipped in by the ‘back door’ and being implemented by our local councils under ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) or Local Governments for Sustainability.
    ICLEI Home Page.
    http://www.iclei.org/

    Member list…Is your local Council a member ?
    http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=11454

    Under Programs.International Goals and Agreements
    http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=global-themes
    Our programs and projects advocate participatory, long-term, strategic planning processes that address local sustainability while protecting global common goods. This approach links local action and solutions to the global challenges we are facing, and therefore also links local action to global goals and targets such as:
    the Rio Conventions:The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,
    The UN Convention on Biological Diversity,
    The UN Convention to Combat Desertification

    Agenda 21
    the Habitat Agenda
    the Millennium Development Goals
    the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation

    Instead of arguing about AGW,quoting IPCC scientists ( The chairman of the IPCC, Pachauri, is a railway engineer with a PhD in economics f’r gawd’s sake) Do some homework on the politics behind it all.

    00

  • #
    Ross James

    “Climate change modelling shows that an intensification of the Subtropical Ridge can only be achieved when anthropogenic greenhouse gases are included in the models.”

    http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/climate-and-drought-in-eastern-Australia.aspx

    Many reason there is no evidence for AGW linking to climate. Yet the above is CONCRETE evidence through CAUSAL link that an increased presence of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause an increased Subtropical Ridge. It is this same increasing Subtropical Ridge INTENSIFICATION that caused the remarkable flooding of Queensland. The pendulum of climate extremes swings in either direction and should become prominent events as we move into this century.

    (Did you state that climate change modelling provides concrete evidence?) CTS

    Often Anti-warming folk cite holes in the theory without considering that scientists use multiple lines of evidence whether this be a localised continental climate link or regional evidence in climate change.

    00

    • #
      memoryvault

      (Did you state that climate change modelling provides concrete evidence?) CTS

      Yes, he did CTS.

      Further comment, either to, or about the twit would appear to be pointless and unnecessary.

      00

      • #
        Ross James

        Yes they do – got a problem with that.

        00

        • #
          BobC

          James, theories and models do not establish facts about the world — only data can do that.

          Also, data that has been manipulated such that it tells a different story than the raw data is in the same position w.r.t. the facts as theories and models — provisional until confirmed by observations. (Since such data already contradicts the observations, it can tell you nothing about the world.)

          Current data shows the world cooling. Past data shows climate dominated by oscillations. Models that contradict this demonstrate nothing about the world except that the model is flawed.

          00

          • #
            Ross James

            Bobc and Peggy,

            A few years this web site through Dr Evans highlighted deficiencies in the hot spot not showing up that should be over the tropics. It was a climate model. You cannot “prove” by this model that sensitivity to climate is weak or non-existent and use this as evidence.

            What I am doing here is not proving AGW with just one causal link or isolated and not yet proven / tested modelling. What I am doing is linking an event like the great flooding of QLD, NSW, Vic with an EVENTS that happened historically and to a well known climate model of Australia. This is known by AGW scientists globally. It is NOT disputed. The QLD Government in their climate report of 2010 warned of this tropical intensification through as a consequence of this MODELLING of QLD climate. From this source the data plotted results were clear. This was done super computers in the USA. It was ACCURATE.

            QLD was in for some big time deluge due to global warming. Even the report mentioned the likelihood of torrential clustering aroung the great dvidie ranges and incoprparting mositure trpical depression across the the state causing severve flooding were highlighted. Steps were taken as early as October 2010 to begin a game of cat and mouse as how severre this would become ion controlled dam releases as the dams were still at histrocally low levels even then.

            Anyway, more trouble waters are in store this year when the first ATTRIBUTION of extremes of heat and cold (since 1950) from a peer reviewed paper by Hansen is finally released (March 2012). Expect the cat among the pigeons as this stuff hits as the general public become aware of it.

