Victory of the Denialists! says Robert Manne in The Monthly as his Gods of Science fail

Firstly — No one wins anything while the people who slag off at scientists get their denigrating name-calling on the front cover of magazines. That said, I’m smiling. Beaming. The man who doesn’t know what science is, admits his team is failing. That has to be good. Real scientists everywhere, smile!

Manne’s argument appears to rest entirely on his mistaken belief that “science” is What The Gods Declare it To Be. For Manne, the Gods are “official climate scientists”. Apparently, only those who are anointed by Government funding have access to The Truth — and their declarations must be obeyed. Manne is so completely under their spell,  he is incapable of figuring out how anyone could think anything else.

“For reasonable citizens there ought to be no question easier to answer than whether or not human-caused global warming is real and is threatening the future of the Earth.”

For Manne, planetary atmospheric dynamics are so blindingly clear that only unreasonable citizens could question it. And if there is “no easier question”, then it follows that those who get this question wrong are not just unreasonable but quite possibly, brain dead. Manne’s writing is thick with insults, but thin on reasons.

So how does the arbiter of the reasonable, reason it? Like this:

” Thousands of climate scientists in a variety of discrete disciplines have been exploring the issue for decades. They have reached a consensual conclusion whose existence is easily demonstrated.”

He’s right that the consensus is real (among government funded climate scientists). But that’s not evidence about the climate, it’s evidence about scientific processes, monopoly science, and university culture — not the climate. The problem for Manne is that this assumes that 1/ science-the-human-practice is uncorruptible, and 2/ scientists are unaffected by human ambitions, money, fame, bias or …uh… simple error. Can humans be human? We skeptics think so.

His reasoning is the fallacy known (for a couple of thousand years) as Argument from Authority. The single point that makes science different from a religion is that in science, opinions are always trumped by evidence. There are no high Priests. Manne thinks evidence means studies of the consensus — of how many scientists vote “Yes”. The entire philosophy of science is that evidence comes from things like thermometers, satellites and weather-balloons, not from internet surveys.

It’s an anti-science position. The surveys he quotes are ones like Anderegg, and Doran and Zimmerman. The latter was a two minute survey sent to 10,257 scientists, but the figure of 97% of climate scientists only came from 75 of those people. Comments from scientists outside the 75 are scathing at times. The former study (Anderegg) was a blacklist of scientists, is useless for understanding feedbacks, though  works as a proxy for government funding: it shows that more funding of one side of the debate means more papers published from that point of view. To complete the trifecta of trivia, he also quotes Oreskes, whose work was equivalent to a google search on words. Again, confused researchers study proxies for grants instead of proxies for temperature.

The sad thing about the “intellectual left” is that not only does Manne not understand how to do the maths, the sums, and the physics of the climate, but he’s not much good at the human insights into the process of climate research either. Indeed the irony, given the Church’s history of friction with science, is that Archbishop George Pell has a much better grip on both.

Governments have funded thousands of scientists to study one sort of problem. The unwritten rules of climate “science” research are fairly clear: workers will be rewarded if they find one kind of answer, and called a denier, defunded, sacked, and basically exiled in the tea-rooms of universities around Australia if they find any other kind of answer.

What could possibly go wrong?

As always, with “intellectuals” when they analyze their failure, it’s impossible for them to have been defeated by better arguments and stronger evidence. Manne’s synopsis:

“A Dark Victory: How vested interests defeated climate science”

So even though evidence shows the vested interests are 3500 times larger on the believer side, and a $176 billion dollar market hangs for it’s very life on the truth (or not) of the great climate scare, Manne thinks he was beaten by big money. And that kind of thinking is why the intellectuals keep coming up with potty ideas.

I’m guessing Manne has never spoken to a real skeptic, at least not for long. Only someone who studies skeptics through the DeSmog portal could  define “denialists” as “orthodox members of a tightly knit group whose natural disposition is not to think for themselves”.

We’re so tightly knit, all 10,000 of us meet in an exotic location for two weeks every year with a mass media congregation, dinners and drinks — no wait, that’s what they do.

Skeptics don’t think for themselves, he declares. It’d be a tad more convincing if it didn’t come from the man who parrots a consensus.  He’s the one outsourcing his thinking. It’s psychological projection run riot. Those who think — check the data; those who don’t — poll the crowd.

And as for “orthodox” and organized –  any random group of a hundred skeptics would argue 120 different positions. Go on ask them: What’s the most powerful flaw in the man-made warming scare? Is it the economics, the failure of renewables, the irrational need to ignore nuclear energy, or perhaps the thing that really bugs them is the fake nature of the so called “free market solution” — where everything that matters is fixed by the bureaucrats rather than the market? Could the most silly thing about the climate debate be the fact that temperatures have been flat for a decade; the ocean isn’t warming much; the hot spot is missing; the thermometers are next to heat sinks; the ice cores show CO2 rises after the temperature (not before); the thermometer results were always adjusted up and the alarmists hide declines and results, reviews, codes or datasets or all of the above; alarmists also bully and call people names (denier) — boy that’s a red flag for some skeptics.  For others ,in the end, even if we behave as obedient pussies and do everything the Gods of science tell us too, we all know that in a hundred years the world will cool by 0C and the seas will fall by no centimeters. (Yes, I’m rounding, but do you really want to fight over those details?)

Skeptics are not the team which has a UN coordinating panel, government funded institutions, or associations, committees, and NGO’s worth hundreds of millions that are devoted to propagating their words. Nor do skeptics have a sympathetic media, or multimillion dollar ad campaigns funded by taxpayers.

Dear Robert, No, you weren’t defeated by a wall of money. You lost, despite your wall of money.

———————————————————–

Most of the 7000 word article is paywalled, but Readfearn also writes at the ABC about it.

REFERENCES

Anderegg, W.R., Prall, J.W. Harold, J.., Schneider, S. (2010) Expert Credibility in Climate Change, Proc Nat Acad Sci. [Abstract]  [PDF] [Discussion -Pielke]

Doran and Zimmerman (2009) Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Eos, VOLUME 90 NUMBER 3 20 JANUARY 2009  [PDF]

Oreskes, N. (2004), Beyond the ivory tower: The scientific consensus on climate change, Science,
306, 1686–1686 [Full text]

————————————————————-

H/t to Pat for the correction of George Pell’s status: “current Archbishop” it is.

 

UPDATE: Robert Manne replies at #29. See my reply to that. – Jo

 

8.7 out of 10 based on 152 ratings

300 comments to Victory of the Denialists! says Robert Manne in The Monthly as his Gods of Science fail

  • #
    Tel

    The cold weather probably had something to do with it. The lack of drought, floods that were not predicted (until after they happened), the cyclones that did not actually get worse, despite much fanfare that they would get worse.

    The longer we do nothing, the more evidence comes in.

    10

    • #

      See. Thanks Tel. How did I leave those off the list? – Jo

      10

      • #
        Tel

        I’ve become very efficient at doing nothing, while the Global Warming brigade goes off the rails.

        10

      • #
        Jon

        I think the leftist have invested a lot politically and with funds after the walls came down. What they really don’t like is that the international socialism(object) is promoted as solutions to the leftist made up environmental and climate problems(means).

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        • #
          Jon

          I think it’s not about climate, the means. It’s more about international socialism, world government, the great object for the leftist and the 68′ s. “Make a better world”?
          They where so close achieving the leap towards that in Copenhagen in 2009. Mostly all world leaders where there for that moment. But the great lie for it all was starting to be to obvious for to many to make a climate treaty possible.

          The important question now is how can they make a better world based on lies and deception of their people?

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          • #
            Jon

            I think it’s mostly about making it a better World for socialism. And by that a better world for followers of socialism.
            UN has, with UNEP environmental and climate “problems” tailored for international socialism, become their hope for world dominance.

            If they loose this they risk loosing it all, the trust of the World.
            If they loose this battle they risk loosing the ideological war for a generation?

            That might be the reason for their bitterness?

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        • #
          bananabender

          Environmentalism is simply rebranded post-Soviet Communism. Mikahail Gorbachev became a leading force in modern Environmentalism once the Berlin Wall collapsed.

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    • #

      Time is our friend and as it gradually passes, their increasingly implacable enemy and I’ll tell you exactly why I think that is so. On a very simple level, climate alarmism is all about making dire predictions of what’ll happen in the future. The bijou problemette they’re increasingly having, is that the predictions are simply failing to materialise.

      http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/our-secret-weapon/

      Pointman

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    • #
      Bernard

      I think it was the pain of seeing this Graph that may have had some effect,maybe It should have been printed on the front cover next to him.
      http://thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/6272-massive-human-co2-emissions-still-unable-to-reverse-natures-global-cooling-over-last-15-years.html

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      • #
        sillyfilly

        Or the absolute pain of what seeing what happens when the blantant cherry pick is seen in true perspective

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        • #
          Winston

          Or the absolute pain of what seeing what happens when the “blantant”(sic) cherry pick is seen in a true perspective without your wilful myopia, and after having reluctantly found your glasses
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

          Of special note is the low point in the graph with the obvious dip for the LIA (you may have heard of it)- so obviously you are picking cherries yourself but from the lowest of possible branches when you assert that warming in the graph you have linked to from near enough to the lowest point in the last 10,000 years) is somehow significant, let alone catastrophic.

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  • #
    Phil Ford

    “…As always, with “intellectuals” when they analyze their failure, it’s impossible for them to have been defeated by better arguments and stronger evidence.” – Jo Nova

    This is something that infuriates me about warmist zealots – they seem to be intellectually incapable of considering any possibility that their version of the scientific ‘truth’ might in fact be in error. This is a trait the leftist CAGW brigade all seem to have in common: for them, there is Only One Truth and it is that which is paid for by governments; no dissent will tolerated and any who dare to call into question ‘The Consensus’ will be ridiculed, humiliated and publicly belittled.

    The irony of this totalitarian stance seems to be all but lost on these people. Especially sad, considering so many media folk happily play along with this despicable propaganda. Shame on them all.

    One imagines that these are not fools, that these predominantly educated, intellectually clever and articulate individuals must on some level at least remain dimly aware of their rank complicity. Or does human nature, in all its selfishness, vanity and guile simply discover rewards too alluring for any who seek to be at the vanguard of the CAGW political movement?

    I think I found my answer. Step forward Al Gore.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      … they seem to be intellectually incapable of considering any possibility that their version of the scientific ‘truth’ might in fact be in error. This is a trait the leftist CAGW brigade all seem to have in common …

      I am not sure I agree that this only applies to the “left”.

      I have had the opportunity, to observe the inner workings of political parties, right across the spectrum (as an advisor), and I can report that everybody in politics finds it hard to contemplate that their interpretation of ‘the truth’ might not be the ‘best’ interpretation. The differences across the spectrum are in how this manifests itself.

      The “soft left” love to brainstorm, and make weighted lists, and discuss various themes, and delve and dive into the ideas until they can all compromise on one “solution”. They greatly rely on “works of authority”, to reinforce their own view, or to diminish the views of others, and will quote passages (often out of context) from various articles and learned papers to do so; it gives the proceedings an air of respectability. At the end of this process, they are proud of the fact that everybody owns the solution, and no one does (their words, not mine). It is a contest, with a lot of heated discussion (think Adam Smith), but they are genuinely trying to find something they can all live with. Whether the solution is a superb idea or a terrible idea, in terms of the wider general population, does not enter the equation.

      The “soft right” in comparison, take a more pugilistic approach. Each person present will have privately reviewed the material prepared for them by their staff, and will have reached a personal conclusion regarding all of the salient points. They will be armed with pertinent quotations, taken from the literature (often out of context) by their staff, and will use these to try to “defeat” their opponents. The meeting is controlled by a chairperson (usually the senior member present), who will try to ensure that the discussions stay on topic. Everybody is very cordial, but there is are strong political undercurrents in the way that people will support or argue with each other. Deals are silently and subtly made, and fulfilled around the table, as factions appear and solidify. At the end of the process, the chairperson makes the real decision as part of their summation. Whether the decision will have a deleterious impact on the wider general population, is rarely considered.

      The “hard left” and the “hard right” do not work in either of the above ways. The decisions will have been made somewhere within the party machine, after consultation with the major party supporters, and will have been relayed to (and possibly discussed with) the leader. Meetings are tightly controlled, and relatively short. They are only held to inform the members of the existing decision, and to discuss the tactics for presenting it within the legislature and to the general public.

      I suspect that our American friends will be able to relate more easily with the third example, than with the first two. I also suspect that they will be able to poke a few holes in my explanation as well. You can have an “Advisor” who is there to give advise, and you can have an “Advisor” who is called in when they are required to present a report.

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      • #
        inedible hyperbowl

        Rereke, I have worked with computing technologists for a while and I think the problem is emotional investment.
        To justify a difficult decision/choice, people (including company board’s, politicians) often unjustifiably denigrate their non-choice, they also behave like a sales/marketing arm for their choice.
        To witness this, ask an Apple user what they think of Microsoft (and vice versa). Whatever the underlying psychology is, people do it with all things high-tech.
        It seems that when people do not understand the technology/science, they make a purely emotive choice and become evangelistic about the choice they have made. All rationality goes out the window and zealotry rules, OK?.

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          Truthseeker

          Rereke Whakaaro, thank you for a very insightful and clear analysis of how political organisations work. I can see the output of these political factions in the various forms of the media, but could not come up with a scenario of how they arrived at those erroneous outcomes there that made any sense. I understand now that it doesn’t, which is precisely the point.

          Inedible Hyperbowl, you are right about emotional investment. It infects everything and means that rational thought is usually the first casualty in any discussion that has an outcome that may affect people. As a long time Apple user at home and a Microsoft user at work, I see the zealot type discussions about which is better as utterly pointless. The one that is better is the one that suits you the best depending on your own circumstances and requirements. There are no “winners” or “losers” in that discussion. What is the better decision for one person may not be for another and this is the point that is usually completely lost in political debates as well. There is no one “correct” answer for everyone.

          The only thing that is best overall is flexibility and adaptability and that is only possible by distributed power and freedom of choice.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Adaptability is not manifest in any part the political spectrum. Any sign of flexibility, over any issue, is labelled as back-peddling, and is used for political advantage. Thus being adaptable, is not a common survival trait in politics.

            What was it again? “There will be no carbon tax …”

            It is the same with Climate Change. The climate scientists have adopted an entrenched position, and not even a full frontal assault is going to budge them from it. Anthony Watts is attempting to quantify something that “The Science” has a fudge factor for, and what he is doing is therefore a risk to their flank, that must be responded to and negated.

            Entrant: Trolls

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Inedible,

          I am the wrong person to discuss the Apple/Microsoft question with. We use both, because they are both good at different things.

          All decisions are emotive to a certain degree. A good analyst should have been trained to recognise that, and learnt how to analyse their own emotive position on any subject, and then factor that self-knowledge back into whatever analysis they are doing.

          Without the ability to do that, they are not producing an “analysis” of the situation, they are only giving you an “opinion” on the situation. And in most cases, the opinion of the analyst will be inferior to the opinion of the person they are providing it to.

          This is perhaps the biggest problem with Post Normal Science. A lot of people today, who hold higher degrees, in various fields, lack the ability to conduct self-analysis, because they have not been taught how to think clinically. They are the scientists who make emotive choices, and then become evangelistic about the choice they have made. The science then becomes the means to shore up their opinion and whatever belief system they have constructed around it.

          Very few of the trolls that Jo gets visiting this site, can actually think clinically. It is a worry.

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          • #
            Mark

            Rereke,

            I think it was Henry Ford who stated something like, it doesn’t matter how many degrees follow a man’s name, if he can’t think, he’s uneducated.

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    • #
      gai

      …Or does human nature, in all its selfishness, vanity and guile simply discover rewards too alluring for any who seek to be at the vanguard of the CAGW political movement?

      I think I found my answer. Step forward Al Gore.

      Good ‘ole Al Gore made $18 million from the now defunct Chicago Climate Exchange that Obama helped him and Maurice Strong setup. If you do not know who Maurcie Strong is you had better read up because he is one of the frontmen for our ‘Brave New World’

      Although the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) collapsed and shut down this week, Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management LLP pocketed approximately $17.8 million on it’s 2.98% share of the exchange when it was sold to the publicly traded Intercontinental Exchange a mere 6 months ago. According to news reports, the brainchild of the exchange, academic Richard Sandor, founded the exchange with a foundation gift of $1.1 million, and pocketed $98.5 million for his 16.5% share of the CCX. This would place the value of Gore’s firm’s stake at almost $18 million. Note Gore is the founder, chairman, and largest shareholder in Generation Investment Management LLP. Barack Obama was on the Joyce Foundation Board when it provided the funding to establish the CCX. Maurice Strong, founding head of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), precursor to the IPCC, was a CCX board member. http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/11/gore-pocketed-18-million-from-now.html

      Do not forget Rothschild’s very true summing up of Human Nature.

      “The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.” The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.
      http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/famous-quotations-on-banking/

      This refered to money but the same quote fits Global Warming to a tee. It is no coincidence that World Bank employee Robert Watson was the head of the IPCC.

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      • #
        rukidding

        If you do not know who Maurcie Strong is you had better read up because he is one of the frontmen for our ‘Brave New World’

        Not so much a frontman as a behind the sceans man.The fact that he is not well known in the climate debate would testify to that.
        He could quite rightly be called the father of AGW and yet his name is hardly mentioned.The fact that as far as I am aware he now lives in China might tell you all you needed to know about AGW.

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    • #
      jon

      I think this fundamentally is about what most people want. They want to know because that is easier and simpler. Politicians that seem to “know” will attract more followers than politicians that seem not to know for Shure.
      Another thing is that women are more attracted to men that know. That means more sex and reproduction for men that seem to know. Here is a classic positive feedback where women try to make boys that seem to know?

      Blame it on the women? 🙂

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  • #
    Colin Henderson

    When Manne says “science” is What The Gods Declare it To Be, he is right in that the public; not understanding what science is, has allowed the Main Stream Media to define it for them. So the public now thinks science rests on belief, consensus and authority instead of measurement, evidence, and proof.

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    • #
      Leo G

      Consensus on a proposition is an agreement shared in the absence of sufficient supporting evidence. The consensus on CAGW is a special case- it is one involving sufficient evidence to disprove the proposition. For climate scientists in particular, it seems that entering into the CAGW consensus is like a marriage- and abrogating one’s consent to the agreement, like divorce, can be ruinous and invite accusations of denialism.
      The consensus on AGW is like a commitment to a bad marriage.

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    • #
      Jon

      Why have Man made up first religion and later ideology?

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  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Is Manne so bad? Granted he is arrogant and quite wrong about science, and other things, but as Jo says “I’m guessing Manne has never spoken to a real skeptic”. Living in his inner city literary world, he is very badly informed, but at least he has the intelligence to see that the “warmists” are losing the debate.

    Contrast that with several others who appear in the lists, day after day, who have been exposed to science and the debate, and yet have never learnt anything nor changed their prejudices at all. At what level can we rate their intelligence?

    The big problem is that as more of them realise that the scientific debate is lost, their instinct is to stifle free speech and ban the debate. As for their other agendas, they know that to parade them in public will result in derision and a hostile outcome.

    The fight is not over yet.

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    • #
      Winston

      Is Manne bad?
      Doubtful,but I think like many “intellectuals” with leftist leanings, he is desperately in search of a religion to believe in. So the above would equate to the Sermon of the Mount, as delivered by the village idiot.

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  • #
    Mike Fomerly of Oz

    Nicely said, Jo!

    I really liked all of it, but loved “confused researchers study proxies for grants instead of proxies for temperature.”

    That will leave a mark!

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  • #
    turnedoutnice

    Despite the wall of money [$61 billion from Obama using the Left as a cover for the Rockefeller and Rothschild bankers], honest scientists got really pissed off with the pseudo-scientists who populate climate science and warned the honest politicians that IPCC science was utterly corrupt.

    This does not mean that the scientists set out to deceive, just that the likes of Jones and Trenberth were not good enough. And because the latter has a meteorological training, he made elementary mistakes in the heat transfer.

    So, climate modelling is based on 5 major errors. Correct them and CO2-AGW cannot exist and there can be no positive feedback. These people were persuaded 20 years ago to claim the science was settled; it bloody well was not and since then the big banking money has paid for the population of climate science by people who, because they were taught false physics, honestly believed that the fraud they were supporting was the truth.

    I suggest the psychologists who have been jumping on the band wagon to claim people like me, taught physics by true Nobel prize winners, are psychologically-disturbed ‘deniers’, rapidly set out to create mass counseling for depressed climate scientists when they learn they were deceived.

    I would also hope that the Regents of the Universities who have charged good money for these students to be taught fake science by the emissaries of CRU who went out to Australia, NZ, the US etc. to deceive for ‘the cause’, consider paying for remedial tuition so these people can overcome the stigma in their job searches.

    This is because no scientific employer will hire these people once the truth becomes Public knowledge.

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Outstanding TON

      Psychological counseling for “climate scientists” is one of my favorite hobby horses. Its mention draws attention to what will happen when the crunch comes; and it is here.

