Anna Rose of AYCC
UPDATE: Don’t forget to vote again at ABC’s website – the results prior to the show have been disappeared…
ABC’s documentary “I Can Change Your Mind about Climate” was an interesting experiment, but ultimately unsuccessful.
Throwing together veteran of the Senate, Nick Minchin, a well-known climate sceptic, and Anna Rose, founder of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, each attempted to change the mind of the other by calling on their own selection of experts and commentators.
Prior to the documentary, the ABC did an excellent job of attempting to skew opinion. Catalyst, ABC’s science show immediately before the documentary, linked climate change to dying trees, and again showing excellent timing, ABC chose to begin the rehabilitation of Tim Flannery, by trailing his touchy-feely documentary alongside trailers for this show.
Furthermore, ABC Environment managed to post no less than THREE articles supporting the consensus, with not a single sceptical viewpoint for balance. Desperation, perhaps? You be the judge.
The choice of Rose as an adversary for Minchin was unfortunate for a number of reasons, primarily that as founder of AYCC, she is hardly likely to abandon her position on AGW – her entire career is based on sustaining that belief. Furthermore, she is married to Simon Sheikh of GetUp! (thanks to a comment for that little gem), which again reinforces the perception that her mind was already made up.
Perhaps another politician would have been better – someone on the Labor side who was a believer and not so entrenched in alarmist activism and advocacy would have made for a better match.
Rose’s choice of experts was patchy. Her first, a farmer offering anecdotal evidence of a changing climate, was an obvious wasted opportunity. Matthew England, a well known alarmist scientist (see here for example) was a better option, but his certainty with regard to the magnitude of climate feedbacks was unconvincing. Richard Muller, of BEST fame, did his “best” to present himself as that rarest of commodities, a heretic who became a believer, but again was to my mind unconvincing. Personally, I would trust satellite data a thousand times over land data when you see the adjustments and fudges applied to the raw records.
An expert on measuring CO2 at Mauna Loa similarly raised question marks – I don’t think anyone seriously disputes that CO2 is rising.
Minchin’s first experts were Jo Nova and David Evans, who in the very short time they were seen, acquitted themselves well. It was unfortunate that Rose made such a meal out of Nova’s “recording the recording”, in order to ensure that there was no unfair editing, but given the history of bias at the ABC one can understand Nova’s concerns.
UPDATE @ 11.10am on 27/4/12: Comment from Jo Nova at her blog here:
“I just watched the online streaming version. We did 4 hours of footage at our house, and they showed not one single point I made, not one answer to Anna Roses questions. I repeated my favourite lines about 28 million weather balloons, 3000 ocean buoys off by heart at least 4 times. Obviously everything I said was too “dangerous”. But we have the full tape of the whole event, so sooner or later the world will see the parts that the ABC deemed to be not “interesting” to the Australian public. So all in all, pretty much as we expected. They trimmed it down to the point where it’s tame, they gave the alarmists the last word (they always do), and while they were happy to grill us about where our money came from just like Wendy Carlisle, when the question backfires (because we are not shills for anyone) they won’t show it. We can’t let the public know that Jo Nova and David are volunteers.”
He then paid a visit to Richard Lindzen who believes that climate sensitivity, the essential crux of the climate debate, is low, due to various feedback acting to reduce warming from CO2. Rose then demonstrated an unfortunate tendency towards the cheap ad hominem attack, by accusing Lindzen of denying links between smoking and cancer. Such allegations were treated by Minchin and Lindzen with the contempt they deserved.
Rose’s low point was her introduction to Marc Morano. She refused to engage with someone who was “not a climate scientist”. Neither was her first “expert”, the farmer, but that didn’t stop Minchin from listening politely. Her petulant schoolyard attitude unfortunately betrayed her youth and inexperience, and harmed her cause. Morano was pretty well controlled in the circumstances.
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Minchin’s choice of Bjorn Lomborg was again interesting. Lomborg, with his trademark shock of blond hair, is the warmist the warmists love to hate, being a believer in AGW but rejecting the draconian emission reductions most of them advocate. I agree with his logic, yes invest in renewable research, but it should not be foisted upon an economy until it is competitive. This provided one of the few meeting of minds in the show.