            It now highlights a new “hidden” phenomena – hot cells and cold cells in regional areas flowing into equalisation atmospherically. These are not models – but for the first time extreme hot (heat waves) were recorded and Cold (Freeze) was recorded and MARKED as anomalies on the plotting of data. The trend and the graphs disclose a world since 1950 going through a dramatic shift to warmer and warmer. This 62 year tracking of data I’m sure will be debated on the anti-warmest bloggs for some time. Look for it. As we enter 2012 we are now at the phase according what I am reading and know by 2011/2012 data globally that the time for hypothesis, theory and looking at graphs as plots for the future on the science is over. We are now heading for the time of ATTRIBUTION and proof of the hypothesis. Many governments will fall hard by 2020 if they are on this wrong side of history.

            00

          • #
            BobC

            Gosh James: How many times will you give the climate scientists alarmists a Mulligan on their predictions until you finally start to doubt them?

            Weren’t we supposed to have 50 million “climate refugees” by now, according to the IPCC? Have you noticed that Hansen’s previous predictions have fallen far from the reality?

            The fact that a “supercomputer” was used is irrelevant in the extreme. Have you ever programmed a computer? Would your programs be more correct if run by a supercomputer?
            (They would simply be wrong faster.)
            You seem extremely naive — just the sort that falls for this crap.

            (Reminds me of the joke where a businessman cut his prices so far that he was losing money on each sale — but he expected to make it up on volume.)

            The first scientist who used computers to model climate, Edward Lorenz, also discovered chaos theory as a result, and produced evidence that the climate was a deterministic chaotic system that could not, in principle, be predicted more than a short distance into the future. No one has shown him wrong since then, but more evidence supporting his conclusions appears regularly. “Supercomputers” have pushed weather prediction out to about 7-10 days (sort of) from 4 – 5 days before. If they become 1000 times faster we might get to two weeks, and with another 3-5 orders of magnitude maybe three weeks — or maybe not that far. Climate models, so far, have shown no predictive skill distinguishable from chance. 50 – 100 years is fantasy.

            If you are basing your faith in AGW on climate scientists’ predictions, then your faith has no basis. You might as well consult a ouija board.

            There is far more evidence that Solar activity has a major effect on climate than that Humans have even a minor effect. The current extreme downturn in Solar activity (lowest in a century) suggests that we might be in for a long cold spell. Even the IPCC is hedging their bets on this — perhaps you should consider doing the same.

            00

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Eco Trash Comments.

      00

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Ross, Ross, Ross,

      What are you doing?

      You are so naive you probably think that the C in CAGW stands for “Catastrophic”.

      Find another hobby where you can use your skills to better advantage..

      00

  • #
    Ross James

    Arctic reveals history and lost ships as ice reduction seasonality is helped along by a warming planet.

    Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada’s head of underwater archaeology, said the HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, was found in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada’s western Arctic.

    “The ship is standing upright in very good condition. It’s standing in about 11 meters (36 feet) of water,” he said. “This is definitely of the utmost importance. This is the ship that sailed the last leg of the Northwest Passage.”

    The Investigator was one of many American and British ships sent out to search for the HMS Erebus and the Terror, vessels commanded by Franklin in his ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage in 1845.

    http://news.discovery.com/history/abandoned-ship-arctic.html

    00

  • #
    Peggy Balfour

    Ross James.
    If CO2 was responsible for the last Brisbane floods, what caused the BIGGER floods during the 19th century?
    ( Before AGW was invented )
    http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml

    .

    00

    • #
      memoryvault

      Don’t be silly Peggy, there were no floods in the 19th century, because there never was a 19th century.

      Earth Goddess Mother Gaia created our world in six days.
      It came into existence fully-formed on January First, 1975.
      Everything that appears to pre-date this time of creation was, in fact, created that way by Mother Gaia, with its “history” built-in.

      .
      The Earth Goddess created the world perfect in every way.
      Everywhere, it was not too warm, nor too cool, it was “just right”.
      And the rain, well there was not too much, and not little, it was “just right”
      Even the porridge was neither too hot nor too cold. It was “just right”.

      .
      But Eve, the first woman, said she was cold, and she complained.
      So Adam, the first man, burned a lump of coal.
      And thus was born “Original Sin”, otherwise known as “fossil fuels”.
      And Mankind must pay for their sins.

      .
      But Mother Gaia is all-knowing, and She knew that Mankind would sin.
      That is why she created the “history” of floods, and droughts, and sea-level rises.
      To show Mankind what would happen if they continued to sin.
      And when Mankind realised the future consequences of their actions, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the smoke of their torment reached unto heaven forever and ever.