      But your idea of “paying for remedial tuition so these people can overcome the stigma in their job searches.” is just brilliant.

      Every student who has had their scientific education tainted by this scam should be entitled to both State and Federal funding for a “re-education” program.

      Further ABC should be made to screen 50% of its output for the next 5 years on remedial physics to counter the scientific distortions they have created in community awareness of The Weather.

      A justified push for “restitution” will embarrass politicians and the wheelers and dealers no end and restore some sort of sanity to our world.

      How did Australian Education ever become so corrupted that these poorly qualified overseas “gurus” of climate science were able to infest our Universities?

      Well said.

      KK 🙂

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        I am not sure I like “re-education”. That is a very “soviet” idea.

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        • #
          turnedoutnice

          How about ‘education’?

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        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Hi RW

          Yes the use of “re-education” had the deliberate intention of portraying something bad had happened.

          Trouble is I got it mixed up.

          Those being re-educated were in fact the victims.

          What I should have said is that all the politicians and leaders of the warmer scam were the ones who needed re-education.

          KK 🙂

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          • #
            Jon

            I would rather call them by what they do. What they do is policy based science. So one brand could be “social climate science”.

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    • #

      The idea of remedial courses does not necessarily need to be draconian or lengthy. Maybe could include

      1. How to read a graph – like how to put a straight line on a graph to determine that sea levels are rising by 31cm a century, and there is no acceleration in the trend.
      2. Learning that different points of view possible. Maybe a day observing a criminal trial would help. Or alternatively, practice of debating an issue might give understanding that criticism sharpens ones thought.
      3. Maybe a remedial statistics course. Such as “t” tests, or R-squared.
      4. Some basic geography might be advised. Joelle Gergis, for instance, has the notion that Vostok, Antarctica is with the area 0°S-50°S, 110°E-180°E. She (and her co-authours, and peer-reviewers) seemed unable to distinguish that on Latitude, there is a west a well as an east, and on longitude, there is a north as well as a south. Also that the climate of Vostok (the coldest place on Earth) might not be representative of central Australia.
      5. Some basic instructions on devising questionnaires might be useful, particularly the problems of eliminating bias.
      6. Training in using a dictionary might be useful. For instance the word “skeptic” could be a useful learning point.
      7. For the more advanced students, there might be courses on proportions, extrapolation, and the dealing with uncertainties. However, the students might need counselling following such sessions, as such notions might severely undermine the students self-esteem.

      However, like Rereke Whakaaro, I would be against Soviet-style re-education on moral grounds. On compassionate grounds, I think it might be better to give training on shelf-filling in supermarkets or (my former specialism, practiced in a manic fashion) rhodi-bashing.

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    • #

      Turnedoutnice, no one will offer counsel to failed climate scientists. They were the puppet tools — the b-graders who said the right thing at the right time and were rewarded for being mediocre – elevated far beyond their abilities. In the big scheme of things, the money and prestige will evaporate from them as soon as they lose their “usefulness” to those with real money or power. At best (from their point of view), they will be forgotten.

      Let’s not forget they scored winnings of salary and junkets. It may not have been dishonestly achieved (for most of them), but it was not deserved.

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      • #
        Jaymez

        Unfortunately having gained tenure at prestigious universities and institutions on high salaries they will keep good people out of jobs for years or be costly to get rid of! Meanwhile they will continue to inculcate their left wing doctrines and sloppy science and logic on impressionable students.

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        • #
          bananabender

          Very few Warmist climate scientists held senior positions at prestige universities. eg The University of East Anglia was widely considered the worst university in Britain (until the 1990s when the polytechnics were upgraded to university status.)

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      • #
        Matt Bennett

        My god Jo, you’re more deluded than I thought…

        You REALLY think climate scientists (which is actually a broad range of specialists from many disciplines applying their skill sets to climatic problems, modeling and fieldwork) do what they do for “salaries” and “junkets”!!?? Really…?

        Most scientists are driven, at a base level, by curiosity and it is thanks to their innate desire to know more about how our planet functions that we actually have some warning on the likely dire effects of the dangerous experiment we are inadvertently running.

        If you weren’t so busy cheer-leading 4th rate TV weathermen’s crank conspiracies you’d know something about this…

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        • #
          Shevva

          Point me to a climate scientist that does it for free because Mr watts (Nice name calling by the way) and Joanne do it for free.

          You seem to be an angry young man that may need to take a deep breath and understand you subject before commenting.

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        • #
          Siliggy

          After the global warming religion collapses there will need to be hospital wards dedicated to treating people with the symptoms that are on display in the above comment (6.3.2). A sad and sorry example of the need for cult deprogramming.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Unfortunately, you cannot de-programme somebody who has been brain-burned.

            The best you can do is re-programme, a “cure” that is almost as bad as the “affliction”

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          • #

            Re. #6.3.2.2.1:

            Dunno about de-programming for las warmistas, but there are wonderful things being done with the atypical neuroleptic drugs in combination with mood elevators.

            With all these decades of “We’re All Gonna Die!” gloom-and-doom from the catastrophe cultists, I think we’ve got enough presumptive evidence of depressive mood disorder overlaying a fundamental derangement of coherent thought.

            They wanna make “psychiatric” noises about those of us on the skeptical side?

            Hey, I’m perfectly happy to reciprocate. And I can do it on bases more pertinent to DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria than they’ve ever been able to cite.

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          Winston

          Rubbish, Matt.
          That’s like saying that in my chosen profession, Medicine, that most of those who practice it are innately curious about the workings of the human body. Hate to delude you, but most of my colleagues are guided by the innate desire not to kill anyone, not to make any egregious mistakes, and to hopefully earn a comfortable living while dodging any undue interest from the tax man or from the government auditors/regulators. While they are at it, if they can massage their ego by pontificating about the small modicum of knowledge they do know by pretending that diagnosis is a purely scientific process, rather than a blend of art and science, intuition and observation, which it truthfully is, then all the better. Some will aspire to become professors, a title so easily gained as to be somewhat laughable, with most that I know of that station being among either the least capable, or the most terminally anally retentive, or the most deluded, or possibly a combination of all three. The health of the patient is really only the concern of the poor GP slob in the trenches, and some of them have given up entirely on that ideal also- depressing really. A shadow of the profession it once was only 20 years ago, and I’ve watched it happen before my eyes.

          As to climatologists, I see no curiosity to know the “truth” whatsoever, otherwise they would welcome an analysis by Watts of the US weather data that removes any apparently unwarranted biases that confound an accurate analysis of temperature trends- yet you clearly resent the work that has even been done, you dismiss it out of hand before even analysing the data on the basis of who performed it, you insult the author of the paper unfairly before you even know the result of peer review, and you obviously don’t care a damn whether Watts et al. is more accurate or an improvement on the previous BEST analysis- you only care that it contradicts your position- so you are by that analysis a liar, a vile deceiver and a disingenuous prig. QED.

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            Re: #6.3.2.3

            Hrm. I went into the profession of medicine because as a youngster I observed:

            (1) People would seek your advice and treatment of their own volition.

            (2) You could tell them to take off all their clothes, and they would do it.

            (3) You’d get paid for it afterwards.

            what could better explain the attractiveness of the fee-for-service economic model among us American physicians?

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          Jesus saves

          And furthermore when Nova cites George Pell as an authority on climate change things really have become farcical. Here’s a man who believes in talking snakes right? His performance on Q&A debating Dawkins on various issues including climate science were frankly embarrassing.

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          Jaymez

          Matt I was going to write that any idiot could see that Jo did not write that climate scientists do what they do for money and junkets – but then you are proof that is not true. So I will just have to write:

          Firstly, it is clear to any reasonable person that Jo is writing about the climate scientists who have fallen for the CAGW theory without proper evidence.

          Secondly Jo doesn’t say they did it for money and junkets, here is what she wrote” “They were the puppet tools — the b-graders who said the right thing at the right time and were rewarded for being mediocre – elevated far beyond their abilities.”

          Basically they were gullible and were duped, perhaps by their own enthusiasm or ‘faith’, perhaps blinded by their own self importance while they jet setted about attending conferences and telling anyone who would listen that the end is nigh.

          They failed to do what scientists should do, that is to be sceptical and maintain an open mind.

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          John Brookes

          Just think of it as an alternate reality, Matt.

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            Mark D.

            JB, With all of your experience, you better than anyone should know that other realities trump delusion.

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          turnedoutnice

          Many if not most of these foot soldiers have been misled.

          Thus we have 1000s of pyrgeometers being used to measure what they believe to be the energy coming to the Earth from the sky. This is a total bunkum because the signal, although calibrated in W/m^2 is actually the temperature radiation field, a measure of temperature convolved with emissivity.

          Got to the manufacturer’s website and in the small print they state correctly that to measure net energy flux, you need two devices back to back: http://www.kippzonen.com/?product/16132/CGR+3.aspx

          The manufacturers are apparently embarrassed at the improper use of these expensive devices. Because of this the IPCC ‘Energy Budget’ with its imaginary 40% energy generation, the cause of the imaginary positive feedback, is totally wrong.

          In short, climate science has got most of the heat generation and heat transfer physics wrong and 1000s of students are taught incorrect physics ranging from Arrhenius to Sagan. It’s a Big Mess and someone will have to clear it up now the politicians realise that this Emperor of pseudo-science has no clothes.

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        • #

          Scientists put their pants on in the morning for the same reason everyone does: to go out and make a living.

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            Bob Massey

            Except some of them Eddy don’t put their underpants on their head like our CAGW friends do.

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      Antonia

      Yes indeed. Far from being settled, climate science is in its infancy. Many scientists have noted that the curricula of the new discipline of climate science is deficcient in many areas including stastistics, heat transfers etc. For example I found the following comments from a blogger who, unlike Manne, knows what he or she’s talking about: “The AGW hypothesis concerns the trace gas CO2 absorbing radiant heat and transfering that to the atmosphere to increase the temperature. I have looked at Climate Science courses at various Universities around the world. No course I have seen teaches thermodynamics, or heat and mass transfer which are engineering subjects. From all the articles and books, I have seen, no climate scientist (including the supposed guru Sir John Houghton and even some who are sceptics) has a full understanding of these subjects…. Another engineering subject, fluid dynamics, is necessary to understand atmospheric circulation such as jetstreams and currents in the ocean. I would suggest that only a clever person with a background in engineering can come to grips with the complexity of climate assessment.”

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        turnedoutnice

        Houghton makes two serious mistakes:

        1. to claim the IR emission from a gas in LTE is black body [later grey body].

        2. to fail completely to understand that at the boundaries, the two-stream approximation breaks down.

        3. Presumably Trenberth then assembles this into the fantasy heat transfer physics in the Energy Budget.

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    Fred Allen

    The fortunes of the Australian Labor Party has had a lot to do with the political appeal of global warming throughout the rest of the world. In the USA, Obama can’t get cap-and-trade legislation through with the two houses run by separate parties and likely to stay that way for the next couple of years at least. If anything, they’ll both be controlled by the Republicans for a short period, but not by the Dems. However, the fortunes of the Labor Party in “leading the world” has not gone unnoticed in Washington. The US Democrats can see the Australian population frothing at the bit for retaliation and retribution directed at the ALP. Global warming doesn’t seem so important to a politician when he/she is looking at a lifetime as a political paperweight.

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      Fred Allen

      As with any effective scam, the pressure of time is extremely important to the success of the deception. “Buy this!”, Buy that!”, “Don’t wait!”, “Pick up the phone NOW!”. Give people time to think about it and consider the options and the scam is blown. The push in support of AGW has always been time-critical. Legislation HAD to be implemented while the public remained intoxicated by fear at the expense of rational thought.

      It’s been going on for too long now. The foretold disasters are not occurring. The targets of the scam are starting to think and consider other options. And when the scam gets found out? The scammer slams the suitcase shut and runs before he gets mauled.

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      Graeme No.3

      Glad to see that foreign politicians are noticing the reaction. If only ours would.

      On a lighter? note re self deluding scientists. When the bones of the dinosaur Muttaburrasaurus were discovered in Qld. the scientists reconstructed the skeleton with a bent tail touching the ground, like a kangaroo (as was fashionable then). Since the bones were for a straight tail, it was necessary to break the tail and insert several “reconstructed” vertebrae. When they discovered a nest of 6 babies with straight tails, they broke all their tails too!

      They have since corrected the error, but surely a parallel to the current tendency among many climatologists to think that CO2 levels control the climate.

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        Jon

        The main point is not that CO2 drives climate. It’s more that Man drives climate so we can become sinners again and the many exploited by the few?

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    Jaymez

    It is all very well for scientists to agree that green house gases can contribute to the earth average global temperature, and thank goodness it does. Otherwise the planet would be frozen and humans would not have evolved. There is no doubt that human emissions of greenhouse gases can increase overall global average temperatures. The mistake Robert Manne and many eco activists and anti humanists make is in claiming there is any scientific consensus explaining:

    1. Other natural climate variability factors which are likely to be more significant than human greenhouse gas emissions and which correlate more closely than human green house gas emissions to global temperature.

    2. Natural negative feedback mechanisms to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases which may counter any positive feedback mechanisms.

    3. How much warming would actually be beneficial for the world’s population, plants and animals increasing crop growing seasons, crop yields, reducing fuels needed to keep warm, reducing deaths from extreme cold, extending the cropping area of land in the world.

    4. Why if the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is correct, is it that while human greenhouse gas emissions have increased exponentially since industrialisation, there have been 2-3 consecutive decades of just cooling or warming, even though greenhouse gas emissions grew apace? And since 1998 a period of global temperature stabilisation in direct contradiction of the IPCC Climate Models? These examples contradict the ‘scientific consensus’ Robert Manne assumes exists where our climate is most sensitive to green house gasses.

    5. Why, if the science is so solid and the scientific consensus so certain on dangerous anthropogenic global warming (AGW) so firm, have leading climate scientists actively avoided what is common practice within the peer review science process of making their data and coding available for scrutiny by others? Why has the BOM refused to disclose their temperature station adjustment and homogenisation process as requested and have declined a request of an independent Audit. Why did New Zealand’s NIWA do the same thing then under court mediation agree to have a third party audit their adjustment and homogenisation procedures. But NIWA will not release the results to the courts. Meanwhile HADCRUT raw data and notes pre the adjusted notes has been lost or deleted and must be reconstructed by the UK Met in a 3 year project. Hardly the actions of scientists solidly confident of their data.

    6. Why, again have climate scientists conspired to corrupt the peer review process by pressuring journal editors to not accept research papers for review if those papers disagreed with their (AGW) views.

    What has increased over the years is the amount of government funding spent to support the popular left wing position which is anti industry, anti mining, anti coal anti oil so it is no surprise that there is research paper after research paper ‘finding’ evidence of warming, or starting with the premise of warming, making dire predictions regarding the potential disaster of an over heating world.

    What we haven’t seen from any of the billions of dollars spent by these scientists and pseudo scientist in the nouveau Climate Science area is any empirical evidence linking human greenhouse gas emissions with anything more than a moderate level of warming. Warming which would quite arguably be beneficial to the world.

    Predictions of catastrophic climate change have been made up in the minds of computer programmers and scientists making untested and unproven assumptions regarding how water vapour, and clouds would work and assuming no negative feedback mechanisms would come into play. This is pure speculation and there are plenty of world renown Climate Scientists and Astrophysicists and Meteorologists and related specialists who do not believe it is worth crippling the economy , of the first world but worst still depriving the poor of the third world and the struggling of the developing world with access to cheap, reliable fuel and energy sources without appropriate evidence that any climate change variations are likely to be within the boundaries of natural variability as experienced in the Earth’s human past.

    Robert Manne should stop trying to use science to thinly veil his real left wing socialist agenda.

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      FijiDave

      Excellent, Jaymez!

      Would that I had the nous for such succinct commentary!

      Thanks.

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      Myrrh

      It is all very well for scientists to agree that green house gases can contribute to the earth average global temperature, and thank goodness it does. Otherwise the planet would be frozen and humans would not have evolved. There is no doubt that human emissions of greenhouse gases can increase overall global average temperatures.

      Show and tell.

      Repeating unproven memes created by those manipulating physics to promote AGW is not science.

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        KinkyKeith

        Agree with you Myrrh

        The statement “There is no doubt that human emissions of greenhouse gases can increase overall global average temperatures.” is used over and over by real scientists trying to placate warmers when initiating a discussion.

        While technically correct, the actual truth of the matter is another thing entirely.

        As an example of Human Contribution lets consider the well worn example so favored by warmers.

        The “0.6 C deg rise from 1850 till now”.

        We apparently “caused” this by becoming “industrialised”.

        Even IF the rise was actually 0.6 (and there is some doubt about that) and CO2 levels increased from about 280 ppm ( and there is a huge amount of contradictory evidence against that) and we accept that no other mechanisms are at work (we know that is NOT true, but):

        Then.

        The human contribution to that 0.6C rise was 0.0009 C deg.

        Human Effect : 0.0009 C.

        restating this “truth” is not helpful in giving the real picture of what is happening.

        KK 🙂

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          Jaymez

          Kinky I think you would benefit from reading my comment below and David Evans article here also.

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            KinkyKeith

            Hi Jaymez

            Have read and enjoyed a lot of your work.

            I am not sure why my comment above would need any reinterpretation as it stands on its own.

            Note that I spoke Only about Human Origin CO2.

            No mention was made of the other greenhouse gases, principally water, nor of the Natural Origin CO2 which is a significant quantity,

            unlike human origin CO2.

            The example I used was to examine a warmer idea that has been played to the limit; ie that radiation is the ONLY way heat is removed

            from the Earth’s surface and that Human Origin CO2 is the only player.

            I have never disputed the fact that the Earths “atmosphere” retards the energy that originates from the Earths surfaces: all I am

            saying is that it is a quantitative fact that Human Origin CO2 cannot be a player in this matter and it is misleading to keep

            acknowledging that it is a “relevant greenhouse gas”.

            I could have reduced the Human Origin Theoretical Effect further below 0.0009 C by requiring that due consideration be given to the

            many other factors that account for heat and energy losses in the system under examination but sometimes simplicity is needed to

            avoid clouding the issue. In past posts I have referred to the vast amount of energy needed to lift water that is at ground level

            back up to cloud level of 800 metres. There is also significant energy dissipation in turbulence effects and atmospheric mixing and

            friction losses.

            It is a vast subject but proof of the innocence of HUMAN ORIGIN CO2 is a very simple matter.

            It’s just that the warmers have made a big effort to make it seem complicated.

            The only point in which I totally agreed with Myrrh is the statement : “There is no doubt that human emissions of greenhouse gases

            can increase overall global average temperatures”.

            As I said, technically that comment is correct if you think 0.0009 c is relevant in a change of 0.6 C over 160 years.

            Also there is no proof that any of the 0.6 is due to “greenhouse’ variations.

            I have not had a look at Davids comment but in your own you mention “There are positive and negative feedbacks, potential increases in carbon sinks (such as faster growing plants)”.

            I wasn’t touching any of that.

            It’s another thing entirely and you may recall I have had numerous interactions with Ferdinand Englebeen who was unable to deal with

            the scientific mental gymnastics needed to accept that human origin CO2 does not build up in the atmosphere in massive proportions.

            The many peer reviewed articles explaining the Human Origin CO2 is essentially sequestered after two or three years was totally

            ignored by him.

            If the whole human race stopped reproducing today, the CO2 growth attributable to human expansion would stop.

            Within 5 years we would be able to track natural variations in atmospheric CO2 totally independent of human influence.

            Of course, we cant do this experiment.

            KK 🙂

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            KinkyKeith

            Had a look at David’s piece and it is mainly a comment on what Climate Science claims about global warming by way of it’s Models.

            Comments that argue about what might happen under a regime where CO2 is “doubled” are of concern to me because it seems to imply

            that there is a linear relationship between temperature and CO2 levels.

            Given that most of the “bandwidth” of ground IR that CO2 is active in is almost full up it seems scientifically obvious that greater

            attention needs to be given to this point.

            There is an asymptotic relationship between energy absorbed and CO2 levels that makes

            talk of “doubling” CO2 levels a little bit unscientific.

            A very strong case could be made for saying that more CO2 would be an irrelevance because the existing CO2 has “soaked up” all of

            the available ground IR.

            Adding more CO2 would have no effect.

            Additionally you need to go to the worlds deserts near the Equator and at both poles to get CO2 on its own without water stealing

            its ” bandwidth”.

            Lots of science?

            KK 🙂

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            KinkyKeith

            “Of course, we cant do this experiment.”

            Main reason is that everyone likes reproducing so much,

            KK

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          turnedoutnice

          This cannot be correct because most GHGs are in IR self-absorption mode by a few 100 ppmV.

          What no-one has so far realised, but is quite easy to prove, is that near the Earth’s surface you have the same physics responsible for band inversion when you shine spectral emission lines through another source of the same lines at a lower temperature.

