TC Yasi reaches Category 5

2 February, 2011 by

TC Yasi

Our thoughts are with the people of Queensland as Cyclone Yasi approaches – a monster storm indeed.

Check out its progress at the Bureau page here.

For those still tempted to use the words “unprecedented” or biggest/worst “ever”, nothing helps more than a look at history:

Tropical cyclone Mahina hit on 4 March 1899. It was a Category 5 cyclone, the most powerful of the tropical cyclone severity categories. In addition, Mahina was perhaps one of the most intense cyclones ever observed in the Southern Hemisphere and almost certainly the most intense cyclone ever observed off the East Coast of Australia in living memory. Mahina was named by Government Meteorologist for Queensland Clement Wragge, a pioneer of naming such storms.

Within an hour, the Thursday Island based pearling fleet anchored in the bay or nearby, was either driven onto the shore or onto the Great Barrier Reef or sunk at their anchorages. Four schooners and the manned Channel Rock lightship were lost. A further two schooners were wrecked but later refloated. Of the luggers, 54 were lost and a further 12 were wrecked but refloated. Over 30 survivors of the wrecked vessels were later rescued from the shore however over 307 were killed, mostly immigrant non-European crew members.

A storm surge, variously reported as either 13 metres or 48 feet (14.6 meters) high, swept inland for about 5 kilometers, destroying anything that was left of the Bathurst Bay pearling fleet along with the settlement.

Eyewitness Constable J. M. Kenny reported that a 48 ft (14.6 m) storm surge swept over their camp at Barrow Point atop a 40 ft (12 m) high ridge and reached 3 miles (5 km) inland, the largest storm surge ever recorded. However Nott and Hayne reviewed the evidence for this. They modelled the surge based on the 914 hPa central pressure and found the surge should only have been 2 to 3m height. They also surveyed the area looking for wave cut scarps and deposits characteristic of storm events but found none higher than 5 m. Of the 48 ft surge they suggest the ground level cited may not be correct, or that terrestrial flooding was also involved. (source)

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Greens blame Cyclone Yasi on "climate change"

1 February, 2011 by

Bunch of cynical ecotards

Does anyone really give a flying f**k what the Greens think any more? Why yes, the ABC does, which reports their every petulant outburst with wholly undue reverence. It was only a matter of time before the eco-totalitarians in the Greens, desperate to advance their Marxist agenda by any means possible, blamed the (yet to arrive) Cyclone Yasi on climate change. Tell me Senator Milne, where is your evidence for that ludicrous statement? Oh, yeah, I remember, we don’t need evidence, do we, just desperate appeals to ignorance and emotion.

I run these stories to demonstrate to my readers how irrelevant the Greens are in modern politics. I know it’s painful, but it has to be done.

The Australian Greens say Tropical Cyclone Yasi is a “tragedy of climate change”.

The party was heavily criticised after it linked the Queensland floods to climate change and blamed coal miners.

Greens deputy leader Christine Milne says the cyclone is another example of why it is important to cut carbon pollution.

“This is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy of climate change,” she said.

“The scientists have been saying that we are going to experience more extreme weather events, that their intensity is going to increase, their frequency.” (source)

To think that people have been stupid enough to vote these idiots into the balance of power in the Senate beggars belief.

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Media bias: Monckton and Delingpole stitched up

1 February, 2011 by

BBC is tied up with it…

Hands up who is in the least bit surprised by this? Two shows featuring climate sceptics by the BBC, both heavily biased against any kind of scepticism whatsoever (and in favour of gullibility, therefore). Earlier this week, James Delingpole was done up like the proverbial kipper in a documentary presented by new Royal Society president, Sir Paul Nurse [that should have rung alarm bells for a start – Ed]:

Nurse came to interview me at my home last summer, ostensibly – so his producer assured me – as a disinterested seeker-after-truth on a mission to discover why the public is losing its faith in scientists. “Not scientists,” I replied. “Just ‘climate scientists.’” But as is clear from the Horizon documentary Nurse had already made up his mind. That’s why about the only section he used out of at least three hours’ worth of footage is the one where he tosses what he clearly imagines is the killer question: Suppose you were ill with cancer would you wish to be treated by “consensus” medicine or something from the quack fringe?

As you’ll see in the programme, this took me rather by surprise. Nurse had come posing as an open-minded investigator eager to hear why Climategate had raised legitimate doubts about the reliability of the “consensus” on global warming. Instead, the man I met was a parti-pris bruiser so delighted with his own authority as a proper Nobel-prizewinning scientist that he knew what the truth was already. And to prove it, here was a brilliant analogy which would rubbish the evil climate deniers’ cause once and for all!