In conclusion, there was no way that Rose’s mind would EVER be changed – she is too wrapped up in the whole socio-political agenda of AGW for that. She unfortunately resorted to cheap tactics when the answers weren’t going her way, and her discourtesy to Morano was unforgivable. Furthermore, the evidence she presented was unlikely to be persuasive enough to change Minchin’s mind (or mine).
On balance, however, and putting my own views aside, it would be hard not to award a win to Minchin. Rose was outclassed – her youth and inexperience showed at every turn, and her open-mindedness compromised from the start.
I’m not going to say a great deal about the Q&A debate afterwards. It was horribly biased as would be expected: four against two (including host Tony Jones, of course). Rose continued her ad hom theme by accusing sceptics of accepting funds from Heartland, and Jones appointed Matthew England, who was astonishingly in the audience, as “official” climate scientist to the panel, the go-to person whenever Minchin or Clive Palmer made a claim about the science – an appalling lapse of judgment on Jones’ part.
Palmer and Minchin landed some good punches, however, although one must wonder why they put themselves through the ABC wringer…
LINKS TO REACTION AND COMMENT
- Minchin has an opinion piece in The Age here, in which he reveals that his visit to a cosmic ray scientist at CERN was left on the cutting room floor…
- Anna Rose has a piece up at Unleashed here, in which I briefly saw the word “denialist” and closed the window. Let’s face it, we know what it’s going to say.
- Jo Nova has a reaction here entitled “The intellectual vacuum – alarmists are afraid of debate, they namecall and break laws of reason”
- The ABC website for the show is here
- Michael Ashley, warmist at UNSW, writes at The Conversation here. I’ll leave it up to you to deconstruct this essay, but in the first few lines he misrepresents Minchin’s position as being “sceptical of ANY human impact on climate” and it’s all downhill from there
Australian Climate Madness 
“Jo Nova has a reaction..”
Which includes a comment about the show having shown not one minute of about 4 hours of footage with Jo. This is to be taken as a compliment; it means her argument was too strong to be shown on their obviously biased show.
She has the video though, so I can’t wait for it to be released; if permitted, I’ll be doing my part to make it go viral.
Thanks, Dave. Have added Jo’s comments to the post.
It was interesting to hear Anna Rose suggest that instead of mining coal we should make solar panals instead. There was a short cheer of agreement from the audience. Tells you something about the stacked audience doesn’t it. Does this girl realise that to produce a solar cell or parts for a wind turbine requires heavy, energy consumming, emmission intensive INDUSTRY. Without the baseload grunt of coal little girl you will be making jack shit.
The reality is you have to mine coal to make solar panels. The production of polycrystalline silicon is a height temperature thermal process And can only be done where energy is cheap. I heard that it takes three years of solar power generation for solar panels to recover the energy used in their manufacture.
Tim Flannery, who has shares in Geodynamics, and a vested interest in the global warming industry, appears on a touchy-feely documentary alongside trailers for this show? Surprise surprise!
This Anna Rose is dangerous ill informed mouthpiece for the Left and doesn’t have a clue about the so called “Climate change debate”‘!
great article ACM !
unfortunately I was unable to watch ‘I can change your mind…’ but did see some of Q&A.
what struck me was the amount of misinformed hearsay allowed in Q&A – I would have liked to see the opportunity to respond to and question the claims of participants. e.g. funding from Heartland, the efficacy of BOM and CSIRO data.
I would also like to see a ‘traditional’ debate, with set rules for speaking, etc. teams to include a scientist, an economist, a sociologist, and an emphasis on ‘show me the evidence’.
to my mind, ice is accumulating on a world scale, sea levels are not rising, there is no ‘planet induced’ overpopulation problem, the cost of CO2 mitigation destroys lives and economies.
the cagw ‘program’ is successful in achieving the aims of the much larger and more sinister program of the United Nations’ agenda 21.
