UWA closes ranks behind Lew – refuses access to data

29 March, 2014 by

Warmists hiding data? Who would have thought it possible?

UWA Vice Chancellor

UWA Vice Chancellor

Steve McIntyre writes:

I particularly take exception to [UWA Vice Chancellor Paul] Johnson’s claim that this blogpost demonstrates that I have become “unbalanced”. On the contrary, it seems to me that the blogpost shows my usual carefulness in avoiding needless editorializing. Even my severest critics have long recognized that Climate Audit posts avoid libelous claims and, when re-read, seldom offer targets. Oscar Wilde once observed that a true gentleman never hurts someone’s feelings unintentionally. If I have unintentionally hurt anyone’s feelings within the University of Western Australia administration, I apologize.

In addition, as is my policy, if there are any inaccuracies in the criticized blogpost, I will undertake to promptly correct them when brought to my notice.

In any event, even if my blogpost did contain “inflammatory language” about university administrators (which I deny), that is not grounds for refusing data.

Johnson seems to be unaware of how data obstruction played out in climate. Phil Jones famously said “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.” This attitude has never been acceptable to the wider public that pays the salaries of Jones and other climate scientists. Much of the public distaste for Phil Jones, Michael Mann and the Climategate correspondents arose from their attempts to obstruct data access.

Post Climategate, it has become somewhat harder for climate scientists to obstruct data access, even to critics, though problems remain at many journals. One notable exception is Nature which has moved decisively to eliminate the charade under which obstructing authors used third parties an excuse for not providing data. Nature now requires that authors must obtain permission from third party authors to release any previously unarchived data, thus cutting off the daisy chain previously beloved by obstructing authors.

Now Vice Chancellor Johnson of the University of Western Australia has joined the ranks of data obstructionists. I believe that this was an unwise decision on Johnson’s part, one that I hope that he promptly reconsiders.

Yeah, that’ll happen.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Lewandowsky: UWA general counsel a Greenpeace supporter

22 March, 2014 by

Heitman

Heitman

Many complaints were filed at the University of Western Australia about the appalling research techniques employed in the Moon Landing Denier paper and the subsequent Recursive Idiocy paper, and yet the UWA has staunchly defended Lewandowsky, and has repeatedly refused to take any action against him.

In a recent post on Lewandowsky’s Shaping Tomorrow’s World blog, UWA general counsel, Kim Heitman, jokes about the ‘confected outrage’ of those making complaints about the Recursive Idiocy paper:

Given its popularity, and given that approximately 29,300 viewers did not complain about our work, it would be a shame to deprive the public of access to this article. Because the work was conducted in Australia, I consulted with the University of Western Australia’s chief lawyer, Kim Heitman, who replied as follows:

“I’m entirely comfortable with you publishing the paper on the UWA web site. You and the University can easily be sued for any sorts of hurt feelings or confected outrage, and I’d be quite comfortable processing such a phony legal action as an insurance matter.”

— Kimberley Heitman, B.Juris, LLB, MACS, CT, General Counsel, University of Western Australia

A little googling reveals (Webcite) where Heitman’s sympathies lie:

I support human rights and environmental activists and I am a supporting member of Greenpeace and Amnesty International.

I like to read news articles online, and subscribe to a number of news services including The New York Times [left – Ed],  The Guardian [very left – Ed], The Nation [oh, very left again – Ed], Al-Jazeera [oops, and again – Ed], Matilda [and yet again! – Ed] and The Onion.

No further comment required…

Hietman’s blog homepage is here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Lew Paper: Dana’s catalogue of excuses

21 March, 2014 by

Dana's denial!

Dana’s denial!

LOL moment ahead! Dana is far more of a denier than any of those to whom he liberally applies that moniker. He denies reality itself.

An embargoed post on Un-Sk Ps-Sc, inadvertently published and captured by Google’s cache, lists all the reasons why Dana thinks the Lewandowsky paper ‘Recursive Fury‘ has allegedly been retracted (all links removed):

Given that fewer than 3 percent of peer-reviewed climate science papers conclude that the human influence on global warming is minimal, climate contrarians have obviously been unable to make a convincing scientific case.  Thus in order to advance their agenda of delaying climate solutions and maintaining the status quo in the face of a 97 percent expert consensus suggesting that this is a high-risk path, contrarians have engaged in a variety of unconventional tactics.

  • Funding a campaign to deny the expert climate consensus.
  • Harassing climate scientists and universities with frivolous Freedom of Information Act requests.
  • Engaging in personal, defamatory public attacks on climate scientists.
  • Flooding climate scientists with abusive emails.
  • Illegally hacking university servers and stealing their emails.
  • Harassing journals to retract inconvenient research.