But Nurse’s analogy is shabby, dishonest and patently false. The “consensus” on Climate Change; and the “consensus” on medical care bear no similarity whatsoever. (source)

But what does it matter? The aim is to smear the filthy deniers at any cost, right? We need to shelter the viewers from their opinions [because they are so damaging to our beloved consensus… – Ed].

The second example in a week did the dirty on Christopher Monckton. This time, “independent” filmmaker Rupert Murray ingratiates himself with the sceptics and convinces them that he’s sympathetic to their cause – but then dumps on them from a great height. As Dellers reports again:

Murray’s documentary is another hatchet job. This time the man designated for the chop is Lord Monckton. Except, knowing Monckton as I do, I don’t think he’s going to let this one lie. Sure he’ll probably be made to look a fool, but then as Richard North explains in this superb essay, this means nothing.

This is the practice of modern documentary makers, who can gather huge amounts of material and then edit and assemble the material in a way that they can present a message, the message the producer wishes to convey. This is irrespective of what is actually said, and what interviewees actually intended.

The process, North explains, works like this:

You write the script first, setting out what you want to say. Then you go out and find the talking heads that will say the words you need to fit the script. You (in this case I) interview them, collect up the words on the tape and then go back to the edit suite and pull out the words that fit.

Murray, it seems likely, had made up his mind what his angle was long, long before he inveigled his way into the sceptics’ circle and passed himself off as a decent fellow just trying to find out the truth. I’ll say one thing for him: he’s very plausible. I only twigged last week, when I rang him up to find out what his documentary would look like and how much I was in it.

“We’ve decided to concentrate on Monckton I’m afraid,” he said.

“Oh never mind,” I said. “I quite understand. Christopher is way more colourful and exciting than I am.”

We then had a chat about peer-to-peer review, in the course of which Murray quoted approvingly one “Dr Trenberth.” “Well Dr Trenberth says….” he began, in a way which suggested regular contact and great admiration.

Anyway, at least I’m not in it, I don’t think. When Calum asked me to sign the release form for my interview, I said that I would quite like to see the programme beforehand. Funny, I haven’t heard from them since. (source)

Monckton went so far as to seek an injunction preventing broadcast without a right of reply. Unfortunately, it failed.

Media bias at its absolute worst.

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NSW climate fund raided to ease electricity prices

1 February, 2011 by

Raiders of the Lost Climate Fund

Thanks to pointless green policies, electricity prices were set to soar [even further – Ed] in New South Wales, so what better way to avoid such increases than by taking money from other pointless green policies? Makes sense really! As the worst Labor government in living memory stumbles to its inevitable election defeat in March, the Premier is trying to do something, anything, to please the long-suffering electorate:

KRISTINA Keneally is promising to axe electricity bill rises of $100 in a $1.5 billion bid to calm voter anger over power prices.

The Premier also flagged she would soon announce an electricity rebate for households earning less than $150,000 a year.

The moves come after months of revelations and campaigning by The Daily Telegraph to ease the pain on working families around the state.

“I can’t make bananas any cheaper, I can’t make the cost of petrol any cheaper but I can do something as the Premier of this state about electricity prices and that’s what I’m doing,” she said yesterday.

Ms Keneally said the Government would pay the entire cost of its $1.5 billion solar bonus scheme, until 2016, rather than all electricity users being charged.

To pay for the promise, the Government will strip its Climate Change Fund almost entirely of money for green projects until 2020, including scrapping its long-running rainwater tank rebate. (source)

Feel good story of the day.

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Gillard's flood disaster

31 January, 2011 by

"Tax and spend, tax and spend!"

The flood levy is turning into a disaster in its own right for Julia Gillard and Labor. People who have given generously of their own free will over the last few weeks to the flood appeals are now furious at being slugged with a compulsory donation via a new tax, when all they have seen over the past four years from Labor is reckless spending and waste. This will stick in the craw of many (including me). Why should we pay more in tax when Labor already manage to waste so much, is the question people should, and no doubt will, be asking.

Wayne Swan on ABC News Radio this morning was particularly nauseating, urging the crossbench MPs to wave the new tax through without a pause for breath because its “what the Australian people want”, and playing emotional blackmail by claiming that the Opposition, by not supporting the levy, were heartlessly abandoning Queenslanders who have suffered in the floods. The reality is the opposite, of course. The Opposition in fact cares more, because it treats taxpayer’s money with respect, ensuring that it is spent wisely and with value for money as a priority, not simply wasted or spent recklessly. Labor on the other hand splash it around like its going out of fashion – they are the ones that don’t care.