Ian: Fuly agree…These devices require metal componentrs.The wind turbines require massive steel and metal structures.As you say you can’t make metals (Smelting non ferrous or iron & steel without fossil fuels and massive CO2 emmissions).The whole of her premise is purely emotive and without substance.If she had thought it through she would recognise that we would either have to “Rebuild” restart the Blast Furnaces at Bluescope and change Whyalla’s model back from “Mining” to steelmaking.Plus we would have to start building additional steel capacity in Australia.(More emissions).OR just import the steel and non ferrous metals from China and India and let them spurt out the CO2.So where is her real misguided concern for CO2 reduction and AGM ? Ignorance and stupidity combined.In the hands of a Green,immature socialist impressionable paranoid.Hope we have better material for ur future politicians than this brain dead individual and those who applaud before engaging their very limited brain cells!!
Ian Middleton – RIGHT ON!
She was incredibly naive! And as is the case with alarmists was totally inept in being able to make a point without getting all hysterical!
Very disappointing performance from Anna Rose. Youth and naivety do not excuse a complete lack of intellectual curiosity, analytical ability, verbal fluency and basic honesty. It is amazing who they let through university these days. She was complimented I think by Minchin who called her ‘likable’ or something similar. I frankly find that patronising of young women. Expectations for the reasoning ability of attractive young females are obviously no higher than they ever were, despite one hundred years of feminism. Incidentally, I have known many sharp-thinking and even brilliant Australian women, and Rose doesn’t make it out of the gate against the competition. On the other hand, she was the best the warmists could front up…. sad, very sad. Did you see Matthew England trying to convince us with his crayon drawing? Five gold stars for the lovely piccy Matthew. And the hairy pub sophist from the UK? What a job lot.
Very disappointing performance from Nick Minchin. Age and experience do not excuse a complete lack of intellectual curiosity, analytical ability, verbal fluency and basic honesty. He was the best the denialists could front up…. sad, very sad. Did you see Marc Morano trying to convince us with his fast-talking error-laden drivel? Five gold stars for the rant Marc. And the head-in-the-sand sophists from WA? What a job lot.
[REPLY – Wow, this programme really got up the noses of the warmist trolls, who are now out in force to hose it down!]
Must have been a pain for Minchin to have such a junket spoilt by Miss “only want to talk abouth any thing that I agrees with….”
currently new QA survey after “doco” and Q A has Dismissive @43% … Second is Alarmed at around 25% vote here…
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/survey/
vote, again…
Hi! I posted a cpmment on Andrew Bolt ‘s blog about this this morning. The man from the University of East Anglia must have known what a con it was to show Minchin and Rose the crumbling cliffs which shocked both of them. East Anglia’s cliffs have been falling into the sea for centuries . Read Wiki about Dunwich (which is not far from Norwich, where the University is)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunwich
The whole of south-east England is tilting and gradually sinking into the sea. This has been going on for at lease 2 millennia that we know of. It is because of this that the Themes barriers were built to reduce the likelihood of flooding of London. That was before all this sea level rise scare was fashionable of course.
The QandA special was shocking but oh well. On the point about Heartland, I think Anna needs to realise that Exxon Mobil spent 4 times more on renewable energy research than on sceptical scientists research yet she unsurprisingly ignored that and tried the smear attack on everything she could.
Very good appraisal of the two shows Simon. I think the most irritating individual on the show was the English jouralist who said he would rather jam his penis in a door then debate global warming with any skeptic. In his mind there is no valid debate and to debate the issue is only giving oxygen to the skeptical arguement. How utterly pathetic it was when the warmist girl respectfully asked the pratt if she had made a mistake by participating in the show. The pratt then just sighed as if to say ” I am afriaid so deary”. We all know that it is official warmist policy never to debate AGW in public and the pratt was well aware the warmist girl had gone against official warmist policy.
The point is (since you missed it) that ‘debating’ climate change in public simply implies denialists have a valid base from which to argue. The media is your gift from the heavens because you can make erroneous claims which can’t always be refuted in the time available.
The real discourse in science happen via the peer-review process, not in a 60 minute debate between a bunch of people, none of which are qualified climate scientists.
