Devastating bush fires in Spring 1895, when CO2 was “safe”

14 December, 2013 by

Safe bush fires?

Safe bush fires?

In 1895, atmospheric CO2 levels were 290 ppm, well below the 350ppm “safe” levels that we are told we need to return to by the likes of 350.org:

350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere.

Accelerating arctic warming and other early climate impacts have led scientists to conclude that we are already above the safe zone at our current 400ppm, and that unless we are able to rapidly return to below 350 ppm this century, we risk reaching tipping points and irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from increased permafrost melt.

But even at 290 ppm, extreme weather events still occurred, cyclones still hit, and bush fires still burnt, as this extract from the Colac Herald of September 1895 recounts:

Drought, acompanied by raging gales and devastating bush fires, still afflicts the greater part of the colony. The reports from the country become daily more hopeless in tone, as vegetation gradually succumbs to the want of moisture or the quicker method of fire. A Bulli telegraph states that Sherbrooke township has been partly de stroyed. the holiday resorts in the Blue Mountains, Kurrajong Heights and scores of other places have been destroyed by the ravaging of bush fires.

The IPCC acknowledges that there is no link between recent warming and more frequent or extreme weather events. In fact, there is evidence to point the other way. In the US, it will be 3,142 days since the last Category 3+ hurricane landfall, the longest period on record. Also at that link, accumulated global cyclone energy remains at almost historical lows.

For the Climate Council to use recent bush fires as evidence of the urgent need for action on climate change is misleading, irresponsible and alarmist in the extreme.

(h/t Real Science)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

ABC’s Catalyst forgets about “consensus”

11 December, 2013 by

Consensus when it suits

Consensus when it suits

Consensus is optional, where the ABC is concerned. Naturally, with climate change, consensus is paramount, and anyone daring to question it is a denier in the pay of Big Oil.

But when it comes to cholesterol-reducing medications (statins), Catalyst appears happy to take the word of a few “outliers”, as the following transcript demonstrates:

NARRATION
For the last four decades, dietary fat and cholesterol have been the villains in heart disease.

Dr Michael Eades
You very seldom see the words ‘saturated fat’ in the public press when they’re not associated with artery clogging. So it’s like it’s all one term – ‘artery clogging saturated fats’.

NARRATION
But now some medical experts are coming forward to challenge this medical paradigm.

Dr Jonny Bowden
I think it’s a huge misconception that saturated fat and cholesterol are the demons in the diet, and it is 100% wrong.

Dr Stephen Sinatra
Saturated fat has been vilified for years because of the cholesterol theory.

NARRATION
A multibillion dollar food industry has fuelled our phobia of fat and cholesterol and dramatically influenced our diet.

Dr Michael Eades
That’s not science. That’s marketing.

Dr Jonny Bowden
It’s lived past its expiration date, and it’s one of these hypotheses that just won’t die.

NARRATION
Have we all been conned?

Dr Maryanne Demasi
In this episode, I’ll follow the road which led us to believe that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease, and reveal why it’s being touted as the biggest myth in medical history.

But the story has had such an effect on viewers that many are ceasing medication entirely, without any supervision from GPs or specialists, with potentially tragic consequences:

AN ABC report about cholesterol medication could cause as many as 3000 heart attacks in the next five years and cost the health system between $12 and $33 million.
The Heart Foundation has made the estimate after a survey it conducted found a third of those taking cholesterol lowering statin medications stopped them or reduced them in the wake of the Catalyst program on ABC.

When extrapolated to the entire population of 2.1 million Australians who take statins the survey found 55,000 people completely stopped taking their pills after the program.

A further 130,000 changed their medication by stopping it then restarting it or they reduced how much they took.

And 120,000 people saw their GP about their medication as a result of the Catalystepisodes.

One in four of those who altered their medication had previously had a heart attack, the research found.

The program has been heavily criticised by health experts who claim it was biased and the ABC is investigating 80 official complaints.

The ABC’s own health expert Dr Norman Swan has warned “people will die” because of the program.

Heart Foundation cardiovascular health director Dr Rob Grenfell says it is “alarming the survey found one in three people were worried or confused about their medication after the program.

“What Catalyst has done is create great confusion in the general public, unfortunately people have ceased their medication and that will cause harm,” he told News Corp Australia.

So who are Bowden, Sinatra and Eades? Media Watch reports:

Well, Dr Jonny Bowden and Dr Stephen Sinatra are co-authors of this popular American potboiler.

The Great Cholesterol Myth—why lowering your cholesterol won’t prevent heart disease and the statin-free plan that will

— The Great Cholesterol Myth, Jonny Bowden and Stephen Sinatra

The foreword to this book was written by the other “expert” we saw in the opening clip, Dr Michael Eades.