          The result is apparently to absorb those bands but the mechanism is really reduction of emissivity of the source. So the GHE is from the reduction of the Earth’s emissivity increasing IR emission in the unsaturated bands and the ‘atmospheric window’.

          There can be no CO2-AGW. The GHE is fixed for a water planet by the first few 100 ppmV of water vapour. The absorption in IR bands at TOA is from self absorption of thermal IR.

          Aarhenius was so far off the mark as to be incredible……..

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            KinkyKeith

            Hi TON

            Good comment.

            I am not familiar with the term “IR self-absorption mode” but I suspect it is the same thing I am talking about when discussing the amount of exiting IR being mopped up and held temporarily by CO2 in the atmosphere.

            From memory, I understood that pretty much all of the escaping ground origin IR was taken up by CO2 in the first 30 metres or so of

            atmosphere above the surface.

            As a corollary to that it could be assumed that if the sun became more active there would be more ground IR.

            With more high energy solar spectra entering the Earth’s surface and “turning around” to leave as IR the “IR self-absorption mode”

            would be found to end a little higher, perhaps at 35 metres?

            And as you say, even that analysis is probably redundant because “water did it”.

            Following on from that, the point at which CO2 has “Mopped up” all the ground IR in its absorption bandwidth probably varies

            depending on location.

            In dryer areas, such as North and South poles, it may be higher but in moist tropical regions it would be lower.

            At least Arrhenius was trying, and I think he actually realised his mistake, but those from Skeptical Science are determined to

            convert everybody, whatever cunning deception it takes. Shades of the Moonies.

            KK 🙂

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            cohenite

            Hi TON:

            The result is apparently to absorb those bands but the mechanism is really reduction of emissivity of the source.

            Are you talking about Beers Law?

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        Jaymez

        Myrrh, it is hardly an unproven meme that green house gases can contribute to the Earth’s average global temperature. Without greenhouse gases the solar radiation coming into the Earth’s atmosphere would simply be re-radiated out to space. The average global temperature on the Earth would be approximately -15C. If you have some dispute with the basic physics of how greenhouse gases work in trapping long wave radiation, then you are a long way behind the debate and you need to get yourself and education.

        The next question is whether it is possible human adding GHG to the atmosphere (I assume you aren’t denying that we do?), can add further to atmospheric temperature. That is where science really has no proper answer which is the point I was making. There are positive and negative feedbacks, potential increases in carbon sinks (such as faster growing plants). Add to that the impact of other factors which affect climate which our scientists do not fully understand such as solar variability and cosmic radiation, etc you get the picture? David Evans recent article makes some very good points on this aspect here.

        So I think you have totally misinterpreted what I have written.

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          rukidding

          If you have some dispute with the basic physics of how greenhouse gases work in trapping long wave radiation, then you are a long way behind the debate and you need to get yourself and education.

          Jaymez while the greenhouse theory is well excepted there is still the odd Phyisist that questions the theory.Are they crazy maybe or are they right.

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            KinkyKeith

            Hi RU

            Myrrhs comment was little open ended but I think Jaymez has misinterpreted some of what I originally posted.

            Even IF radiation was the only heat transfer mechanism at work in the system, Human Origin CO2 is scientifically irrelevant.

            Even if you take ALL CO2 in my example above it still only accounts for 0.03 C deg of the 0.6 C seen from 1850.

            Human origin CO2 is just NOT a player in this drama.

            The only way this thing ever got any traction is that Warmer science ignored the main GHG : Water!

            It may have been convenient for their cause but it is not science, just a green nightmare we are all paying for.

            KK. 🙂

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          Leo G

          Those notional Greenhouse and non-Greenhouse Earths, the ones with their IR radiation surface temperatures of -15°C, are both impossible ideals, and it is nonsensical to argue that the Greenhouse Effect keeps the atmosphere at the surface of the real Earth 33°C warmer than one of a pair of absurdly fictional alternative scenarios.
          The Greenhouse Effect might be well accepted, but does the “Greenhouse Theory” have any reality as a theory? If the theory exists then it should have a formal expression. I’ve not seen it- but then neither am I a climatologist.
          Aren’t references to the ‘Theory’ really references to the panoply of established scientific theories used to justify the Greenhouse Effect analogy?
          And while in philosophical mode, I don’t have much respect for the statement: “There is no doubt that human emissions of greenhouse gases can increase overall global average temperatures.” – it implies that there is not a single incidence of such doubt, adding a logical fallacy (argument from authority) to what otherwise is an almost respectable (testable) statement.

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          Myrrh

          Myrrh, it is hardly an unproven meme that green house gases can contribute to the Earth’s average global temperature. Without greenhouse gases the solar radiation coming into the Earth’s atmosphere would simply be re-radiated out to space. The average global temperature on the Earth would be approximately -15C. If you have some dispute with the basic physics of how greenhouse gases work in trapping long wave radiation, then you are a long way behind the debate and you need to get yourself and education.

          First, sorry I couldn’t get back to this earlier.

          Well Jaymez, if there were ever any actual detail given I’d have something to dispute..

          All I ever hear is that it is proven, tons of experiments and handwaving in the direction of Tyndall, but whenever I request it be fetched, it never is, and I’ve not found it in Tyndall. So, if you say The Greenhouse Effect exists, then please, do bring it here to show and tell.

          To remind, the claim is The Greenhouse Effect exists, and this is the claim that greenhouses gases heat up the Earth 33°C to 15°C from the -18°C it would be without them.

          The next question is whether it is possible human adding GHG to the atmosphere (I assume you aren’t denying that we do?), can add further to atmospheric temperature. That is where science really has no proper answer which is the point I was making. There are positive and negative feedbacks, potential increases in carbon sinks (such as faster growing plants). Add to that the impact of other factors which affect climate which our scientists do not fully understand such as solar variability and cosmic radiation, etc you get the picture? David Evans recent article makes some very good points on this aspect here.

          So I think you have totally misinterpreted what I have written.

          I think I may have been a bit too shorthand here, but as the extract was I quoted these ideas are all bandied around without any physics show and tell and the meme, “we agree” particularly irritating because there is no agreement. We wouldn’t be having these discussions if there were..

          Anyway, I’ve narrowed it down to the basic claim, so please show me the workings of this. I say it’s an illusion created by taking out the Water Cycle.

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      Jon

      The basis is the socialist, democrats and UNEP and the politically decided UNFCCC in Rio 1992. And the funding international since to support this policy based “science”?

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      KinkyKeith

      ps

      I was probably the first to give this item a thumbs UP.

      KK 🙂

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      Colin Henderson

      Interestingly, while the CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels supposedly causes global warming the heat produced apparently has no significant effect!

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        lawrie

        Colin,
        I believe you mean the heat released to the atmosphere but they also discount the benefits of the heat generated such as electricity and indeed the very stuff that allows this “debate” to take place. Without coal fired power we would not have the wealth to be able to fund the universities that spawn the likes of Manne.

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      AndyG55

      “Robert Manne should stop trying to use science ”

      that’s all that you needed to say 😉

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      Antonia

      Well put. Even Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has cheerfully admitted, “Everybody might be wrong”. In an interview with James Delingpole Lovelock said, “The great climate science centers around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They [clouds and aerosols] could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet.” He said scientists have moved from investigating nature as a vocation, to being caught in a career path where it makes sense to “fudge the data”.

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    LevelGaze

    For the benefit of overseas readers, it should be pointed out that Manne is a professor of politics. Although, like Clive Hamilton, he is sometimes referred to as “public intellectual”, he is adored only by a tiny minority of the trendy social Left – the “doctors’ wives” clique.
    In Australian life, he counts for virtually nothing. This rant will be met by a violent outburst of complete indifference.

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    gai

    …He’s right that the consensus is real (among government funded climate scientists)….

    Actually he does not have even that correct. The 97% of Climate Scientists Consensus is based on a really bad poll and really bad reasoning.

    Two very slanted questions were sent to 10,257 members of the American Geophysical Union. In most cases the scientists refused to answer (the comments are amusing to read What else did the ’97% of scientists’ say? )

    3146 actually did answer but the answers (82% yes to man’s influence on climate) must not have been considered useful to the Propaganda Machine. Therefore out of those over three thousand responses the grad student (Yeah a grad student) CHOSE only the 77 who had succeeded in getting more than half of their papers accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals.

    You know the same journals the Climategate e-mails showed were “Pal Reviewed” and when one editor stepped out of line the “Team” got him fired. So out of those 77 pre-screened “Climate Scientists” 75 or 97% was the consensus.

    That anything-but-scientific survey asked two questions. The first: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” Few would be expected to dispute this…the planet began thawing out of the “Little Ice Age” in the middle 19th century, predating the Industrial Revolution. (That was the coldest period since the last real Ice Age ended roughly 10,000 years ago.)

    The second question asked: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” So what constitutes “significant”? Does “changing” include both cooling and warming… and for both “better” and “worse”? And which contributions…does this include land use changes, such as agriculture and deforestation?
    FORBES or WUWT

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    BobC

    Manne’s argument appears to rest entirely on his mistaken belief that “science” is What The Gods Declare it To Be. For Manne, the Gods are “official climate scientists”. Apparently, only those who are anointed by Government funding have access to The Truth — and their declarations must be obeyed. Manne is so completely under their spell, he is incapable of figuring out how anyone could think anything else.

    My discussions with local (Boulder, Colorado, USA) Progressives suggests that this is a good description of how they come by their political opinions as well.

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    Jo,

    You are leaving out a major point on the Doran and Zimmerman paper. It asked two trivial questions.

    1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

    2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

    I would answer yes to both of these. Temperatures have risen – but not as much as the biased temperature records suggest. Following Sherwood Idso, a doubling of CO2 should lead to 0.4 Celsius of warming. As the relationship of CO2 to temperature is logarithmic, CO2 should have added 0.25-0.30 to temperature by now. That is not an insignificant, being up to 50% of recent warming.

    But it is not evidence of a belief in climate catastrophe. Manne, like the climatologists (and like Prof Lewandowsky) draws conclusions that are not supported by the evidence.

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    MadJak

    Meanwhile, the warmist foudn something else to get into the IPCCs AR5 -> Melting street lights due to goreball wormin

    oh, wait a minute – damn – someone exposed it before it got in as “grey literature”.

    Well that’s a few less pages in the next IPCC report….

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    Roy Hogue

    For reasonable citizens there ought to be no question easier to answer than whether or not human-caused global warming is real and is threatening the future of the Earth.

    He’s right! It was easy! And we did answer it! And voila, no global warming!

    Could anything be less difficult than simply comparing the rhetoric with the reality? Or were we supposed to do that?

    Well, maybe I’m not so good at following instructions. But that man behind the curtain sure looked suspicious…

    Sorry about the applecart! 🙂

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    Peter Miller

    ” Thousands of climate scientists in a variety of discrete disciplines have been exploring the issue for decades. They have reached a consensual conclusion whose existence is easily demonstrated.”

    Needs a few corrections, this was obviously what he meant to say.

    Thousands of individuals, funded by government or quasi-government organisations and masquerading as real climate scientists, have a personal vested interest in keeping the present gravy train of generous funding and large grants on the tracks. In order to maintain their comfortable lifestyles and pander to the whims of their political masters, these individuals have reached a consensual conclusion on how to manipulate data, distort conclusions and delude much of the general public into thinking there is a crisis called global warming/climate change caused by humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

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      gai

      No you are wrong

      ” Thousands of climate scientists in a variety of discrete disciplines have been exploring the issue for decades. They have reached a consensual conclusion whose existence is easily demonstrated.”

      Should read

      ” [We polled over Ten] Thousands of climate scientists in a variety of discrete disciplines [who] have been exploring the issue for decades. [We whittle that down to just the seventy-seven who could pass the PAL-review in leftist Journals even then only seventy -five fell for our two trick questions. So now we can say] They [Our tame scientists] have reached a consensual conclusion whose existence is easily demonstrated.”

      See, All fixed with a bit of editing.

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    brc

    I find it fascinating how someone like this can be so blind to reality.

    I’m not talking about the science – in this bunfight, the actual science appears quite far down the list. For all intents and purposes, this is a proxy war about whether the government should control peoples lives more, or not. For what greater control over someones life can you have than by indirectly (or directly) influencing how much energy they use?

    But the reality Manne (and Readfern, and others) are so blind to is this idea of a well funded, tight knit organisation of ‘denialists’. Any casual reading of comments at places like the Drum will keep referencing a ‘well funded operation’ and ‘CEOs who maximise profits while knowingly destroying the planet’ and other such nonsense.

    There is zero evidence of this being the case, but they keep inventing it. Ironically, it’s the exact same reasoning they use with the co2-scare : we have no evidence, but this theory is the best fit, and we can’t come up with an alternative explanation.

    Despite Peter Gleick committing identity fraud, theft and forgery to try and uncover evidence, all he got was some fairly benign donor lists from Heartland, including the famous Koch brothers who weren’t even funding the climate science activities. The other ‘smoking gun’ they like to wave around is some decades-old Exxon report that talks of funding. This is the entire cupboard of evidence that ‘a well funded denial machine’ that is causing this. Despite the fact that even the UEA has had more ‘fossil fuel’ donations over it’s lifetime than all of the ‘discovered’ eveidence over time.

    To further the war analogy – it’s only them. They’ve crowded the battle field, are shooting at ghosts, and taking each other out.

    It’s actually hilarious to watch, the constant fools they are making of themselves. If only our national prosperity wasn’t on the line, it would be even funnier.

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      Phil Ford

      “…o further the war analogy – it’s only them. They’ve crowded the battle field, are shooting at ghosts, and taking each other out. It’s actually hilarious to watch, the constant fools they are making of themselves.” – brc

      Just wanted to agree with this. CAGW – which, rather unhelpfully to its advocates, refuses to become a scientific reality, is actually becoming a rather awkward farce; a farce of admittedly colossal proportions.

      It’s ghoulishly interesting to note how the language of alarmists has changed over the decades as each new catastrophic prophesy has inevitably failed to materialize – from ‘global cooling’ when I was boy in the 70’s, via the ozone layer (remember the war on aerosols?), greenhouse gases, global warming and CAGW, all the way to something called ‘climate events’ and ‘extreme weather’ of today; terms which, usefully (like ‘sustainability’), can be made to mean anything at all.

      Hilarious. And still the show goes on… *popcorn.jpg*

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      bananabender

      AGW was essentially (re-)created by Shell and BP to sell more North Sea gas in the late 1960s.

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      Patrickb

      [snip, baseless ad hom. not even substantiation provided. -J]

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    Bob from Arana Hills

    Jo, slight correction needed, I think. You say,”the thermometers are next to heat sinks.” Perhaps that should be “heat sources”, or “heat sinks and sources” (but I think the majority are sources).

    On another related matter, commenting on the Muller study, Readfearn says, “Presumably, the oil rich Koch brothers were so convinced the world’s temperature gauges were lying that they were happy to provide a no strings donation to Muller’s project, which stipulated that its donors, ‘have no say over how we conduct the research or what we publish’.”

    Or perhaps the Koch brothers simply give no-strings donations! Anyway, it demolishes the oft repeated claim by the warmists that a study funded by “big oil” is tainted because of the funding.

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      gai

      What is even funnier is they pin point the EVIL Koch brothers funding and completely miss Marlan Downey, “Former President of the international subsidiary of Shell Oil”

      This from the Muller & Associates Website

      Marlan Downey, Oil and Gas Executive
      Honored as “A Living Legend in the Oil and Gas Business” by the world’s largest geological society. Former President of the international subsidiary of Shell Oil; founder of Roxanna Oil; former President of Arco International; Bartell Professor of Geoscience at U. Oklahoma; Heidberg Medal for outstanding scientific achievements; cited as “Legendary Oil Finder” by Petroleum History Foundation. Knighted by President Blya of Cameroon. Marlan has led exploration teams in 62 countries.

      I mean isn’t that a bit hard to miss when Muller & Associates states:

      Our Team
      The Muller & Associates team includes Nobel Laureates, MacArthur “Geniuses”, experienced industry leaders, and world class scientific and government experts who can help you understand which technology options are best for your specific country/region/city or business.

      Executive Leadership
      Richard Muller, President and Chief Scientist
      Elizabeth Muller, CEO

      Will Glaser, Business Advisor..

      And all it takes is a click on the words Our Team to see who the Mullers hired? And then click on the name to see their Bio?

      Advisory Board
      Arthur Rosenfeld, Former California Energy Commissioner
      Charles H. Townes, Nobel Laureate
      Donald Glaser, Nobel Laureate
      Marlan Downey, Oil and Gas Executive

      Technical Experts
      David B. Goldstein, Energy Efficiency Expert
      Bill Edwards, Governance Expert
      Vincent Gutschick, Biologist and Global Change Consultant
      Jonathan Wurtele, Physicist
      Dmitry Budker, Physicist
      Carlos Gadsden-Carrasco, Governance Expert
      Jonathan Levine, Physicist
      Jonathan Katz, Physicist and Energy Technology Consultant
      Sharad Pustake, Energy Consultant
      David Woolsey, Science and Engineering Consultant
      Riel Miller, Strategic Foresight
      Alan Shinn, Optics and Technology Consultant

      Business Management
      Joyce Freedman, Business Manager
      Emily Thurston, Business Development Manager
      Rob Llewellyn, Program and Project Manager

      Europe
      Olga Budker, Business Development
      Gwendolyn Carpenter, Public Sector Consultant
      Kirsten Jongberg, Consultant

      Middle East and North Africa
      Rahal Waladi, Business Development
      Filippa Price, Public Sector Consultant

      Latin America
      Claudio Interdonato, Manager and Public Sector Consultant
      Alejandro López Conde A., Consultant and Business Development
      Alvaro Perez Veiga, Consultant and Business Development
      Alejandro Martinez-Zurita, Consultant

      Asia
      Grace Kwan, Manager and Public Sector Consultant
      Prashant Gulalkari, Public Sector Consultant

      It is worth while to go to the site and see just who is who in that list. There is some really serious money involved in that PRIVATE Corporation. That type of expertized does not come cheap.

      Compare that to Rosa DeLauro (USA Congresswoman D-CT) husband’s company that made her millions. , “DeLauro’s primary asset is a 67-percent stake in Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc., a Washington-based firm run by her husband, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. Her share in the company nets the Representative $5 million to $25 million. The other company is Greenberg, Carville, Shrum

      Stan Greenberg is a pollster, campaign manager who handled Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and politicians in 60 different countries, as well as The multi-year Global Warming Campaign

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    Louis Hissink

    The fact is that the wall of money they think we have comes from donations from the sceptics while the oceans of money that continually slosh over our miniscule wall that funds their science doesn’t come from our donations but from money forcibly taken from us via taxes and printed from the reserve bank printing credit expansion fiat money machine.

    Are humanity’s problems then to be ultimately sourced in the left’s tendency to fabricate their narratives in response to their delusional interpretation of reality? And if they fabricated the anthropogenic caused climate change as they did Aboriginal history in Australia, what else have they fabricated? [snipped – no credible support for that – Mod]

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    cohenite

    Great article; Manne and the rest of the AGW groupies cannot fathom that the masses, the hoi poloi can see through the lies of the AGW science and scientists; their position is one of arrogance and ego; they genuinely believe the masses are stupid and must be ‘persuaded’ of the righteousness of the AGW cause and ‘delivered’ from the propoganda of the media which has brainwashed the masses [see Finkelstein].

    For Manne the success of “denialsim” is because of “vested interests” not the good sense and discerning intelligence of the average folk, Manne’s perceived inferiors.

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    KeithH

    Great article Jo.

    Your opening sentence “Firstly — No one wins anything while the people who slag off at scientists get their denigrating name-calling on the front cover of magazines” highlights what is a major disappointment to me! How did a suppposedly scientific debate get to such a stage where scepticism, which may be termed the lifeblood of all true science, is so denigrated by those who fear it that they react like vicious cobras, spitting out the word “denialist” like venom to try to bully and demean people holding legitimate concerns about an unproven hypothesis and the attempt by a cabal to enforce life-altering international industrial and economic changes based on so-called “climate science” by consensus.

    I would ask any such person to explain what it is they think I deny?
    I do not deny climate changes and temperatures warm and cool due to natural variability (the null hypothesis) and the many varied powerful forces influencing Earth’s climate, as has happened for the past 4.5 billion years and will likely continue into the foreseeable future.

    I do not deny that the activities of Man certainly have some localised effect on climate and the environment, but whether any such effect is significantly measurable on a global basis is IMO still a moot point.

    In the absence of any substantive empirical evidence I am very sceptical of the theory that the tiny fraction of CO2 contributed by Man to an already fractional but essential for all life atmospheric gas is a major driver of climate change or “global warming” or that it could lead to “Catastrophic” warming.

    I don’t see an alleged 0.8C rise in global temperature over 150 years after the LIA as either dangerous or unprecedented.
    History and my own observations tell me that the warming so far and the increase in CO2 has proved beneficial. All here know the many other legitimate sceptic arguments and questions so again I ask those who term us ‘denialists’ what is it I and other sceptics are said to deny?