That final tactic has evolved, from merely sending the journal a petition signed by a bunch of contrarians, to sending journals letters threatening libel lawsuits.  Unfortunately, this strategy has now succeeded.

Even after repeating (yet again) the oft-discredited 97% lie, Dana has unfortunately ignored [‘denied’ perhaps? – Ed] the real reason, staring everyone in the face:

THE PAPER WAS A PIECE OF SHIT – SQUARED

The Moon-landing paper was the original lump of ordure, and Recursive Fury was that lump multiplied by itself.

On a tip from The Bish, who has more here.

A PDF of the page is here in case the cache is ‘disappeared’.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Lindzen, Christy and Curry appointed to APS climate statement review panel

20 March, 2014 by

Realistic at last?

Realistic at last?

That faint noise you can hear in the distance is the sound of John Cook’s and Dana Nuccitelli’s heads popping.

The American Physical Society, which previously issued a highly alarmist statement regarding climate change, is to review it, and has appointed three climate realists to the panel of six. The news release states:

Preparations are under way by the APS Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) to review and possibly update the society’s statement on climate change. In the coming months, the APS membership will have a chance to weigh in on any proposed revisions before the society adopts a final draft.

“We intend to keep the membership informed at every stage in this process,” said Robert Jaffe a physicist at MIT and Chair of POPA. “We’re quite eager to make sure that the revision of the climate change statement is done in the most open and orderly way.”

The subcommittee of POPA that is conducting the review posted its background and research materials to the APS website, along with its charge. The research materials include the transcripts of the subcommittee’s January workshop, biographical information on outside climate experts who participated in the workshop, and their slide presentations. These materials are now available online.

The APS recognises that Richard Lindzen, John Christy and Judith Curry have a great deal to contribute to the climate debate. How long will the headbangers at Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science continue to refer to them as ‘climate misinformers’ (i.e. people we disagree with)? Or perhaps they will simply add the APS to the list instead…! Nothing would surprise me.

Tony Thomas at Quadrant Online has much more here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Is climate ‘misinformation’ criminal negligence?

19 March, 2014 by

Wants to apply criminal sanctions to scientific argument

Torcello – criminal sanctions to scientific argument

An assistant professor of philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Lawrence Torcello, claims that climate ‘misinformation’ should be treated as criminal negligence.

Writing at the taxpayer-funded, and invariably Left-wing, Conversation site, Torcello compares the dissemination of climate ‘misinformation’ with the liability of scientists in relation to the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009:

The earthquake that rocked L’Aquila Italy in 2009 provides an interesting case study of botched communication. This natural disaster left more than 300 people dead and nearly 66,000 people homeless. In a strange turn of events six Italian scientists and a local defence minister were subsequently sentenced to six years in prison.

The ruling is popularly thought to have convicted scientists for failing to predict an earthquake. On the contrary, as risk assessment expert David Ropeik pointed out, the trial was actually about the failure of scientists to clearly communicate risks to the public. The convicted parties were accused of providing “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information”. As one citizen stated:

We all know that the earthquake could not be predicted, and that evacuation was not an option. All we wanted was clearer information on risks in order to make our choices.

Torcello links to the inevitable ‘97% of climate scientists believe…’ myth and continutes:

We have good reason to consider the funding of climate denial to be criminally and morally negligent. The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public’s understanding of scientific consensus.

Criminal negligence is normally understood to result from failures to avoid reasonably foreseeable harms, or the threat of harms to public safety, consequent of certain activities. Those funding climate denial campaigns can reasonably predict the public’s diminished ability to respond to climate change as a result of their behaviour. Indeed, public uncertainty regarding climate science, and the resulting failure to respond to climate change, is the intentional aim of politically and financially motivated denialists. (source)

But as with all those overcome with such totalitarian instincts, the arguments could quite easily be turned around. For example, the 97% figure Torcello cites is itself a blatant example of climate misinformation. It may be that 97% of scientists accept that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that an increase in the proportion of that molecule in the atmosphere will increase warming. But to claim that 97% of scientists subscribe to the alarmism of catastrophic AGW vastly overstates the certainty of the science.

As a result of that overconfidence in the apocalyptic projections of climate models, many of the poorest in society will be denied access to cheap electricity as a result of harsh emissions reduction measures, and will be prevented from enjoying the economic growth from which others have benefitted. If those emission reduction measures are eventually shown to be unnecessary, and that many have suffered as a result, should those responsible for the 97% figure be held criminally negligent as well?