Your very words are evidence enough of the official warmist protocol of zero public debate. Bad luck for you that more and more people are mad as hell at being dictated to by the likes of you and that pratt of a journalist and we are not going to take it anymore! Time to start coming up with answers to our questions as to why no warming since 1098 despite a significant rise in atmosperic CO2 , instead of trying to brow beat us into submission.
No warming since 1098? I think you need to get your information from somewhere other than this website. NASA, CSIRO, the US National Academy of Sciences. Anywhere except this website.
To quote Moynihan, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Leave that to people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Elik — You mention the CSIRO. Well courtesy of a comment on another blog here is your answer.
Sonny
April 28, 2012 at 7:41 pm · Reply
Ever wanted to prove that there has been no global warming in the last decade? Here is how.
Step 1:
download the “global tempaerature anomoly data from our very own loved and trusted Austrlian BOM
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/global/timeseries.cgi
Step 2:
Warning this step involves perfomring basic analysis in Microsoft Excel. Sorry Phil Jones. (insider joke – read climategate emails)
Step 3:
Calculate the 5 year running average.
example:
1994(AVG) = (1990(Temp) + 1991(Temp) + 1992(Temp) + 1993(Temp) + 1994(Temp) / 5
0.16 = (0.25 + 0.21 + 0.07 + 0.1 + 0.17) / 5
Pretty simple and uncontroversial? This is “end point averaging”.
ANYWAY, lets have a look at the results from 1990 to 2011.
Year Temp 5yr AVG (end point)
1990 0.25 —-
1991 0.21 —-
1992 0.07 —-
1993 0.1 —-
1994 0.17 0.16
1995 0.28 0.17
1996 0.14 0.15
1997 0.35 0.21
1998 0.53 0.29
1999 0.31 0.32
2000 0.28 0.32
2001 0.41 0.38
2002 0.46 0.40
2003 0.47 0.39
2004 0.45 0.41
2005 0.48 0.45
2006 0.43 0.46
2007 0.4 0.45
2008 0.33 0.42
2009 0.44 0.42
2010 0.47 0.41
2011 0.34 0.40
The last decade is the period from 2002 to 2011. Here is the data.
Year Temp 5yr AVG (end point)
2002 0.46 0.40
2003 0.47 0.39
2004 0.45 0.41
2005 0.48 0.45
2006 0.43 0.46
2007 0.4 0.45
2008 0.33 0.42
2009 0.44 0.42
2010 0.47 0.41
2011 0.34 0.40
Look at the 5 year running average for 2002 to 2011…
Thats right… The BOM data shows unequivically that there has been no global warming in the past decade.
——————————————————————————–
Game set and match to Ross. Elik , is your primary source of infomation on AGW the IPCC , if it is , I would suggest you look elsewhwere eg ACM , Climate Depot , Jo Nova to broaden your closed narrow mind .
you mean pal-reviewed, of course
You sound like a conspiracist and yet I’m guessing you trust the science behind aeroplanes, innoculations and the Internet. To be this discriminatory in your acceptance of science tells me you have other reasons to reject climate change science.
Ahh, that tired old argument eh? Is that the best you can do?
Maintaining ones scepticism about aspects of one scientific field does not preclude the acceptance of work in other fields, or even within the same field. Before (roughly) the 1960s, very few people accepted plate tectonics as a theory good enough to firmly base other work on, yet they still managed to accept other geological (and scientific concepts without too much concern. Please try to think of a cogent, logical, and straightforward argument before posting again, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it. Better yet, tell us about the science, because truly good (or “settled”, if you prefer that very ugly and inappropriate term) science needs no activist groups to defend it.
Amusing how Elik turns up on this blog out of nowhere, and just recycles the same old tired alarmist arguments that have been dealt with a thousand times before. I wonder how long it will take before ACM is accused of being funded by Big Oil? Never heard that one before.
The end is night right Elik…and we must repent?
I used to laugh at the repetitive clown like recitals of warmists such as you. Now I’m even more amused by the fact that you are blissfully unaware of the joke your movement has become.
