Bob Carter comments on Sunday Age article

11 September, 2011 by

Climate sense

Prof Bob Carter has commented on the Sunday Age’s article on ACM’s question. It will be preserved here in case it gets inadvertently posted down the memory hole:

Editorial presumption of the danger of human-caused global warming (which is a speculative hypothesis) as opposed to natural climate change (which is a certainty, and dangerous) rests upon a number of myths. Prime amongst these is that the IPCC is a scientific advisory body. Wrong. As a branch of the UN, the IPCC renders political advice, albeit dressed up with plausible sounding but mostly alarmist-slanted science.

A second myth is that the majority of scientists assert that dangerous human warming will occur (it hasn’t yet). Wrong again. For since 1995 tens of thousands of qualified scientists have signed statements similar to the following, current on the website of the International Climate Science Coalition:

“We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming”.

Myth number three is that present day temperature is unusually warm compared with past climate. Wrong again, as demonstrated by both historic and deep time records.

And myth number four is that dangerous global warming will be caused by human emissions. In actuality, global temperature has cooled slightly over the last 10 years in the face of a 5 per cent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Need I go on?

Yes, but only to say that the needed and cost-effective policy to deal with climate change hazard, of whatever origin, is to prepare for and adapt to dangerous events as and when they happen.

 Bob Carter | Townsville – September 11, 2011, 11:17AM

Thanks for your contribution, Bob.

P.S. I note that comments were closed for this article sometime around 3pm AEST (barely 24 hours after the piece was published). Seems a tad premature… read the comments to see if you can spot a possible reason…

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Sunday Age Climate Agenda: ACM's question reported

11 September, 2011 by

Fairfax parodies itself - gold!

The Sunday Age today publishes a lengthy article (and deserves a lengthy response) regarding my question on the OurSay website, which was, by way of reminder:

It is accepted that man’s carbon dioxide emissions are causing an amount of warming of the climate. However, the magnitude of any future warming is highly uncertain. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that its understanding of a number of key natural climate drivers and feedbacks is ”low” or ”very low”. Why is it, therefore, that the Fairfax press is reluctant to engage with and investigate this uncertainty with an open-minded impartiality, and instead continues to publish articles based on a rigid editorial agenda that ‘the science is settled’?

Michael Bachelard, the writer, discovered that the question was from this site – I had used a nom de plume to avoid the question being tainted in any way by being from a “sceptic” blog as I wanted the question to be judged on its merits not its provenance – but given that they had established it had come from this site, I have to admit to being a little disappointed at not being contacted by him to expand a little on the premise of my question before the article was written, which I would have liked the opportunity to do. Never mind.

The article is entitled:

“Majority Report: why consensus is all the rage”

And this is the first trap: consensus is a word of politics, not science. I will return to this later.

The article firstly describes briefly the history of the IPCC, but fails to mention that the purpose of the IPCC, as set out in its Principles (terms of reference) was to investigate, specifically, “human-induced” climate change. This, I submit, is a significant reason why the reports of the IPCC will inevitably have an intrinsic (even if inadvertent) bias towards findings that support the AGW theory.

The article then discusses some of the issues raised by my question:

But despite the endeavours of its 1250 scientific authors and 2500 peer reviewers over four reports – from 1990 to 2007 – the panel still has ”low” or ”very low” certainty about a number of the drivers of climate change. When it measures uncertainty, the panel looks at both the scientific evidence, and also the consensus among scientists about the evidence. If either of these measures is low, then the IPCC flags an uncertainty.

In its most recent report, in 2007, the impact on climate change of clouds, snow, aircraft vapour trails, the ash, soot and chemicals from volcanoes, water vapour, cosmic rays and the ”surface effects” of vegetation, buildings and other things occupying land space, were all considered uncertain. There were further doubts about the history of the changing climate and the growth and shrinkage of ice sheets in the past.

All agreed so far. However, the justification given by Sydney Morning Herald editor, Peter Fray, for running alarmist stories is less convincing. He claims:

”The IPCC … may still be investigating the natural drivers of climate change but that is not the same as saying climate change does not exist or the science is in doubt,” he said.

On the first part of this claim, I would suggest that is not very likely, and on the second, it is a misrepresentation of my position, and the position of sceptics. At no point did I say climate change does not exist – in fact I expressly acknowledged the effect of anthropogenic emissions on the climate. [This is a long post so click through to continue reading – thanks]

[Read more…]

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New look for ACM

9 September, 2011 by

ACM is trialling a new look – more modern, cleaner, less cluttered, and most importantly, easier to read. Features will be tweaked over the coming weeks.