Rarely has a government been so out of touch with what the public want, except perhaps in New South Wales, but that’s a whole other story…

From The Australian:

COMPELLING people to do that which you refuse to do yourself goes beyond hypocrisy: it’s plain nasty. That’s why Julia Gillard’s flood levy is likely to sink her as being a viable Prime Minister.

The levy is based on the rationale that the rich (those on more than $100,000 annually) have enough fat in their family budget to cut 1 per cent of their spending to give to flood rebuilding.

The levy will raise $1.8 billion. The government’s annual budget is $350bn. So why can’t the government that gave us the pink batts debacle, that mailed out $900 cheques (now apparently loans) and is going to splash $36bn to give us quicker internet, cut a measly 0.5 per cent of its mega-budget to fix the flood damage?

The answer has nothing to do with capacity.

It has everything to do with misplaced ideology. In times of crisis, people and institutions revert to their default position. And for Labor, problem-solving option A is always tax the rich.

Read it all.

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UK Met Office has some explaining to do

29 January, 2011 by

Explanation, please…

A Freedom of Information request to the UK Met Office has revealed that there was no “secret” forecast of extreme cold given to the UK government, as claimed in the second report here. Autonomous Mind takes up the story:

A look at the information makes clear there is nowhere left for the Met Office to hide.  The Met Office has been caught ‘cold’ lying about its winter forecast in a disgraceful attempt to salvage its reputation.  Its claim that it forecast the cold start to the winter lays in tatters thanks to an exchange of emails between the department and the Cabinet Office.

As a result the Met Office is completely discredited.  Also utterly discredited is the BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin, who on the Met Office’s behalf used a column in the Radio Times (later carried in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail) to state that:

In October the forecaster privately warned the Government – with whom it has a contract – that Britain was likely to face an extremely cold winter.

It kept the prediction secret, however, after facing severe criticism over the accuracy of its long-term forecasts.

(My emphasis in bold italic above and below) Harrabin went on to say in his piece that:

Why didn’t the Met Office tell us that Greenland was about to swap weather with Godalming? The truth is it [The Met Office] did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October. But we weren’t let in on the secret. “The reason? The Met Office no longer publishes its seasonal forecasts because of the ridicule it suffered for predicting a barbecue summer in 2009 – the summer that campers floated around in their tents.

The email exchange in the screenshot below [not shown here – Ed] proves this is a lie. The Cabinet Office civil servant (bottom message) confirms the weather outlook supplied by the Met Office earlier that day is what the government will use in its ‘Forward Look’.  The Met Office employee (top message) agrees with it.

The all important sentence is the first.  ‘The Met Office seasonal outlook for the period November to January is showing no clear signals for the winter’.  The Met Office knew this was the case when it sent Harrabin scurrying off to spin its lie that the Met Office ‘did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October ‘.  The briefing to the Cabinet Office contains no such warning – and vindicates the parliamentary answer given by Francis Maude when questioned about the forecast the government received from the Met Office. (source)

“No clear signals for the winter” means that they aren’t predicting either a colder one or a warmer, which is hardly a forecast of “extreme cold”… Time for an explanation from the Met Office and Harrabin, I think.

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Climate madness and climate sense

29 January, 2011 by

Moon(-bat)

A few articles caught my eye this morning – more madness than sanity, as usual. Firstly a truly extraordinary rant by Paddy Manning in Fairfax, which I show just for amusement, really:

HOW pathetic watching sceptics squirm over the link between the recent floods and climate change. How much more risk do they want us to tolerate while we wait for the proof that might satisfy them?

Way too much. For decades we’ve been told that global warming will lead to more extreme weather events. Now it’s happening before our eyes. (source)

The rest’s the same. What’s even more pathetic, however, is watching pig-ignorant journalists and politicians with the memory span of a goldfish use the floods to make cheap political points, when there have been worse floods before, even in the microscopic 150 year flood record, with no evidence of increasing frequency or severity. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story, right?

Now, on to the UN. Whenever a sceptic dares mention that there may be an ulterior motive behind climate change action, like anti-globalisation, or anti-capitalism, or scaling back western economies, the Fairfax-reading, ABC-watching lefty heads can’t wait to pop. So isn’t it odd that Ban Ki-Moon(bat) is advocating precisely that:

The world’s current economic model is an environmental “global suicide pact” that will result in disaster if it isn’t reformed, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, warned today.