    On the positive side, I believe the more our opponents use the term and the more it is publicised, the more negatively it reflects on them and the paucity of their arguments.

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    Gulab

    The very fact that a politics professor is a leading and highly emotional voice in a matter that should rightly be a fairly marginal and esoteric interdisciplinary scientific debate is a telling sign. Why should it be so? To anyone who has a solid grounding in science and engineering it’s clear that the questions of planetary climate change dynamics are complex and delicate and beyond the comprehension of the public. Only a relative few with the right training and the dedication to invest substantial time and effort can really get a grasp of the science. What is certain, however, is that the climate system is so complex and the behavior of the earth so unpredictable that no one can know with any degree of precision what climate will be like in even 10 years. Any politician or social scientist who expresses certainty about “climate change” is a shameless simpleton in my book.

    In any case, the evidence indicates that human impact on the climate is practically insignificant and certainly not any reason for excessive concern, let alone panic. The benefits of a slight temperature rise would likely outweigh the negatives anyway. So the question arises: Why the hysteria and why do self-important “intellectuals” like Manne feel so impassioned by this marginal scientific debate. And not just Manne, how did the mainstreams of media, politics, and public intellectual life fall so suddenly and quickly into lockstep behind such an uncertain “truth” in a marginal scientific debate?

    The sad truth, as any reasonable person must conclude, is that these institutions have been corrupted to serve as the instruments of their masters, the largely hidden forces that shape them, to serve the interests of the international regulating class — the same one that convinces us we need to spend endless billions killing and oppressing innocent people in faraway countries with whom we have no real beef, under the pretense that they are a threat to our freedom and security, when its efforts only cause human suffering, degradation and impoverishment all around. The real objective (just like that of the climate change push), which cannot be readily stated in the “serious” and “polite” forums of the mainstream media, is control of geopolitical resources and the preservation or extension of geopolitical power.

    Of course, the minute anyone alludes to this they are accused of resorting to conspiracies, which is as laughable as someone at a puppet show being accused by the puppets of seeing the strings that tie them to the puppeteers. And for those with eyes to see, the strings have become ever thicker and more apparent over time.

    It is fascinating to wonder how self-aware people like Manne really are about this tragicomedy they find themselves in. The most charitable interpretation would be that he is a humble, simple-minded public figure who, out of a severe spiritual vacuum in his own life, and a lack of moral sophistication, has latched on to this cult as a substitute for the comforts of religion. The cult has indeed become a kind of new opium of the masses. But more likely, given the longstanding political partisanship of many true believers like Manne, climate change is just the latest vehicle to promote a warped ideal of “social justice” that is nothing more than a pretext for social engineering and totalitarian control by a ruthless clique of entitled exploiters, just as idealized communism once was.

    How aware is Manne that he is simply a tool? How is that our institutions are now rife with groupthink cheerleaders like him? Can it be an accident? The only answer I can come to is that they find themselves where they are by a matter of natural selection. Individuals who are malleable to the agenda du jour, who are sufficiently immodest and not too principled, who are ambitious and intoxicated by shallow celebrity, are better suited to serving the purposes of the forces that ultimately decide the shape of our society than people without such “qualities.” It’s depressing, but how else to explain the barrage of totalitarian groupthink we are facing.

    It obviously hurts Manne that he finds himself a high priest of a cult that is discredited and ridiculed by so many people. His reaction is to rail against the ignorance of the masses, but is there a small part of him that regrets that he has dug himself so deep into the morass? Will he stop flogging his dead horse, or will he continue deriding those around him that refuse to see that the beast can still win the cup.

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      gai

      [Comment snipped: We appreciate the contribution but the content was off topic with no conclusion showing relevance – Mod]

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    RoyFOMR

    I used to be a ‘sceptic’ but after reading this I’m now firmly on the warmist side.
    OK, for sure, the illogic of the consensus side did niggle my BS needle to such an extent that I began to doubt Mannian consensus but after absorbing Manne’s undoubtedly logical arguments about why we should accept the party line I’m now a true believer.
    Until I read him, thanks for the opportunity Jo despite my contra-interpretation to yours, I’d swallowed the lie that one should not have one’s thinking done by others.
    I now understand that self-thinking is only viable when one does it correctly.
    Thanks Bobbie. You is da man (manne?)
    Thank you Bobbie

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    KeithH

    Re Clive Hamilton’s alleged “wall of (denialist) money”. Climate Change investor Groups have just published (25/7/12) their Second Report on global investor practises relating to Climate Change.

    The Groups involved.
    The European Institutional Investors Group (IIGCC), the North American Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) and the Australia/New Zealand Investor Group on Climate Change.

    The report is based on survey responses from 42 asset owners and 51 asset Managers with collective assets totalling more than USD $12trillion.

    I quote in part without comment, the statement of Christopher Davis, director of Investor Programs at Ceres,the Boston-based sustainability leadership group on Climate Change: “While it’s encouraging that more investors are concerned about the risks of climate change, many of them could be doing more to protect their clients and portfolios from these risks. This summer’s extreme droughts which are causing huge econmomic ripples across the US economy are the latest example of why investors should be making climate change a core consideration in their decision-making.”

    Wall of money? USD $12trillion in just 3 Investor Groups whose very existence depends on continuation of the CAGW scare campaign and the heavily taxpayer-subsidised “renewable energy” schemes/carbon credit trading etc. Have a look at some of the members of the IIGCC in which the BBC and many other British Pension Funds, are or were heavily invested and would face virtual wipeout along with funds of many other financial, church, insurance institutions etc., if and/or when the scam collapses.

    I fear the odds are very heavily loaded against a return to common sense and the defeat of what I believe will eventually be recorded as the greatest financial and scientific con in history!

    http://www.iigcc.org/

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    Philip Bradley

    One of the significant causes that Jo omits is the efforts dating to around the 1960s to make science less ‘ivory tower’ and more ‘relevant’ to society.

    Up till that time, scientists were paid a salary and given a budget, and allowed to study pretty much whatever they liked. After that time, they became progressively more dependent on grants dispensed by committees and agencies that were tasked with directing research toward socially relevant areas.

    The inevitable result was politicisation of science.

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      Philip Bradley

      I’d add that that the move to make science more socially relevant, produced a change in how science worked. Previously, scientists investigated scientifically interesting issues. Afterwards, scientists looked for problems that society needed to address. Which is why science papers in many disciplines now contain statements about how problems (often not real problems in the first place) will get worse if we don’t do something about them. Unstated, of course, is that we have to spend more money on researching them.

      Another consequence is that much of the best and most honest science now comes from unpaid amateurs, precisely because they have no financial interest in any particular answer.

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    GregS

    So they’ve conceded defeat. About bloody time. Let’s move on to the next crisis, but after a very long party.

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    JMD

    his mistaken belief that “science” is What The Gods Declare it To Be

    You are closer to the truth than perhaps you realise. As it was once said – they control our money – you’d remember that Jo? Money is very special, with enough of it, you can have whatever you desire, including a bunch of ‘scientists’ to tell you whatever you want to hear.

    The ability to have whatever you desire seems very God like.

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    RoHa

    “alarmists also bully and call people names”

    Fair’s fair. The comment pages of sceptic blogs are full of invective against Warmists, accusing them of being humanity-hating, evil, crypto-communist totalitarians trying to convert the world into something like North Korea while at the same time enriching themselves from the process.

    It’s argumentum ad hominem whichever way round it goes.

    (Also politically silly. You catch more flies wiht honey than with vinegar.)

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      MadJak

      RoHa,

      I think it’s important to distinguish between articles and published journals throwing insults and the public reaction to them in blog comments, don’t you?

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        RoHa

        I don’t know who started insulting whom first, but I think the insults are a bad idea. Better to stick to (a) science, and (b) simply pointing out the immorality of some of the crazier ideas.

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      memoryvault

      The comment pages of sceptic blogs are full of invective against Warmists, accusing them of being humanity-hating, evil, crypto-communist totalitarians trying to convert the world into something like North Korea while at the same time enriching themselves from the process.

      Gee, I wonder if it has anything at all to do with the cultists’ open, public, continued calls for us “unbelieving deniers” to be rounded up, tried for crimes against the state, shipped off in cattle trains to “re-education” or “labour” camps, prominently tattooed or branded to identify us as “criminals”, and/or permanently disposed of, preferably as inhumanely as possible?

      You know, all the very kinds of actions history has taught us to expect from totalitarian regimes.

      You catch more flies wiht honey than with vinegar.

      Possibly. But for all I know these Gaia-worshipping crazies drink vinegar in much the same way that devout Opus Dei members use a cilice and flagellum. Nobody could get that twisted and bitter simply sipping latte.

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      ghl

      I smash flies with whichever bottle is handy.

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    Robert Manne

    Who among all your respondents has read the article under discussion? It was published yesterday and is behind a paywall?
    As I wrote, the denialists hunt in packs.

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      Don’t worry about the respondents Robert. Jo Nova has read the article and responded to it.
      Do you have a response to Jos article?

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        Robert is apparently not here for erudite discussion of the evidence, he is baiting commenters with petty insults. Perhaps he hopes they will get angry, fodder for his next article? (I’m pleased people aren’t taking that bait).

        Note to Robert, you can hurl baseless names in magazines that accept them, but here we aim higher. We speak English and talk science. Please define “denialist” in that context – we’d like to help you – really, but we think you are referring to some other group.

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          The stunt: “Block their comments at The Monthly and object to their commenting elsewhere.”

          Climate alarmism attracts the kind of intellectual whose florid yet clumsy abstractions ( eg “a consensual conclusion whose existence is easily demonstrated”) are a mask for their essential crudity of mind.

          Lysenko had such a poodle pack to yap for him. The hunting of doubters and dissidents, however, was not done by these paid manglers of language.

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          Bob Massey

          Surely Robert wouldn’t be trolling for his next literary gem. I couldn’t believe that about our own Political Intellectual. /sarc off

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          George Montgomery

          I think the dude has a point. Apart from Jo, who here has actually read it?
          This has a parallel with the trend for the acclaim by most commenters for the Watts et al (2012) press release on the WUWT site. So much so, that Anthony asked for commenters to do more than merely applaud his and his co-author’s paper without reading it and checking it first. The more constructive comments on WUWT have pointed out ways to improve it and any perceived problems with the data which are now being addressed by Anthony.
          There was a much better discussion about Watts et al on Climate Audit where, by and large, those who posted comments invariably had something valuable to add because they had actually read the Watts paper and wrote science or statistics. Steve Mc acknowledged and thanked his readers for that.
          A far better response to Manne from others would have been for those who have authoritively commented here to have replied, “I paid $X to read it Robert and it was full of unsubstantiated conjecture such as …….. etc”. That is, demonstrate they’ve actually read it by inputting something that is not a repeat of a point in this post or at the very least is an elaboration on a point.
          In your response, Jo, you could have included, “How can I be expected to supply that information. I don’t track my readers’ every move.”
          For the record, I have never read any of Manne’s work and don’t intend to in the future.

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            Jaymez

            George, I know you are trying to be reasonable so firstly I will state that I have read the full article and I did make a number of responses with regards to the sweeping generalisations Manne made in his article. However, there was more than enough of what Manne wrote before the paywall for readers at Jo Nova to respond to, which they did, and there was more than enough there to show that Manne is totally oblivious to the many serious questions regarding the extent to which human greenhouse gas emissions are warming the world and if they are, whether that is at all harmful.

            It was unnecessary to read the entire article to know that Manne believes the ‘denialist’ are a bunch of fools who should have moved on from any scientific argument years ago as all was well and truly settled back then and all that has happened over recent years is that the supporting evidence which is being denied by these fools has gotten stronger. Of course if you had read the article you would know that Manne did not state what that proof was.

            Then to make matters worse, after reading the scathing attacks on his highly intellectual article which we could not possibly begin to understand and must not have read anyway, instead of addressing any of the arguments made against his claims, and instead of using his incredibly superior intellect to persuade readers that we are on the wrong track, he dropped in to leave a gratuitous insult, call us names and run away – not having faced any of his critics. I would hate to be in a class of his and have a philosophically different point of view. I guess he’d simply think there is only one correct view and that is his, even if it is about a field he clearly has little practical knowledge.

            I should also add that The Monthly does not appear to have had the courtesy to publish any dissenting views on their site.

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      …the denialists hunt in packs.

      What exactly is it you think we deny?

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        Matt Bennett

        Where do we start??

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          MadJak

          Go ahead Matt,

          Explain exactly you accuse us of denying?

          That the climate changes?

          The the globe warms?

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          ExWarmist

          You only need one item.

          The most pertinent point in the published empirical evidence for CAGW that we deny?

          If you have so many such that you can exclaim…

          Where do we start??

          Then the task will be easy.

          So please – type away – it should only be a single line/paragraph describing the empirical evidence with a link to the published paper.

          Thanks

          ExWarmist

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          Bob Massey

          Matt, it is more appropriate to say “when do we start” because we having seen anything compelling from you to date.

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      cohenite

      I read as much as Graham Readfearn did, but I understood a lot more than Graham did.

      Since Robert is here, can we get a comment from him about Finkelstein and the basis of Finkelstein being that the common folk are not to be trusted with unfettered access to the news because as the example of the alleged misreporting about AGW shows they can be misled by unscrupulous media demogogues; see here.

      In particular does Robert stand by his conclusion that:

      citizens cannot evaluate independently the scientific arguments and rationally choose to believe the conclusions of a handful of scientific pseudo-sceptics rather than those of the tens of thousands of the scientists researching and publishing in this field

      Surely in a democracy the essence of public participation and the operation of the democracy depends on exactly that; informed citizens making up their collective minds? Or does Robert subscribe to the elitocracy which people like Hamilton and Finkelstein espouse?

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      Why would we bother? You are just another useless arts graduate who knows nothing, who has managed to feed himself at others’ expense while producing nothing of value to anyone.
      Get back to us on this topic when you have learned some maths, physics, geology, meteorology, engineering or other useful things like many of us who comment here have done only to be derided by ignorant parasites like yourself. Until you do you haven’t earned the right to have an opinion on the climate issue.

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        memoryvault

        .
        A bit harsh, Mike.

        Absolutely true, but harsh.

        .
        I love it.

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        Matt Bennett

        You’re embarrassing yourself Mike. I’d pull out now.

        Who the hell are you to dictate who’s work is worth what to society. Though I too, like you, treasure the inherent usefulness of the hard sciences, we need careful thinkers from all walks of life. Grow up.

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          Winston

          And who the hell is Robert Manne to tell people like Richard Lindzen and the like that they are denialists because they hold non- mainstream views? It thus appears that the argument of authority doesn’t apply when Manne, a non-scientist, attempts to discredit those eminently more qualified than himself. The hippocrisy and hubris is amazing, given that he makes no attempt to discredit directly or indirectly any contention those particular dissenters are advocating. Does that make Manne a “careful thinker” in your eyes. Just who is making a fool of himself, Matt?

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        AndyG55

        Well said sir. 🙂

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      Matt Bennett

      Don’t expect much coherence with what’s written on here Robert, it’s an utter hotbed of ill-informed, part understood and wholly misinterpreted rantings. You can’t use rationality and assume it’ll be embraced in kind….

      Keep up the good work. At least in your history of published work you have shown that where the evidence changes, so you change your mind, a la Keynes….

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        cohenite

        Are you serious? Manne has used nothing but the false consensus, authority [what a joke, these clowns claiming authority] and insults. There is no evidence to support his position.

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          Matt Bennett

          “false consensus”? Just shows how little you know what you’re talking about.

          Most areas of science have a general body of consensual knowledge. Climate science is no different. If you knew the first thing about science I wouldn’t have to explain that….
          Tell me, do you accept the consensus that HIV causes AIDS or that the undisrupted geological column is laid down with youngest layers closest to the surface? Or how about gravity… you running with Newton or are you prepared to accept the post-Einstein consensus? Stop making a fool of yourself.

          All Robert Manne is pointing out is that when it comes to cardiology, you accept your cardiologist’s advice but you don’t (though you should) do likewise with climatology. And this is for political, not scientific reasons. Pretty simple really, though of course, you’ll deny it.

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            cohenite

            No. A consensus folows a proven science; there is no proven science in AGW; in AGW the consensus has been used to prove the science; it is arse up; so are you. Fool.

            In addition I am ‘sick’ of ‘climate scientist’ and their acolytes using the doctor analogy; climate scientists, as the emails show, are not fit for polite society let alone being ranked with medical practitioners.

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            Matt Bennett

            Co,

            There’s no such thing as a ‘proven science’ – ever. There’s only ‘our best current understanding’ of any given area of knowledge and, for all the people who’s very job it is to understand our global climate – there exists an overwhelming consensus. It’s up to you, through published, peer-reviewed research to invalidate it if you can.

            Just because the doctor analogy annoys you doesn’t make it invalid. It is a VERY good illustration of why false skepticism in an intellectual vacuum. The geologists, glaciologists, climatologists, statisticians etc etc have every bit the expertise of your average medical specialist but in a different area of knowledge. If you understood how deeply they are versed in their specialty, you wouldn’t write off their incredible achievements as ‘opinion’. You are in NO position to judge their work – that is Manne’s point and guess what? – he’s right.

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            Jaymez

            One of the heroes Manne named “James Hansen of NASA, perhaps the pre-eminent climate scientist in the world”.

            Back in 1971 James Hansen was a member of a team who had an article published at the journal Science which was authored by Rasool and S. H. Schneider. Here is part of the abstract of an article in the Washington Post entitled “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate,” and indicated the authors were from “Institute for Space Studies, Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration” (emphasis added): This is the organisation Manne would have us treat with God like status and which Hansen has been with since and risen up the ranks to head the Climate division.

            “Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Because of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 ° K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”

            When quizzed on this in later years Hansen claims he had little to do with the paper and that all he did was write the computer code. But at the time he was clearly part of a team which believed humans were potentially causing an ice age due to increased aerosols in the atmosphere.

            One of the most interesting points in the paper, which is still a true scientific fact today, but do you ever hear Hansen or any other ‘warmist’ mention it is:

            “….although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

            Are you aware of that Robert? CO2 has a diminishing warming effect not an increasing one. Yet how many times have you heard your warmist mates mention that?

            So anyway, I was just wondering if you could ask Hansen if he’s absolutely sure this time is it an ice age we are heading for, or is it fire and brim stone? I guess he doesn’t mind either way as long as the funding keeps rolling in by the wheel barrow load!

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            cohenite

            ‘our best current understanding’

            You mean Muller and BEST do you?

            Every time I get into an argument with one of your kind I always ask for a paper which favourably supports AGW; on the rare occasions where A paper is provided I find it is flawed to the point of uselessness; none the less I ask you for a paper, just one, which you think offers the degree of evidence for your support of AGW.

            Most times, however, I just get this enfuriating patronage and pronouncments of faith similar to the kind you get when you question the logic, sense, lack of rational evidence of a religious devotee’s support for whatever religion they follow.

            So, just ONE paper Mister; just one.

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            Matt Bennett

            Again Co, you seem to totally misunderstand the way real science works….

            There is no ‘one paper’ that shows AGW to be true – it is the sum collection of the past 150 years in multiple disciplines that reveals how our planet operates. And it is by NO means simple. It’s taken me 7-8 years, studying outside my discipline, to even feel I have a usable grasp of the current understanding. Tell you what, instead of ‘one paper’ read this (I have) and then tell me what you think…

            http://www.amazon.com/The-Warming-Papers-David-Archer/dp/1405196165

            All top notch, peer reviewed papers in the cream of scientific journals – no opinion. What you think?

            PS – do you now realize that there’s no ‘missing heat’. You forgot to answer my question…

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            Matt Bennett

            Apologies, Cohenite, I was directing the ‘missing heat’ question to MV. (I assume you already realize that;-) M.

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            cohenite

            I am familiar with Pierrehumbert; a shorter explanation by him of the Greenhouse effect is here. It is technically correct but real world dyssynchronous.

            The first example to support this claim is the 2nd paper by G&T.

            The point of the paper is to show that the physical assumptions of AGW are not consistent with the physical operation of the physical principles which determine climate, what G&T call the Barometric Formulas such as Navier-Stokes, Coriolis and centrifugal accelerations, electromagnetic fields, ideal gas laws etc.

            By integrating the various formuala for these various phenomenon G&T “compute the temperature profiles of idealized atmospheres” in much the same way Arthur Smith did to prove the Greenhouse effect.

            G&T prove the opposite; they say:

            “In case of the adiabatic atmosphere the decrease of the temperature with height is described
            by a linear function with slope −g/Cp, where Cp depends weakly on the molecular mass……Since the measurable thermodynamic quantities of a voluminous medium, in particular the specific heat and the thermodynamic transport coefficients, naturally include the contribution from radiative interactions, we cannot expect that a change of concentration of a trace gas has any measurable effect.”

            CO2 is a trace gas.

            Comments?

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            memoryvault

            Matt Bennett
            .

            There is no ‘one paper’ that shows AGW to be true

            No, but there’s plenty of observable evidence that it’s not.