      .
      But Mother Gaia despises Big Tobacco, and very quickly tired of all the second-hand smoke choking up heaven.
      So she scoured the earth looking for a Man worthy of receiving Her blessing in the form of The Divine Knowledge.
      And verily did she eventually find one noble enough, worthy enough, and humble enough, to be Her Messenger.
      Naturally enough, he was a failed politician.

      .
      And Mother Gaia whispered into the mind of the Worthy One, and He cried:
      “Forsooth, For I Have Had A Vision.”
      And thus was born the Goracle.
      And The Goracle wrote down the words of the vision.
      Thus did The Word take on form, and its name was “An Inconvenient Truth”.

      00

    • #
      Ross James

      Well for a start we had no flood mitigation like dams for example at that time. Neither is there any comparison to the entrenched widespread nature of the subtropical drift southward and levels of 2011 rainfall. This saw Queensland as a whole state simultaneously go under so much flooding ALL at once – it was historic and epic in that it was so WIDESPREAD ALL AT ONCE.

      The scale of it was not only unprecedented – it was a breath taking example of CLIMATE MODELLING when coupled to a warming planet being extremely accurate.

      You know it’s fine to think but sometimes folk just need to think outside of being this anti-warm stance all the time. Pondering the frightening possibility that maybe its all true would not be easy on some.

      Men seek power in many guises and disguises. If Climate Change is corrupted – it is because opportunistic human beings by nature want to score a profit on it. This does not make the core science wrong at all. If it is correct then conspiratorial editorials have been a waste of everyone’s time. All it has done is raise everyone’s blood pressure.

      00

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Ross,

    The two dams were not built as a joke.

    One was primarily for water supply and the other was only secondarily for that purpose.

    Obviously some extra run-off may have been due to urbanization (akin to the urban heat island effect) and less absorptive surfaces but the main problem was politics: dam maintenance funding, premature release of water (would not have been premature if the dam had collapsed and uninformed judgement.

    Politics is no replacement for science and engineering.

    00

    • #
      memoryvault

      You’re wasting your time, KK. Ross is an utterly lost cause.

      The fact that the NORMAL weather pattern for most of Australia for the last million years or so has been prolonged drought followed by widespread floods is lost on him.

      He thinks it all started in 1975 and is “historic and epic”, and “unprecedented” when it occurs now, despite the evidence to the contrary being carved into the very stone of this continent, as can be readily observed when flying over central QLD, or the Pilbara in WA.

      And it’s pointless debating computer models versus observed data with him. He understands neither.

      The fact that the so-called “tropical tropospheric hotspot” was DEMONSTRATED not to exist by measured data from thousands of radiosondes over decades, is confused by him as a “computer model”, simply because someone displayed the results of the OBSERVED DATA on a computer.

      Conversely he accepts the result of a computer model that shows correlation to observed data as “evidence”, not understanding that such a “model” can be run through thousands of simulations with constant changes in the parameters, and then the one or two that correlate with real data can be cherry-picked out, as was disclosed as done by the CRU by the Harry_Read_Me file of Climategate 1.

      Or the data for the model can be cherry-picked to ensure the results of the model ahead of time, as Mann was caught doing with his hockey stick graph.

      00

  • #
    Peggy Balfour

    Can anyone explain to me how a volcanic eruption ( e.g. Mount Pinetubo, 1991)
    can cool the planet for a year or two but emissions from coal fired power stations heats it up?

    00

  • #
    Tableracer

    Time we all realised that this thread was not established as
    a private soap-box for lacklustre lackeys like Ross James.

    I do not even believe, that “Ross James” is one person…
    The endless gush of drivel spewed forth in this name looks more like the work of perhaps, three gleeful subversives
    to me, rather than just one deeply disturbed person.

    If it does turn out to be all the work of one, we must ask
    this Ross… “If we are all doomed, why do you persist”?
    Get out into the fresh air and enjoy your last few days on
    God’s good Earth..!!

    Ross; “Believe” in one hand, “Spit” in the other, and see
    which is full first.!! Here we go with the spit, it’s real.

    00