Ban said that political and business leaders need to embrace economic innovation in order to save the planet.

“We need a revolution,” he told a panel at the World Economic Forum inDavos, Switzerland, on how best to make the global economy sustainable. “Climate change is also showing us that the old model is more than obsolete.”

He called the current economic model a recipe for “national disaster” and said: “We are running out of time. Time to tackle climate change, time to ensure sustainable … growth.” The Guardian revealed yesterday that Ban is ending his hands-on efforts to reach a global climate deal through UN negotiations, and move to focus on a broader sustainability agenda. (source)

“Sustainability” being a codeword for massive wealth redistribution, abandoning capitalism and its replacement with socialism and Marxism, of course.

But amongst all the madness, a glimmer of hope. Remember that the basis of science is scepticism and that “Question everything” should be the mantra… except in climate science, however, where the mantra is “climate models trump empirical evidence”. The opposite of sceptical is “gullible”, and more and more people are abandoning gullibility for scepticism:

The number of climate change sceptics has almost doubled in four years, official research showed yesterday.

A quarter of Britons are unconvinced that the world is warming following successive freezing winters and a series of scandals over the credibility of climate science.

The figures suggest that a growing proportion of the public do not share the belief of all three major political parties and Whitehall – that climate change is a major and urgent challenge requiring radical and expensive policies.

The survey, carried out by the Office for National Statistics, has plotted levels of acceptance of the theory of man-made global warming since 2006.

In that year it found that 87 per cent of people were at least ‘fairly convinced’ that climate change was happening.

Last year that share had dropped to 75 per cent. Numbers who say they are unconvinced went up from 12 to 23 per cent. (source)

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Greenland ice sheet: rumours of death exaggerated

28 January, 2011 by

A few cubes for my Gin & Tonic, please

UPDATE: Almost two years ago to the day, this story: Reports of Greenland Ice Sheet’s demise premature

Another inconvenient result from the Science is Settled Department. Great scare story this one. Evil SUVs warm climate, Greenland ice sheet slips gently below the waves, global sea levels rise 7 metres, millions inundated. Unfortunately for the alarmists, it probably won’t happen for several thousand years, if at all. As you read this, if you listen carefully, you can almost hear the Lefty heads popping in the Guardian’s environment desk as they type out the story, as another favourite of the catastrophists bites the dust:

The threat of the Greenland ice sheet slipping ever faster into the sea because of warmer summers has been ruled out by a scientific study.

Until now, it was thought that increased melting could lubricate the ice sheet, causing it to sink ever faster into the sea. The issue was a key unknown in the landmark 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which pinned the blame for climate change firmly on greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

However, the impact of rising sea temperatures on melting ice sheets is still uncertain, meaning it remains difficult to put an upper limit on potential sea level rises. Understanding the risk is crucial because about 70% of the world’s population live in coastal regions, which host many of the world’s biggest cities, such as London, New York and Bangkok.

“The Greenland ice sheet is safer than we thought,” said Professor Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, who led the research published tomorrow in Nature.

Shepherd’s team used satellite imagery to track the progress of the west Greenland ice sheet as it slipped towards the sea each summer, over five years.

Researchers had feared that more melting from the surface of the ice in hotter years would in turn provide more meltwater for a slippery film at the sheet’s base. More melting would mean more slippage and a greater rise in the sea level.

But they discovered that, above a certain threshold, the slipping began to slow. On-the-ground studies and work done on alpine glaciers suggest that higher volumes of meltwater form distinct channels under the ice, draining the water more efficiently and reducing the formation of a lubricating film. (source)

Yeah, this stuff really is all settled science, isn’t it? If they can’t tell whether a gigantic block of ice is going anywhere or not, what hope is there for the complexities of the climate system…?

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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

28 January, 2011 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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Green gimmicks axed to pay for floods

27 January, 2011 by

… has a silver lining

Every cloud…

GREEN programs have been hit hard by spending cuts to help pay for rebuilding in flood-devastated parts of Australia.

They include Julia Gillard’s much derided $394 million “cash for clunkers” program, an election promise designed to get older cars off Australian roads.

Other programs axed include the green car innovation fund and the green start fund.

Savings have also been found across the forward estimates in the solar hot water program and the solar homes and communities program, and in funding for the global carbon capture and storage institute.

The Greens are apoplectic:

“It beggars belief that the government would choose to cut climate change programs like solar flagships, energy efficiency and the solar hot water rebate to fund disaster relief when such disasters will be made worse by climate change,” Senator Milne said. (source)

Double joy.

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