Or perhaps these too:

  • Those who intentionally play down any natural influence on the climate (e.g. casually ignoring or dismissing solar effects), with the same end result? Should they also be held criminally negligent?
  • All those environmental activists who have ensured that piles of grey literature have been incorporated into the IPCC reports, to ensure that the worst possible scenarios are always communicated to the public? Them too?
  • The IPCC scientists themselves, perhaps, for intentionally offering up ‘scary scenarios‘ in order to capture the public’s attention and force governments to take action? That’s pretty shocking.
  • Those who engaged in blatant scientific misconduct, as evidenced by the Climategate emails? Hiding the decline sounds like intentional misrepresentation to me. That’s not just negligent, it’s wilful.
  • Those who use climate change as a Trojan horse for their own political ends, e.g. advocating a return to socialism, or to force through social justice reform? Surely that is climate misrepresentation as well?
  • The Greens, who shamelessly exaggerate the risks of climate change for their own political advantage?
  • Even the governments that have relied on so-called ‘independent’ climate advisers, such as David Karoly and Clive Hamilton (no, don’t laugh), on their climate panels, such as the Australian government’s Climate Change Authority? Ditto?

I could go on…

Once again, we see the double standards that are applied to the consensus and those that challenge it. The moral here is that those in glass houses should not throw stones.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Bill Bryson’s warmist mates

15 March, 2014 by

Lots of warmists

Lots of warmists

I was at a performance of the Bill Bryson Show “Many a True Word” at the State Theatre in Sydney last night, in which the author was interviewed by Ray Martin, and read passages from his books. It was entertaining, if you were of the Left and a warmist, that is.

Almost the first thing Martin quoted from Bryson’s Down Under was that no-one outside Australia seems to know who the Prime Minister of Australia is. “Kevin Rudd?” Bryson quipped. Gentle laughter from the audience. But when Martin mentioned Tony Abbott, there were actually jeers and boos from the partisan crowd, and the resident ‘sand artist’ on stage had a disparaging puppet with budgie smugglers and big ears. Cannot imagine the same kind of treatment being meted out to, for example, Julia Gillard, can you? But Tony’s just a thick bogan and fair game for the intelligentsia of Sydney, right?

If that weren’t enough, there were video clips from some of Bryson’s pals interspersed within the interview. The first was president of the alarmist Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, a well-known climate propagandist who stitched up James Delingpole on an episode of Horizon (see here). The programme was based on the typical ‘science under attack’ line, with Delingpole misled into believing it would be an investigation with ‘no preconceptions’, when in reality it was the usual BBC alarmism, criticising ‘deniers’ for daring to ask awkward questions of The Cause. Watts Up has more here.

If that weren’t enough, the third clip was of another of Bryson’s ‘pals’, failed end-of-pier crystal ball reader and Gaia freak, Tim Flannery. Go here for a list of all the posts on ACM that deal with this twit. My evening was going rapidly downhill by this point.

To finish off, Paul Nurse was back on video for the Q & A session at the end, to ‘ask’ Bill why politicians wouldn’t listen to scientists – a question which sounded more like a plea. “Who is the science minister?” Bill asked. “We haven’t got one,” replied Ray, followed by a general shaking of heads in disbelief at the morons we now have in charge here in Australia. Politicians in the last Labor government listened to ‘scientists’ like Flannery, and we ended up with pointless carbon taxes that did nothing for the climate, and sent our economy into a tail spin.

And yes, we do have a science minister, it’s Ian Macfarlane, under whose portfolio science falls (see here).

With friends like those, Bill, there’s not much hope.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

UK: Committee on Climate Change smears critics

14 March, 2014 by

Matt Ridley (from rationaloptimist.com)

Matt Ridley (from rationaloptimist.com)

Just like the Climate Change Authority here in Australia, the UK’s Committee on Climate Change is packed with warmists. It is also led by a zealot, Lord Deben (see here), who has interests in big green and is massively conflicted.

Despite all that, Deben has no problem in smearing critics of his propaganda mouthpiece, as this article by rational optimist Matt Ridley at Bishop Hill evidences:

Lord Deben is chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, a body funded by the British taxpayer. He draws a salary of more than £35,000 from you and me. On the masthead of its website the committee claims to give “a balanced response to the risks of climate change” and “independent, evidence-based advice to the UK government and Parliament”.

Yet the committee consists entirely of people who think climate change will be dangerous; no sceptics or lukewarmers are on it, even though most hold views that are well within the “consensus” of climate science. Under Deben’s chairmanship since 2012 its pronouncements have become increasingly one-sided. Deben himself is frequently highly critical of any sceptics, often mischaracterizing them as “deniers” or “dismissers”, but has never to my knowledge been heard to criticize anybody for exaggerating climate alarm and the harm it can do to disadvantaged people. These are not the actions of an impartial chairman.

