ACM’s Bah Humbug Awards 2013

19 December, 2013 by

Inaugural 2013 Awards

Inaugural 2013 Awards

“Deck the halls with howls of folly, fa la la la la laa, la la la laa!”

There’s no better way to get the hysteria across than attacking Christmas, so the first two inaugural ACM Bah Humbug Awards go to…

Sarah Zielinsky – Smithsonian Blogs – for her piece entitled: “Six Ways Climate Change Is Waging War on Christmas“

Sarah channels the spirit of Scrooge by explaining how all our favourite elements of Christmas are slowly being destroyed by “global warming” – reindeer, white Christmas, hot cocoa, maple syrup, Christmas trees and, of course, Santa’s home at the North Pole:

If Santa really lived at the North Pole, he would have drowned long ago. But any fantasies we have about him making a home on floating sea ice will surely die within the century. The extent of summer sea ice in the Arctic has been shrinking, and it could be gone entirely within decades. The U.S. Navy predicts an ice-free summer Arctic as early as 2016.

“We really are heading towards an ice-free Arctic in the summer,” Andreas Münchow, an Arctic scientist at the University of Delaware, told the Guardian. “It just takes a freak event eventually, in the next five or 10 or even 20 years…. The long-term trend is that the ice is disappearing in the summer in the Arctic.”

Unfortunately, she carefully avoids the fact that Al Gore predicted the end of Arctic ice by, er, 2013.

Greenpeace UK and Jim Carter for “An Urgent Message from Santa”

I am sure the character Jim Carter plays in Downton Abbey, Charlie Carson the butler, wouldn’t have any time for environmental hippies, for as he says in Series 3, Episode 8:

“I’ve never been called a liberal in my life and I don’t intend to start now.” (source)

Please send your suggestions via the comments for further worthy recipients.

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And the environmentalists accuse sceptics of “misinformation”…!

18 December, 2013 by

UPDATE: The original image (here) now has over 12,000 shares on Facebook. and increasing rapidly. The ignorance of social media knows no bounds…

A friend alerted me to this image, allegedly showing the plundering of the Great Barrier Reef by the evil capitalists now in charge in Canberra:

Fake, very fake

Fake, very fake

Gosh, if that really were true… Alas it is half a world away from the GBR. It actually shows the creation of the Palm Island in Dubai:

Context

Context

But hey, who cares about facts when we’re spreading green hysteria? Lacking the capacity for any critical thought, mawkish emotion trumps anything.

Thanks Nick.

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Bush fires not a result of climate change

17 December, 2013 by

Natural processes?

Natural processes?

Some common sense from the normally moonbat state of California, in an analysis that would apply equally well in Australia:

For purposes of analysis, the history of wildfire in California can be loosely categorized into pre-European settlement fire regimes and post-European settlement fire regimes, especially the last fifty years where rigorous fire suppression efforts have been undertaken.

Natural fire regimes that existed prior to European settlement in California (pre-1700) involved a wide range of fire frequencies and effects on ecosystems; roughly one-third of the State supported frequent fire regimes of 35 years or less. Some areas likely burned on an almost annual basis. Pre-European settlement fire patterns resulted in many millions of acres burning each year, with fire acting as a major ecological force maintaining ecosystem vigor and ranges in habitat conditions. The pre-settlement period is often viewed as the period under which the “natural” fire regime standard for assessing the ecological role of fire developed.

…

In the suppression (modern) era, statewide fire frequency is much lower than before the period of European settlement. Between 1950 and 2008, California averaged 320,000 acres burned annually, only a fraction of the several millions of acres that burned under the pre-settlement regimes. Land uses such as agriculture and urbanization have reduced the amount of burnable landscape, and most wildland fires are effectively suppressed to protect resources, commodities, and people.

Before the twentieth century, many forests within California were generally open and park like due to the thinning effects of recurrent fire. Decades of fire suppression and other forest management have left a legacy of increased fuel loads and ecosystems dense with an understory of shade-tolerant, late-succession plant species. The widespread level of dangerous fuel conditions is a result of highly productive vegetative systems accumulating fuels and/or reductions in fire frequency from fire suppression. In the absence of fire, these plant communities accrue biomass, and alter the arrangement of it in ways that significantly increase fuel availability and expected fire intensity. (link – PDF)

Paul Homewood (h/t) summarises thus:

  • Large and frequent wildfires were the norm before European settlement.
  • Regular wildfires provide an essential ecological function and increase forest health and diversity.
  • Acreage burnt reduced drastically during the 20thC, as fire suppression methods took effect.
  • This fire suppression, though, had the calamitous effect of allowing a dangerous build up of biomass, that now makes fires larger and more intense.

Perhaps somebody might tell Obama.

Perhaps somebody might tell Flannery.

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Answer: Yes, it will!

17 December, 2013 by

Climate propaganda outfit Forecast the Facts posted this on Twitter:

Shame the picture is actually from a theme park in Japan… Pwned!

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Will this be blamed on “global warming” as well…?

16 December, 2013 by

More on the worst storm since the 1950s here.

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Frog decline: “We can’t automatically point our finger at climate change…”

15 December, 2013 by

Froggie went a courtin'

Froggie went a courtin’

Pointing the finger at climate change is the Pavlovian reaction of many scientists and journalists.

For as we all know, virtually anything that happens on planet Earth in the 21st century is a result of man-made climate change—more snow, less snow, more rain, less rain, higher temperatures, lower temperatures, more cyclones, fewer cyclones, more frogs, fewer frogs—you name it, some scientist somewhere will have said it’s “consistent with AGW”.

Obviously, climate change has therefore become the mother of all get-out clauses, since once AGW is implicated, why bother looking for any alternative explanation?

So it’s good to note that some proper science is still revealing a different narrative:

A deadly fungus, and not climate change as is widely believed, is the primary culprit behind the rapid decline of frog populations in the Andes mountains, according to a new study published today in the journal Conservation Biology.

Frogs living at higher elevations can tolerate increasing temperatures, researchers found, but their habitats fall within the optimal temperature range for Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, a harmful pathogen they have only encountered relatively recently. The disease caused by Bd, chytridiomycosis, has led to the recent decline or extinction of 200 frog species worldwide.

The results have implications both for researchers trying to understand the rapid decline in frog populations across the globe and for conservationists looking to save the animals, said Vance Vredenburg, associate professor of biology at San Francisco State University and co-author of the study.

“Our research shows that we can’t just automatically point our finger at climate change,” he said. “We need to look carefully at what is causing these outbreaks.” (source)

Climate change is still a factor though, the research claims, but at least some scientists remain open-minded about the dominant cause.

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

14 December, 2013 by

Safe bush fires?

Safe bush fires?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(h/t Real Science)

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ABC’s Catalyst forgets about “consensus”

11 December, 2013 by

Consensus when it suits

Consensus when it suits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NARRATION
Have we all been conned?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— The Great Cholesterol Myth, Jonny Bowden and Stephen Sinatra

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

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

There’s much more at the link.

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

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

Flannery still pushing alarmist bullshit

10 December, 2013 by

Failed fortune teller

Failed fortune teller

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flannery conveniently ignores all of those. Wonder why?

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Dana’s dummy spit

6 December, 2013 by

Dummy-spit Dana

Dummy-spit Dana

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

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

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

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

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

So very, very true.

You can read it all here, here and here.

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