Leave your feedback in the comments and let us know what you think.

Thanks!

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Ban Ki-moon: clueless on climate

9 September, 2011 by

Moon(-bat)

Ban ki-Moon has been in Sydney – lucky old us. He gave a speech at Sydney University and was interviewed (worshipped) from various different positions by the ABC, naturally.

One of the key subjects was climate change, and as usual, there was spin and emotional blackmail from the UN chief, claiming on the one hand that “Australia could lead the way” in the fight against climate change [er, if reducing global emissions by 0.075% in a decade is “leading the way”, I’d hate to see the slackers at the back… – Ed] and on the other imploring us to “look into the eyes” of Pacific islanders forced out of their homes by climate change.

Of course, there is no evidence that sea levels are accelerating due to anthropogenic emissions (in fact they have plateaued and recently dropped), but that doesn’t stop the UN chief using it to push his organisation’s political agenda for a global governmental role.

You can’t blame him really, after all, he’s got the IPCC advising him, poor bloke. He had words of advice for “sceptics” (thanks in advance):

“I know, once again, there are the sceptics. Those who say climate change is not real,” he said. 

Wrong. We do not say climate change is not real, we say that climate change happens (duh) but man’s effect on it is small and taxing our economies out of existence won’t make any difference whatsoever. In fact, strong economies are needed to fund the costs of adaptation to climate change whether anthropogenic or natural, rather than pissing trillions of dollars up the wall trying, and failing, to mitigate.

“But the facts are clear: global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, millions of people are suffering today from climate impacts. Climate change is very real.”

It’s that correlation and causation thing again.

He suggested the doubters take a trip to Kiribati.

“Look into the eyes of the young boy who told me: ‘I am afraid to sleep at night’ because of the rising water,” he said.

“Talk with the parents who told me how they stood guard fearing that their children might drown in their own homes when the tide came in.” (source)

Nothing but mawkish emotional blackmail. Sea levels have not accelerated due to industrialisation. They have risen at virtually the same rate for thousands of years. And anyway, Kiribati is growing – the BBC told us so it must be true.

Then there was the usual bull on China, an example to us all whilst at the same time building a new coal fired power station every couple of weeks:

To those who said there was no point in taking action, because other nations were not, Mr Ban pointed to big polluters including China and India.

China had pledged to reduce its carbon pollution by up to 45 per cent in the next decade, he said. (source)

Well, my friends, that is an outright lie. Because they have pledged to do nothing of the kind. I think the Sydney Morning Herald in its agenda-driven editorial haze forgot the most important phrase “carbon intensity”. Which means China’s emissions will continue to rise, but at a slower rate than before. Big deal – their increases will still outstrip Australia’s reductions many, many times over – that is, if they actually manage to achieve that target, which is far from certain.

Smoke and mirrors once again from the UN’s chief alarmist. The airport’s that way…

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Roy Spencer responds to Dessler

8 September, 2011 by

The saga continues

Roy Spencer has indicated he will be preparing a paper in response to Dessler’s response to Spencer and Braswell’s original paper in Remote Sensing – although he jokes it will take longer than six weeks to get peer-reviewed (because sceptical papers are by definition heresy and must not be given any credibility, © K Trenberth).

However, his initial comments on Dessler are here. The following extract is interesting from the point of view of integrity:

Quoting Dessler’s paper, from the Introduction:

“Introduction
The usual way to think about clouds in the climate system is that they are a feedback… …In recent papers, Lindzen and Choi [2011] and Spencer and Braswell [2011] have argued that reality is reversed: clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature. If this claim is correct, then significant revisions to climate science may be required.”

But we have never claimed anything like “clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature”! We claim causation works in BOTH directions, not just one direction (feedback) as he claims. Dr. Dessler knows this very well, and I would like to know:

1) what he was trying to accomplish by such a blatant misrepresentation of our position, and

2) how did all of the peer reviewers of the paper, who (if they are competent) should be familiar with our work, allow such a statement to stand?

I can guess it’s because Dessler’s peer-reviewers are probably all on “the Team”, and they can’t be bothered to actually read the heretical paper Dessler is referring to (or if they did it was treated with contempt), and anyway, who cares if we misrepresent what he wrote? It’s only Spencer, after all.

Double standards at work, as usual.

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"And the Eureka Prize for climate propaganda goes to…"

7 September, 2011 by

Propaganda

… John Cook, who has been awarded the gong for “Advancement of Scientific Knowledge” in the 2011 Eureka Prize. Cook publishes the website Skeptical Science, which allegedly “rebuts” all the filthy lies peddled by evil deniers (© any alarmist you care to mention).