Three men with one mind, presented as three independent points of view.

There’s much more at the link.

Whereas Catalyst (and the ABC in general) is reluctant ever to investigate opposing views in the climate debate, based on a belief that climate change may cause problems for mankind in centuries or millennia, it appears all too eager to give air time to issues that may cause suffering and even death right here and now.

Filed Under: Climate, General Science Tagged With: , ,

Flannery still pushing alarmist bullshit

10 December, 2013 by

Failed fortune teller

Failed fortune teller

At least the Climate Council is not being paid for by the taxpayer, so he can say what he likes.

Mammalogist Failed End-of-the-Pier fortune teller Tim Flannery is up to his old tricks, spouting alarmist claptrap about bush fires:

In October, huge bushfires devastated communities, property and livelihoods in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Tragically, two lives were lost. As the Climate Council’s first major report makes clear, our changing climate is increasing the chances of similar events in future.

Yes, bushfires are part of the Australian experience, but large and severe bushfires in October are unusual.

There has been considerable discussion in the media around the link between climate change and bushfires. So let’s get the facts straight.

Hot, dry conditions create conditions favourable for bushfires. Australia has just experienced its hottest 12 months ever recorded, and September 2013 was the hottest September on record. (source)

As Jo points out, the reality is far different. Fractions of a degree changes in average temperature have made little if any difference to bush fire frequency or intensity and rainfall hasn’t declined.

So what can it be that is causing such intense fires? Oh yes, I remember. The extreme Greens who have insisted for decades that there should be no back burning, resulting in massive fuel loads just waiting to go up in smoke. That or a few shells exploding on an army range. Or fires being lit by arsonists.

Flannery conveniently ignores all of those. Wonder why?

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Dana’s dummy spit

6 December, 2013 by

Dummy-spit Dana

Dummy-spit Dana

One half of the Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science team, Dana Nuccitelli, has recently made a twit of himself on Twitter (appropriately enough). Nuccitelli claimed Roger Pielke Jr was “misleading” the public about tornadoes in an op-ed. Unfortunately, Pielke Jr wasn’t one of the six authors.

Rather than do what normal people would do and simply apologise for the obvious error, instead Nuccitelli dug deeper and deeper. Don’t forget that he and John Cook are two of the most rabid climate ideologues on the planet, who refuse to acknowledge that any doubt exists surrounding the strength of the “consensus”, and therefore anything that challenges it must be attacked and destroyed at all costs.

What is so telling about all this is that it reveals the underlying desperation of the alarmists to maintain the facade. No cracks can ever be revealed, no points conceded (no matter how trivial – witness the above), no contrary view left unchallenged, and most importantly, of course, no opponent un-smeared. As Roger Pielke Jr said about the whole incident:

“I do appreciate your willingness to dig in your heels and continue this display. I agree with you that those paying attention will be fully empowered to reach fair conclusions.

Thanks again for the exchange. Very educational, and not just for me.”

So very, very true.

You can read it all here, here and here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

ABC bias apes BBC

5 December, 2013 by

Leans to the Left

Always leans to the Left

The ABC is the taxpayer-funded, hermetically-sealed bubble of poisonous green/left ideology masquerading as an impartial media outlet, following closely in the footsteps of the UK’s BBC.

Just as Maurice Newman, former chairman of the ABC has railed against the corporation’s “groupthink“, former BBC news head, Roger Mosey, uses remarkably similar language in describing his own organisation:

“The BBC Trust speaks the language of diversity but in its edicts it promotes conformity, whether its about an agreed approach to the science of climate change, ‘correct’ terminology in the Middle East or the way a documentary about benefits [welfare] should be constructed,” he said.

He added: “On the BBC’s own admission, in recent years it did not, with the virtue of hindsight, give enough space to anti-immigration views or EU-withdrawalists; and, though, he may have exaggerated, the former director general Mark Thompson spoke of a ‘massive bias to the left’ in the BBC he joined more than 30 years ago.

“I share Mark’s view that there was more internal political diversity in recent times, but that isn’t enough unless it’s evident in a wider range of editorial views on air.” (source – h/t Bishop Hill)

We all know “ABC” is short for “anything but conservatives”, a motto which is adhered to strictly, without a single conservative presenter or editor of a mainstream current affairs show, and a string of lefties to present shows like Media Watch. Not only that, but other areas, like science, are stuffed with green/left activists, think Robyn Williams, Bernie Hobbs, “Doctor” Karl to name but three…

Defund Restructure the ABC now.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Nuccitelli brings out the Consensus Calculator

3 December, 2013 by

sks_calculator_crop

Already getting a lot of use…

I cannot believe how rapidly Dana Nuccitelli (he of Un-Sk Ps-Sc fame) has wheeled out the ACM Consensus Calculator to rubbish a study which rejects the ludicrous 97% figure that he and John Cook constantly bandy about.