            Let’s start with the basic premise of CAGW:
            CO2 UP = temperature UP.

            Observable evidence:
            CO2 UP = temperature UP, and DOWN, and UP and DOWN and UP . . .

            Therefore CAGW theory falsified.
            QED

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            All Robert Manne is pointing out is that when it comes to cardiology, you accept your cardiologist’s advice but you don’t (though you should) do likewise with climatology.

            Yes you are quite correct, EXCEPT……

            If an event dubbed CARDIOLOGATE came to your attention, and you found out that a cabal of cardiologists – among them many working for drug companies – had falsified research results, had hidden data and lost records, refused to share their research methodology for verification, your willingness to accept their advice would be shaken.

            If you also found out that the Intergovernmental Panel on Cardiology Research was riddled with scientists working for drug companies, had fraudulently cherry picked data for research entitled “A Discernable Influence on a Heartbeat” wouldn’t your heart….well…skip a beat or two?

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            John Brookes

            Cohers, you seem smart. Why do you quote G&T? A great many “skeptics”, including Jo, Spencer, Willis Eschenbak and others don’t hold with the “violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics” rubbish that they spout.

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            Mark D.

            John, do you believe that G&T have nothing to offer? The notion that skeptics MUST provide a fully cohesive alternate theory is complete bunkum. One hole is enough to sink the AGW ship.

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            cohenite

            Cohers, you seem smart

            What a joy you are John.

            Read G&T; they specifically state they do not violate the 2nd law, or any law; very law abiding folk are G&T.

            I believe the Halpern paper critiquing G&T 1 has been withdrawn. Can anyone confirm that? That would be an amazing result!

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            Mike of NQ

            Small point Matt, but no, I wouldn’t believe my cardiologist just because he told me. If he showed me some real evidence, like coronary angiography xray results showing blockages or electrocardiography abnormalities etc., I would take this advice on board before seeking a second opinion (not of his choice). If the Doctor told me how great he was, how many peer reviewed papers he had written than presented me with a simulated model on best probability analysis of my heart while ignoring real observations, I would walk out the door. No, I do not have any medical expertise but I’m not much for blind faith either!

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            Sean McHugh

            Bennett wrote at 29.5.1.1.2:

            There’s no such thing as a ‘proven science’ – ever. There’s only ‘our best current understanding’ of any given area of knowledge and, for all the people who’s very job it is to understand our global climate – there exists an overwhelming consensus. It’s up to you, through published, peer-reviewed research to invalidate it if you can.

            The ‘best’ in ‘our best current understanding’ is the very question and assumes the point you are trying to make. The “people who’s very job it is to understand our global climate” are actually the people whose biggest job is to keep their jobs. Saying, “Nah, nothing to see here folks, just the weather doing its thing”, won’t achieve that or attract the pseudo importance and generous funding. That is why they need global cooling, global warming or some other kind of Armageddon.

            Matt, ask yourself, if the science is so great, why are your guys always being caught out cheating?

            All the ‘scientific’ consensus in the world (and you don’t have it) is junk if nature disagrees with the climate priests, their models and their prophesies. And so far, she does.

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            bobl

            False analogy

            You are examined by a group of cardio-climatologists, (Because the real Cardiologists (are saving peoples lives and doing operations, as meteorologists are busy predicting weather and saving peoples lives from tornadoes) They measure your hair length, eye colour, and proxies for heart function like say cholesterol, because everyone knows heart function is corelated to cholesterol, ergo Heart failure causes cholesterol. They feed this into 17 cardio-climatology models and pronounce that there is a 95% chance you need a heart transplant

            do you:

            A: Go out and get evidence of heart disease -Like an endocardiogram and act on that evidence
            B: Go immediately into surgery for a heart transplant

            Choose Mr Manne? Which is it?

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            Cookster

            Matt Bennett says @29.5.1.1:

            All Robert Manne is pointing out is that when it comes to cardiology, you accept your cardiologist’s advice but you don’t (though you should) do likewise with climatology. And this is for political, not scientific reasons. Pretty simple really, though of course, you’ll deny it.

            Not sure this is a good analogy. Opinion amongst Cardiologists can vary just as opinions amongst Oncologists vary. After being diagnosed with Cancer, that famous cyclist Lance Armstrong would not have recovered to win 7 consecutive Tour de France’s if he’d accepted the advice of his first Oncologist. That Oncologist prescribed a Chemo treatment that would have caused permanent damage to Armstrong’s lungs. Perhaps this is an analogy to the permanent damage being prescribed to our economy and way of life by the likes of Robert Manne and yourself for your own ‘political reasons’?

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            CraigR

            Your “you accept your cardiologist’s advice” analogy is flawed …. of course your going to accept the advice of a decade plus trained doctor, backed up by decades of proven experience of those gone before then you still add the trust element, even then the outcomes are never fully guaranteed.

            You don’t need to be a “rocket surgeon” to see the flaws in climate science, such as thermostats at the end of runways, the selective cherry picked years of data, the obvious adjustments. Then we have the over the top predictions of pending doom, not to mention the over reliance of manmade models dependent on the data input of those whom have clear preconceived ideas and outcomes. You would also be naive to underestimate the influence off the $gravy train$ and who’s doing the pouring.

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            Geoff Sherrington

            @Matt Bennett saying ‘the undisrupted geological column is laid down with youngest layers closest to the surface?’
            You are not 100% correct. As a trivial example, imagine sedimentation where, starting from a single event at a single time, large dense particles fall to the base faster than light, buoyant particles, with the result that there is mixing of times at the floor as the process continues.
            In multidisciplinary sciences, this type of observation separates the specialist from the generalist. One has to be careful when generalising outside ones specialty. I’ve been caught out quite a few times. Unfortunately, the misnamed beast of climate science seems to be a pot pourri of specialist and generalist considerations, one net effect of which is that a non-scientist like Manne is in no adequate position to comment at all.

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          At least in your history of published work you have shown that where the evidence changes, so you change your mind, a la Keynes….

          Oh really? LMFAO The whole of Australia is still waiting for Robert Manne to produce 10 names of so called stolen children.

          STILL WAITING FOR THE 10 NAMES ROBERT

          If Manne had integrity, he’d have ‘changed his mind’ on the stolen generation scam when he realised he couldn’t produce the name of a single stolen child.

          This bloke has learned to play to the latte sipping sandal wearers and has become a literary hero of theirs.

          But kudos where it’s due. Well done Robert, you’ve got those tree huggers suckered quite well.

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            Mat L

            So is this the quality of skeptic we have here? Baa Humbug seems to be saying not even 10 children were taken from their families through government policy, and he gets 32 upvotes and no downvotes?

            Seriously, who here supports Baa Humbug in this, step forward. If you don’t then put him in his place.

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            Read what I wrote Mat.

            The whole of Australia is still waiting for Robert Manne to produce 10 names of so called stolen children.

            I said Manne hasn’t produced the names he has been repeatedly asked to produce. Quite different to saying not even 10 children have been taken.
            I don’t know if any were taken or not (quite skeptical about it, funny that ey?) but Manne claims many were. So who are they? Where is the evidence?

            If you don’t then put him in his place.

            Don’t you have the guts to put me in my place yourself?
            Yet another coward hoping others do the dirty work for him.

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            BobC

            Mat L
            August 26, 2012 at 9:35 am
            So is this the quality of skeptic we have here?

            Well, no, as BH has pointed out above you are engaging in strawman arguments.

            Generally, we get higher quality trolls than you, however. Some even engage in logical discussion.

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            Mat L

            Baa Humbug, I don’t know where to start with you. It’s difficult to argue with the insane. Let me just say briefly it is not Robert Manne who says many were taken, it is the thousands of people themselves who say they were taken, it is the government records about those who were taken, it is the legislation of the government that compelled the taking of children. You’re asking Robert Manne to prove something that is not disputed by right-minded individuals. This is, by definition, insane. So you’ve put up the biggest straw man I’ve ever seen, and I’ve bitten, which I’m now sorry for. I don’t want to engage with you because you are obviously of unsound mind. But I was hoping that others on this page would put you in your place.

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        memoryvault

        .

        Okay.

        Back in March the good Professor Karl Braganza of the BoM stated that the extra “heat” in the atmosphere as a result of CAGW was being “transmitted” (his word not mine) to the oceans.

        Here is a simple question for you and Robert Manne.

        How?

        If the question is a bit simplistic for you, allow me to flesh it out a bit.

        According to CAGW theory and the resultant computer models, the atmosphere should have heated by umpty-dum amount and it hasn’t (Trenberth’s Travesty missing heat). The current consensus answer to the missing heat is that it has been “transmitted” from the atmosphere to the oceans, where it is now hiding in the “ocean deeps” where, inconveniently, we can’t actually measure it.

        So the question is this: how does a body of comparatively significantly LOW heat energy (the atmosphere) “transmit” a net heat energy transfer TO a body of comparatively significantly higher heat energy (the ocean)?

        I emailed the journalist who interviewed Braganza, but never got a reply.

        I emailed the BoM but never got a reply.

        I emailed Braganza but never got a reply.

        I emailed the relevant Federal Minister (Tony Burke) but never got a reply.

        .
        So here is you big chance guys. Just explain how it happens and “cure” my “denialist sickness”.

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          Matt Bennett

          There’s no ‘missing heat” MV – that’s a denier meme (like the hotspot). Trenberth was simply saying, in colloquial chat to colleagues, that it was a traversty that our current sampling network and the sporadic nature of the measuring buoys didn’t allow for a more complete understanding, from moment to moment, of how the energy was distributed and sloshing around in the system. By far the majority of excess heat being absorbed by the earth as a system is in the oceans. Our sampling is biased to the top few hundred metres along with some measurements to the 2km depth but is FAR from complete.

          So because water gains/loses heat far slower than solid land etc, the land surface temp record displays only a fraction of the story. The vast majority of the excess energy is absorbed by the ocean, but we don’t have a three dimensional, high resolution picture of what’s going on there just yet. No mystery – does that answer your question?

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            memoryvault

            .
            How interesting Mike Bennett. Not only have you failed to answer the original question, you’ve posed a new one. Here is the “new” question your comment generates:

            There’s no ‘missing heat” MV – that’s a denier meme

            So, how come Trenberth et al have written no less than three pal-reviewed, published “scientific” papers trying to explain where the “missing heat” is – which you now say does not exist? As an aside there have been at least six other pal-reviewed, published, “scientific” papers trying to explain the same thing.

            That seems an extraordinary amount of effort to explain something which, according to you, is nothing more than a “denier meme”.

            Want to have another go?

            .
            As to my original question you reply:

            The vast majority of the excess energy is absorbed by the ocean

            You have simply replaced Braganza’s thermodynamically impossible “transmitted to”, with your own thermodynamically impossible “absorbed by”.

            .
            You haven’t even come close to answering the the simple, original question of “how”?

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            You know MV,

            I have discovered the joys of watching a master – I seriously tip my hat to you, once again.

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            Rereke Whakaaro
            August 4, 2012 at 11:41 pm
            You know MV,

            I have discovered the joys of watching a master – I seriously tip my hat to you, once again.

            I’ll second that! Also, kudos to Cohenite, Baa, and you, Rereke as well as many of the others who comment on this site. I am humbled and inspired by the writings of the many intellectual titans who make the supposed experts look like the charlatans and rent seekers that they truly are!

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            Matt, if you are going to talk of “denier” memes you also need to define your terms. You may insult people if you can substantiate that, but we don’t accept casual inaccurate language here. If you speak inaccurately, you think inaccurately.

            Just because Manne used the term “denier” in his article does not mean it’s acceptable use here.

            Of course, if you can name the evidence we deny, you can use the term.

            But it’s a science forum, you need to name scientific evidence that we deny.

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            MadJak

            Matt Bennet:

            By far the majority of excess heat being absorbed by the earth as a system is in the oceans. Our sampling is biased to the top few hundred metres along with some measurements to the 2km depth but is FAR from complete

            So you “know” the heat is in the oceans even though you haven’t measured it empirically. But that’s OK, because you’re still looking for the heat you know is there.

            Right, so why on earth would anyone read past that statement?

            People are making huge decisions based on this rubbish. These decisions have real consequences for people Now. Whenever we ask for clarification we get insulted, bluffed and propaganda thrown back at us.

            And it seems that no-one on the alarmist side care enough about the truth to haul up any exaggerations or chicken little announcements.

            Face it mate, we stopped, we listened, we investigated. Your team responded unprofessionally like a bunch of cultists.

            The result is that we simply can’t trust you guys anymore. Not until you come up with the necessary scientific evidence which would justify the actions being asked.

            So far all I see is egos, bull and bluster.

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            Streetcred

            @Eddy … Amen to that ! 🙂

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            Sean McHugh

            Matt Bennett wrote:

            “There’s no ‘missing heat” MV – that’s a denier meme (like the hotspot).”

            Yeah, like the ‘trick’ to ‘hide’ the ‘decline’ wasn’t a trick to hide the decline. So not only are we knuckle-dragging ‘denialists’ for not seeing “planetary atmospheric dynamics are so blindingly clear” (from Jo) as do the the likes of you and Robert Manne, we also need shut our eyes and read between the lines when reading leaked admissions by climate scientists (addressed only to each other). If we are so stupid as to read what is actually there, then we deserve to be vilified by your kind.

            Matt Bennett: “There’s no ‘missing heat” MV – that’s a denier meme

            That’s another ‘dollar’, Matt.

            Trenberth: The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

            You continue:

            Matt Bennett: Trenberth was simply saying, in colloquial chat to colleagues, that it was a traversty that our current sampling network and the sporadic nature of the measuring buoys didn’t allow for a more complete understanding, from moment to moment, of how the energy was distributed and sloshing around in the system.

            Utter rubbish! Not only does Trenberth confess that they can’t find the missing heat, in the Climategate emails he emphasises the problem by first giving examples of unexpected cold:

            Trenberth: Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather). …
            The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

            Matt, just how much of your credibility are you prepared to sacrifice? How many fibs for the cause?

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            Ross James

            This email of Trenberth is often the most misquoted on the Internet. It lies deeply buried within the domain of URBAN legends in the poor and often superficial way this has spread as disinformation. A big fail goes to those who think this is some sort of conspirational cover up.

            Trenberth: Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather). The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

            If you read the full email, you learn that Trenberth is actually informing fellow climate scientists about a paper he’d recently published, An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy (Trenberth 2009). The paper discusses the planet’s energy budget – how much net energy is flowing into our climate and where it’s going. It also discusses the systems we have in place to track energy flow in and out of our climate system.

            Trenberth states unequivocally that our planet is continually heating due to increasing carbon dioxide. This energy imbalance was very small 40 years ago but has steadily increased to around 0.9 W/m2 over the 2000 to 2005 period, as observed by satellites. Preliminary satellite data indicates the energy imbalance has continued to increase from 2006 to 2008. The net result is that the planet is continuously accumulating heat. Global warming is still happening. [SK Quote]

            A global energy imbalance of 0.9 W/m2 means the planet is accumulating 145 x 1020 joules per year. The following list gives the amount of energy going into various parts of the climate over the 2004 to 2008 period:

            Land: 2 x 1020 joules per year
            Arctic sea Ice: 1 x 1020 joules per year
            Ice sheets: 1.4 x 1020 joules per year
            Total land ice: between 2 to 3 x 1020 joules per year
            Ocean: between 20 to 95 x 1020 joules per year
            Sun: 16 x 1020 joules per year (eg – the sun has been cooling from 2004 to 2008)
            These various contributions total between 45 to 115 x 1020 joules per year. This falls well short of the total 145 x 1020 joules per year (although the error bars do overlap). Trenberth expresses frustration that observation systems are inadequate to track the flow of energy. It’s not that global warming has stopped. We know global warming has continued because satellites find an energy imbalance*. It’s that our observation systems need to be more accurate in tracking the energy flows through our climate and closing the energy budget.

            * Energy Balance: This comes from quantum physics expressed in a multitude of peer reviewed papers that check and confirm OBSERVATIONALS of incoming and outgoing energy budgets for the earth. This is an area unreasonable skeptics have a big fail in their understanding. They always defer to a superficial cherry pick of the email in question. Questioning the science from this skeptical point is illogical and without any formal normalisation of the statement.

            Trenberth 2009, “Global warming is still happening – our planet is still accumulating heat. But our observation systems aren’t able to comprehensively keep track of where all the energy is going. Consequently, we can’t definitively explain why surface temperatures have gone down in the last few years. That’s a travesty!”

            The satellites which measure incoming and outgoing radiation at the top of Earth’s atmosphere (TOA) cannot measure the small planetary energy imbalance brought about by global warming. It is over a hundred times smaller than the energy coming and going from the Earth. But, despite lacking absolute precision, the measuring instruments aboard the satellites are very stable. Therefore the large fluctuations at the top-of-the-atmsophere during ENSO (El Niño/La Niña) present another approach to tracking changes in Earth’s energy imbalance.

            In order to compare these satellite-based observations with ocean heat content it is necessary to anchor the data to an absolute scale. Rather than use a model-based estimate, as did Hansen (2005) and Trenberth (2009), the authors achieve this by calculating it from observations of ocean heat content (down to 1800 metres) from the PMEL/JPL/JIMAR data sets over the period July 2005 to June 2010 – a time period dominated by the superior ARGO-based system.

            Loeb (2012) which these comments are based on, takes an updated look at the issue and finds that, using observations rather than modeled estimates, the Earth’s energy imbalance is consistent with heat building up with the Earth system. They have this imbalance at 0.5 (±0.43) W/m2, much smaller than previous estimates, but the error margins are huge. Not unexpectedly the authors confirmed that heat is continuing to build up in the sub-surface ocean, which agrees with other recent sudies on ocean heat. The persistent energy imbalance measured by this study is essentially future global warming, or “warming in the pipeline”. It puts paid to wishful thinking-based claims that global warming has halted.

            To sum up:

            Global warming is the result of a greenhouse gas-caused imbalance between incoming solar energy and heat that the Earth radiates away to space. Heat loss is reduced causing the planet to warm.

            Previous attempts to estimate this planetary imbalance relied on climate models rather than observations because sufficiently detailed observations were not available then.

            Loeb (2012) combined ocean heat content data, top-of-the-atmosphere satellite observations, heat absorbed by the land and atmosphere, and the energy required to melt ice. They found the global energy imbalance was 0.5 (±0.43) W/m2, smaller than previous estimates.
            The uncertainties are large due to the short length of robust observations, and because ARGO only samples down to 2000 metres – less than half the average depth of the global oceans.

            Although the deep ocean will have absorbed far less heat the the surface ocean it cannot be neglected in order to adequately balance the Earth’s energy budget.

            See further in an astute study of this science in the SkS post: Ocean Heat Content And The Importance Of The Deep Ocean.

            The huge margin of uncertainty and the disparate heating rates between the three ocean heat data sets vindicate Kevin Trenberth’s appeal that “we (the scientific community) must do better”, but they will improve as the length of the observational record grows, and if proposed deep ocean observations, such as Deep Ninja, are put into place.

            That all aside Science must evolve as must all skeptics. You should not live in the past. Science is always improving and quantifying the unquantifiable by improved instrumentation and data acquisitions when it comes to Global Warming.

            __________
            Ross J.

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            Mark D.

            That’s great Ross, paragraph over paragraph of what is essentially Argument from Authority but you finish with:

            The huge margin of uncertainty and the disparate heating rates between the three ocean heat data sets…..

            And that seems to show that you finally are understanding and agreeing with what we skeptics have been saying for a long time.

            Baby steps Ross, you’ll get there!

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            MaxL

            To Ross James.

            Where in your “energy balance” does the endothermic reaction called Photosynthesis appear?

            Energy is required to produce biomass.

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            Ross James

            In case some missed some key points:

            1) The Global Warming and theory of greenhouse gases causing warming are CONSISTENT with present findings on ENERGY BUDGET data.

            2) as Greenhouse are increasing so the does the increased EARTH energy RETENTIONS

            3) DESPITE differing extents of measurements of where the extra energy is going [OCEANS] – ALL evidence is outstanding and overwhelming. Earth continues a trajectory path of warming.

            4) THERE IS NO EVIDENCE of any natural SATURATION POINT for CO2 increased concentrations how small or insignificant. Nothing.

            5) See if any skeptic can find it by appeals to their best authorities. You will not find anything.

            6) With increasing improved data acquisition in the pipeline – another nail in the coffin of skeptics will finally be laid to rest [for the doubters]

            7) The facts are the facts. Any good scientists should be upset. Not enough information but enough to prove that Global Warming is real and still remains mankind’s most dangerous next two century event since civilisation began.

            YES IT MOST is a TRAVESTY that poor judgement and opinions are expressed by anti-global warmists due to confounding unknowns in PRECISE energy budgets. Can we live with that or do we insist that all “t’s” are crossed and all “.” are covered?

            You cannot prove to me or show me any proof that global warming will not get dangerous. Yes appeal to your own authority. A few rogue scientists globally. That is all you will find.