In the past year, as I shall detail, Lord Deben has three times launched sharp criticisms of me for arguing that some climate change projections are exaggerated. In each case, I have replied with detailed rebuttals based on peer-reviewed scientific literature to show that his criticisms were wrong, but my replies have been dismissed or ignored by Lord Deben. I suppose I should be flattered that this vendetta against me indicates that he clearly feels that my arguments threaten some part of his agenda. But on this third occasion he has sunk to a new low. (source)

The similarities to the Australian equivalent are striking. Read the whole thing.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Climate apathy ‘a cause for celebration’

12 March, 2014 by

Climate sense

Climate sense

Brendan O’Neill, writing in the UK Telegraph makes the valid point that environmentalism is diametrically opposed to the ordinary human desires for wealth, health and happiness, and the rejection by the public at large of climate hysteria and alarmism is worthy of celebration:

But has the public really tuned out from eco matters because it doesn’t understand them, because it is perplexed by “expert discourse”? I don’t think so. I think the reason people are switching off from the enviro-agenda is because they disagree with it. They just don’t buy the idea that capping carbon emissions is the most important thing in the world, more important than growing the economy, increasing wealth, and being free to choose to live in a big house with the heaters permanently switched on and Tesco just a short 4×4 drive away. They see the mean-minded, sacrifice-demanding politics of being green as a challenge to the thing that has motored human communities for millennia – the desire to create a world of plenty, an overflowing “land of milk and honey”, a utopia filled with stuff and comfort – and they don’t like it.

Environmentalism is, by its own admission, a campaign against the public and our historic desire for more things and freedom. George Monbiot has stated this baldly. Environmentalism is “a campaign not for abundance but for austerity”, he says. “It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less… it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.” And that is precisely how most people experience environmentalism – as an extraordinarily elitist drive to reprimand and possibly even punish the people for daring to want more; as a top-down, hectoring effort to make us acclimatise to austerity and give up on that age-old dream of a “great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume” (Sylvia Pankhurst). If environmentalism is a “campaign against people”, then it makes perfect sense that the people bristle at it, even hate it and deny its “truths”. (source)

And just to be clear, this does not mean ‘denying’ the existence of climate change, or the contribution that man has made to it. It is about denying the environmentalists the free rein they desire to dictate the response.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Bondi shock: Fewer big waves due to climate change

11 March, 2014 by

Surfing at Bondi, circa 2100

Surfing at Bondi, circa 2100

UPDATE: The paper actually predicts less storminess, which is in direct contradiction to what is generally assumed will result from AGW.

Almost as iconic as the koala (threatened by climate change) is the surfing at Bondi, which is, er, threatened by climate change:

Bondi Beach surfers warned of fewer big waves due to climate change

Surfers in eastern Australia have been warned that large waves could become less frequent, as the number of days with waves of 12 feet or more will drop by up to 40 per cent by the end of the century.

Researchers have warned surfers along Australia’s east coast that the days of big waves are set to end, with climate change expected to cause a severe drop in the frequency of large ocean waves.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, found the number of days with large waves of 12 feet or more on Australia’s east coast will drop by up to 40 per cent by the end of the century and about by 20 per cent over the next 30 years. The findings were based on measurements from five buoys in deep ocean waters located about four to eight miles off the coast of the state of New South Wales. These measurements were collated with storm data collected from the atmosphere.

“Results are remarkably consistent between different [climate models], allowing anthropogenic influences to be clearly demonstrated, with fewer days with large waves expected to occur in eastern Australia due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations,” the study says. (source)

So there you have it, in black and white. I reckon a new (naturally occurring) ice age might have a similar effect, given sea levels would drop by hundreds of metres, and there isn’t much we can do about that either.

The abstract is here (if you really want to read it).

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Sick: Disasters good for putting climate on agenda: Figueres

6 March, 2014 by

EU parasite

UN parasite

This EU UN parasite should be sacked. Perhaps she should visit the wrecked homes and businesses of those flooded in Somerset or on the banks of the Thames.

Those disasters had little, if anything, to do with climate change (chronic lack of dredging in Somerset – probably because of some moonbat environmental diktat, and the Thames had worse flooding in 1947 when CO2 was ‘safe’), but that doesn’t stop Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of UNFCCC, scoring tasteless and offensive political points out of others’ suffering:

Figueres said: “There’s no doubt that these events, that I call experiential evidence of climate change, does raise the issue to the highest political levels. It’s unfortunate that we have to have these weather events, but there is a silver lining if you wish, that they remind us is solving climate change, addressing climate change in a timely way, is not a partisan issue.“

She added: “We are reminded that climate change events are for everyone, they’re affecting everyone, they have much, much longer effects than a political cycle. Frankly, they’re intergenerational, so morally we cannot afford to look at climate change from a partisan perspective.” (source)

‘Silver lining’? Witch.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,
«Previous Page
Next Page»