When a survey reveals significantly less of a consensus than Un-Sk Ps-Sc would like, the CC is employed to make sure that it is “really” still 97%. The survey in question is this one by the American Meteorological Society, which shows that out of 1800 odd members who responded, only 52% believed that the cause of recent warming was “mostly human”. This will never do:

The misrepresentations of the study have claimed that it contradicts the 97 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming. The prior studies that have found this high level of consensus were based specifically on climate experts – namely asking what those who do climate science research think, or what their peer-reviewed papers say about the causes of global warming.

The AMS on the other hand is not comprised primarily of climate experts. Some of its members do climate research, but only 13 percent of survey participants described climate as their field of expertise. Among those respondents with climate expertise who have published their climate research, this survey found that 93 percent agreed that humans have contributed significantly to global warming over the past 150 years (78 percent said it’s mostly human-caused, 10 percent said it’s equally caused by humans and natural processes, and 5 percent said the precise degree of human causation is unclear, but that humans have contributed). Just 2 percent of AMS climate experts said global warming is mostly natural, 1 percent said global warming isn’t happening, and the remaining 4 percent were unsure about global warming or human causation.

The authors also note that they asked about contributions to global warming over the past 150 years, whereas climate scientists are most confident that humans are the dominant cause of global warming over the past 50 years. Some survey participants sent emails implying that if the question had more narrowly focused on the past 50 years, even more respondents might have said that global warming is mostly human-caused.

Importantly, most AMS members are not climate researchers, nor is scientific research of any kind their primary occupation (for example, weather forecasters). Among those AMS members who haven’t recently published in the peer-reviewed literature, just 62 percent agreed that humans are causing global warming, with 37 percent saying humans are the main cause over the past 150 years.

Following it so far? Nuccitelli then repeats the study’s conclusions that any divergence from the “consensus” is more about “expertise” and “political ideology” than anything else (Lewandowsky anyone?). Judith Curry points out that the AMS has a history of plugging the alarmist line:

A year ago, the AMS issued a Statement on Climate Change, see my blog post on this.  Excerpts from their statement:

“It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide.

The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate.

Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous.”

I was harshly critical of this statement, which was written by a group of volunteers and then approved by the AMS Council.

So it’s little wonder that the authors of the study look for any extraneous reason to justify the lack of agreement with the supposed consensus.

And just in case you haven’t got the message, Nuccitelli concludes:

In any case, the 97 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming is still a reality.

A figure which comes from a study of which he and Cook are the authors, naturally.

Source (h/t Real Science)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Five Holiday Gifts for Skeptical Science readers

1 December, 2013 by

Skeptical Science has suggested some “gifts for skeptics” (i.e. proper skeptics, that is), so in the spirit of Christmas, here are ACM’s ideas for the warmist in your life:

The SkS Shredder

Inconvenient data? No problem with this shredder. Just watch the Medieval Warm Period disappear. Forget having to change your models to fit reality, simply change reality to fit your models! Nothing could be easier!

sks_shredder

Simples!

Escalator News

Skeptical Science loves escalators, so why not buy that special person a subscription to Elevator World?

Elevator_world

Fascinating reading!

“ELEVATOR WORLD is the premier publication for the international building transportation industry and has been publishing the latest news, newest innovations, imperative safety issues, current code requirements, events coverage and accessibility, legal and maintenance issues since January 1953.”

And don’t worry, it has plenty about escalators as well!

Print edition, just $125. Order here.

The Skeptical Science Consensus Calculator

Do you need to keep repeating the fake statistic that 97% of scientists agree with the consensus on global warming, when in reality the figure is barely half that? Well, now your troubles are over with the new Consensus Calculator. Specially designed, this clever device will ensure you only get the result you want, every time.

Easy peasy!

Easy peasy!

Karl Popper – The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Why not find out what real scientists do by reading on of the essential texts on the scientific method. A lot of this will come as a shock to Skeptical Science readers, so best read it sitting down. It’s even available on Kindle, so do yourselves a favour and work out the difference between science and propaganda.

Get ready for a roller coaster ride, folks!

A real page turner for warmists

And finally, to show that special person how much you care…

Yes, it’s the new I “heart” Lew mug. Lovingly crafted and designed, this gift will really send the right message…

lew_mug

Show him you love him…

Available from the ACM Cafepress shop here, a bargain at just $15.99.

Merry Christmas!

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , , ,

Tasmanian turkeys vote for Christmas

26 November, 2013 by

Tassie's tied up in it…

Tassie’s tied up in it…

The Australian state of Tasmania is a wonderful example of what happens when you let the Greens get a grip on the levers of government. Unemployment spiralling upwards, and the economy spiralling downwards.