            Do not “preach” to me about what is good and bad science.

            ____________

            Ross J.

            —————–

            REPLY: Having corrected Ross on all these points before, it’s getting boring – so I will just say “ARGO” — the energy budget of the planet is missing 7000 quadrillion joules. But I have to also say that it’s rather the height of hypocrisy to say that skeptics appeal to authority when we never do, and Ross and his anti-science friends can’t live without their “consensus of experts”. — Jo

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            KinkyKeith

            Ross

            Show me someone who claims t have done an “ENERGY BUDGET” on the Earth’s Atmospheric Processes and I will show you a person who is one of two things:

            Either,

            1. Totally ignorant of all the mass, heat and momentum transfer that occurs in the space between the earths surface and the top of the atmosphere aka deep space.

            or

            2. A liar.

            Every time I see those stupid Energy budget diagrams where everything that “Climate Scientists” can think of is shown and the difference between heat in and heat out comes miraculously to ZERO I just gotta laugh.

            Hilarious.

            They probably are unaware of the other hundred or so major sources and sinks for energy that they have missed.

            Another great joke is ” for a “doubling” of CO2 ……. blah blah blah….”

            We are probably already at full absorption of ground IR by CO2 so any new CO2 will have an increasingly reduced affect , if water doesn’t get tot eh IR first.

            Whoever though this scam up should be jailed and likewise for any politician handing out tax money based on Global Warming “theory”.

            KK GRRRR

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            Mark D.

            Ross says:

            1) The Global Warming and theory of greenhouse gases causing warming are CONSISTENT with present findings on ENERGY BUDGET data.

            2) as Greenhouse are increasing so the does the increased EARTH energy RETENTIONS

            But you just said there was a huge margin of uncertainty.

            3) DESPITE differing extents of measurements of where the extra energy is going [OCEANS] – ALL evidence is outstanding and overwhelming. Earth continues a trajectory path of warming.

            Even though there isn’t a mechanism for heat to move down deep because warm water always rises being less dense. Funny too that you’d use the words “trajectory path of warming” given that a trajectory usually ends in a downward path. Hmm Freudian slip?

            4) THERE IS NO EVIDENCE of any natural SATURATION POINT for CO2 increased concentrations how small or insignificant. Nothing.

            I guess this doesn’t matter if there is a natural process (like say the cycling of water) that regulates the the temperature?

            5) See if any skeptic can find it by appeals to their best authorities. You will not find anything.

            But Ross you know this is a logical fail? onus probandi comes to mind and also false dilemma.

            6) With increasing improved data acquisition in the pipeline – another nail in the coffin of skeptics will finally be laid to rest [for the doubters]

            Why, when you have had to struggle with surface temps. that are flat or falling, do you think this “pipeline” carries bad news for skeptics? More and more empirical evidence proves that co2 isn’t following the theory. Beyond that, your “nail in the coffin of skeptics” sounds a bit threatening. Ross, you shouldn’t make threats.

            7) The facts are the facts. Any good scientists should be upset. Not enough information but enough to prove that Global Warming is real and still remains mankind’s most dangerous next two century event since civilisation began.

            Not even a good bluff. You seem to be worried again that there isn’t enough information. The rest is scaremongering.

            YES IT MOST is a TRAVESTY that poor judgement and opinions are expressed by anti-global warmists due to confounding unknowns in PRECISE energy budgets. Can we live with that or do we insist that all “t’s” are crossed and all “.” are covered?

            Again, you make no sense: Unknowns in PRECISE energy budgets???????? how can there be unknowns in a precise budget? The last part calls for following the Precautionary Principle. Something that has failed logic tests.

            You cannot prove to me or show me any proof that global warming will not get dangerous.

            NEITHER CAN YOU PROVE THAT IT WILL GET DANGEROUS YOU ARROGANT DUFF! Quit scaremongering! Again you apply the same logical fails as before.

            Yes appeal to your own authority. A few rogue scientists globally. That is all you will find.

            A few Ross? Now who’s in denial?

            Do not “preach” to me about what is good and bad

            I “preached” that you apply bad reasoning, use propaganda and actually make a feeble argument.

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            Sean McHugh

            Ross said:

            This email of Trenberth is often the most misquoted on the Internet.

            Please point to the misquotes. You might show me the misquote in my posting, under which your comment appears?

            Ross quoting Trenberth:

            Trenberth:

            Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow [etc. etc.]

            Which is why he then goes on to say:

            Trenberth: The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

            Ross:

            If you read the full email, you learn that Trenberth is actually informing fellow climate scientists about a paper he’d recently published, [emphasis added]

            He says that as an introduction to his bottom line:

            Trenberth: The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

            Ross said:

            Trenberth states unequivocally that our planet is continually heating due to increasing carbon dioxide.

            No one here is denying his faith. We are just noting his despair in seeing that it’s not matched by the data. It’s why he says:

            Trenberth: The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

            Faith has a habit of letting you down but fortunately faith comes with it’s its own repair kit, one that can spin away almost any problem. Your faith repair kit has worked splendidly for you, Ross.

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        AndyG55

        “ill-informed, part understood and wholly misinterpreted rantings”

        certainly since you poked your head in. its all you seem to have !!!

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      Jaymez

      I did Robert. But it is hard to imagine you have exposed yourself to much climate science reading other than the propaganda published by your comrades at the Climate Commission.

      I look forward to you linking to the peer reviewed literature which provides empirical evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are causing dangerous climate change.

      As I have written earlier, if the science was so solid, why have we seen so much skulduggery by so-called scientists refusing FOI requests, hiding data and code, bullying editors to control the peer review process, excluding scientists who weren’t toeing the party line from IPCC working groups, using grey material in IPCC reports and claiming it as the gold standard of climate science etc?

      The world consensus of medical science scoffed at Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, but they didn’t rely on getting dodgy research papers published and a massive government funded PR campaign. They simply wrote up their research and provided all of their data for the world to scrutinise and check before they won their Nobel Prizes.

      Some lead authors and the Chairman of the IPCC frustrated and continue to frustrate scrutiny of their work. Why, it can’t be because they are short of staff and funds!

      Robert your vision is simply wrong. I am certainly not a puppet of some large, well organised, well funded vested interest group. I know Jo Nova isn’t either. We are simply able to think for ourselves and recognise when someone is telling us porkies.

      Seriously Robert, if the science was on solid ground would Al Gore, Tim Flannery, Will Steffen, all your heroes of the Climate movement keep making outlandish statements and predictions which are proved wrong, time and again? Are you going to say you aren’t aware that they have done so? Please do? I’d love to provide a list – as long as you agree to publish them once you have verified their accuracy! [Bolded so Robert Manne doesn’t miss it! – Mod]

      Robert, you are the one who needs to do some reading.

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        The Black Adder

        Mr Manne….

        …you are a fool!

        Where is the evidence?

        Give me one peer reviewed piece of evidence that we cause anything except hot air.

        Go back to Late Night Live, cry into Phillip Adams shoulder with James Hansen on Skype giving you a comforting wink wink nudge nudge.

        Like PM Juliar, just GO AWAY !!

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      LevelGaze

      I very much doubt he’s The Manne. Not enough pseudo-sophistication.

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      Debbie

      Tut tut!
      Denialists hunt in packs?
      Your use of imagery is interesting.
      What in particular is the hunting pack denying?
      What in particular is the pack hunting?
      And as Baa says, Jo read it so you can easily respond.

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      gee Aye

      I subscribe to the Monthly, have done since its first year… weirdly I also get the Weekend Australian and many other internally conflicting tomes. I read the article days ago but can’t address your question as I am not a respondent…

      Oh hang on, I am now.

      OK… here is my response… you write well but you interpret poorly.

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      Bite Back

      Who among all your respondents has read the article under discussion? It was published yesterday and is behind a paywall?

      As I wrote, the denialists hunt in packs.

      Mr. Manne,

      We don’t have to hunt, much less in packs. You come to us, making it unnecessary to look for you.

      You’re a classic case of attacking the messenger instead of the message. Let’s see you (or anyone on your side of the fence) respond to all the skeptic’s criticisms of global warming with a credible argument backed up by credible science instead of personal attacks against the skeptics. You no doubt read this blog so you know what our complaints are and what we back them up with. Let us all see what you can do. But that’s probably too much to ask.

      You and your global warming pushing friends are so full of yourselves that you can’t see anything else. You aren’t as important as you think you are and you really should get used to it. People are waking up to the fraud, the abuse of power and just plain robbery going on in the name of science and saving the world. And I don’t think you can withstand that very much longer.

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      Betapug

      Yes, Robert, I did read the introductory page of your article at The Monthly available before the tollgate.

      However, your description of the ludicrous James (“New York freeways will be half way to being underwater this year”) Hansen- who admits to stage managing his “climate scientist” debut by disabling the US Senate hearing room air conditioning on the predicted hottest day of the year- as perhaps “the pre-eminent climate scientist in the world”, convinced me the rest of the article would not be up to “professional journalism standards” and thus, not worth the purchase price.

      The presence of other articles on the same shelf, describing BEST proprietor Robert Muller as lauded by “clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming” as “one of their own”, convinced me the whole “The Monthly” shop was likely selling dodgy goods.

      Your suggestion that the Great Un-(Green)washed are too stupid to think for themselves, is astonishingly poor marketing. Customers do not like to be insulted.

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      Tom

      Manne has only one peer in his ability to make a fool of himself in public and that’s Tim Flannery. Thankfully both will soon be reassigned to the oppositionist ghetto of voices in the wilderness as adult government returns to Australia. We will look back at this period of public policy lunacy and weep at the billions wasted on the say-so of such charlatans.

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        ROM

        “For the first time in history, people shouting “the end is nigh” are somehow the sane ones, while those of us who say it is not are now the lunatics!”

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      AndyG55

      Robert, you poor, brain-washed, scientific ignoramous.

      … nothing else needs saying.

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      Neil fisher

      I have met many scientists, and the one thing they have in common is a passion for their field – they will talk your leg off about it if you bring it up. They will talk about it long after even the most patient have become bored with it. They are not just happy to share the data and answer questions, they want to show you.

      When you ask a scientist about their work – and ask serious questions – they don’t immediately fob you off with an ad hom attack. They present the evidence, they make arguements based on that evidence, they ask you for your evidence and arguements. It is only when you blindly ignore the real, incontrovertible evidence that they begin to become frustrated.

      When you poke holes in their favored theory using observational evidence, they don’t call you names, they listen. And if you have a point, they will admit it. They may believe that their pet theory is still correct and that they simply need to fill in a few gaps in it, but they do not deny the uncertainties, they do not deny the exceptions, and they do not deny their ignorance of complex systems – they want to understand it, to be able to predict it, for the benefit of all. To be remembered as the “one” who solved it, the one who changed the field forever, the one who took us out of our ignorance and into the light of reason.

      Climate scientists – at least some it would seem to me, and the loudest – do not appear to me to follow this dynamic. This is one of Jo’s arguements and it is a damning one.

      Science is the search for truth, the search for the way things work, for understanding to the betterment of all humanity, present and future. The real world does not care for opinions nor does it care for your fragile ego – if you cannot stand being wrong a lot of the time, don’t be a scientist at the cutting edge, be an engineer instead; you can still make a valuable contribution, as many engineers have and will.

      That many in science believe the credo above, and expect that their colleges in all disciplines do likewise, is the reason that so many scientists will support science that they know very little about – they are not supporting the individual person, they are not supporting the individual theory, they are supporting the edifice that creates the credo – that the truth will win out in the end; that logical people, when presented with verifiable facts, will face the truth and admit they can be wrong, or that their theory, however good, is incomplete. That they might have missed something. That they might have fooled themselves.

      For the majority of times and for the majority of subjects, this is a good and reasonable thing. Sometimes though, it is not. Sometimes, scientists become so obsessed with their pet theory, so certain that it cannot be wrong, that they are blinded to reality. In those cases, the support they get is misguided. Worse, it is anti-thetical to the very values they espouse. I suspect that at least some climate scientists have made this mistake – worse, that they do not even admit the possibility that they could have made this mistake. That they have a moral duty to enforce their vision of reality onto the rest of the population. That the situation is so urgent, that concealment, even lies, are acceptable. They are not – and they give up their moral superiority the moment they engage in such tactics. And don’t even notice they have done so.

      But worst of all, they tarnish the reputation of all science in the eyes the rest of the population – who, unfortunately perhaps, have been repeatedly told that science always sticks to the truth, even when it is unpalatable. The “rest of us” have not forgotten that science can wrong sometimes – sometimes for decades at a time before it finally corrects itself. But some scientists have – to the detriment of us all.

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        Jaymez

        Neil Fisher – what a superbly written piece!!!!! A thumbs up just didn’t seem enough.

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        gai

        Excellent description of true scientists.

        Curiosity and passion for their subject are their hallmarks. Toss a bit of new information towards them and they are like hunting dogs going on point and will hound you until they are sure they have sucked you dry of every last bit of information you have. BNDT

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        MattB

        seriously Neil you must be a freaking genius to have had so many conversations with actual scientists where you poke holes in their favoured theory. And to have had so many conversations with climate scientists where they don;t act like scientists.

        Great story though bro.

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          BobC

          MattB
          August 11, 2012 at 10:45 am · Reply
          seriously Neil you must be a freaking genius to have had so many conversations with actual scientists where you poke holes in their favoured theory.

          When you work in a scientific field for 30 years you tend to meet (and sometimes disagree with) a lot of scientists. When you give a paper at a conference, it isn’t unusual to have half a dozen people simultaneously trying to poke holes in your theory.

          My only criticism of Neil’s description is that it applies mostly to scientists whose funding doesn’t depend on getting a particular outcome. (Everyone I knew who worked at Bell Labs pretty much fit Neil’s description.) When funding is available for only one result, Neil’s real scientists get crowded out by people who are willing to bias the results. This is largely what has happened in climate science. (For an extreme historical example, look up Lysenkoism.)

          Well, I have one other mild criticism: Neil appears to think that engineering is ‘just’ applied science — scientists lead the way, engineers follow.

          Historically, it has often been just the opposite: Engineers learn how to do things, scientists develop explanatory theories later (sometimes much later). A couple of examples:
          1) The cathedrals built in Europe during the Middle Ages could not have been theoretically designed until modern times.
          2) The Romans built aquaducts miles long with drops of only a few feet per mile. The cross section of these aquaducts varies in just the right way to maintain a constant flow resistance per foot of drop, insuring the fastest flow of water possible. (A number of them are still standing.) An adequate theoretical description of this didn’t exist until the 19th century, and modern designs wouldn’t happen without computers. There are no records of how the Romans figured it out (much less built them without optical surveying instruments).

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      inedible hyperbowl

      the denialists hunt in packs

      Or do the numbers (the pack) represent a “consensus”?

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      Antonia

      Robert, yuu’ve backed the wrong horse. Deal with it. The claim that there is a consensus of thousands of scientists is rubbish. Even Milke Hulme has admitted it. Who’s he? Mike Hulme is Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia and also a Lead Author for the IPCC!
      He’s written that the IPCC misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he stated in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography. “Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.” Indeed they did.

      Nobody here alleges a conspiracy. Goupthink, people being promoted above their competency and buckets of money was and is enough to keep the thing going.

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      AndyG55

      Yeehaw.. I got moderated !!! You’re no fun Oggi !! 😉

      Ok, how can I put it “nicer”

      I’m getting more than a bit sick of these arty/social/philosophy types continually making stupid, moronic statements about things that are totally outside the limited range of their knowledge base.

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        memoryvault

        .
        Join the club, Andy.
        Seems being “nice” to genocidal maniacs is soup du jour.

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          Jaymez

          We do try to be nice at this site and rely on logic and science. Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy your prose MV! Better than anything I have read of Manne’s!

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            Andrew McRae

            We used to be nicey-pie at this site. I’ve noticed during the last week we’ve been biting back at the adversary a bit nastier than usual. I’ve fallen to peer pressure and done it myself. I feel a bit bad about that in hindsight as it is poor rhetoric and I don’t use a pseudonym.
            I would like to get back to just facts and logic with these people.

            As soon as they provide some.

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              Re: #67

              I’ve noticed during the last week we’ve been biting back at the adversary a bit nastier than usual.

              Not that those scions of dubious parentage don’t warrant expressions of heartfelt hatred?

              In the words of Heinz Guderian:
              “Nicht Kleckern sondern Klotzen!”

              Which translates into the homely old Americanism:

              “Kick ’em in the ass, don’t pee on ’em!”

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              AndyG55

              “I would like to get back to just facts and logic with these people.”

              roflmao ! now that really is a pointless exercise !!!!! They accept neither.

              They NEED to be told just how stupid they are being,

              they NEED a good clip around the ears..

              its the only way you can possibly penetrate the “thickness” …………….

              you have to wake them up first !!!

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            MV, I think you have just been paid an extremely dubious complement. 🙂

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      Sean McHugh

      Robert Mann wrote:

      Who among all your respondents has read the article under discussion? It was published yesterday and is behind a paywall?

      If you feel you have been misrepresented, then cite your article in rebuttal.

      As I wrote, the denialists hunt in packs.

      What exactly makes climate sceptics’ threads, ‘packs’? Is it the gathering? But isn’t that normal for a thread? Have you a new-found aversion to ‘consensus’? So when you see a Global-Warming thread in ‘The Age’, where the comments will be mostly of CAGW advocacy and where sceptics will be name-called ‘denialists’, are they also to be labelled, ‘packs’?

      Anyway Robert, I suspect that many here would be delighted to take you on in a one-on-one debate. Sceptics don’t need the protection by way of walls, politicians, censorship laws, Fairfax, the ABC, global political organisation, massive funding, crooked data, hidden data and hysterical fear mongering.

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      Andrew

      Since you know “deniers” and “denialists” so well that you can represent all 14 million of us (the Australian subset of the world’s “deniers” who oppose the policies of Flanneryism), perhaps you could outline specifically which aspect of the “Science” we deny? And what precisely we “hunt” in these packs? Is it not possible to hold a personal view or belief on a political topic? (In case you’ve missed it, “science” does not end in publication – it has also been used to justify specific political and economic outcomes including a $23bn tax and $12bn of Direct Action policies such as subsidisation of some “green” projects as well as large handouts to, um, major CO2 emitters.)

      There seems to be some level of consensus that there is a statistically significant anthropogenic element to a global warming trend. Strangely, that too seems to be the consensus amongst all the people I know who have been attacked as “deniers,” myself included. This is causing me some confusion. Could you please identify which of the following are classed as deniers:

      – Person A believes that the globe has warmed at 0.6deg per century trend since the significant uplift in CO2 emissions. (However, it had been doing so BEFORE 1950 as well, since the end of the Little Ice Age.) Person A therefore believes that some lesser number represents trend AGW. Are they a denier?
      – Person B believes this was accelerated by powerful GHGs such as CFCs that are no longer used, and therefore expects continuation at a lower trend without CFCs (consistent with the 12 years of observed below trend or even negative warming). Are they a denier?
      – Person C thinks there is a positive feedback mechanism as hypothesised by some CCs. What multiple should be applied to historical trend warming (which was itself accelerated by said feedbacks) before this person is admitted to the Science and is no longer a denier? 1.1x? 1.5x (about 1deg / 100yr)? 2x? 3x? 5x? 7x? (Now we’re getting close to the Hockey Stick.) And specifically what feedbacks in your educated opinion have been satisfactorily proven in practice to be accepted by the Consensus community?
      – Person D believes in rising sea levels, but isn’t quite sure how much rise to believe. They are uncomfortable with the upside estimates of “100m Robyn” and found the support from Flannery unconvincing. They also note the “non-accelerating” conclusion from the NSW govt’s expert, but can’t speak to him because he’s been, um, fired since. What is the appropriate path of extrapolation of sea levels to be accepted within the Consensus? Is it 20cm per century, 100m per century, or some figure in between?
      – Person E is extremely confused about the amount of rainfall he should believe in. Did Flannery represent the consensus when he said “The dams would never fill again” and induce us to spend $billions on diesel-powered, CO2-emitting desal plants (noting that the dams are almost all full)?
      – Person F wonders what is the Consensus position on UHIs? Flannery appears to be silent on that, making forecasts about “Western Sydney” which was not extensively populated in 1950 when the warmist trend started to appear in “modified” data. Some of the best datasets come from airports, which have evolved from smoothed dirt runways to concrete expanses since the 1930’s. How will be know when Consensus warmists are making pronouncements on the effects of UHI as opposed to a genuinely “global” warming trend?
      – Person G believes the IPCC in every aspect, and therefore is surely not a “denier.” But they note that all data has been apparently undershooting the 1990 IPCC hockey-stick, and notes that this publication is now 22 years old. They would like to know under what conditions that “consensus” would be updated and amended, so that they know when to stop believing an outdated Consensus and starts believing the new Correct Consensus. Will you keep them informed about that?
      – Person H believes in the path of the hockey stick, and therefore can’t be a “denier” but they note that there are only enough carbon fuel reserves to last till about 2060. They want to know whether they should truncate the “Consensus” path at this point, and if so they wonder whether policy is actually irrelevant. The entire fossil fuel inventory will be burnt quickly (on the 20E path) or slowly (a 50E or 80E path), but ultimately reach the same point of X% CO2 in the atmosphere with no more to come. It will then slowly decline over time, making AGW self-limiting in this scenario. Can you advise the consensus position of the Scientists, and also how Scientists have any skills in this field?
      – Person I believes in the IPCC Hockey Stick, and that enough new reserves of carbon fuels will be discovered to continue the path indefinitely. However, they wonder what the benefit of unilateral carbon pricing at $23/t is. They note that the very few countries with a carbon price appear to charge between 50c (India) and $4 (EU). They wonder whether this is an exercise in venue shopping for emitting activities, and that activities such as aluminium smelting will move from Victoria to non-Kyoto domains such as China. Further, they question whether the shipping required, and the inefficiency of Chinese generation, would actually result in a net INCREASE in emissions. How can you put their concerns at ease, and do you rely on scientists for this position? It would seem unlikely that climatologists are uniquely qualified to comment on Chinese aluminium smelting – that would seem more in the domain of trade economists.
      – Person J goes further, and notes that China has doubled emissions in the last 10 years or so and in fact has around 6x the European intensity of CO2 per GDP unit. They wonder whether ANY carbon policy by Australia is in fact hurting people here without any impact on the globe at all. (However, Person J wishes to stress that they do not dispute the SCIENCE in any way.) Is Person J a denier?
      – Person K wonders about the motives of warmists, when they accept very resource-intensive cleantech such as solar but will not allow any discussion of hydro. As Person E pointed out, the dams are in fact all full or overfull. So with full dams, water shortages, and zero emissions they think hydro would be on the agenda if the consequences of AGW were as the Scientists say. Can you explain to Person K why such a severe threat is not being addressed by the cheapest and most effective renewable – one with a proven track record?
      – Person L believes the path of the IPCC Hockey Stick, but asks for data on why at least the first few decades are not actually a net positive. After all, some climatologists say that warming IMPEDES cyclogenesis in most of the world, and they note statistics (from Scientists) that show that we’ve never had so FEW major hurricanes making landfall. They also note that CO2 increases plant yields, and therefore global food production, and that there is at least some argument that heavier rain is generally a net positive for food production too. Moreover, they note that vastly more people die of cold than heat. Can you advise them?