Instead you are frantically running around with your sandwich boards of doom.
GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR LIVES LOSERS.
You guys are as blind as Gillard and her incompetent rabble. Think Queensland if you are able. That’s what will be happening to your useless religion. Assigned to the rubbish bin of history where it belongs.
– Yes they went all the way to England to be safe from ABC bias & in the one person they talk to in the pub just happens to be the nephew of ABC’s Robyn Williams (i.e. Ben Goldacre who said about the door etc.)
http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2012/04/scientist-matthew-england-lies-on-abc-qa.html
NASA scientist James Hansen, the lone-wolf researcher often called the godfather of global warming, on Thursday was to tell scientists and others at the American Geophysical Union scientific in San Francisco that in some ways Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland melt data.
“We have passed that and some other tipping points in the way that I will define them,” Hansen said in an email. “We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time — but it is going to require a quick turn in direction.”http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/nsidc-arctic-ice-extent-normal-for-the-first-time-in-at-least-seven-years/
The propaganda is hotting up as we get closer to the introduction of the carbon rip off tax and believe me it will only get more intense.
The budget surplus is totally reliant on this rip off tax. Without it there will be a huge gaping hole worth $billions. They cannot afford to lose the tax tainted with lies & dishonesty…the lies & propaganda will continue unabated.
Once exposed Labor can look forward to years in the political wilderness. That day is on it’s way. Jobs are already being lost and although possibly not linked to “the tax ” we all know what happens when one is looking to lay blame on someone!!!!!!!!!
Can anyone recall such a devious, immoral bunch of lying ratbags in this country’s history??
yeah all of them,but these guys have been far more creative and destructive in ways that one could not imagine
Of course it’s unsuccessful when the first 5 minutes Anna Smith destroyed her credibility by stating the “planet will be destroyed” if no action. Then on Q&A, the absurd analogy that a kid heeding the advice of a direct relative like his grandpa means the whole world would follow Australia if they just set an example.
The debate degenerated into the same old crap of arguing about CO2 and its effects, rather than viable solutions. The climate hysteria destroyed all credibility on the issue, and here they still have all these pinheads – thousands and thousands of so-called earth scientists – all measuring CO2. None of them can even agree on temperature rises. They’re stuck between a number that’s high enough to warrant action and one low enough not to scare people. It’s absurd.
There then was the great irony that the show exists at all. Gillard passed the carbon tax. Debate over. That will tackle climate change, move to a clean energy future and build a new economy. If climate hysterics know the carbon tax is the most useless and corrupt piece of legislation ever, they should be campaigning for its repeal or at least significant enhancement, not selling out their soul to remain loyal stooges to their imbecilic political partisanship.
Dude, they’re not “earth scientists” and they don’t call themselves such! I’m an earth scientist and take offence. Earth scientists (i.e. geologists – the “inventors” of climate change) are the good guys.
it is obvious that the planet won’t be destroyed. that is stupid, all that will happen if it does go awry as predicted by the “for” argument is that we will change the world weather system and cause us some serious angst. mother nature and her minions, whom we are one, will adapt and move on. we may not be here any more but hey, who cares. the dinosaurs died out too and they were her for 160million years. maybe it’s our turn.
One commenter on Jo Nova’s blog more recently referred to Rose as “a little PC Eco-Fairy. Vapid”.
Some observations on the ABC’s current Climate Challenge survey and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
The introduction to the survey states “The Climate Challenge survey is based on long-established work done by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and descriptions are general and may not in all circumstances represent the respondent’s full views or answers with complete accuracy. However, considerable effort has gone into ensuring that in most cases, the categories are meaningful and accurate.”
I have just done this survey at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/survey/
The questions are poorly structured, as usual for surveys. Insufficient options are provided for getting the opinions across. The structure guarantees an inherent bias toward making those opposed to the global warming hoax and having at least some understanding of the relevant facts appear irrational.
Results showed “3530 votes counted”, with bar graphs for proportions of votes in each category “Dismissive”, “Alarmed” etc. Numbers of votes in each category are not shown.
“Dismissive” outnumbers “Alarmed” by well over 2 to 1.