So what better way to make sure that Tassie disappears completely down the gurgler than to tie it up in yet more Green tape. That’ll fix it!

The Tasmanian Government has released a climate change strategy aimed at 100 percent renewable power usage by 2020.

The Climate Smart Tasmania plan includes energy reduction targets across government, land use, infrastructure, transport and waste systems.

The Climate Change Minister, Cassy O’Connor, says its the most comprehensive plan by any Australian Government to reduce carbon emissions as well as adapt to a changing climate.

The strategy sets a new interim 2020 target to reduce carbon emissions to 35 percent below 1990 levels.

Ms O’Connor says its about showing leadership on climate change.

“We now have in Australia a climate denialist Government that is taking us backwards on climate change” she said. [Thank f*ck for that – Ed]

“Tasmania here has extraordinary advantages with our Hydro power, with the carbon in our forests and we do need to show leadership; it’s also the economically sensible thing to do.” (source)

The Tasmanian climate change minister, Cassy O’Connor, must be smoking something pretty strong to write this with a straight face:

Climate change is the biggest challenge we have ever faced. After many decades of scientific evidence that the world is warming, governments and communities around the world are now taking action.

The Tasmanian Government, through this Strategy, has committed to take State-based action to address the climate issues affecting our State, to build on our low-carbon advantage and to ensure we meet our fair share of the global emissions reduction effort. While Tasmania’s emissions represent only 1.3 per cent of Australia’s national total, we still have higher per capita emissions than Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil and India. We are also noticing the impacts of climate change, such as higher average temperatures and more intense extreme events such as bushfires.

Let’s just do the math here: 1.3% of 1.5% (Australia’s emissions as a percentage of the global total) is less than one fiftieth of one whole percent. But the government is prepared to sacrifice jobs, standards of living, the economy, to make an utterly pointless gesture?

If you don’t believe it (which I didn’t at first), you can read about the miles and miles of Green tape here (PDF – 2.8MB).

Climate Madness.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Skeptical Science bombs again…

26 November, 2013 by

Dumb and offensive

Dumb and offensive

The morons at Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science have developed a “widget” for blogs, which purports to show the energy accumulated by “global warming” since 1998 in terms of the new Un-Sk Ps-Sc unit of energy, the  “Hiroshima bomb” (Hb).

In a desperate attempt to scare people, who generally will not have any idea of the huge amounts of energy involved in  atmospheric heat transfers, the widget claims 4 Hbs-1 accumulating in the atmosphere due to AGW, and gives a running total. Quick, panic!

Well, not so fast, because the Sun, our life giving star, obliterates Earth with no less than one thousand Hbs-1. So the horribly scary 4 per second now seems rather tame, doesn’t it?

Apart from the callous and thoughtless tarnishing the memory of the thousands who died at Hiroshima, it just goes to show how low the headbangers at Un-Sk Ps-Sc will sink to peddle their tawdry brand of alarmism.

More here at WUWT (which provides the calculations).

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Letter to the Governor General

24 November, 2013 by

What would be the most inappropriate topic of a speech by the Governor General of Australia, the representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II? Oh yes, that’s it, a republic. As the ABC reports:

Ms Bryce spoke out in favour of gay marriage during her Boyer Lecture address last night, stating she hoped Australia might become a nation where “people are free to love and marry whom they choose”.

She then added: “And where perhaps, my friends, one day, one young girl or boy may even grow up to be our nation’s first head of state.”

So incensed was I that the GG had waded feet first into sensitive political issues (from which side, I wonder? Oh, yes, the Left, of course), that I sent the following letter:

I am astonished and disappointed, but not surprised, at your highly inappropriate comments on deeply political matters, both on the question of an Australian republic and the issue of same-sex marriage.

That a representative of the Queen should advocate for a republic is beyond my comprehension, whilst expressing a position on same-sex marriage, a matter which is highly political and contentious, is entirely inappropriate for a person occupying the role of Governor General. Your position is yet further compromised by your relationship by marriage to Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten.

Such statements are not unexpected, given your previous history of engaging in political debate, for example with regard to your encouraging of costly and ineffective action on climate change, including at a renewable energy conference in January 2009, where you said:

“We must act swiftly, act smartly, and act together…”

The only course of action open to you is to resign with immediate effect. If you wish to engage in political matters, you should seek election to Parliament.

No sooner had I pressed the “send” button, that I discovered that Tony Abbott had issued a piss-weak response and left it to David Elliott to spell out the truth. I hope this isn’t a sign that TA will be a LINO (Liberal in name only).

And no comment on Kelly O’Dwyer’s awful flannel on Lateline. Geez.

Filed Under: Climate
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