      I look forward to the benefit of your encyclopaedic wisdom on these highly diverse fields, as well as clarity on the specific level of consensus in warming, sea levels, cyclogenesis and rainfall that separate deniers from the Consensus as well as the mechanism by which these are periodically updated.

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        Jaymez

        Andrew I have a feeling the only part of your post which Manne will understand is the alphabet!

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      Brian of Moorabbin

      So Professor, any chance of you actually responding to any of the comments to your article (and your drive-by slur) here?

      Surely there are many points raised that someone of your intellectual capacity could shred using the evidence of CAGW? There must be hundreds of peer-reviewed documents you could link to that would easily disprove all the arguments that these horrible “denialists” bring up, and thus prove beyond doubt the absolute veracity of CAGW?

      Enlighten us, Professor. Show us the error of our ways.

      Or be proven to be the craven muddle-headed sheep of a failed ideology that you really are….

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      Streetcred

      I heard that Robert Manne has had a new honour bestowed upon him … FOS.

      Having read his diatribe, it must be true … Robert Manne FOS … has nice ring to it.

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        Robert Manne FOS … has nice ring to it.

        Streetcred it is rude to use an acronym without saying what it stands for.

        FOS is medical slang for Full Of Stool

        Regards Manne, if you were to ask his sandal wearing idolisers, they’d tell you that…

        FOS stands for Funky Old Soul

        His many rantings, including his latest in The Monthly may lead some to believe that..

        FOS stands for From Outer Space

        I happen to think the man is just.. Full Of Shit.

        But being the polite person that I am, I’ll just say that..

        FOS stands for Full Of Stuff

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      Pat Kelly

      There is a major implication in this response that does not seem to have been raised by others.

      Who among all your respondents has read the article under discussion? It was published yesterday and is behind a paywall?
      As I wrote, the denialists hunt in packs.

      Are we all to be assumed to be so lethargic that because it was published yesterday we couldn’t have read it.
      Are we also assumed to be so penurious that none of us can afford to subscribe to paywalled publications.

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      Markus Fitzhenry

      When I was a younger naiver man my butcher had similar raw tripe behind a glass pay-wall. Like Robert he also was in the market trying to sell pigs innards as a delicacy. Presented it in the most fashionable way, he did. Nicely bundled in sculptured mounds, it was laced with contrasting parsley, under a soft fluorescent lamp. Cheap too, just like Robert’s article in the monthly, it is only $6.95 for the current issue.

      But don’t be fooled by the packaging. I remember closing my eyes as I brought it to my mouth, smelling it before it hit my tongue. It had the scent of an orifices discharge, or a dog’s derrière. It tasted like morning saliva, a rancid vomit, stained bathroom floor tiles. Tripe squirms in your mouth like a goldfish fighting for its life. I remember trying to hold on as the texture of impure gut struggled to pass over my taste buds. I didn’t dare bite into it. The unfathomable experience of exploding the taste of unmentionable pig over my tongue was too much. So, like with one’s first taste of oysters, I swallowed it whole, and held my breath until it got the better of me.

      Then with a blood curdling violence I spewed a cowboy-shaped splatter from my stomach. Don’t be fooled by Robert Mannes money making scheme, gentlemen. He has dressed tripe up as intelligence and to consume it will leave an indelible stain on you like the experience from my butcher in my younger days.

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      #29 (Robert Manne) had written: “

      Who among all your respondents has read the article under discussion? It was published yesterday and is behind a paywall?”

      Hm. Do you get a cut of those paywall fees, bubbeleh?

      As others have observed regarding las warmistas, it does seem to be all about the money, doesn’t it?

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      Brian of Moorabbin

      72 hours later and the good professor STILL has not returned to debate with us over the points raised in rebuttal to his comment here.

      Remind me again, who was it that was apparently afraid to hold open and frank discussions on his article?

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    Manfred

    I thought that I would endeavour to post a summary of why I thought Robert Manne was incorrect in his article entitled: “A Dark Victory: How vested interests defeated climate science,” at ‘The Monthly’ site.

    I am compelled to state that as a member of the Fourth Estate, he is a charlatan, an empty vessel, a peddler of gossip and opinion, keen to spew blame for the lack of uptake of his view of the World and climate science on chiefly, a ‘failure of politics’. Seemingly uninterested in another point of view, uninterested in scientific questions or observational evidence, uninterested in the short comings of modeled climate prediction his diatribe rambles on depending on authority and consensus to bolster the bluster. ‘The Monthly’ not only did not publish my short rebuttal, but I find I am now blocked.

    Shame on Robert Manne and those like him. He is little more than a dark ink blot on a vacuous and intellectually barren tabloid landscape, that I believe, grows ever more bleak for him and his ilk.

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      Jaymez

      That pretty much covers it. My comment was also blocked by ‘The Monthly’ yet I made sure I stayed within the sites rules!

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    Joe V.

    If Jesus was a socialist where does the expression ‘Jesus Saves’ come from ?

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      janama

      A bank slogan.

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      gai

      You forgot to post the whole quote.

      Jesus Saves, Moses Invests, Cthulhu Squanders

      The politicians seem to be at the Cthulu worshiping stage.

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      Brian of Moorabbin

      Whenever I see that phrase (“Jesus Saves”) it brings to mind my old days of playing various dice-based Role-Playing Games (ala Dungeons & Dragons et al), and I must always complete the phrase in the following manner:

      Jesus Saves….. and takes half damage.

      (wonder how many here will understand the meaning…)

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    Pat Kelly

    Geewhiz Jo, you had me running for the google search:

    ….former Archbishop George Pell …

    But no need to panic. It seems the good Cardinal (His Eminence, Cardinal George Pell – Archbishop of Sydney) is still safely ensconced at St Mary’s.

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      gee Aye

      dammit

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        Pat Kelly

        Don’t be too dismissive, GI. It is reliably reported that he has the ear of the leader of the opposition – soon to be PM.

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          Andrew McRae

          I see. So in exchange for gaining separation of Hip Pocket and State, we must surrender the separation of Church and State.

          Well it may not present much trouble in the short term. This is the guy who, as Health Minister in 2005, put stem cell research on the back burner for no scientific or ethical grounds whatsoever. Reckoned it was a slippery slope to human cloning, without it being terribly clear as to what is so awful about being a clone. (Are identical twins evil incarnate?) Then there was the total Furphie about embryos and aborted foetuses being the only source of stem cells for research, whereas they can be gotten by other ways. All Christian dogmatic woo woo, basically. For the Rabbit this was a “bridge that shouldn’t be crossed”.
          Then 14 months later the Bill permitting therapeutic cloning for embryonic stem cell research passed the Senate. (Where is that fine lass Senator Stott-Despoja now?)
          So his religious sensibilities need not amount to anything, which is just as it should be.

          Humanism is the way. Instead of hoping a ghost will give you redemption in eternity, why not make the real world better for your fellow humans today?

          Is nobody else alarmed that they still say official Prayers at the beginning of each Parliament session? Because that scares the Sagan out of me. I think the Democrats were doing a better job of “keeping the bastards honest” than the prayers. eg: Gillard. QED.

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            Pat Kelly

            Wow!

            Certainly getting bang for my buck here. All this (and more?) for a typo correction.

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            CameronH

            Actually the concept of the separation of Church and State was a much to do with protecting the faith from the political manipulations of the State for its own purposes as it was for the protection of the State from the Church.

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      Pat! Thanks. Fixed. 🙂 h/t to you. – Jo

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    Barry Woods

    I wrote an article about – Whate Else did the 97% of Scientists say?- at Watts Up With That.. just a little while ago
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/

    In the actual cited survey paper itself (which is a students MSc thesis) there is a lot of very sceptical feedback from scientits that took part in the ACTUAL survey, in the ACTUAL paper itself.

    “This was a very simplistic and biased questionnaire.” (Doran/Zimmerman feedback)

    “..scientific issues cannot be decided by a vote of scientists. A consensus is not, at any given time, a good predictor of where the truth actually resides..” (Doran/Zimmerman feedback)

    “..The “hockey stick” graph that the IPCC so touted has, it is my understanding, been debunked as junk science..” (Doran Zimmerman feedback)

    “..I’m not sure what you are trying to prove, but you will undoubtably be able to prove your pre-existing opinion with this survey! I’m sorry I even started it!..” (Doran/Zimmerman feedback)

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    memoryvault

    .
    So, at 10.00pm the score stands thus:

    Robert Manne – 0/10 – came saw, commented, then ran away.

    Matt Bennett – 1/10 – came, saw, commented, but couldn’t answer any of the points raised by skeptics.

    Skeptics – 10/10 – Offered a straight, scientific answer to everything raised by Manne and Bennett, without any serious challenge.

    I think we deserve a better class of cultist.

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    J.H.

    An excellent read Jo. It must drive them absolutely spare that despite all their money and influence, they can’t have their way… Though of course, they still get to live the high life and spend all our money.

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    BoobLove

    Hi Jo

    Please credit Monkton for logical fallesies. His article on wuwt.com is the best I have read this year, and deserve to be linked whenever possible

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/20/the-illogic-of-climate-hysteria/

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      John Brookes

      Oh yes, please give lots of publicity to his lordship. We warmists quite love him and his silly ways.

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        Joe V.

        Scoff all you like. It’s because of Monckton’s ‘silly ways’ that you didn’t see him coming. Now you don’t know what’s hit you.

        Pity that. Pity anyone Monckton gets in his sights.

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        AndyG55

        Yep, a tad ecentric, but he runs rings around anyone who has the guts to debate him.
        (not many do have the courage to do so, though)

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        Sean McHugh

        John Brookes said:

        Oh yes, please give lots of publicity to his lordship. We warmists quite love him and his silly ways.

        Then one must conclude that warmists enjoy suffering defeat at the hands of Monckton and those like him. You do know the defeat, John? It’s the one that Robert Manne talks about. He didn’t seem so happy.

        Anyway, wish away.

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        BoobLove

        I’m a believer in freedom and your entitled to your opinion. You don’t like Monkton, that’s fine. But credit goes where credit is due, and Monkton linked Aristotles logical fallacies to the climate debate, and for that we owe him a thank you, since it’s a greatly helpfull point. All opinions aside.

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    Ferdinand

    We are moving nicely from a denier being someone who doesn’t believe in man-made dangerous global warming to the opposite, a denier being someone who hasn’t checked the science.

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    TomRude

    I am always amused when political scientists pretend to majestically attribute the browny points in climate science. Sadly for mankind, their insights seem to be lost in nuclear physics, neurobiology, tectonophysics etc… 😉

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    3x2

    ” Thousands of climate scientists in a variety of discrete disciplines have been exploring the issue for decades. They have reached a consensual conclusion whose existence is easily demonstrated.”

    Now if only temperatures would rise (without a little help from the stats) then Global Warming might become a reality “easily demonstrated”.

    Is it me or are we seeing, in recent times, the “knowledgeable scientists” head off into the background (escape tunnels)leaving the “less than capable” (Robert) to hold the fort?

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    Mike of NQ

    Around the year 2002, I was starting to think that I was the only person on Earth that doubted anthropogenic global warming. It would be a couple more years before I discovered a journalist by the name of Andrew Bolt (maybe because I live in remote Queensland) who seemed to question everything that I questioned. I became an avid fan, even though Bolt seemed to be the most hated man in Australia at the time. It was through Bolt that I discovered JoNova and Jo was the first person that could translate Bolt’s words into a real science that I studied and understood. I no longer felt like a lone warrior. The skeptics handbook when it became available was downloaded and shared with many and still remains a topic of discussion all these years later.

    I would like to thank Jo and Andrew and people like Anthony Watts for their unrelenting pursuit of balance and the meaning of TRUE skepticism.

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      Jazza

      Mike
      I was a Bolt follower then,still am, and also took the route you describe.
      I was an instant doubter,as the % of CO2 from humans and the atmospheric % of CO2 make my doubts rise that any such output COULD be a driver and sustainer of heat with ignoring the rest of the atmospheric make up
      All the wild accusations and doom and gloom has just entrenched my “denial” though I too would love to know just what it is we deny other than an acceptance of Flim Flam et al and their outlandish and insulting attempts to scare us witless for their own (financial gain) ends.

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    Joe V.

    Does a Climate Scientist need a Bunsen burner , or is modelling, homogenisation and statistical manipulation enough?

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    Mike Williams

    How do you know it is Manne..?
    The $CAGW$ trolls are frisky today..must be the co2..
    They smear,misdirect..and when asked direct questions…vanish..
    And the consensus/medical analogies..jesus..have you people not learnt one thing..???
    Doctor:you have cancer and its going to be dangerous and costly.
    patient”how do you know
    doctor”we did some modelling and filtered some statistics..and several doctors did the modelling again using different methods..
    Idiots use idiotic analogies..
    Glad to see the $CAGW$ faithful like Monckton..except when they have had to debate him..
    Too easy..as usual.. 🙂

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    […] Victory of the Denialists! says Robert Manne in The Monthly as his Gods of Science fail […]

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    Wayne, s. Job

    To Robert Manne,
    Truth can never be wished away, and nor can it be hidden forever by re-writing history. Truth can be hidden temporarily by spin and propaganda, but it never goes away.

    Academia it would seem by those of us on the outside looking in, has been hijacked by people with an agenda that cares little for truth.

    Truth has a habit of surfacing, regardless of those whom feel that they can in an Orwellian manner use newspeak to hide reality and force upon us a new truth.

    ” The time has come, the Walrus said to speak of many things.” We are doing just that, and your new reality and new truth has been found wanting. Your attitude of superiority is a couple of centuries outdated as our society is awash with people with broad education in engineering and the sciences. Thus not easily fooled and have discredited the AGW non-sense as fraudulent science.

    Time is against the hiding of truth, it often ambushes those who hide it, I think your time has come, and you will not be remembered in our history in a good light.

    Choosing your words more carefully in future, may be a better path.

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    MadJak

    Robert Mann should learn how to write in english:

    “Denialist” is not a word.

    Oh well, who needs an editor when you have an agenda to push.

    The Monthly – soon available as extra absorbant and double ply.

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    Layland

    To begin with I am an 81 year old dude and have been reading all the scientific answers on this site. Firstly, without cO2 we all die.
    The things that seems to be missing are MATTER cannot be created nor destroyed, only the form may be changed. What we have on this planet we have forever, nothing can be thrown away. The next is ENERGY. we have about 7 billion souls on this planet, and as all you scientists know that all work produces heat. Ponder this, If all this heat was not being generated we would now be freezing. This old man would really like your thoughts on this. Please no flaming… I am really interested.

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      Jaymez

      A very, very quick and simplistic answer Layland is that it is mainly all about energy conversion. The sun bathes the earth in solar energy. Some of that energy is converted to food, (plants and animals) which we eat. We then combust that energy for our muscles to work and release heat which is eventually radiated back out to space! So more people doesn’t equal more heat, just more heat transfer process.

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      KinkyKeith

      Hi Layland

      The old single electric heaters were about 1 kilowatt.

      Every human emits about 25watts so the entire human race gives off about 175 million kilowatts.

      Totally useless piece of info but its interesting.

      Tony could probably tell us that is 2 medium sized power plants? or whatever.

      KK

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        Has Tony gone bush?

        I will answer in his stead, although I may not be right.

        175 million kilowatts is the same as 175 thousand megawatts.

        The Huntly power station in New Zealand, is capable of producing 1,448 megawatts when it is running flat-tack (never happens, for political reasons,but who cares)

        So combining that with your calculation regarding the size of the human race, and human heat by-product, people, in total, are the equivalent of 121 power plants, the size of Huntly.

        But how many of them, at any given time are using 1 kilowatt electric heaters? Hmm, there is some data we do not have … where did you say I had to go to apply for funding?

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    Daremo

    Hi Jo

    I write to thank you for keeping up the fight. Did you notice that The Monthly used a photo from Lake Wendouree circa 2007 to demonstrate the impacts of climate change. I have images like that; BUT I also have images from 5 Feb 2011 where the lake is full, it is cloudy day, and the boats are sailing again. I am happy to share this panorama with you and you can use it to demonstrate, what I believe is the selected use of data and images to support their cause.

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    RJ

    JN, who is winning or losing? The carbon tax is in place, Pachauri still runs the IPCC. The CSIRO is still promoting its models. There are thousands of civil servants in the Climate business. Ask yourself this, why did RM use that headline? The public is bored with climate change. Who would bother to read another blurb on the topic unless it was man bites dog. JN is still preaching to her choir. “The dog barks, but the caravan moves on…” I admire your persistence, but are you really making any progress?

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      I admire your persistence, but are you really making any progress?

      The fact that the UN still can’t get the $120 billion per year slush fund they’re after, the fact that the environuts haven’t really progressed is progress for us.

      Einstein might have said “progress is relative”. We might not be moving forward as we’d like, but the other mob are going backwards, that’s progress for us.

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      KinkyKeith

      RJ

      This blogg has been a very useful site for me.

      I heard something about global warming that did not sound right so I decided to look furthre.

      What a mess this thing is; and at the root of it all is :

      Yep

      THE MONEY.

      It took this site quite some time to get past the disinformation provided by IPCC and its clones and imitators but once their claims were

      defined it was easy.

      There is no science to support them.

      This blogg has now reached the stage where many people here understand a great deal of the basics behind the fraud and feel confident within themselves that fraud is the right description for CAGW and Carbon Taxing.

      Incredible fraud.

      The next stage is to put together a package that quickly dismisses the CAGW claims and shows where the money is going.

      Taxpayers love finding out who has been dipping into their pockets.

      There is no quick fix for a Tax Rort that has been going in high gear now for 10 years.

      It will be fixed.

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      Mark D.

      RJ, you ask a good question. There is still much to be done. Vote smart, never give up the fight.

      All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

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        KinkyKeith

        High Mark

        Liked the “Vote Smart” idea.

        makes people think.

        Become a voting fiend and make politicians fearful of a testy electorate.

        KK

        🙂

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      In 2007 were there any headlines: Victory for the Denialists?

      We are winning – the polls are shifting. Not as fast as I’d like, but they are shifting. All the time people are moving from believer to skeptic and never, never the other way. (Despite the fake headlines).

      Skeptical blogs are winning bloggies awards with ten times the traffic they had then. Skeptics are getting articles in newspapers now — that almost never happened in 2007.

      In 2007 there was no opposition promising to wind back the Carbon Tax. (Yes, I ought to slap a lot of caveats before we get too excited, but there is no comparison to then. In 2007 both parties were competing to win the enviro-vote. Not so now.

      The Dept of Climate Change in Australia is cutting its workforce, the UK is winding back it’s green schemes. NZ is delaying it’s ETS scheme.