The Sydney Morning Herald crows:

John Cook, a physics graduate who created the Skeptical Science website to debunk lies and misinformation about climate change science, won the prize for advancement of climate change knowledge, sponsored by the NSW government.

Mr Cook, co-author of Climate Change Denial, started the website in 2007 and has published scientific rebuttals to more than 150 climate change myths. (source)

Impartial presentation of scientific knowledge, however, it ain’t. It is an ideologically driven propaganda site, the sole aim of which is to rubbish, ridicule and dismiss anything which challenges the precious consensus. If you need further evidence of this, simply look at Cook’s publications, which are more concerned with attacking “deniers” than seeking scientific truth. Also check out Lubos Motl’s response to Cook’s “rebuttals” here.

More than anything, however, the award reflects extremely poorly on the Australian Museum, which awards the prizes, and, like so many formerly respectably scientific institutions, has been wholly compromised by a blind acceptance of climate hysteria.

We sure are having a bad week for the integrity of science…

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OMG: Un-Skeptical Scientist wins Eureka award

6 September, 2011 by

That would be John Cook of the alarmist website (un-) Skeptical Science. For, wait for it, “Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge” – no, really. Words cannot begin to express…

A quote:

“His unique efforts using web and social media tools come at a time when accurate information is essential in terms of understating and responding to climate change,” said Frank Howarth, director of the Australian Museum.

LINK – near the bottom

Where is the gin?

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Pal-review at work: Spencer and Braswell rebuttal published after just SIX WEEKS

6 September, 2011 by

You review my paper…

Whereas a sceptical paper could take up to TWO YEARS (e.g. Lindzen and Choi). I guess it’s all a question of who you know and what side you’re on, right?

WUWT has the full story.

UPDATE: Luboš Motl goes to work on the rebuttal here. Enjoy – here’s an extract:

Well, I am really amazed that people who have self-evidently no idea about physics – and about basic reality such as the impact of clouds on temperature – could have been accepted to the college: Dessler was allowed to study at Rice University. It’s just utterly incredible how hollow skulls like his might have been accepted to a university.

Let me summarize the basic errors in Dessler’s crackpot rants:

  • he incorrectly assumes that clouds have to “trap” heat if they want to influence the temperature
  • he incorrectly assumes that the cloud cover at a given place isn’t an independent degree of freedom; instead, it is a function of the carbon dioxide emissions
  • he incorrectly assumes that it is illegitimate to test the predicted correlations of various physical models by comparing the simulations with the observations; instead, he thinks that it is legitimate to hide his head into the sand and claim that there is nothing to be seen here
  • more generally, he seems to incorrectly assume that one may be a complete imbecile such as himself to write relevant papers about the energy flows in the atmosphere.
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More fallout from Spencer and Braswell

6 September, 2011 by

More interesting reading this morning on this disgraceful episode:

Josh nails it

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59-41: Newspoll disaster for Labor

6 September, 2011 by

Inconsequential

Could we see Labor on sub-40%? Very possibly if they carry on like this. And Tony Abbott now leads Gillard by a clear margin as preferred PM:

JULIA Gillard’s personal support has plunged to a new low as Tony Abbott outstrips her as preferred prime minister and Kevin Rudd surges ahead as the best person to lead Labor.

The Prime Minister appears to have borne the brunt of public disapproval over the failure last week of the government’s plan to send 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia. Voter satisfaction with Ms Gillard, who is now forced to deal with the Opposition Leader to keep alive the option of processing asylum-seekers overseas, fell six points to a record low of 23 per cent as dissatisfaction jumped seven points to 68 per cent. The only modern prime minister with worse personal support was Paul Keating, who had a satisfaction level of 17 per cent and dissatisfaction of 74 per cent in August 1993.

Ms Gillard’s net satisfaction rating – the difference between voter satisfaction and dissatisfaction – is now minus 45 per cent. As Ms Gillard’s personal standing fell, Mr Abbott jumped clear to a nine-point lead over her as the preferred prime minister, with a rise in support from 39 per cent to 43 per cent. Ms Gillard’s support fell four points to a new low of 34 per cent.

…

Based on preference flows at the last election, the Coalition has an all-time high two-party-preferred vote of 59 per cent compared with Labor’s 41 per cent. Such a result at an election would reduce Labor to a rump of a party, wiping out dozens of Labor MPs including many ministers. (source)

Treat the electorate with contempt, as Labor has done over and over again, and this is the result.

How do you feel now, Anthony Albanese, about your snide remarks to the Carbon Tax protesters? Labor is the Party of No Consequence, and the Government of Incompetence.

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