“Dismissive” exceeds “Alarmed”, “Concerned” and “Cautious” combined.
“Dismissive”, “Doubtful” and the very small proportion “Disengaged” combined exceed “Alarmed”, “Concerned” and “Cautious” by even more.
So the result so far is that well over half of those who have completed the survey do not accept the global warming hoax.
The summary at the end said that I am in the “50%” of respondents who are in the “Dismissive” category. That may be correct, but a fairer summary would state that I was in a greater proportion which would include “Doubtful” and “Disengaged”, making a proportion of far more than 50%.
The number of members or at least active supporters that the AYCC claims to have is nearly 80000. Its website http://aycc.org.au/ currently (28/4/2012) says “Join a movement of 79367 young people”.
In various places on its website, on Facebook and I assume also by Twitter and email the AYCC draws its members’ attention to the recently broadcast ABC documentary “I Can Change Your Mind About Climate” and Q and A discussion. Just one instance is this: “How great was our co-founder, Anna Rose, on “I Can Change Your Mind About Climate” last night? Get the inside story of her journey around the world changing the mind of a climate sceptic”. (Interesting claim there.)
You would think that a large proportion of such an overtly activist organisation would jump into such surveys, but so far, nearly 2 days later, the total number of survey respondents is less than 5% of the number of active supporters that the AYCC claims to have, and the number of responses in the “Alarmed” and “Concerned” categories, which you would expect would describe most or even all people involved with the AYCC, is much less than half of that 5%.
So the survey that the ABC has chosen to use is poorly structured and biased, and the AYCC’s claim of nearly 80000 active supporters seems to be an exaggeration.
The graphed results are shown in an iframe. If Firefox, if you right click the results, select “This Frame” and then “View Frame Source” you can see the results displayed as a percentage too.
eg. (without the html tags) Dismissive 52%
I’d like to suggest that it was a great show. It certainly changed my wife’s mind. Until that show she could never understand why I was “obsessed” with the climate change debate. After seeing Anna Rose she confessed to me two things…. Firstly… She hated Anna Rose… And secondly, that Rose and people like her must be stopped… Thanks Anna… Thanks ABC….. You’ve made my life easier.
Simon, I think you’ve summed it all up well with the title of your post. I watched the docco, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch the QandA “debate” afterwards. I didn’t want to be breaking my TV in a fit of rage. I might attempt to watch it via iView, but my laptop would be in grave danger.
Why does it make me so angry? well, it isn’t because people don’t believe exactly what I believe, it’s about the obvious lack of ability for most people to think idependantly about these things, and about the way essentially good scientific research has been corrupted by politicians, activists, and, yes, a handful of dodgy scientists. it’s also about how the IPCC predictions are treated like an absolute certainty, and how, in Australia, a political agenda for revenue raising and wealth redistribution has been foisted upon us under the guise of mythical scientific certainty about how the entire atmosphere interacts with everything else.
I didn’t watch the docco. I only listened QandA debate on a radio driving home. Only a little bit. Hearing this girl’s BS about how 3d world countries suffering from sea level rising and severe weather due to climate change… made me sick. I turned the radio off. Reminded me my young days in USSR. These young people like Anna Rose and Co are Australian KOMSOMOL. In USSR the Komsomol people used to preach about morality and communist future. But nobody would take their BS for real. Everybody knew that Komsomol is just a path to career and power. And most of Komsomol “moralists”…they would preach during a day and at night they would do a drinking orgies at their komsomol headquarters.
From your photo, that lady’s head is way too big for her body. Why doesn’t she fall over?
Have they been hyping up the results after the prog as much as they hyped the prog before
Round 1 :
1. Dismissive = 11,780 responses
2. Alarmed = 7,358 responses
3. Concerned = 2,557 responses
4. Doubtful = 1,947 responses
5. Cautious = 769 responses
6. Disengaged = 162 responses
After prog
5042 votes counted
no numerical breakdown but graph shows Dismissive at more than twice Alarmed
so can we say of those who bothered to come back a large section changed their mind to Dismissive ?