      Oh yes absolutely we are winning.
      Oh No. There is still a lot to do, and a long way to go.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      And to follow on from Jo’s comment:

      I bought shares in a wind turbine manufacturing company, right at the start of the concern over Global Warming, and the push for more environmentally friendly forms of power generation – it seemed a good idea at the time. If I remember correctly, they cost me $6,00. The price quickly trebled as the Green message started to permeate the main stream media. The high was $18.32. They have gone up and down since, but mainly down, and they are currently worth $0.64.

      Follow the money. It is always a reliable indication of the general mood.

      You say: “The carbon tax is in place, Pachauri still runs the IPCC. The CSIRO is still promoting its models. There are thousands of civil servants in the Climate business.”

      All of which are politically mandated. The fact that they are there, when the actual investment in alternate power has dropped through the floor, is more a statement of how far the political class is out of touch with reality, than anything else.

      Yes, we are winning, because the economy tells us we are. You can be inside the political bubble, drinking the Koolaid, or outside in the real world. At election time, is when the political bubble meats the real world, and at that time, the politicians on both sides of the divide will look at the numbers, and have an “Oh shit” moment.

      We are really just waiting for that to happen.

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    MattR

    Great article, really nails Manne as he deserves.

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    Mk50 of Brisbane

    Seeing that the usual suspects (including Manne) have done a run-and-hide, I’ll have a go at defining “Denier” as they use it. As an ex-global coolie I have seen the term evolve(remember that eco-scare? When in the 90s the SAME people were yowling about glowball warmenating and their ‘solutions’ were the same as for their calls on global cooling the scales sure fell from my eyes).

    First it is essential to note that gaian warmists like Manne are actually religious cultists, in his case most likely to be squabbling over who gets the High Priesthood roles, and hence the cash from all the rubes.

    Like all cults run by con-men, spivs, charlatans and footpads, it’s about money and power.

    Manne uses it in the old sense: it is an “inside the in-group” perjorative expressly used to equate one who disagrees with his self-assumed authority on the AGW issue with a Holocaust denier such as the execrable David Irving.

    As such, Manne is perfectly entitled to use it as he does, as a perjorative. What he is actually saying in his headline is “Victory of the [Motherf***ing Non-Progressives Who Reject My Authority and don’t send me Cash]”.

    It’s a straight perjorative insult, and meant as such. It is meant to wound at the personal level, as the warmist scam-artist feels insulted (as all good con-men do) that people are seeing through their scam.

    it is also able to be interpreted: Manne has long since lost the scramble for the money and power of the AGW -cult priesthood (Flannery got that job in Australia, at its height $50 k per doom-lecture with all expenses paid, not he is not on the ‘ecodoomscreamer’ lecture circuit at all and merely gets $1000 a day for each working day as ‘climate commissioner’ – and Manne’s rage at not getting the cash from THAT gig is palpable).

    About a decade ago, after this perjorative intent was openly mocked, they slowly altered it into its current form. The intent was to maintain the link to Holocaust Deniers, but use it to try and erode the gathering scepticism of the public, after they started to notice that model after model was wrong, and that

    It is now a shorthand for a shill, a supposed paid mouthpiece for the ‘Vast Right Wing Conspiracy secretly fuelled with oil industry billions’ that they are certain is the only thing powerful enough to defeat them. No amount of pointing out ‘inconvenient truths’ like the utter failure of all their predictions, empirical work or just plain adherence to scientific method will shift that view. Because it’s a religious view by cultists.

    And that, Jo, is why he will refuse to define it, and why actual scientists doing actual science so enrage the cultists. You are attacking their religion and pose a direct threat to their money and what power they have been able to gain from the endless droning of their doomsaying.

    It’s also why Manne and the other senior cult members actually have a valid right to use the term ‘denier’. it’s either an offensive, abusive perjorative insult, or a stigmatisation of the interlocutor as a VRWC conspiracist, or both. Mostly both these days. But they really do not like people realising what they actually mean by it!

    Mk50
    Brisbane

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      AndyG55

      “and Manne’s rage at not getting the cash from THAT gig is palpable”

      maybe they wanted someone with just a tiny little bit of climate knowledge.. ??

      oops !!! seems they missed by the proverbial mile anyway !!

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Well, if you are correct, MK50, perhaps Manne should use the phrase “Climate Denier” ™. Then we would all know that it was only a marketing ploy.

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    More CAGW Alarmist BS from NASA’s James Hansen

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    Michael

    Once (in 2002), I walked near UTS and saw anti-Israeli group member distributing their journals about “crimes” of Israeli military… Being an Israeli, I wanted to take one (it’s always good to know what enemy supporters think), but I was asked to pay. I didn’t pay then, nor did I intend to pay now for subscription of Monthly… Shouldn’t religious cult acolytes distribute their teachings for free???

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    bananabender

    Tony Abbots’ first priority as PM must be to create a Royal Commission into “climate science”. I greatly doubt Tim Flannery, David Karoly et al would be anywhere near as confident about their doomsday scenarios when threatened with prison terms for perjury.

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      Andrew McRae

      Their first move will be The Pacific Solution. They’ll hide out on one of those islands that is going to be submerged due to Man-Made Global Warming.

      When that doesn’t work, their legal defence will be that CAGW is a religion and so they can’t be prosecuted for preaching it.

      😀

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        Didn’t work for Charles Manson. Any charges against Flannery and Karoly should be laid in the United States. Just think via the keyboard …

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    Mr Manne is a very sad and pitiful human being. There is no need to waste time with him; psychiatrists are paid for that.

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    Twodogs

    7000 words of dribble? And they expect you to payfor it?!

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    People – cut and paste those banned comments here. What nasty evil comments does the Monthly protect it’s reader from? Do tell!

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    Sean McHugh

    Fellow highly coordinated workers,

    Has there been some sort of holdup this month with the Big Oil cheques? My ski trip is in a couple of weeks.

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    Beth cooper

    The public msm pronouncements on climate *science* by the scientifically illiterate Robert Manne illustrate how influential the social sciences have become in subjective pronouncements of the state of play in the debate. And nowhere more so than here in chilly Melbourne.(

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    Mk50 of Brisbane

    ‘Niceness’ towards lefties or AGW cultists merely means you are on a hiding to nothing. There is no worth in it.

    Civility – yes, absolutely. No use of works with four letters – yes, of course. Why lower oneself to their level?

    But for Heaven’s sake use their own tactics against them. It’s perfectly possible to be civil, spell things properly, use correct grammar, and be utterly devastating when you use their own tactics against them. They routinely respond in an infantile manner with spittle flecked invective, but so what? Ignore it.

    Focus on things like how racist and economically destructive their policies are, how these genuinely hurt the poor they profess to love but actually despise, how totalitarian their world-views are, how they ignore acts of evil in those they approve of ideologically.

    Turn-about is fair play when engaging with greens and lefties (or ‘greenfilth’ and ‘leftards’ if you so choose). Be dismissive, patronising and sarcastic towards them: use their own tactics. Truly, they hate this and it makes their heads explode. For example, “their CO2 reduction policies when applied to the developing world are inherently racist, why do greens not care if ‘little brown people’ overseas stay poor, with lower life expectancies and higher child mortality rates than they and all their inner-Melbourne white friends? How is that not the practical demonstration of the greens/luvvies innate racism?”

    Cue exploding heads and torrents of spittle-flecked invective, then you reply with “that’s exactly how a racist would respond!”

    Cue more exploding heads.

    But never use these tactics against your own, or against that rara avis the left-winger who is actually capable of civil discourse. I have personally had discussions with two of these here in Australia since 1992. Oddly, both were ‘cast from the circle’ a couple of years later for expressing heresies such as ‘we should listen to and try to understand the viewpoints of AGW sceptics’.

    And there’s a marvellous little publication available to help. Something called ‘The Skeptic’s Handbook’, by a Joanne someone….

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      sillyfilly

      Seems like Andrew Bolt may have a problem with the Galileo Movement.

      “I see Malcolm Roberts has reportedly said climate science is controlled by “some of the major banking families in the world” who form “a tight-knit cabal”.

      This sounds very much like one of those Jewish world conspiracy theories that I despise.

      Can you tell me what Malcolm meant?

      I see I am listed as an adviser to the Galileo Movement. In the circumstances, and until I receive an innocent explanation for Malcolm’s reported comments, I’d ask that you remove my name.

      Andrew Bolt”

      Of course we also had this from the Galileo patron:

      ”The notion of global warming is a hoax,” [Alan] Jones told a group of about 150 people on the steps of the Victorian Parliament. ”This is witchcraft. Commonsense will tell you it’s rubbish

      Also George Pell reckons Nitrogen is a geenhouse gas (god willing)

      Make you wonder if Jo and David will disavow their advisory association with the Galileo Movement and it’s blatant idiocy?

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    gai

    …As always, with “intellectuals” when they analyze their failure, it’s impossible for them to have been defeated by better arguments and stronger evidence. – Jo Nova

    This really needs to be expanded upon Jo.

    We can never ‘defeat’ the ‘intellectuals’ because of their entirely different philosophy. Most people here, at WUWT, at Climate Audit and other similar blogs, understand the process of scientific discovery and believe in concrete facts and objective truth. The ‘intellectuals’ do not and since they have taken over the education system they are passing on their philosophy. These means we have generations who can not think their way out of a paper bag. (Very useful for Politicians, Bankers and Corporations who want unthinking drones not individuals)

    The philosophical basis of Marx’s thought on Truth is the Hegelian Dialectic.

    …As a student, Marx accepted the philosophy of Hegel as the only sound and adequate explanation of the universe. According to this philosophy, “the only immutable thing is the abstraction of movement.” The one universal phenomenon is change, and the only universal form of this phenomenon is its complete abstraction. Thus, Hegel accepted as real only that which existed in the mind. Objective phenomena and events were of no consequence; only the conceptions of them possessed by human minds were real. Ideas, not objects, were the stuff of which the universe was made. The universe and all events therein existed and took place only in the mind, and any change was a change in ideas. Therefore, to account for these changes in ideas was to account for change in the universe.

    In the Hegelian philosophy no idea could exist without an opposite. Thus, the idea of light could not exist unless there were an idea of darkness, nor truth without falsity, nor high without low. If an idea were labeled a thesis, its opposite would be its antithesis. Consequently, in this realm of the mind within which the universe had its only real existence, innumerable theses and antitheses existed. Struggle or conflict was the en-evitable fact in such a universe—conflict of the thesis with its antithesis. In this struggle thesis and antithesis acted and reacted on each other, and a new phenomenon—synthesis—was created…. http://www.economictheories.org/2008/12/philosophy-of-karl-marx.html

    This explains why there is such an emphasis placed on ‘The Consensus of 97% of Climate Scientists.’ To those raised on the Hegelian Dialectic the conflict of the thesis with its antithesis has already been resolved the synthesis reached and it is time to move on to the social implementation. This is the real reason why we are called ‘Denialists’ not because we deny Global Warming the overt reason, but because we completely deny their Hegelian philosophy, their method for reaching conclusions.

    This explains why they will not debate ‘the science’ in public. In their minds it is not needed. It explains the arrogance of the “Intellectuals” It explains why questionable methods and out right fraud is so prevalent in scientific research these days. If you are taught in school that there is no such thing as TRUTH then modifying the results as needed to advance ‘society’ is perfectly justifiable. If you do not believe there is an ‘absolute truth’ no amount of arguing the scientific facts are going to sway you.

    Spreading the Hegelian Dialectic is so prevalent in the USA that a ‘There is no such thing as facts’ lecture was included in of all things a one week management seminar for new foreman I took. Poor guy did not get to finish his lecture after I challenged him to prove his theory by laying on the railroad tracks outside the window. A train was due in about 15 minutes and he knew it so that was the end of the discussion. Laughter is an effective weapon. No Prof. can stand against being laughed out of the classroom.

    Now if we only had a handy railroad track and train for the rest of them…

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    rockape

    Excellent article Jo.

    been looking at MM’s Facebook page and The Monthly article. It would appear that the only qualifications required to comment on them are a degree of hysteria and invective.

    @ cohenite
    August 5, 2012 at 8:49 pm
    with regard to Manne’s article

    “…talking about Beers Law?”
    [sarc on] In vito veritas [sarc off] perchance? ;¬)

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    rockape

    Re. article: to coin a phrase “Mann(e) made religion”

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    […] The Warmists are getting desperate. Their attempt to make much of the Muller non-story backfired horribly. Their yarn about melting Greenland turned out to be ludicrously overdone. Then, of course, there was Watts et al's paper showing that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the US government department responsible for keeping tabs on America's temperature data – has been fiddling the data so as to exaggerate late 20th century warming by 100 per cent. […]

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    gai

    Matt Bennett @ August 4, 2012 at 8:07 pm

    There’s no such thing as a ‘proven science’ – ever. There’s only ‘our best current understanding’ of any given area of knowledge and, for all the people who’s very job it is to understand our global climate – there exists an overwhelming consensus. It’s up to you, through published, peer-reviewed research to invalidate it if you can.

    Oh, Geez, I can not let this go. The overwhelming consensus is the hand picked 75 scientists out of the over ten thousand polled additional link

    In actual fact Reiter threaten to SUE to have his names removed from the IPCC CONSENSUS.

    ….The media also treat the IPCC as impartial scientists, but Reiter and Christy, who were members of the IPCC, say it is not what the public thinks it is. Many of the people involved in writing its report “are not scientists at all,” Reiter says. “They were essentially activists.” Members of groups like Greenpeace were involved. Skeptics were often ignored.

    <Christy says, “We were not asked to look at a particular statement and sign our names to it.”

    Adds Reiter, “I resigned.”

    But the IPCC still listed him as part of the so-called consensus of scientists. He says he had to threaten to sue to get his name removed from the report, although the IPCC denies that….
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/10/the_globalwarming_debate_isnt.html

    The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider.
    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/13/the-ipcc-consensus-on-climate-change-was-phoney-says-ipcc-insider/

    Hat tip to NoTricksZone Do not miss

    7. NEW! American Physical Society-gate …
    Distinguished physicist Hal Lewis resigns from APS due to it’s departure from science and adoption of dogma.

    98. Persecute and execute-gate …
    Warmist zealots use threats and intimidation to suppress free speech and thought in science.

    Vail Daily: Dr. Martin Hertzberg
    I am a research scientist who also served as a meteorologist for the U.S. Navy. I am also a lifelong progressive Democrat…. Knowledgeable scientists, including the more than 30,000 such as myself who have signed the Oregon Petition

    OH, and those papers supporting the skeptic position?
    How about 1100+ peer-reviewed papers? Please note we are talking about the
    DATA not the ‘get out of Jail Peer-review free card’ necessary for getting anything published these days.

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    EternalOptimist

    kinky keith says this is a useful site.

    definately.
    I frequent WUWT and BH, but Jo is special

    At first I thought it must be a bloke pretending to be a Sheila
    now I realise my error.
    it must be two blokes pretending to be a Sheila

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    Joe V.

    All of which are politically mandated. The fact that they are there, when the actual investment in alternate power has dropped through the floor, is more a statement of how far the political class is out of touch with reality, than anything else.

    How out of touch and how unaccountable.
    Their continued presence in the face of this indicates that they don’t represent us – but their time is up and their end will come. I’m not do sure about Pachauri though – the UN has become a monster – it must never be given more powers over us.

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    KeithH

    O/T but momentous news. Mars Rover has just successfully touched down! Some good news real science from NASA for a change!

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    dr ian hilliar

    When the old Bulletin closed up shop, I was misled to believe that The Monthly would be a news/politics magazine, so took out a subscription. This caused me a lot of nausea, and Clive Hamilton refused to read my emails, as he bocked all “deniers”. Thankfully, I read an online article from “Quadrant”, and suscribed to both for a year. I still subscribe to Quadrant,my nausea has dissappeared, but these days read most of my news on the web. The Monthly ,however, does have some happy memories…where else could you read a 7000 word essay from PM Kevin Rudd on the End of Capitalism, and how people like Kev were here to help, our latest essay from Wayne Swan ,about what a wanker he is, and now Robert Manne. Its a gift that just keeps giving

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    Justin Jefferson

    Robert Manne’s “scientific” theory:
    “It must be so because the government told me so.” That’s it.

    No evidence, no reason, no ability to join issue on any question of fact or theory. Just endless blind faith in the State-God, endless appeal to absent authority, circular argument, and personal abuse, all based on massive forced redistributions and dodgy computer models by an industry of parasites funded by an industry of theft such as fund Robert Manne.

    The great shame about this whole episode of politically-orchestrated mass hysteria is that even after the whole hoo-haa has been utterly disproved, the vested interests like Manne will have gotten away with all the payments of grants, and salaries, and superannuation, and holidays, and long service leave, and cars, and offices, and computers, and mobile phones, and travel, and training, and junkets and conferences and all the rest of it.

    Merely scotching it will leave the thieves with the benefit of all their ill-gotten gains. They can just repeat the fraudulent prescription, as they are intending to do, this time with “biodiversity”.

    ‘For every hundred hacking at the branches, there is only one striking the root’. There is no reason why government should have been funding “climate science” in the first place, or universities for that matter, or radio and television stations. The real class war, Robert Manne, is between the productive class whom you despise, and the parasitic class like you who use the state to live at others’ expense producing social and environmental bads that no-one voluntarily pays for.

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    Miles Yorke

    I would recommend a book, written in 1841 by Charles Alexander McKay and entitled ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’. Written in a wonderfully florid Victorian style, the book debunks the various phenomena that has captured the public mind over the last centuries; the Crusades, economic bubbles such as the Tulipmania of the seventeenth century, the South Sea Bubble, Magnetism and a variety of movements that man has concocted to further its selfish aims. A ‘ripping yarn’, well worth the read, and can be downloaded through the Project Guttenberg site at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/636
    McKay would have found the present climate change debate fascinating. I’ll leave the last words to the author who sums it up beautifully.
    “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

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    Tim Flannery never said that Australia’s dams would not fill again.

    http://indifferencegivesyouafright.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/tim-flannery-did-not-say-australias-dams-would-never-fill-again/

    ——————————————————————————–
    As Sir Humphrey would say, that is the most courageous interpretation of Flannery’s quote ever, and one he himself didn’t think to claim all those times he was asked why he made the claim. I note the author of this re-interpretation considers themselves “to the left of the Australian Greens and about as Libertarian as them. Or viewed another way, as left as Robert Mugabe” – Mod

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      Jaymez

      Baraholka did you write that blog site? I can’t believe you quoted it as a serious comment unless you were being sarcastic.

      That re-interpretation of what Tim Flannery meant when he said the dams would never fill again (note he did say they would never fill again), still assumes the drought we were experiencing at the time was actually human caused climate change and not just part of normal climatic cycles which Australia has experienced for centuries. Even the CSIRO and BOM now admit that the drought was just normal cyclic weather patterns.

      So you cannot re-interpret Tim Flannery’s reasons for claiming the dams would never fill again based on IPCC climate change modelling (ha ha climate models), when the drought was nothing to do with long term climate change.

      But hey, why don’t you get Tim Flannery to clarify the matter for us personally?

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      Tim Flannery has been babbling his propaganda and getting caught for it as shown here from QUADRANT ONLINE:

      Damp prophet of doom

      by John Dawson

      August 24, 2011

      EXCERPT:

      When it came to Australia’s rainfall, however, Flannery threw caution to the wind and declared that the apocalypse is now.

      In 2004 Flannery said:

      LINK for the damning expose of Flannery’s many failed predictions

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      Jaymez

      “The high, natural rainfall variability in Australia makes determining any rainfall trends a difficult job. In fact, the apparent trends in rainfall over most parts of the continent, including the recent heavier summer monsoon, are not statistically distinguishable from the background of highly variable, decade-to-decade and year-to-year rainfall changes.”

      Karl Braganza
      Manager, Climate Monitoring Section at Australian Bureau of Meteorology

      23 May 2012,

      So whether it is droughts or floods it is all pretty normal for Australia.

      Baraholka, perhaps before you and the writer of the blog you referenced and Tim Flannery start making up more excuses for Tim Flannery’s stupid claims which have absolutely no basis in science, you should all get together and at least talk to your songwriters at the BOM and CSIRO who couldn’t manage to stretch the truth as far as you would like. Not that it stops people such as Manne, and other climate alarmists continuing to make wild, baseless statements.

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    Patrickb

    Hey, what a wacky place. Never new about it until I saw it linked from Loon Pond. Looks like a revival of the Marohashy blog under another name. This is great, I’ve been missing the comedy stylings of serious deniers for some time. Thanks Jo Nova (is that you real name?).

    ————
    Patrick: Sorry, but it appears you don’t qualify to post here. Failing basic English, logic and thread bombing with mockery but without reasoning means you are likely to be a high maintenance commenter. Apologies, but we haven’t got the resources to train you to think. You could visit Deltoid? They can’t help you think, but they do publish your kind of baseless insults. – Jo

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    Patrickb

    [snip. Mockery without reasoning. No more from you unless you write with manners, logic and in english. – Jo]

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